7 Ways to Sum Up Your Mix - Part 1
Analog or Digital? There is no point debating which is better - both are great. We present to you yet another option to consider in your own time and on your own tracks. Let us know which one is your favourite!
Great music isn’t defined by great gear, nor by great technique, but by a combination of good ears, good taste and years of experience. In life, we learn by making mistakes and the same concept applies to music, whether it is production, recording, mixing or mastering – simply put, it is a universal truth.
‘Analog summing’ came about as a term quite late in the history of music recording. It was only after the so-called digital revolution, that we started hearing ‘analog summing’ coined as a term for what is essentially a very straight-forward process.
In a nutshell, summing implies the combination of audio signals into a single track be it mono, stereo or surround. Prior to the advent of digital recording, DAWs and plugins, summing meant combining the individual tracks in a mix and printing these onto the recording medium of choice as a single track. These days, we talk about stemming to individual audio files more than ‘tracks’. This is because times have changed and we now have access to unprecedented digital tools. And while the debate remains perhaps more alive than ever, whether we choose to sum our tracks in-the-box or through an analog unit, is simply a question of taste. The pros have shown us both approaches work just fine, having accumulated a collection of chart-topping records on both ends of the summing spectrum.
In this article, I want to give you yet another option for those of you curious about the process – in a two-part article, we present to you our Top 7 Analog Summing units which you can use on your own tracks, files or whatever you may wish to call them. Here are our first 3 choices:
Rupert Neve 5060
Herein lies the perfect marriage between analog and digital technology. Designed by Rupert Neve, the 5060 is a marvel of analog power and digital workflow – featuring 24 inputs coupled with a stereo bus output, flexible monitoring, DAW transport controls and a jog-wheel, the 5060 never ceases to impress.
Essentially bringing the sound of the classic 5088 console at your fingertips, this little desktop beast uses custom transformers and a class A mix buss alongside two very special controls – Texture and Silk. The first allows for a richer, more saturated sound commonly known as ‘that vintage sound’, while the latter reduces the negative feedback on the output transformer adding harmonic content as texture is increased. There are two variations of Silk – red – which accentuates the saturation in the mids and highs – and blue – which allows the saturation to be more focused on the lows and low mids.
Words are not enough to describe the vast sonic palette which can be achieved by using the 5060 – you simply have to try it on your own material. But while this is a modern-day unit, its price tag is fairly steep, coming in at just under $8000 for a brand new unit.
SSL Sigma Delta
What more can you want from a 2U magic box which gives you the full SSL signature sound, world-renowned British engineering, 16 individually switchable mono/stereo inputs, 2 mix busses, monitor control, talkback system, digitally-automated fully analog gain levels, DAW and iOS connectivity, all for a reasonable price on top of all the features?
Solid State Logic have been catering to professional recording studios for over 30 years. One of their flagship products we have seen across the board in both small and large scale studios is the Sigma Delta. Essentially a summing mixer, the Sigma packs a whole bag of extra features enticing even the most skeptic analog enthusiast to take one for a test-run.
The unit allows for additional processing in the analog world through clever use of inserts points and direct outputs – parallel compression or printing of stems can be achieved with ease, while also retaining SSL’s clever automated gain staging courtesy of its clever post-insert signal path design. While the unit has been designed to suit the needs of both large scale facilities and project studios, its price range might seem steep in the eyes of those who cannot yet justify spending upwards of $4500.
Studer 961
The year 1982 was a glorious one for music – the first ‘Eye of the Tiger’ guitar riff was presented to the world, the first CD player was sold in Japan, and a small company named Studer launched, amongst various other things, the 961/962 mixing desk series.
An ingeniously designed fully modular machine, the series was fully customizable – Studer made available a whopping 26 different configurations to suit every single recording need. Built like a tank, the 961 was used where pristine recordings of difficult acoustic ensembles were the goal. Favored by many location engineers in the classical world, the unit soon became popular as a high end tool for analog summing.
Featuring some of the rarest and most sought-after preamp and eq sections ever built, they are, by definition, extremely musical without the added coloration. Today, they are considered ‘boutique’ pieces for achieving clean analog sounds, boasting fantastic headroom, a solid bass coherence, open mids and a luxurious top end.
As they’ve been discontinued and with only a handful of units still in existence, these units can reach an upper price tag of around $10 000.