I'm giving up on Hybrid Mixing!
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- Опубліковано 13 лип 2024
- After a lot of thought about how to improve my workflow and simultaneously reduce the amount of gear I had, I decided to apply the processes outlined in Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown.
So one of the realizations I came to is that I get less value from Hybrid Mixing than the amount of effort involved in using a Hybrid Approach. By removing Hybrid mixing from my setup, I'm reducing the amount of gear in my racks to the point where I can completely remove one rack.
So I'm getting rid of my Maag EQ4M, Heritage Audio Successor, Meris Mercury 7 500 series pair, as well as my Roland SDE3000 and Yamaha SPX90 (though I'm still wrestling with removing the SPX90).
Here's a link to Essentialism on Amazon:
www.amazon.ca/Essentialism-Di...
#studiolife #essentialism #hybridmixing #rackgear #synthesizers #udoaudio #supergemini #roland #d50 #yamaha #dx7iiD #korgdw8000 #sequential #ob6 #moog #matriarch #dsi #polyevolver #arturia #polybrute
I think the love of knobs, buttons, and faders is something that i can't help but love, and i think that comes from being older. I bought and modded a Tascam M3500 because it was a mixer i saw in a magazine when i was younger. I added a tube saturation circuit, outboard gear, 8 track tape, and all the things i just had to have to make it warm and analog. Then, after getting tired of chasing down random noises and replacing capacitors, i realized that what i really loved was the knobs, faders, and buttons. A couple years ago i switched to a Presonus Studiolive 32s and the whole Studio One eco system and couldn't be happier. Going from having two Motu 24 i/os running 48 cables in and out of Cubase, to having two cables going in.. is awesome. I have the choice to print effects or not, but i always do. I can sit at my drums with an ipad and meticulously choose the right eq and compressor from all the Fat Channel emulations. It's so much easier than running back and forth until you eventually just say "good enough". It is the future and I'm so on board now. I was stubborn, but mixing totally itb. I still have some mojo for recording but not much really. I love having the faders and knobs as well. 🤙🏼
I also was brought up on great analogue gear, but really it was all there was then. So there is definitely a nostalgia factor.
I also went from MOTU gear to Presonus (with a detour through Apollos).
Let ths be my future…:)
It’s a community. There’s a community where people love cars but and put money into cars they don’t drive. There is a guitarist community they have more guitars than some stores. Mixers and producers are a community and we love gear. I don’t worry about it anymore I embrace it. As long as it is done in a way that’s financially responsible it’s all good.
I couldn't agree with you more! I too am in a downsizing mode.....after decades of collecting and growing. Its a refreshing chapter, and I find it makes me even more focused and motivated. Option over-load is a real thing!
Good for you. It can be really hard to let go of stuff. But it almost always provides a feeling of relief and can be almost as adictive as buying gear.
Tuff subject because part of the reason we have all our gear is because its fun to twist knobs, have a room that lit up like vegas, having that feeling like we are in a creative space with every option. I contributed to this idea of more gear the better when I owned a a company out here in L.A. area in from 93 till early 2000's where I designed, troubleshooted and taught high end home recording. I also produced and engineered for many artist... and that's when I switched from a "analog outboard gear and cool looking studio... to a getting shit done studios! I am completely in the box now and literally hate doing anything the old way. If you do this as a hobby get whatever the hell you want and have fun with it. If you actually have to make money with it go in the box in every way you can. I not bragging but I go from nothing to finished music and mastered usually within 10 hours. I usually do in blocks of 2.5 hours here and there to get it done... but since I am in box with total perfect recall I can do that. Thats my 2 cents on why I am in the box and never looking back. Oh an i have about 9 controllers in the studio to turn knobs and still have fun, it just different now.
It is fun to twist knobs, and I still will. But for mixing it's all going to be in the box now.
Frankly, I thought I was going to get more negative comments about hardware being so much better than software.
My love of hardware is driven primarily because it is offline and not subject to OS upgrade issues; usage data collection which will most certainly be used to train AI to write music; and onerous subscriptions.
You can still be hybrid and use gears…just get stuff that can be controlled digitally… for example, using Flock audio for your digital patchbay (highly recommend), WesAudio & Bettermaker make fabulous analog gear that can be controlled digitally. That is the future, imagine tube-tech making a CL1B that you can control digitally?An Avid S4 is excellent and I use it with Logic. The recall is fabulous. My hybrid set up is Flock audio digital patch bay (this controls everything via Plugin), I use an Orion studio Synergy,I use Bettermaker limiter, EQ and compressor and I use the antelope audio Pure 2 (digitally controlled plugin). On my digital patch via flock I have a Rupert Neve 500series with SSL bus, 542 tape emulator (stereo) and tube-tech EQPX (stereo), SPL Big and Maag EQP4, my additional hardware I have SSL Fusion, Bus+, Manley Nu Mu, and Rupert Neve MBT…..With Flock audio I can use any combination in any order without patching cables its incredible and worth the price I sum through a RPN 5059 where I master through Bettermaker gear and all goes to my Antelope Audio Pure 2 converter and the final 2 track goes back to into my Orion Synergy Studio. All managed by my 16 track Avid S4 I’m incredibly efficient because time and recall is money. (Oh yeah Flock audio can be controlled by your phone too, you can literally take pictures of your analog gear that is not digitally controlled and have the picture of the knobs imported into the session so you can easily recall everything for that session.)
