Summing Mixer - Anybody use one?

Just wanting to know if anybody uses a summing mixer in your setup..?

If so..
What is your setup? Big/small?
Is there a clear difference?
What Summing Mixer do you have?

try asking at the forum at www.gearslutz.com.

OK, I'll be the one to ask the obvious and potentially dumb question: what's a "summing mixer"? Can you give an example of a mixer that doesn't sum?

ORIGINAL: bitflipper

OK, I'll be the one to ask the obvious and potentially dumb question: what's a "summing mixer"? Can you give an example of a mixer that doesn't sum?

Yeah, I got nothin'. You're right, they all do, just, I guess, some better than others, sound-wise. The Dangerous stuff is coveted indeed as best-in-class for deicated units.

Well, being uncomfortable as I am with new terms that I don't understand, I did some research on summing mixers to see what the story is.

To be honest, it sounds like a marketing-invented buzzword to me. They're talking about mixers with unity gain, passive components, and minimal controls, the idea being to make the mixer as transparent as possible. But of course you have to convert your material to analog, mix it and convert it back to digital.

Transparency in a mixer is of course a desirable goal, but I think Jim's right on when he says "many other components...have a much more profound effect". Absolutely. By the time your tracks get to the mixer they've already been EQ'd, effected, delayed, gain-adjusted, compressed and generally mangled beyond recognition. Running them through a perfectly colorless final stage seems almost pointless.

Furthermore, I wonder if the benefit of analog summing is significant enough to offset the unavoidable degradation of the extra D/A - A/D conversions.

I believe a summing mixer is essentially an analog replacement for "Bounce To Tracks" in Sonar.

All of your tracks would be individually routed to an external analog mixer where they would be "summed" to a final mix on tape, CD or whatever media.

ORIGINAL: plainfaced

Just wanting to know if anybody uses a summing mixer in your setup..?

If so..
What is your setup? Big/small?
Is there a clear difference?
What Summing Mixer do you have?

Before you think about taking an analog stage do a test run and just use cables. Record out of Sonar and record that into what ever program you intend to use with the summing mixer. Set your record levels so they are exactly the same as an export from Sonar would be. Then do the export from Sonar (mix in the box) and then record the same thing through the cable. Listen close to each one. This will let you know how much difference the analog trip makes before you insert any gear (like a summing mixer).

There are 3 reactions most folks have when they do this. 1. I can't hear any difference. 2. I hate what that did. 3. It really sounds better to me.
If your answer is 1 or 3 then look into a summing mixer. If your answer was 2 then don't bother.

I think the Dangerous unit has value beyond just as a summing mixer doesn't it? IIRC it is also a monitor controller, similar to Central Station, Big Knob, etc. but probably better quality.

In laymen's terms, summing mixers make it so that when you bounce to a stereo track, you have the same sound you heard when you were playing all your tracks in Cakewalk/PT/etc.  You might only notice the difference at low levels because it is more of a thing that turns your music into something a casual listener would like to hear in their mp3 collection.  If you don't get the summing right, then they will notice it sounds like either it is a much older song that wasn't remastered or an amateur band made it at home. 

Something like that.  So it's not absolutely necessary, but if you want to actually sell the music and people are sampling other stuff they probably wont buy your stuff if they have to keep turning their stereo up whenever it plays. 

I could care less, when I play some old Jason Becker/Marty Friedman/Richie Kotzen, I turn it up...But when Dream Theater is playing, I don't NEED to turn it up.  But if I were to buy "the next dream theater" big band and it wasn't summed right, I might subconsciously think "well, maybe their next album will get the funding for a better producer" BUT some people will think "pfft! amateurs."

In reality, unless you are going to go in and rent time at a studio, use $10k of outboard gear, mics etc (cheap studio I know lol)...you need to hit the streets and promote what you have by playing live anyway.  But if you want to sit back and just let the album sell itself, it might be helpful.

I have sort of maxed out what I want to spend for now so am trying plugins like PSP Mix Pack. 

I think a summing mixer would be a good investment though because you could make money summing other people's sessions.

I've actually been thinking about this very thing.  I just placed an order for an SSL X-rack with a bus compressor and I've been giving consideration to (over the next little while) adding 16 channels of input, a stereo EQ and a master bus module.  That would essentially turn that rack into a 16 channel summing mixer with SSL EQ and 2-bus compression.  It would be a bit more useful than the standard stand-alone summing mixers (it would have gain, pan, monitoring, eq and comp), but it would be a summing box as well. 

Anyone ever do this with ssl super-analogue gear (or something else)?  If so, how did you like it?

Dean

I use an Allen & Heath ZEDR-16 that can be used to mix OTB if you want although I've never done a complete mix like that. I sometimes use a hybrid method where I might run 3 or 4 tracks out through it so I can use the EQ on it or maybe some external effects and re-record them back into Sonar.

I thought all mixers 'summed'.

They've very chic these days, I think it's a bit of a sham. I don't think there's anything a summing mixer can do that you can't replicate with thoughtful use of the tools already available. And given their price point. Whoah!

No one has ever been able to give me a technical explanation as to what an analog summing mixer can do to a signal that's different than sending the final mix (or individual tracks/stems) through an analog gain stage, or transformers or whatever.

IOW, if any sonic difference are audible and desirable at all, is it because of the summing itself, or just from passing through simple analog circuitry. And if it's not from summing, why not just buy 1 (stereo) channel of good analog and save a lot (!!!) of money?

But then, it's been my experience that most people who go on and on about the "magic" imparted by summing mixers have absolutely no clue about different analog mix buss topologies, the costs and benefits of each type, or which type the summing mixers in question use.

Hi Wynnsong,
Please let me/us know how your SSL demo goes.  It sounds like you're doing something similar to what I'm considering and I'm really interested in your impressions.

Thanks
Dean

I do. It just happens to be digital and in a piece of software.