Surf.Whammy’s Treatise on DAW Mixing Boards

[Surf.Whammy]

BACKGROUND

Rollback the clock a few years, and I was using Digital Performer (MOTU) as my Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and NOTION for music notation to play VSTi virtual instruments hosted in Digital Performer. This was done in ReWire sessions where Digital Performer was the ReWire host controller and NOTION was the ReWire device.

Digital Performer was efficient for hosting VSTi virtual instruments, and NOTION was efficient for music notation and providing an intelligent Graphic User Interface (GUI) for composing with music notation, as it continues to be now that it is embedded in Fender Studio Pro 8.0.1, where the focus is on playing VSTI virtual instruments.

Then the Propeller Heads (now Reason Studios) stopped supporting ReWire, which years ago they developed jointly with Steinberg until they went separate ways, which left the Propeller Heads as the ReWire providers.

The other DAW applications stopped doing ReWire; and for me this was a dilemma until PreSonus had bought Notion Music and starting with PreSonus Studio One 5 had embedded NOTION in Studio One. It got better in Studio One 6; and it keeps getting better as Studio One 7 has evolved to Fender Studio Pro 8.0.1.

OBSERVATIONS

After I switched from Digital Performer to Studio One, I noticed a distinct difference in the way the consoles (a.k.a., “mixing boards”) sound,

To my ears, Digital Performer was smoother, mellower, and intolerant when there were a lot of VSTi virtual instrument tracks, plus even more VST effect plug-ins, while Studio One was crisper and very tolerant, where I am using “tolerant” to describe not needing to update or revisit the current mix just because I added another VSTi virtual instrument.

This is the way I describe and explain it; and it was and continues to be excellent to be able to add more VSTi virtual instruments without needing to do a complete remix with each additional instrument.

I adjust the mix as I listen to it more times, of course; but at an early point for most instruments, with Studio One (S1) and now Fender Studio Pro (FSP), it’s more of a “set it and forget it” activity, where for example when I have the kick drums and electric bass configured and sounding good, I do not need to tweak them constantly.

The key to this perspective is a matter of what conceptually I consider to be “mixing board headroom”.

Instead of constantly needing to adjust and manage mix headroom in S1 and FSP, (a) it’s tolerant and (b) adding more VSTi virtual instruments is handled graciously without requiring constant mix attention, which makes it easier and more intuitive to focus on the music rather than messing with computer stuff and DAW behaviors.

HYPOTHESIS

The hypothesis here is that in the same way there are distinct differences among physical consoles and mixing boards, I think there are differences in virtual consoles, mixing boards, and the ways they sound and behave in the digital music production universe.

Some of the differences might be subtle but not all of them are subtle.

There probably are aspects which are identical; but I do not think everything is identical when mixes are complex—blends of VSTi virtual instruments, real instruments, virtual vocalists, and real vocalists, especially when buses and “ducking” are used.

The Computer Science and Software Engineering perspectives make it unlikely that every DAW behaves identically, if only because everyone doing everything in exactly the same way would require entirely too many team meetings and voluntarily sharing what I suggest are proprietary technologies and algorithms.

There are generally accepted industry standards, of course; but as occurs with physical consoles and mixing boards, there are differences in the way things mix and sound.

Lots of FUN

 

[Gray Wolf]

I didn't read the entire post but I do have thoughts on DAW mixers in general. I have used a lot of analog and digital mixers in the past and for the most part, DAW mixers don't really measure up to good digital recording consoles... although they're certainly better than they used to be.

Don't confuse 'Digital Mixer' like a StudioLive or other similar offerings with a "Recording Console". Those are really two different classes of beasts. For example, I used a Macke d8B in the studio for years and while it's a relic now with a floppy drive, it's feature set still exceeds many current DAW mixers, and many users are still using them. It had high quality third party plug-ins, built in total automation of everything (no need for a DAW), and this was in the late 1990's, almost 30 years ago. But it was not cheap, it sold for $10k back then.

