I am keen on trying analog summing and comparing to ITB (software) summing. So, I thought I would document the process for those of you interested in this sort of thing...
 
I bought a Midas Venice 320 console to use for summing. I have a UAD Apollo 16 that will send 16 channels from the PC to the back half of the Midas board. The front half of the board will be used for the mic pres and sent into the Apollo 16 INs. Ultimately, I'd like to add an API 2500 to mix into as a bus comp on the Master Inserts - and compare to the UAD version (that I love).
 
I got the board in tonight and I'm starting to get things hooked up. This board is primarily designed for live use so the routing is limited. It should work well for my purposes, but I left the Fractal Axe FX plugged directly into my PA speakers because I couldn't route through the board to a stereo monitor bus, only mono.
 
The photo is a little dark, but you can see where this is going. Below the board is the Fractal Axe FX, a RAC12 controller for it, and an original Echoplex EP3. I intend to leverage the Echoplex using the fx1 send of the board (probably via a patch bay). The Apollo will go in the rack to the right that's under the desk, as will the comp.
 

I'd say you're probably not interested any more in ITB summing....or summin like that ;)
 
 

Starise
I'd say you're probably not interested any more in ITB summing....or summin like that ;)

 
We shall see! LOL
 
I have to believe there will be a difference, but will it matter?

This is interesting:
 
https://www.recordingrevolution.com/in-the-box-mixer-ken-andrews-wins-blind-shootout-over-analog-console-mixes/
 
This is a boring subject actually and also has been done to death. I get the fact you may use the mixer live and that is great but if you think it is somehow going to transform your mix you may be disappointed.
 
Many great engineers are ITB now that started out mixing on a console. That fact alone says it all. If the music ideas are great and the mix is great then it won't matter so much.  If the music and the mix are average then nothing will improve it either.
 
The fact now we have some great console emulations going on has made things even more interesting. 
 
Be careful how you do any tests.  Many AB tests are flawed and I could probably shoot a giant hole in your method.  If you are going to do this then you would only be able to use the analog mixer with no EQ or no processing applied anywhere. (and even then how would you know for sure that even with all your EQ's set for no eq is it truely flat or not. Can the EQ be switched out?)
 
Panning would have to be carefully set. Pan laws taken into account. Exact fader positions on both mixes ITB and outside etc.  You have to go to a lot of trouble to remove any possible variables. 
 
There was a great article in Audio Technology magazine a few years ago and I wish I could find it but cannot unfortunately. They did this exact thing and displayed the mix as a very complex three dimensional plot and both were identical and I mean identical. 
 
The fact that in that link above a room full of great ears all chose the ITB mix over all the others that were console mixes certainly shows something don't you think. The convenience of ITB mixing alone puts it miles ahead.

Hi Jeff,
 
I appreciate your input!
 
I'm not really expecting anything - certainly not a trans-formative experience.  I love gear and experimenting and learning and can fortunately afford to indulge my interests. :)
 
I can actually bypass the EQs on this board to take them out of the equation. Not sure why I would need to worry about pan laws - I will be pretty much sending left/right signals. The mixer channels will either be panned hard left, hard right, or center. In the end, if it sounds good it is good, right?
 
I also believe that the point would be to mix INTO something like this, but I am absolutely excited to see if just running a mix through the summing portion (unity gain on pres, nothing like EQ in the channel) has any noticeable effect. If it does, I'll take it from there...
 
Look, there is nothing that magically makes a mix awesome. However, everything in the process does SOMETHING.
 
You could argue (successfully) that a pro engineer could use Sonar stock plugins and make a mix that would crush anything I did with my UAD plugins. Same with Dave Gilmour plugging a Squire into a practice amp vs. me playing a vintage strat into a vintage amp; he would create tone because he is Dave Gilmour. However, I am MUCH better off using the nice guitar/amp.
 
The question is, do the UAD plugins, using a nice Fender instead of a Squire, or summing through a console give ME better results given my abilities and other gear? That is the real distinction here that most people miss - it's not whether or not analog summing is better, the question is "is this a tool that helps ME get better results?"
 
I intend to find out.
 
I'll post the details as I go - and absolutely feel free to shoot holes in my methodology as you find them - I truly welcome that!

I think you should do some experimenting and I would be interested hearing the results too.  Pan laws come into play if you pan a mono source centre on the analog mixer.  You need to match that in the ITB case too.  But if as you say you are going to use stereo sources then that is a great way to get around it.
 
