Summing Mixer, who me worry???

Ok, so words had been out of the street long time ago that if you run your DAW digital channels out to a mixer line input, you warm your mix up. That was a cool idea from the pro's which got out but here what they got one giant step over some of us (the other non-pro's or wannabe pro's engineer). These guys definitely are not running their digital output on a Mackie or a Berhinger. Summing your DAW signals is a good idea to avoid the bullsh*t summing algorithm coding of the master fader in DAW. These thing actually kill your mixes. I never use or create master fader in any of my Protools session...and never bounce either, that is another issue.

Yes, summing your DAW should help. But hang on a minute - surely an analog mixer is overkill? All the level changes, EQs, processes and effects are done in the DAW. So nearly all those knobs and buttons are doing nothing but taking up a lot of space. And - damn - those Neve consoles are expensive!

But how about stripping out all of the functions of the mixing console apart from level, pan and pure mixing?. Give it, say, sixteen inputs and mix those inputs into stereo with no processing, just as they come from the DAW.

Hey - a perfect mix!

The Neve 8816, Manley 16X2, Cranesong Spider, Toft ATB, API DSM modular system, or Tonelux are an example of a summing mixer. It has sixteen inputs, level and pan controls, and hardly anything else. For me I preferred the ATB over most of the above, they are all nice and thick but the ATB fit the way I work much better.

I would recommend when look for a summing mix, you should look for something with a Jensen transformer line input with phase, pad, and filters. Even though most of these summing mix does not come with anything else except for just line inputs, if I can choose one feature on my summing mixer, I choose filters as the next option for my summing channels.

Neve 8816 is hand down the best summing mix for any Protools system but it will take a bite around $10k off your bank account. The last customer I had set up the studio for, I got him a Allen & Heath console with Burr Brown mod line inputs from Alactronics LTD., that console roar thickness and head room. Find yourself an old reputable mixer and had the line input mod so you can distort the line input a bit without totally kill your audio track. One thing I used to do back in the day to get the meaner bigger bottom to my sound was to run all the channels thru the line inputs of the Neve VR at Expression and push the hell out of the line gain input. Lovely distortion!

So with a little bit of research you should be able to find a used small console out there somewhere to help you get that DAW channels a bit...more meat!
Stay away from Mackie and anything tube from Behringer...those are 'flashlight bulks' not tubes dude!

Tran Duy