Thanks for all your feedback.
 
And I'm sorry if I misunderstood your post bitflipper. I obviously did - i'm sorry.
 
Reading your posts I'm skeptic now if it's worth it. 

All good.
 
The rabbit hole just gets deeper and more interesting after taking the Red Pill.
 

sharke
I can imagine analog summing increasing width slightly if it's introducing small differences between the left and right channels, and I get the part about analog warmth and saturation (which could also have a small gluing effect) but I've never understood the claims about "3D depth" and separation. How exactly would analog summing increase depth?

Presumably by introducing differences between right and left that result in some frequencies being susceptible to a tiny delay sufficient to trigger the Haas effect and in effect creating a static low resonance comb filter. Which gives the sound a quality our brains regard as indicating it's further away because comb filtering in the natural environment is something associated with hearing sound that's reflected off multiple surfaces.

Also possibly by changing the eq curve in the "presence" band, either reducing or increasing 2.5KHz upwards content, with the consequent effect that our brains register the sound source as being closer or further away than it is. Which is why guitar amps that have a broad-band high-mid/treble adjust control generally label it "presence". The "gloss" function in some eqs can do a similar trick.

Applying the effect to an entire mix has less effect on apparent depth than adding it to the tracks you want to stand out more.

I've not studied this in any depth, but that's my best guess.

Whether applying this process wholesale and under someone else's control is a good idea is something I habe doubts about.

On looking at the website again, I noticed that they give no address details, no phone number, no indication of who they are or where they are other than saying they're French. No way to contact them at all other than a web form.

Rule one of internet commerce is never trust a website that doesn't tell you who they are and provide their address and other details that indicate the company exists outside someone's imagination. Advertising standards in the EU require companies to provide those details and consumer protection agencies advise people not to do business with a website that doesn't provide them.

If they are EU based, they should also give either their VAT registration number or state they are VAT exempt (usually because their turnover is too low to require registration). They also charge in US Dollars, with no pricing in Euros, Sterling or other currencies a European based on-line business is likely to encounter. Which means both the company and Europeans purchasing their services will face currency conversion charges, which is insane when paying them in Euros would avoid that cost to themselves and their customers.

I'd also be much happier if they had photos of their entire setup, not just cut and paste images of rack unit front panels.

A scam? Don't know. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, based on their website I'd say that irrespective of what gear they have and their abilitybto use it, they are an extremely amateurish business at best.

tlw
On looking at the website again, I noticed that they give no address details, no phone number, no indication of who they are or where they are other than saying they're French. No way to contact them at all other than a web form.

Rule one of internet commerce is never trust a website that doesn't tell you who they are and provide their address and other details that indicate the company exists outside someone's imagination. Advertising standards in the EU require companies to provide those details and consumer protection agencies advise people not to do business with a website that doesn't provide them.

If they are EU based, they should also give either their VAT registration number or state they are VAT exempt (usually because their turnover is too low to require registration). They also charge in US Dollars, with no pricing in Euros, Sterling or other currencies a European based on-line business is likely to encounter. Which means both the company and Europeans purchasing their services will face currency conversion charges, which is insane when paying them in Euros would avoid that cost to themselves and their customers.

I'd also be much happier if they had photos of their entire setup, not just cut and paste images of rack unit front panels.

A scam? Don't know. But giving them the benefit of the doubt, based on their website I'd say that irrespective of what gear they have and their abilitybto use it, they are an extremely amateurish business at best.

I found the site from their gearslutz "introduction" post, which they wrote over a year ago:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/product-alerts-older-than-2-months/1014860-summing-station-born-remote-32-track-analog-summing-service.html
 
I would expect angry customer feedback if they were a scam, or people writing warning about them on other sites f.ex. which I also couldn't find. But I also couldn't find positive/any feedback about them, which is why I wanted to hear if anyone here have experience with them.

tlw
I'd also be much happier if they had photos of their entire setup, not just cut and paste images of rack unit front panels.

http://www.thesummingstation.com/tssupclose-2/
 
for what it's worth!

Here is something to think about and the interesting thing here is that this is happening in all digital world and not just happening in an analog situation.
 