DAW mixers, by and large, were designed by people who never actually operated high end recording consoles. You can see that by the common design mistakes they mostly all made. You would think by now that that DAW mixers would on par with high end digital consoles given that it's all software 1's and 0's, but they're mostly not.

 

[John Vere]

The mixing console is one of the first things I check out when evaluating different Daw’s. I’ll load up a midi file add the instruments and go straight to the mixer.

You quickly find out if that Daw includes things that are important for your workflow.

You would be surprised how bad this can be in a lot of Daw’s. I think it’s especially bad in the ones that focus on new “Producers “ who only use loops. I guess a mixing board would be over their heads.
Cakewalks Next doesn’t even have one!
Waveform doesn’t have real buses? Folders?

Sonar, Cubase and Studio pro are my favourite choices due to the quality of the console view.

 

[Surf.Whammy]

This is an enlightening bit of information on physical consoles and some of the important characteristics.

In the same way IK Multimedia uses its proprietary technology and algorithms to create its “White 2A Leveling Amplifier” VST effect plug-in emulation of the 1950’s Pultec EQP-1A Tube Program Equalizer, I think Fender Studio Pro 8.0.1 has similar proprietary technologies and algorithms for its mixing board.

Whether it’s emulating a real console or mixing board is another matter; but however it’s done involves software engineering decisions, styles, and algorithms that are unique; hence my hypothesis that Ableton Live, Bitwig Studio (Bitwig GmbH), Cubase (Steinberg), Digital Performer (MOTU), Fender Studio Pro, FL Studio (Image-Line), Logic (Apple), Pro Tools (Avid), Reaper (Cockos), Reason (Reason Studios), and other Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) applications each have unique behaviors, characteristics, and sounds.

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[Ken Morgan]

DAW mixers, by and large, were designed by people who never actually operated high end recording consoles. You can see that by the common design mistakes they mostly all made. You would think by now that that DAW mixers would on par with high end digital consoles given that it's all software 1's and 0's, but they're mostly not.

Interesting point. And one that I've thought of putting on EVERY DAW 'features requests' since my first DAW back in the Stone Age

As I understand things, DAW mixers operate within the world of their host DAW. In my ideal world, this should be reversed. Using Studio Pro as an example (it's their page, right) the console should be the leading feature, not some addition.

Way back when Mackie was big time into this idea with dB8 (too bad they couldn't keep it working - I had one, and when it worked, was pretty dang good). Presonus then started integrating their consoles with their DAW and conceptually this was brilliant, application maybe not so much. Yes, I know this likely wont work for immersive or such things, but out of the million or so musical pieces completed every month (guesstimate) how many ATMOS, immersive, etc projects are required?

In my 'mind' a digital mixer could be completely virtual, in the box. I believe the technology has advanced that far, so perhaps its time to look at mixing inside a different box - one that is just a mixer, albeit an incredible one and stands alone, apart from the DAW tracks it is handling. Imagine if Neve, API, whoever would release a purely ITB standalone console with VST, AU, or AAX access.

Yes, I want my cake, frosted, with candles, and eat it too

 

[SwitchBack]

My hypothesis is that any ‘artificial’ mixing (analog console, digital console, DAW) is flawed when compared to natural mixing in air. Human ears evolved by listening to sounds mixing in air, which is a 3-dimensional medium capable of dissipating pockets of pressure in space. Man-made mixing is 1-dimensional and basically produces a straight sum. All a good mixer can do is hide that fact as well as it can.

In a traditional mixer there’s ‘before the mix buses’ and ‘after the mix buses’. Before the mix buses you have channel preamps, EQ/dynamics, level and panning. After the mix buses you have bus EQ/dynamics and output level. The mix buses themselves simply produce a straight sum of their inputs, no processing at all. Correlation factors between channels are completely ignored and the mixes don’t contain information whether peaks are legitimate single channel peaks or a sum of smaller peaks from multiple channels that just happened to coincide. Essentially a straight sum mix bus is throwing away information needed for a natural mix.

