Thanks, Dean. Very helpful and it makes sense. Some of the vids I've seen of big studio guys mixing had them tweaking away live on transport for the mixdown even though it was going into a DAW and it was kind of confusing me. They weren't even using a screen to see what the DAW was up to. Old school just using their ears. There may have been a guy off camera watching the DAW but really... it was pure art watching the guy work. I guess I can't expect my Mackie, as nice as it is, to compare to the big consoles but it is a technique I'd love to learn so now that I know it is still a valid way of doing things I may try again at some point. Even if the results aren't as good as what I can do within the computer itself it might be good practice for if I ever get a chance to get behind a big console in a big studio.
 
As far as processing time... well I only do real time bounces anyway so it really wouldn't matter. My computer can handle fast bounce but I figure for the little bit of extra time I would save it's not really worth it. Just knowing I'm less likely to get dropouts or other such nonsense I don't mind wandering off to grab a beer or just space out for a few minutes while the computer does its thing. Cheers.

Hey, a couple other considerations that just occurred to me:
1. You'll find out that doing stuff like this really eats up A/D channels. Analog summing, along with my use of hardware fx, is what led me to end up with 48 channels of A/D conversion (that and I'm a stupid, stupid man ).
2. Converter quality matters. Keep in mind that you'll be doing lots of A/D conversion so if your converters are adding noise or unpleasant sound it'll start to stack up. I use Lynx and Antelope if you're curious.
 
Good luck
Dean

s this still a common way of doing things? I thought outputting to a mixer and routing it back to the DAW for mixdown was no longer the "proper" way to do things.

There are no 'proper ways' Beepster. You can do what ever you want, just as long as you get the desired sound you are going for. Its all about personel taste. You can basically do what ever you want. If you give 5 different people the same song to mix, you will get back 5 different sounding songs. those 5 people did different things to the mix to get "Their" Desired sound. 
 
Cj

Razorwit
Hey, a couple other considerations that just occurred to me:
1. You'll find out that doing stuff like this really eats up A/D channels. Analog summing, along with my use of hardware fx, is what led me to end up with 48 channels of A/D conversion (that and I'm a stupid, stupid man ).
2. Converter quality matters. Keep in mind that you'll be doing lots of A/D conversion so if your converters are adding noise or unpleasant sound it'll start to stack up. I use Lynx and Antelope if you're curious.
 
Good luck
Dean

I'm guessing you are referring to how many input/output channels my interface can handle and the quality of the audio to digital conversion. If so I am currently limited to 8 channels and that's with my Layla Echo 3g which I don't really use anymore but I am hanging onto specifically for situations like this where I may want more than the 2 analog outs my current interface (Focusrite Scarlett 18i6) has (I'm also hoping I may be able to use the Layla as an expansion box via the ADAT in on the Scarlett if I need it but the outs won't work in that scenario AFAIK). So I can't exactly do a massive production with it but I could do 8 tracks at a time to create stems and/or just use it to make my final mix with the project busses which is what I do digitally anyway.
 
As far as the quality the Mackie sounds great but any time I tried to do this kind of routing I end up with that strange *PWANG* kind of noise on my tracks like when you bounce a basketball. I've seen reference to this sound being created because of some kind of feedback loop so if that is the case I obviously had my routing/settings wrong. It has been a long time though and I know much more now so I think I can figure it out.
 
The Layla is supposedly very high quality but frankly the Scarlett to my ears just sounds better all around. As I said though because of the limited outputs it just won't work for something like this. I guess I could try using one of the other driver modes (not ASIO) and see if I could get both devices running simultaneously which would be cool but that would certainly be another trek into unknown territory.
 
Anyway... just kind of rambling now about the possibilities but if it's possible I'd definitely check it out just to satiate my own curiosity. I'd likely stick to internal mixdowns for my final product for now but it doesn't hurt to try new things. Cheer and thanks for getting my mind moving.

CJaysMusic

s this still a common way of doing things? I thought outputting to a mixer and routing it back to the DAW for mixdown was no longer the "proper" way to do things.

There are no 'proper ways' Beepster. You can do what ever you want, just as long as you get the desired sound you are going for. Its all about personel taste. You can basically do what ever you want. If you give 5 different people the same song to mix, you will get back 5 different sounding songs. those 5 people did different things to the mix to get "Their" Desired sound. 
 