I was just talking to my buddy about that yesterday. We both agreed that the concept is great, but the implementation is just not standard enough for me yet. If they all used the same protocol, software drivers, plugins or whatever controls the hardware AND it was just native in the DAWs without having to do extra configuration, I might consider it. I already have a reasonably complex setup between hardware and software.
I'm not saying it isn't a good idea. Just that it's even simpler for me to move to fully in the box mixing and save the hardware components for tracking. Just looking around my relatively small studio, I count 43 peices of hardware (including instruments). That doesn't include mics, stands, etc. So whatever I can do to reduce and streamline I consider a win.
Excellent overview and exhortation. I am going through a similar distillation albeit with a lot less on the recording and outboard side of things. Love your keyboard collection. That SG was on my shortlist but I went with the 3rd Wave. I am just missing some of that Oberheim flavor in my setup but do have the Gforce offerings which are pretty impressive but not as delicious as actual VCO’s doing their thing.
I think I may have finally distilled my synth collection to the point where I won't be pining after something new. The Super Gemini really is fantastic, I can just sit and play for hours. I've got the iconic DX7 and D50 plus the DW8000 and now an RX5 on the 80's side of things. Polyevolver, Matriarch and OB6 on the more modern side. And have a Tempest, DRM1 MK IV, and now an K.O. II for a wide variety of drum and sampled sounds.
Plus I have a Stage Vintage in the tracking room for jamming.
Great insights and I too have come to the conclusion of keeping what I actually need and use. Its amazing how much clutter you can then lose. I think the movement of those who swear by the hardware is the best mantra are either neck deep in debt from the stuff or have simply bought into the marketing. I do miss your Sony console though haha
It is a little bit the hype of marketing. But I must admit there is something so satisfying about the tactile nature of analog gear. It's one of the reasons I don't move from HW synths to their emulated plugings.
What I would love is hardware that integrated so well with the software, that when you used it any settings automatically saved into your session without having to install special control plugins. I know there are some products that partially bridge this gap.
I also sometimes miss that Sony, but it was a beast. It's gone to a good home and I hope to have some footage of it in the new space. Maybe I'll win a bunch of money and buy one of the Harrison 32Classic consoles with built in AD/DA converters.
Straight up hardware for tracking is what helps bring depth and dimension to recordings. Mixing it’s not that big of a deal but still fun and helps. I find I get things done a lot quicker with my hardware too. And use more functional plugins like Fab Filter Pro Q or certain fx
Last year I sold all my outboard gear, summing mixer and synths to pay for my Atmos upgrade. As soon as I went full digital my mixes were instantly better. Digital has not only caught up but surpassed analog in many ways, who woulda thunk it 🤷🏾♂️
Agreed. I think that happened in the last 5ish years.
gave up on patch bays. I treat the studio like a giant modular synth - I get up and constantly patch cables whenever the creativity strikes. its a mess, but creativity stays high and I keep moving
Haha. That's great.
I'm a sucker for organization and clean looks. Cables everywhere distract my brain, but for each their own.
I feel you!! Same here. The only thing more essential than simplicity is commitment. Effortless choices are never well thought out. And they end up being a huge waste of time. It takes awhile to figure that out
@@iam607 agreed. Continued effort and meticulous, thought out choices.
Have you tried ValhallaVintageverb as a comparison to the Meris 7 in the box?
Great video! Found it really inspiring to try and pair down my setup.
I haven't tried any Valhalla stuff yet, but it's on my list. The specific feature of the Mercury 7 that I like is a modulated pitch bend on the reverb tail. It's so cool.
Glad you're inspired to look at reducing gear. But I suppose that means you don't want to but my AX80. Haha
That book has come up before, so I'll have to check it out now. I'd love it if you could share what pieces of outboard gear you're finding essential for tracking. I have a similar setup, using a digital mixer as my interface, but I haven't gotten into the external preamp, compressor, EQ's yet.
It's a good read. I could probably do a video just on the book and applying it in general.
As for "essential" outboard gear with a digital mixer, I could achieve everything, except different sounding preamps, by just using the Fat Channel effects in the Presonus (multiple EQ and Compressor options with a gate as well). And if my goal was simply to have fewer things to work with I think I would. I do use those built in FXs with my desk mic for recording the videos.
