You may have seen Bruce Miller has recently joined Studio Forums. He's also just signed on as a contributing editor at Studio Reviews. Check out the About page.

Along with some other cool things we've got planned with Bruce, we've got a feature article of his online now, "Mixing Digital to Sound More Analog".

Have a read and post your thoughts. And welcome Bruce to Studio Forums!

http://www.studioreviews.com/digital-analog.htm

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome Bruce.

-Dusty

I should write a novel. But, I managed to inadvertently piss Massenberg off on the subject recently, so I'll just say welcome to our new friend and let you all talk amongst yourselves.

Let me know when you have some recommendations of digitally mixed CDs I should check out. George added one to my really small list: Amanda Marshall's "Everybody's Got a Story". Nice sound. But, put on the album she did 3 years before...and listen to the midrange come back.

Welcome Bruce!
Your article seems to open up more questions than answer them (for me).
It would seem though, that overall, the arrangement matters more than the quality of the sounds?
As you say, there would be many engineers working with clumps of digital audio including loops and samples, that were not recorded with the current song in mind, and were not recorded along with the song/artist as they played.

Did the limitations of analog force people to focus on the arrangement, and thus by default, help to achieve the goals of your article?

quote:

When mixing (even analog music) I have always placed great importance on dynamics. I have found that when mixing digital (especially unprofessionally-recorded digital) I have to further emphasize certain dynamics that I know should be there but are not.

So, for a plug-poor person like myself I guess the issue becomes one of arrangement first. Nudging samples and loops around, and leaving plenty of space?

And if I ever get the perfect arrangement, I'll refer back to your article....but like I said, I think it opened the door to many more questions. Are you posting any more thoughts or articles? And I'd love to hear some before and after examples if possible?

cheers, and welcome once again
Tube

Pop, I think you'll find with Bruce that you're preaching to the choir. : )

Bruce and I had a long talk the other day. We're both engineers who ran in some of the same circles in NYC during the heydays of freelance engineers in standardized 2" 24-track analog studios. Those days are gone now. And we have to learn to work with the tools that are available and do the best job possible.

quote:

Originally posted by Popmann:
Let me know when you have some recommendations of digitally mixed CDs I should check out.

I guess you've heard the CD that Jazzooo and I did, "Two Days In November". A fairly common comment from people is that they're blown away by the sound of the CD. Maybe I'm horn-tooting, but I think we did a pretty bang-up job. And on a $3000 DAW, no less. We worked with what we had. I'd put it on the list of digitally mixed CD's people should check out. [ If anyone coming here hasn't heard some samples, click on the link and download the 320 bitrate MP3 of "NY Blues". ]

DOT...Doug's CD does sound fab--I bought it, actually. You guys did great, and should be proud. But, I should have qualified that a bit...I'm looking for pop/rock/country/etc that were mixed digitally. Jazz and classical are less about "that" sound, IMO. They actually see some benefit from digital's "clarity".

I went to hear what "the best and brightest" could do in digital, frankly I came up with VERY few. Recorded digital? Sure. Edited. Of course. But, when the rubber met the road, they mixed them on SSLs, Neves, and APIs.

So far the list of decent sounding stuff is:

-The Corrs "Borrowed Heaven" (PT Mix24)
-Faith Hill "Cry" (PTHD) and "Breathe" (PT Mix24)
-Amanda Marshall "Everybody's got a story" (Oxford)
-Christina A "Stripped" (PT...?)

Everyone just accepts that it's possible...and it may be a "seperate but equal" deal...but, I'm just looking for great examples--and not finding them. The above really aren't the best sounding records in the pop world....but, they are really nice sounding and mixed digitally. Just looking for more if anyone's got'em.

While there were some big oversights (misjudgements) on my part that I will probably remix to fix, I'm pretty proud of the "old school" sound I got on this latest round. Thanks in no small part, IMO, to the amount of analog compression and EQ that was used. Every time I'd call up a Waves Ren EQ or Comp to compare...well, they didn't. They did immediately, but the more I'd listen, the more I'd realize there was just something "missing" from the sound after being run thrugh the digital wringer. T-Racks fared better, but wasn't aoften as flexible with it's "sound"-thus couldn't always get it to do what I wanted.

I'm mostly proud of the midrange in those mixes. I'll bring the bass up a bit, and push the drums back a bit...and I'll be done.

Welcome Bruce!
I just read the quick article, and I agree it raises more questions than answers for me. The essence seems to be to focus on the midrange. But if the digital capture doesn't really get it right, how do you compensate?
To me, mixing is, by far, the most difficult part of the process. Writing, performing, tracking - that's a relative piece of cake. I never mixed analog. But I still prefer and listen to vinyl!
I guess the bottom line observation/question I have is this: Getting the midrange right is a mixing issue period, whether the source is analog or digital. Are you really implying that people have become accustomed to digital sound? Do we need to listen more to original analog to get a better bearing?

Just as an aside. Two stark examples for me - comparing the CD and original LPs of Joni Mitchell's "Blue", and Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours". I don't know if it's a digital/analog thing or remastering or what - but the CDs sound different, and not as good. In some ways, I hear more detail on the CD's, but everything sounds more like individual parts playing together. More clinical, I guess. The LP's sound more like a homogenized presentation, more organic, warm - especially in the bass and low mids. Maybe it's just because I grew up on the vinyl.

