Prosound News - April 2008 - (Page 30)

[30] Bob Daspit says plug-ins from Sonnox (the successor to the Sony Oxford line of plugs) have been critical to his in-the-box methodology. “I use them constantly, on every mix, basically,” he says. “I use the EQ on everything; the Reverb gets on every song, and the Limiter on the 2-bus. I’m using the Inflator more now, and playing with the new SuprEsser.” Though he owns a Digidesign Command|8 control surface, Daspit admits that it too is in the box—the cardboard box it came in—as often as it is in use. For both tracking and mixing, he says, in the box is “the way I work and really the only solution, I think, for most regular working people these days. I work in a fairly small room and couldn’t fit a console in here anyway.” With plug-ins, says Blake, “there are things you can do that you could never do on a piece of analog gear, but then there’s some that come pretty close to some [outboard gear] I like. They generally try to make plug-ins transparent, to do their function and be transparent otherwise. I always bought outboard gear to be just the opposite, to be character-fulsounding. That’s where plug-ins, to me, fall a bit short, but they’re starting to do it. URS is doing it: You get their Console Strip Pro and have no compression on it but can select the type of line input that you have, the type of compressor you’re going through, the type of EQ, the type of band—it’s an amazing plug-in. The signal will change just by putting it through the thing. “I use all the URS stuff extensively,” Blake adds. “The Steve Massey plug-ins are fantastic. The McDSP ML4000 is stunning to me—you could never get that in the analog world. I love the Eventide Omnipressor. SansAmp, that’s a great plugin. There’s a lot of good stuff.” Like many engineers, Special tends to use the corresponding software version of his favored outboard equipment. “But,” he says, “there are a couple of pieces that are unique to plug-ins that I really like. The TC Time Blender plug-in is quite nice. The Space Designer reverb in Logic is really nice.” One persistent criticism of mixing in the box involves esoteric discussions of spatial imaging and the DAW’s perceived shortcomings in the creation of mixes favorably described as “open” and “wide,” and in which front-to-back depth is or isn’t attained. But according to the professionals surveyed for this article, this is more myth than reality. “I don’t hear it,” says Blake, who recalls A/B testing with various summing amps, several years ago. “I’ve done that here with my Pro Tools|HD. There’s a difference, but I couldn’t tell you which is better or worse, it’s just different.” In working with Gabriel, Blake explains, “I did a day in my studio to do the arrangement, got the mix to a certain point, which sounded pretty good, and then brought it [to Real World]. I’ve broken it out into the SSL [console], and, to be honest, I think it was sounding better at my studio. I’m not A/B’ing it, although I have gone to my rough mix, and I’m not noticing any spatial difference. I’m not saying it’s not different, but that’s something I don’t hear.” “As far as a straight mix having frontto-back depth,” says Special, “I’m not even sure I know what that means, and I’ve read tons of articles about it. I get it, you put more reverb on it and it sounds farther away, but to me, going from that to saying that when two sounds are summed in the box versus two sounds summed outside, that’s somehow going to sound wider or narrower, or farther away or closer, that doesn’t resonate with me at all. It either sounds good or bad, or it’s working or it’s not. I certainly admire the work of all the guys who mix on consoles, but I think it’s more about them than the tool.” “It’s funny how finicky people are getting with this stuff,” Blake adds. “You sit and flip the switch 10 times to try to figure out what the difference is! For me, if you have to switch it more than a couple of times, the difference is absolutely meaningless in the real world.” “Different” is also Special’s description of the DAW versus console. “You must look at mixing in the box, [as] opposed to conventional mixing, the same way you look at film versus video. Techniques that work for one medium do not work in the other. I find that I must take a great deal of care not to overload the master fader on a DAW. I also find that you must actually listen to the plug-ins and not just go and set up the 1176 plug-in the same way that you set up your analog outboard version. The controls react differently— use your ears. I also think that mixing in the box gets a bad name because a lot of people that say they don’t like it have only done it a couple times; like anything, it (continued on page 82) The Box Wins? T by Christopher Walsh he debate is becoming as familiar as the analog-versus-digital argument: mixing “in the box,” as opposed to working in a traditional environment based around a large-format console. Though many audio professionals have long lamented the many causes and conditions that created a contemporary landscape in which music is mixed in an office, a bedroom or on a bus, many are also resigned to what feels like an unstoppable force. Economic and other factors aside, however, many of today’s audio professionals actually prefer to work “in the box,” with or without a tactile interface for their digital audio workstation of choice. The increasing stability and resolution of DAW platforms, and ever-expanding plug-in options, have naturally encouraged this migration to in-the-box mixing. Like today’s millions of hobbyist and semi-professional recordists, many top engineers and producers are working entirely within a DAW, foregoing the large-format console and even traditional studio environment in favor of homebased setups. “I think that mixing—and recording, for that matter—will all be ‘in the box’ in the future,” says engineer Paul Special. “It always had great promise, the technology just had to catch up to where it became more reliable. The DAW systems, host computers and plug-ins just get more stable and powerful every day. As I plug-ins say to most engineers I run into, ‘You can learn how to mix in the box now or later, you choose.’ Also, records are made differently now than years ago. Current budgets from labels and the growing trend of self- and/or management-financed projects have made it such that you have to be very cost-conscious. Not having to rent a ‘traditional’ studio makes it so that I can work within those budgets and still make a living.” “Budgets are shrinking,” agrees U.K.based, Grammy-winning engineer Tchad Blake, speaking from Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios. “For a lot of the bands that I want to work with, being able to use a studio like this one isn’t feasible. And where I live, there wasn’t anything else around that could serve as a mix room for me, so I thought I’d put together my own.” Blake’s Pro Tools|HD rig includes a 16fader Digidesign ICON D-Control worksurface. “The ICON seemed to really fit what I needed in every way,” he says. “It doesn’t heat up, it doesn’t eat a lot of power and maintenance is low. Its footprint in the studio is pretty minimal for how much you get in there: I can still do a 130-track session on this little desk!” Also encouraging the transition to working fully in the box is the mind-boggling variety of available plug-ins, both those emulating classic outboard equipment and new software that manipulates sound in ways its hardware-based predecessors could not. Producer/composer psn April 2008 http://www.cranesong.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Prosound News - April 2008

Prosound News - April 2008 Sound Business Contents Sound Retail Mojo’s Working at NY Noise Studio Showcase: Jungle Room Studios Software Tech Tracks Sessions Nomad Takes Root TCB at NYC’s JSM SoundScreen White Space Turning Gray Audio for Video and Broadcast Field Reports:Sony PCM-D50 Linear PCM Recorder; Holophone H4 SuperMINI Surround Microphone Sound Innovations: Earthworks Audio PianoMic System Frozen Liquid Live Sound Showcase: Jill Scott Centerstage Soundcheck Sound People View From the Top Product Spotlight Advertiser Index Company Index Classifieds Music, Etc.

Prosound News - April 2008

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