So what I will have (once some of these things sell) are two Rupert Neve Newton channel strips. These will be used first in any situation where I only need one or two mics, such as overdubs. Or may be either drum overheads, or used for Kick and Snare. They have a beautiful sound and include EQ, Low cut filter, Compressor, and "silk blend" for preamp character changes. They are a bit pricy, but nowhere near the price of the Shelford channels.
The rest of my preamps are the SSL Six CH. First of all, they are one of the lowest priced 500 series pres, but they have a great clean SSL preamp, two band EQ that can either be shelf or peak (though fixed frequencies), and a simple automatic compressor. For just over $400 CAD, I don't think they can be beat. Oh, and they also add HiZ line inputs into the StudioLive right through the front of the pres.
I also just got a Warm Audio WA-1B compressor before I made the decision to simplify. So it will be available as an option rather than the VCA compressor in the Newtons, or the fixed compressor in the SSLs.
Then I have two other "flavour" peices of gear. First is the Roland SVC-350 analogue Vocoder. I can do vocoding with plugins, but the sound of an analogue vocoder is so cool and can be used musically and not just for Cylon voices.
The second is an Overstayer M.A.S analogue saturator. This can really be applied to any source (great on snare, guitar, some vox) to had harmonic distortion and drive.
@@EdgetoneStudios This is great, thank you!
@@lucasllama no problem.
Smart guy....
Softube Wasted Space (or Valhalla Supermassive) for the Mercury 7. Or that SRV-2000 you have there, routed as an AUX into your interface.
I'll look into those. I actually have the SDE-3000 delay, not the Reverb. It was an Aux on my Studiolive, but I'll just use the built in delays (or plugins while mixing).
i don´t use interface mode. i use my daw as tape machine, for cutting and arranging the recordings. the mixdown i make with the presonus console to a stereo mixdown on a sd card. so i can use my outboard effects in the mixer for the song. And then make the mastering from the stereo mixdown of the console in wavelab. its the easiest way for me and a good workflow.
That's a cool way to do it and another example of how flexible these StudioLive boards are.
I’m with you on wanting to simplify but I’ve decided to go to an analog console. I feel overwhelmed by the computer and the endless possibilities and I get bogged down in the choice.
Yeah same, the loaded 5088 is on its way. Had to mortgage the home, wifey isn’t going to be thrilled, and I still need to hire an engineer. But damn those transformers 🤣
I still would love an "appropriate sized" modern analog console. I see it as a way to simplify from the digital console with outboard pres. I would simply use the built in pres and EQs. I'd still have to have a couple external compressors (unless there were some built in). But as @russcontact says, it's pretty well a re-mortgage situation. And prices in CAD are even worse.
Even their smallest console would be about $150,000 CAD after taxes. That's nearly the price of building my studio in the first place. But damn I would love one, or an API, or an SSL, heck even a Trident 88. As I said, I love gear.
@@russcontactI ended up going with the 5088 also. 16 channel version. I got mine with the rack ears in the penthouse so I could expand it with a 5059 satellite so I could only fit 14 of the 5051/5052 modules. So excited for the install in May.
something this video makes me realize is that I'm not taking patch bays serious enough. I'm definitely taking MIDI connections _very_ seriously, but I need to up my game on DI, snakes, conversion cables, and really just properly mapping it all out like you do. Thanks❣
The "key" to patchbays isn't just getting the plugs in front of the rack, but deciding what your default connections are and mapping them out to be the "Normaled" connections. It takes way more cabling to have patchbays, but it provides a default setup with the flexibility of "recabling" with simple patches.
Doesn’t what you say also apply to the synths also? I wonder if in a while, you’ll use plug in synths as well?
Yes it does. That's why I've gone from 10 synths down to 7. :-)
Try out the Valhalla Vintage Verb plugin, I love it!
Can it do the pitch bend, modulation tails that the Mercury 7 can do?
Oh man... I don't know! @@EdgetoneStudios
@@louiegolden it's what makes the Mercury 7 so unique.
Curious about software Mercury7 too.
Another commenter suggested Valhalla Super Massive, or Softube Wasted Space. But I'm not sure that either of those can do the pitch shifting, modulation thing the Mercury 7 does. I may just pick up a pedal version.
I’ve just sold my entire system collected over 30 yrs, I’m now left with. Computer, a set of questeds and Neumann NDH30 and never been happier? 🤣 go figure!
That's awesome. If I really wanted to simplify, I could go down to my digital mixer, monitors, monitor switchers and headphone amp. And I'd still be able to process audio completely out of the box with the StudioLive mixer. For now I'll also keep the external pres, channel strips, compressor and I think my SPX90 (just to fill that final rack space).
I go out to hardware without using interface mode on my series iii. I only have a few outbound things though.
