Summing box

Tube Tech SSA -2A
I love the way this box look with its huge dials, metal switches, VU meters, blue paint face plate which give it a vintage gear looks. I ran just 8 channels thru this box from Digidesign 192 D/A with no additional converter. The SSA-2A stereo buss bind the mix together well and the bass with plenty of headroom. I would put sound in the category of 'sua Ong Tho', nice thick, and silky color.
That is of course too much color for some people who like transparency. Due to the tubes and slow response, a well known character of Tube Tech gears, you will lose a little bit of your transient attack from your drum. Is that bad? Not really, if you are into that slow, sexy, smooth tempo materials.
DSM 24, 48 & 72 Console in a Rack

This is a perfect setup to sovle your issue with out of the box mixing and having your color at the same time. I had always love the API sound of its console for its punchy and warm sound, especially their 500's series compressor. I talked to Mark at API and the DSM was design with modular concept and can be set up in any configuration. In this case I manage to get my hand on the DSM 24 full setup. What can I say, I am in heaven. 24 channels worth of API input line op amps and stereo bus compressor, I am ready to rock...and rock it will be the tone of the day. I can hear more punch running my tracks into the DSM due to very clear define low mid freq. Of course the low bass freq of the API is not as 'fat' as the Tube Tech, only if you did not engage the API 2500 stereo compressor or have one. But with fast material like rock or pop, this baby just pumping out grooves. The top end is not that bad either...nice shimmering on my vocal track and my mix open up real nice with stereo images. I hear rock and fast tempo pop mix for this.

For a basic setup I would recommend you start with 2 of the 8200 and one 7800 rackmount master section to put everything together. that would give you 16 channels of line input, insert, aux send which meet up at the end with the 7800 master section. The nice thing about this is you can add or take out as you go along. For home mixing, you can do alot with this setup which allow you to use your outboard gears much easier than most other summing box I see out there. The DSM 24 which I am playing with came with a TT patchbay setup which for most of us engineers is a must have. This make the work flow much faster. I love this set up and would recommend it to anyone. This will give soul to your DAW.
For more spec, go to www.apiaudio.com

The Cranesong Spider

I first got myself a Spider for the 8-channel I/O converters for my Protool Mix TDM system. I always like the Cranesong preamp so it also give me additional 8 clean preamps for tracking drums or multiple Micing situation. I hardly use this as a summing box unless I want to stem a number of tracks down to a stereo track and add some color to the stem and then A/D back into my Protool for further mixing. Not much to be say about the Cranesong Spider excet that it is clean, transparent, very nice converter and nice colorful tape saturation emu for the stereo bus. Buy it for the converters and the preamp, otherwise it is up to you.

Dangerous 2-bus

The first time I saw this box was about 5 years ago when Luke and I was at the AES show in LA. We both were kind of in a sad state of mind after coming off working on the Neve VR and the SSL 4000k. We were now on our own and have to mix everything via Protool Mix Plus system ITB way. Our mixes was flat and real...stupid. Luke and I decide to see what this can do and put some track thru it. The mixes did come out a bit more low end and open but not enough for us to put out $2k at that time. Don't get me wrong here, the Dangerous 2-bus is dam accurate and most neutral sounding of all the box I had tested. I would recommend this for a mastering as a uncoloured mix device for stero stems. To me this is kind of 'sterile', 'bored', and not very "musical" colouring. The sound of the 2-bus is fast for transient with big headroom...loud that is and the unit is solidly built. I would buy it I have money for being luxury but without insert options or out board, I have to give it the same decision as the Cranesong Spider.

MixDream Model 2384

I wait until the last unit to review this thing. I had never a fan of SPL gears and actually turned SPL down to rep for them in Vietnam many years back. My SPL experience had always been bad with unit like Tube Vitalizer, Stereo Vitalizer etc., kind of remind me of the older Aphex tubessence stuffs. Then about 3 years ago SPL spit out the Transient Attack unit which make my head turn. I was a bit skeptical at first but sat back and wait to see if SPL going to do anything for a follow up. Lady and gentlemen, the final verdict for this summing bus review is the SPL MixDream 2384.

Here is the quick overview,

• High-grade analog summing on just 2U rack space—no analog mixing console necessary
• Sophisticated, active Class A/6oV stages for analog summing in the quality of the best consoles
• 16 balanced inserts allow for integrated analog effects with individual and overall hard bypass relays
• Reduction of A/D conversions (14 A/D conversions can be spared with all inserts connected). All analog tracks can be summed before A/D conversion.
• Channel adjustments and automation (level, panorama etc.) remain controlled from the DAW so the user loses no digital efficiency
• Lower DAW processor utilization rates
• The most efficient possible re-sampling of individual tracks with latency free monitoring
• Surround capable (from up to 3 MixDream units)
• Channel capacity expandable through linked units
• Sensitive and transparent stereo expansion control
• Analog peak limiter for impressive loudness
• Master inserts and switchable output transformers from Lundahl
• Optimized signal pathes, all switching functions via relays
• Proprietary differential amplifiers for each input
• Discrete, exceptionally low-noise power supply

After all that I had said above, the dream unit would be like something with the Dangerous 2-BUS tightness, accuracy and headroom and the musicality of the more colouring units like the API 8200 and Tube Tech with their big bass and silky, shimmering highs. I found it in the SPL Mixdream. It´s accurate, has the biggest headroom of all, controlled big bass and very pleasing top end. I don´t need features like the inserts / limiter. The stereo expansion sounds quite good in small doses.

My little boy´s heart loves the flickering signal LEDs. Nice design also. The unit gets very hot due to its 60 Volt technology. It´s also the heaviest of all candidates. It´s expandable for 5.1. To be honest, I didn´t expect something like this from SPL, which is not exactly my favourite gear company. But they did brilliant work on the MixDream and I strongly recommend to everyone to audition a test unit.

SOLD!

Post on Wed., August 26th, 2006

I hate to make haste decision because I do it all the time. But here it is, the SUMTHANG from Innertube Audio.
This company name their audio gears with words like Atomic Squeeze, Atomic whatever...really fuck with Home Land Security department. I got this box late so did not have time to compare but better late than never. So here what Inner said,

-Old-school analog crustaceans that we are, we at InnerTube recognize the productivity that digital audio workstations (like Digidesign Pro Tools and others) has made possible. Running the outputs through a high-quality mixing console has become a favorite best-of-both worlds solution for those who want digital flexibility and analog sound quality. But what if you don't have a large-format console, or prefer to mix "inside the box"? Well, we thought up the Sumthang just for you.

It sums eight line-level (+4) inputs into two outputs, using a top-secret vacuum tube circuit for sound quality that we think mops the floor with any other "analog" summing box on the market today. Ins and outs are transformer-balanced. Units can be cascaded together to bring as many analog outs as your DAW has into the stereo outs of your main Sumthang unit, and we've been kicking around plans for a 16-channel dedicated expander. An oversized output volume knob and super-accurate VU meters let you tweak the signal to the liking of your two-track recording or monitoring system, and even better, they look important.

Kick ass box of Sumthang. Buy this one too.

Duy