A null test would be interesting to do too as long as you can replicate everything perfectly on the analog mixer and the ITB situation. You have to be careful where you feed your input signals in as well. I have found from experience that input Mic Pre gain settings are not all equal between channels. Even if they are set to full anti clockwise etc. 
 
You would have to start by bypassing any input Mic Pres and feed signals into direct tape returns etc..try to avoid any variables there.
 
After years of using consoles and then going over to a digital mixer I have really discovered that every analog mixer actually imparts a sound onto your mix.  Not the summing engine so much but everything else.  Sometimes it may not be that great.  Unless you are using state of the art analog mixers which most of are not.  Most mixers are in the medium range category.  
 
I mixed an album on large format Tascam mixer a few years ago and it sounds pretty nice too but then after going all digital I started hear the sound of that mixer.  When I remixed one of those album tracks digitally in the end I preferred the digital mixer.  The analog sound started to become more apparent to me.  This is just me but once I got used to the pristine transparent sound that an all digital world offers I started to hear the analog sound more and it colours the sound slightly.  Everybody thinks analog is superior but it is actually inferior.  If there are any transformers involved you are getting distortion.
 
What I do love now though and this is something no analog mixer can do is the fact we can pass parts of our mix through analog sounding plugins but leave other parts alone.  When you do a mix on an all analog desk it is applying its sound to every source.  There is no way around it.
 

Hi Jeff,
 
I love this stuff and appreciate the dialog!
 
I think you should do some experimenting and I would be interested hearing the results too.  
 
I will record clips throughout the process. I'll make the high-quality files and post on my dropbox. Happy to hear your thoughts on any specific tests.
 
Pan laws come into play if you pan a mono source centre on the analog mixer.  You need to match that in the ITB case too.  But if as you say you are going to use stereo sources then that is a great way to get around it.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by match it. My thinking is the pan pot probably plays a role in the analog summing equation. The Daw sums it one way - the console another way and I'm not understanding the need to match anything other than they both pan center. 
 
Perhaps I should clarify my thoughts on feeding this. I plan to create some stereo buses like you would with the Brauer technique. So, a stereo bus for the drum kit, one for perc, one for reverb, one for fx, etc. Then some mono busses - one for bass, one for vocals, etc. The idea would be to try and spread things across as much of the 16 channels as possible. I think I can use up "8 stereo tracks" pretty easily. 
 
 
Now with Pres, this gets interesting. I was going to go Line In and set the gains to Unity. That would still pass the signal through the pres though. I can also go Insert, which bypasses the preamps. I might actually like having the preamps in the signal - you never know so I'll probably try both. If going through the pres though I will have to send some test signals into each channel to tune the gain to unity on each pre.
 
Same with EQ - I can do it with EQ on but flat, or EQ removed from the chain.
 
Again, I think the purest test is Direct In (bypassing pres) and with EQ removed from the signal chain.
 
I have really discovered that every analog mixer actually imparts a sound onto your mix.
 
I hope this is true, and I hope I like the Midas sound. :)
 

Cool! I'm interested in following your progress here. I just invested in Waves NLS and will try that on a couple of mixes tonight to see what it adds. I work primarily in Logic on a personal basis so no more PC console emulator for me :(
 
However, I have used hardware summers on several occasions before. In my case(s) it's been just summing boxes and not a console like yours. So far, the box with the most to offer - to my ears - has been the Thermionic Culture Fat Bustard. That made 5 mixes for an EP sound like night and day. The software alternatives I have tried didn't offer that much and some other summing boxes couldn't quite live up to that one either. But in every case, there's been a difference. I've been wanting to get a Fat Bustard but for some reason, I haven't. I hope NLS can offer back some of what I miss from Cake's PC module. But I still believe that a good hardware summing device adds something special.
 
I hope your experiment here will shed some light on this. Best of luck and have fun!

smallstonefan
Again, I think the purest test is Direct In (bypassing pres) and with EQ removed from the signal chain.

Keep in mind that cables and patch cords impact the sound significantly. That is, the impact is both measurable and audible.

Soundwise
 
Keep in mind that cables and patch cords impact the sound significantly. That is, the impact is both measurable and audible.

Excellent point! I will try to make the comparison as clean as possible, but in the end I am really looking for whether I like it "better" with or without going out to the console. I try not to buy junk cables, but I'm also not where I was when I was into a guitar rack where I was buying custom Lava cable and only using solder with a certain % of silver... :)