I use a Yamaha digital mixer and Studio One as my DAW.  I can mix all ITB of course and do often but for some reason when I send stereo stems out digitally to the mixer which I can do of course the mix sounds a little different when I sum them digitally in the mixer.  It always seems a little wider and deeper to me.  I have never been able to put my finger on it.  I started to think I was the only one believing this.
 
Until the day I read an article in SOS about Dave O'Donnell mixing James Taylor's latest CD.  Firstly please note he mixed the entire album on a digital mixer so any notion that analog would be the only way to go here is out the window. (I would have thought that James Taylor would have been pretty keen on an all analog affair but he did not care really. Also note he has got Gadd playing drums so that says it all really!!)  Listen to it folks and tell me what you think. 
 
Dave O'Donnel said the exact same thing in this article:
 
http://www.soundonsound.c...ck-james-taylors-world
 
Here is quote from that article:
 
“Because of the way James’s schedule went, we ended up mixing everything at his and my place, on my Yamaha DM2000 desk. It has four banks of 24 channels, and 48 channels at 96k, plus some very good internal EQs and effects, like reverbs. For me it’s great to be able to work with faders, and although we went digital through the DM2000, I think it did sound better than just staying in the box. In general, going out of the box will give you a wider image, with more depth, and the Yamaha will also do that. Particularly for a project like this, going through a mixer sounds much better. I plugged analogue outboard into the Yamaha console inserts, and also connected outboard to the Pro Tools hardware inserts. Some of the hardware included my Vertigo VSC2 compressor, which I love, and the TC Electronic 4000 as my main.
 
So I guess the moral of the story here is that even summing digitally out of the box actually sounds better and I can testify to it too.  It just does.  You have to do real time bounces which can take longer etc but you would think that staying in an all digital world would give the same results ITB or on a digital mixer but for some reason they dont.

But that isn't an entirely digital process. The mixer might be digital, but the processors aren't.

Nor are the preamps in the mixer.

I have no doubt at all that passing audio through analogue hardware changes the audio. Whether that change is "better" is often a matter of taste. I use analogue hardware synths and guitar stuff because I prefer the sound to digital emulations. But that doesn't mean I haven't heard lots of good-sounding tracks and bands that used emulators.

To me the question here, leaving aside the particular business that started the discussion, is whether passing audio through an analogue process you as engineer/producer have no control over is likely to be a worthwhile enough exercise to spend money on.

Jeff Evans
you would think that staying in an all digital world would give the same results ITB or on a digital mixer but for some reason they dont.

Digital summing is literally just adding the samples together. There will generally be some low level errors, but for any reasonable number of tracks summed at 24 bits or higher they will be at such a low level as to be irrelevant.
 
So either:
1. There is incompetence on the part of the good people at Yamaha doing the programming that somehow achieves desirable results.
2. People are perceiving something that isn't there.
3. There is some sort of additional processing going on.
 
I have to doubt #1, so it's either #2 or #3. And it would seem to me that #3 should be easy to test without leaving the digital domain.
 
And note that anything you or anyone else can testify to that didn't result from careful double blind testing where every precaution was taken to ensure that the only difference present was the thing being tested is irrelevant. That isn't meant disrespectfully - it's a fundamental rule of human perception that it is simply unreliable absent appropriate controls. And unfortunately this applies to everyone, no matter who they are or what their level of ability and/or experience and/or reputation is. 

I agree Drew re the blind testing and have not taken this up to that level. I have only felt this was the case. I have checked in terms of any processing etc and it still happens when there is no additional processing in the digital mixer, just summing.  I agree that summing digitally should sound the same but to my ears it simply does not.  I would go so far as to say that a blind test might actually reveal it.  It might just take the listeners a little while longer to hear the differences though I would imagine.
 
The good people at Yamaha are not incompetent and I am not imagining this either. Dave O’Donnell has the exact same opinion (I am sure you respect him) so does that not bring up the concept that it is happening. I was surprised when I read that. It made me feel better and the fact I am not imagining it.
 
Anyway sorry to get off topic as the original thread is about paying to get your tracks summed analog wise. I think overall we have agreed that it may not be.