Cj

Hi, Cj. Back then I could barely operate my computer so it's possible he was just trying to point me to the path of least resistance. Frankly I'm surprised he tolerated my severe noobie queries but he was a good guy and I always insisted on buying him some beers as I picked his brain. The guy was top shelf, man. Wish I could have sat in one of his classes but it just wasn't possible back then. Cheers.
 
Oh and the reason I guess I try to adhere to the "rules" at the moment is so when I know enough I can break them in the most efficient and effective way instead of just hamfisting it... yanno? I'm all about straying from the beaten path though. I just don't think I'm ready yet.

Dean,
 
your explanation was better, tho.
 
Beep,
 
if you don't have some good analog hardware effects etc. just analog summing probably won't make too much difference.  Others may disagree and find that digital mixing gets to congested (that is the word I hear bandied about).  I don't find this this case (so far!), but if you give me a vintage neve or api I know the summing would be different because of all the (good) circuitry the tracks are going through. That is what digital summing tools are all about.
 
What is less argued about is summing w/ real analog comps/Eqs etc.  If you have an extensive outboard collection it hardly makes sense to only use it during tracking.  Even a few good units on the most exposed tracks help get a "pro" sound. 
 
Finally, just mixing your stereo signal through nice analog outboard can help.  That's what I do.  I haven't gotten around to summing through my ancient encrusted rasma mixer.  But I do send a stereo mix through some nice Komit compressor/limiters I have.  I'm fixing to add the warm audio Tone Beast preamps to that set up.  It adds choice of transformers, gain, output and other things into the circuit which are a lot of fun tracking w/.  Since I got a second one I think it would be criminal not to try it during mixdown.
 
@

Thanks AT 
 
Incidentally, I was just looking at those Warm Audio Tone Beast units a couple days ago. You'll have to let us know how you like them....
 
Dean

That's great info, AT. I really don't have much outboard gear but I'd really love to see what the heck I can do with this mixer and test my on the fly mixdown skills. I think I would be pretty much limited to mixing stems considering the 8 channel limitation but really I can see a lot of creative possibilities there anyway. Neat to think about. I'll definitely have to figure out what the heck that nasty *PTWANG* sound was but it shouldn't be too hard now that I know how to actually research this kind of stuff. Probably just bad routing. Cheers.

Looks like a spirited discussion on summing took off here, I enjoyed reading your posts. Thank you all for your help and a special thanks to Dean for laying things out so clearly, I think you got me on the right track. My first instinct was to send and return everything through the buss section in Sonar and that apparently doesn't work for summing. I can record now through the Nicerizer to a stereo track in Sonar and I can listen through my monitors. The only problem is that the monitor out of the Nicerizer is wired pre transformer which won't include the added color that this unit is capable of. I believe this was done so you can quickly check a mix pre and post transformer. I routed the monitor out of my Nicerizer into a channel of my little Mackie board which works fine. The main outs of the Nicerizer are routed to a pair if inputs in the Apollo then out the monitor outs of the Apollo into another channel of the little Mackie board. When I hear the main outs they are mono but colored by the Nicerizer transformer. When I record to a track I'm getting a post transformer stereo mix and of course it plays back that way. If I'm not mistaken "@" mentioned that I might need another D/A converter in line to properly monitor what is being recorded. If anyone has any ideas I'm all ears.
Paul

Hi Paulisher,
Happy to have helped 
 
So on my SSL I have a monitor out and a record out that are seperate, but it sounds like you only have the one set of post-transformer outputs off the Nicerizer. In that case if you have an unused stereo output on your Apollo you could use the Apollo control panel to route the input you're using to record to an output that goes to your monitors. You could also do this from within Sonar by routing your Master bus to that output, but then you'd be dealing with ASIO delay (probably not a big deal, just mildly annoying).
 
I'm guessing you don't have a spare output pair becuase all your available outputs are routed to the Nicerizer though....hmmmm...this is where my comment earlier in the thread about needing lots of A/D comes into play. Only thing I can think of is maybe you can route to your monitor outs? Not sure if the Apollo can route to the monior outs, but it may be worth a look. Other than that you may just be out of I/O...
 
Dean
 
Oh, and I wouldn't put the Mackie in the listening chain if you can avoid it...and certainly not in the recording chain (between the Nicerizer and the I/O). Mackie's aren't in the same league generally as Phoenix and you probably don't want to add the sound of the Mackie to the sound you've gone to the time and trouble to get from the Nicerizer.