7 Ways to Sum Up Your Mix - Part 2

Thermionic Culture Fat Bustard MKII 

Thermionic Culture have always been about boutique gear, presenting their products in a unique light matching their units’ individual sonic feel and vibe. The Fat Bustard is no exception – firstly, it is a passive, all-valve summing mixer; if this doesn’t give you a good enough indication of its sound, add to that some special Thermionic sauce in the form a custom-built ‘varislope’ low and top EQ curve and you have the perfect recipe for analog sweetness. 

Let’s get down and dirty – common sense dictates that passive units generally tend to sound cleaner than most active circuitry model. However, this bad boy packs a punch in the valves it uses: a pair of 5965 for the actual summing and a pair of 6SN7 on the output stage. Together, these give the Fat Bustard a very large amount of headroom and a unique smooth sounding response.  

Surprisingly, for a classic valve design, this Bustard comes with a signal-to-noise ratio of 100dBA which means it allows you to drive its inputs to taste – up to +26dBu – making it an ideal candidate for loud material, rock & roll and the likes. Adding to its character, the engineers at Thermionic added an ‘Attitude’ control which adds 2nd order harmonics ranging from creamy in the lower knob range, all the way up to brutal towards the highest positions. ‘Stereo spread’ is also a very useful setting as it allows you to choose the amount of stereo wideness above a set frequency [I urge you to try this in pure analog domain – but don’t take my word, compare it to a plugin for yourself]. What’s more, in true Thermionic tradition, an interesting knob – ‘Bass to Centre’ – allows 2 different low frequency ranges to be summed to mono for a more focused and punchy mix.  

If you’re thinking of getting one of these MKII Bustards for your own studio, you should know that they don’t come cheap, retailing just under the $6500. 

Neve 8816  

Hopefully you are all familiar with the classic 80 series the company produces in Burnley, England. The 8816 is no exception – hand built and hand wired, the unit features 16 input channels, four monitor sources, a post-insert mix function used for stemming or for blending external effects, a USB-compliant connector to be used with Mix Recall and a tone of other features hidden behind it’s simplistic layout. 

There isn’t much point going into the details of the front and back panel as there are already multiple online reviews and product descriptions and also because most of you will hopefully try the unit remotely via The Audio Hunt. 

What’s more important is the 8816’s sound. Essentially, this is a stripped down version of the Neve 80 Series consoles [minus the preamp section – which Neve can provide as a separate rack of 1081R’s]. The unit sounds absolutely stunning – ‘fabulous and sublime’, in the words of Hugh Robjohns from Sound on Sound magazine. Featuring the same transformers found on any 80 Series desk, along with two custom built Carnhill transformers for the master buss, the Neve 8816 manages to spit out big, open and punchy mixes heard on many popular records these days. 

The added ‘Stereo Width’ control means the unit can be used in both mixing and mastering scenarios and, in the hands of a skilled engineers, can produce pure silk from a quality recording bringing it to the next level and raising the bar for many industry professionals. For those of you curious to experience the power of the world renowned 80 Series sound, we highly recommend getting your hands on one of these blue marvels.

Dangerous Music 2-BUS 

In 1999 digital recording was still in its infancy; despite the introduction of DAWs and plugins, there was a niche in the market for portable analog recording kit. The need was successfully addressed by a small company named Dangerous Music who may have sparked a revolution in the design of rack-mountable summing boxes through the launch of their ‘2-Bus’ unit. 

The 2-Bus was one of the first tools made available to engineers who wanted to bridge the gap between digital and analog audio equipment in the recording studio, adding to the idea of using a ‘hybrid’ system. The active summing mixer’s 16 inputs are cleverly combined through custom built circuitry to deliver punch, detail and clarity to a mix. Ever since its introduction, the 2-Bus has and continues to impress the ears of professionals worldwide with its sonic performance and ease of use in the studio. What it did wasn’t unheard of at that time but, perhaps above all, it did it in a pleasingly musical way. It’s spatial details and impressive headroom makes the 2-Bus worthy of its name, as it delivers its dangerously analog sound to audiences across the board. 

Its newest version, the 2-Bus+ features a selection of new features – harmonics, an odd & even harmonic distortion generator; a hard-hitting FET limiter named Paralimit; and X-Former, a pair of Cinemag output transformers with their own core-overdrive circuit.   

SPL MixDream  

Last but not least, the SPL MixDream is a modern-built 16-channel summing mixer based on the latest in analog signal processing component and newly-designed circuitry offering high-end analog summing for the digital audio workstation.  

What is essentially a discrete class A unit running on a 60-volt rail, the unit manages to achieve a –97dBu noise floor with 125dB of dynamic level, meaning it can easily compete with some of the best consoles in terms of sonic performance. What’s more, the SPL is a very musical box and its controls also add to the versatility of the MixDream. Featuring SPL's sought-after stereo expander, capable of achieving great separation between each element in the mix without the added digital artefacts that plugins can impart, this box is ideal for adding a sense of depth and space to your mixes.  

The 'expansion' switch is a very nice addition to the unit, adding even more width and depth for those mixes that require it [whenever processing via The Audio Hunt, we encourage you to ask for 'with' and 'without' expansion versions of your tracks]. Finally, the peak limiter SPL have built into the unit allows your mixes to compete with commercial releases, being capable of squeezing up to an extra 6dB of level, while still retaining the track's original character – the result will vary depending on the material fed through but it is definitely a setting you should experiment with. 

Well then - Analog or Digital? 

This concludes our selection of 7 Analog Summing Units you should try on your mixes – we encourage each and every one of you to at least try some of these and decide in your own time and on your own terms which type of summing you prefer – analog or digital. What we can tell you with certainty is that both are great ways to finish up a mix, provided they are carried out with care by a skilful engineer – ears over gears chaps.. Always!