I had my SDE-3000, SPX90, and the Mercury 7s pluged into Mix outs and returned to line inputs. So I could use them as FX sends when tracking by just using those Mixes. But in order to send tracks from the DAW directly out the Mix Outs, the StudioLive has to be in interface mode.
I suppose one could set a channel to be USB in from the DAW and then route to the Mix outs without Interface mode, but that seems more complicated. Is that what you do?
@@EdgetoneStudios I just set up aux mixs and use channels in on usb mode for a few outboard things .. I use Studio One's pipeline XT to route to that channel that is only used on a aux mix then back into another channel routed through pipeline xt .. I ping it for latency compensations and its all good ..
@@sickmessiah cool. I hadn't really considered doing that until you suggested that you didn't use interface mode I guess I'll have to give that a try.
@@EdgetoneStudios COol .. Only downside is I had to dedicate a few aux mixs for a few outboard units . You will have to gain stage em how you like in and back out on the board .. So bypass is matched ext .. Let me know how that works for you .
For tracking I can just bring up those aux mixs in the main mix for monitoring them if i choose too .. I rarely do though . So technically they are parallel when i do that .. I could just pull down the source channels and monitor them only through hardware but i dont .
Cool.. minilogue xd and behringer neutron is enough for me working in the DAW
Keeping it simple. Excellent.
I hear that the Neutron sounds great, but I'm not a fan of Behringer products. I only have their patch bays because I couldn't source other 1/4" patch bays with selectable "normalling" anywhere.
I have least amount of gear possible. High quality signal chain. Replaced arsenal of outboard synths for modular system. Small footprint. But I love my analog compressors!
The best way to go. I'd rather have great instruments first, great monitors second, great microphones third, then preamps, eqs and compresors.
Why don't you record some impulse responses (IRs) of the reverb. Then you would have it in the box. You could also let others have the IRs so we could all have that lovely sound. :)
Although I could capture a few specific settings, the unique thing about the Mercury 7 is the ability to have the reverberated sound both pitch bend and modulate as it trails off. Of course the type of of pitch bend and amount of modulation needed is very source dependent, so it really wouldn't be able to be captured in an impulse response (as far as I know).
another one bites the dust.
-valhalla supermassive. and its free.
-eventide blackhole reverb.
run them through a chorus plugin for sweetening.
- cant stand waves but bb tube sim on the master bus, with some abbey road tape saturation.
sad no company just sells modular midi controllers wich click together with all the buttons and knobs for controlling a plugin. that should be cheap.
I'll check out Eventide Blackhole as well. Someone already mentioned Supermassive.
What makes Mercury 7 special is the pitchbend (with modulation) that can be added to the tail in octaves, 5th etc. I'm wondering if any plug in does that.
@@EdgetoneStudios i‘m locked in the pedal world - no time for all possibilities of daws… option paralysis. been gassing sometime for the mercury7… but still happy with gfi specular tempus wich does what i need, and just sounds right. eventide basically invented the ambient reverb with the blackhole. massive attack, portishead, its all over alo tracks. it can do the spacy reverb thing, but also morph into a breathing hissing organically moving alien background soundscape. throw some of their crystallizer pitch shifter infront of it.
if you have an ios device you can get their reverb bundle (4 including shimmer, blackhole and mangled) for 30 bucks. aum is great for hosting plugins. had my ipad with my babyface pro running as my outboard „rack unit“ for some time, even my old iphone 8 manages 3-5 plugins in parallel in aum.
both blackhole and supermassive live from automation movement, in ableton theres an lfo tool you can map to parameters. try to modulate the size/warp dial of supermassive. beat that mercury.
another overlooked free soundscaping tool is vcv rack/cardinal/mi rack. free as vst and for ios. it has 100s of virtual modules, and a VERY nice reverb module called plateaux. also check out the mutable instruments clones of the clouds granular delay/verb and plaits module. sky’s the limit.
paulxstretch is s also free and phantastic for ambient stuff.
i like your approach to turning back to the box. dawless is a bit overrated. is a bit stupid what money we pay to have less knobs and capabilities. well. humans. cheers!
Can I buy your overstayer? Thanks😂
That's one of the pieces of gear I consider essential. Sorry.
@@EdgetoneStudios All gucci!
Valhalla reverbs will cover the Meris no prob…
Ah. So they do the modulated pitch bend tails?
I still haven't checked them out.
@@EdgetoneStudios I’m not sure if there reverbs do but there Freq Echo plug-in does and it’s almost a reverb anyway.
You could use plugins to bend the pitch of the tails..
Valhalla verbs are incredible though try there supermassive one it’s free! And all the others are set price of 50 dollars. Incredible value.
@@nagchumpalot Awesome. Thanks for the info.
Necessities vs Niceties…
Exactly. I have a LOT of niceties. ;-)
If you like easy software is better.