But again - to the point. Is it more a question of our biases, and "benchmarks" or is it a question of accuracy and true rendering? I don't know that analog is more accurate, but it certainly doesn't sound as seductive to me - granted, these are generalizations.

Why don't we just call what Pop is talking about the "SSL" sound... Because a Mackie will probably only get you 10% there.

When I had only heard 3 preamps, I went to the listening sessions and spotted the Mackie completly blind on each session...

Running 32 tracks through those shitty pre's and then demolishing with the same shitty amplification circuits 10 times each is not what a Faith Hill record is made out of!

I don't see how you can even blame the sound of the mixer when those records were made with the follow ingrediEnts that most mixed ITB records aren't...

Best songs from the best songwriters
Best arrangmenets from the best arrangers
Best performances from the best musicians
Best rooms in the world
Best Production from the best producers
Best engineers on the planet
Best recording chains imaginable
Best tape on the best tape machine
Best converters
Best console
Best monitors
Best mastering engineer
Best CD duplicating

I'm sure there are more...

I'm just saying that the mixing console is probably pretty damn low on the reasons Faith Hill's album sounds better than yours.

Instead we should rejoice on how close we can get without spending millions of dollars! And thank Bruce for giving us tips to get closer.

...Why not call around and find the right studio to rent for a day so you can go run your mixes through their fat board, print to tape and send off for mastering, Pop?

It wouldn't cost you 1/5th it would cost to impliment a Mackie, save you almost all the headache and it would sound so much better...

My guess is just hearing your mixes on different monitors in a different room will make a bigger difference than the console though.

-Dusty

Wow, it's great to have the oppurtunity to read the stuff of such producers/engineers. Nice repetoire there, especially artists like Miles Davis.

I'll offer my welcome but to be honest I'm new here so it feels wrong for me to do so, but I appreciate it

quote:

I'm just saying that the mixing console is probably pretty damn low on the reasons Faith Hill's album sounds better than yours.

Faith's ARE digital.

You can make your point that there are other factor all you want. You can't point me to a lot of great sounding digital mixes. Period. Until you can, you can't argue that people can do the same thing on a digital mixer.

Also...NONE of the above that I named are "in the box"...they're just digitally mixed. From TDM hardware to the Oxford--none of them are software mixers. That's another level of ass sound.

Yes, welcome, Bruce.

I signed up for his free online engineering course yesterday. Sounds very cool.

I don't follow who mixes on what... Doesn't matter to me.

My sister has that Faith Hill album... I have used it a lot as a reference CD, because I think it sounds outstanding.

How many professional records do you have that were mixed digitally? I think most artists with major budgets mix analog... If they mix digitally (generally a cheaper studio) then they were probably cutting corners from the very beginning...

And if they don't have a budget, the label must not have any faith in the artist...

I just think it goes a whole hell of a lot deeper than "they mixed it analog so it sounds good..." blah.

-Dusty

Welcome Bruce!

BTW, if you need anything let me know, I'll email Dan .

Hey Dusty, how the hell did you mature so much in so little time?

You've been making some outstanding points lately . ......really!

Thanks for the welcomes!

I agree that my "spewing" raises more questions than answers. I suppose that is because in trying to figure out some answers I can do no more than circle around the issue and try to understand it better...

..but my wife and daughter BOTH complain about how long-winded I am.

I thought about the question of if arrangement is more important than sounds. If all sounds are being judged against a "perfect" rendering of an instrument, then YES I believe the arrangement is more important. The arrangement can push sounds in ugly directions that will be more appropriate for the arrangement's illusion. For example, a nice warm jazz piano sound where you hear every nuance of the box perfectly would not fit into a rockabilly song as well as an upright.

...and I will come up with a good list of good sounding digital records.

-Bruce

Welcome Bruce and thanks for your input and.... online courses! Schweet! Count me in!

quote:

Originally posted by Madguitrst:

Hey Dusty, how the hell did you mature so much in so little time?

You've been making some outstanding points lately . ......really!

BOOT CAMP, BABY!!!!!!!!!
(Ok that was pretty shameless of me!)

Shameless my foot Ronan Since my return from your studio I haven't been blabbering here as much cause I decided I should shut up and make some records instead


Welcome Bruce and thanks for the article


I'd say more but I...uh...mix analog

Some stuff I do, I just wish I had my reel to reel back. And some stuff I do, I think, "I never had that clarity in the tape". I suppose it will always be a tough marriage....

Years ago I remember reading where a certain recording star (Lenny Kravitz, perhaps? insisted his engineer gently roll EVERYTHING above 14K off...when asked why, he replied, "because Stax and Chess couldn't record that high...and they sounded good." (paraphrased....)

In the same article, the engineer reported he was instructed to take a piece of electrical tape and cover the word "digital" in every piece of equipment he had at the time....

Kinda takes the wind out of the 96K debate, doesn't it? If one is going to EQ out everything above what even the lowly 44.1/24 can achieve, then what would be the point of capturing things at 42.5K?

Bit depth is far more important than sampling rate. HOwever, that said, remember that each one of those "samples" are simply that, a very quick sample the music. The samples are played end to end for a zipper effect music track. The higher the samples, the finer the teeth in the zipper. However the higher the bit rate, the more dynamic range can pass thru the zipper. (I had another way of expressing that but decided against it.)