With digital mixing (consoles and DAWs) this problem has become more evident than with analog mixers, ironically because analog mixers are flawed by nature. Saturation, slew rate limitations and soft clipping do something in 1 dimension which vaguely resembles what air does in 3 dimensions. Digital summing is flawless and therefor lacks any natural touch. So many digital consoles feature ‘warm’ preamps. By taking the edge off at the inputs the mixing becomes easier because the most risky sound details are filtered out before they can clash in the mixing stages. But gone is gone, including potential good stuff. (NB. Use those warm preamps with a DAW and it will sound just as good as with that studio console). Clean ‘transparent’ preamps on the other hand leave all details in and you have to use channel processing to tame the mix. But at least you have a choice. Either way you have to reinvent the sound, accepting the inevitable loss of information.

So then I thought: S1/SP has this interesting Mix-FX option where you can change the behaviour of the mixer as a whole. So can we have an ‘In Air’ Mix-FX plugin for SP? Or even better, a ‘Royal Albert Hall’ Mix-FX plugin to name a famous concert hall, a plugin analysing all individual inputs in space and time for a ‘best seat’ experience? Vienna MIR Pro 3D can do it, so would it be possible to integrate that into SP? It would in one fell swoop replace 99% of the channel processing needed to make all those channels play nice together. Cool?

 

[John Vere]

A few above comments triggered a few comments of my own.

First as example I only used analog mixers exclusively up until about 1996 when Yamaha released the 01v digital mixer. I still have it and it still in pretty good shape. I never stopped using analog mixer’s because some gigs that was already in place. But boy did it feel like half my tools were missing.
Once you get familiar with a digital mixer you never go back. Analog mojo is mostly BS. That mojo is up on the stage.

Recording was still hardware based so my 01v got to mix a lot of albums. These were the Punk and Nervana days. But I also had a 10 piece R&B band as a client.
Only computer was an Atari playing midi and also automation of the 01v.

I kept using that system even after I had a PC and a copy of Sonar.
The latency in using the computer for audio was pretty bad back then and that didn’t change much until I bought a Tascam us1641.
I bought it because it allowed me to continue using the 01v for mixing.

It was probably 2014 when I started using just Sonar for mixing.
Buy then Sonar had the pro channel which was a game changer for me.
The 01v has processing on all channels and outputs and it has 2 SPX 90 processors as well.

The pro Channel made me feel more at home because of where it was on the signal path.

To this day my setup in a Daw more or less clones way set up with the 01v.

The biggest difference is that the O1V doesn’t have buses in a normal way. You can set up the 4 AUX and route them but they don’t have processing or dedicated faders.

Digital mixers have come a long way since the 01v and most of them use the same plugins used in Daw’s.

But to me as I said Sonar I think has the best mixer and next is Cubase and then SP8.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with SP8 mixer. I think it’s I seem to get what I want a tiny bit faster in the others. All that can change with experience for sure.

But I’d be interested to hear what you folks are finding that is missing.

Next topic was the comment about the air around the sound. This is totally happening to you because you are recording in a dead space or you are using samples that are lifeless.

A live recording in Albert Hall using good Mike placement etc will put the listener in Albert Hall.

You can take your lifeless recordings and run them through the best convulsion reverb and you might get a better results but it is very hard to duplicate real space artificially.

A huge mistake amateur engineers make is tossing different reverbs on each instrument!!

They are now all in very different “spaces “!
That’s about as unnatural as it gets. It’s a sound for sure but it’s not how you achieve that Albert Hall sound.
This is a big reason why all live recording in a studio is done in a treated space.
Amateur home studio recordings suffer bad sound quality before you even hit the red button.

 

[SwitchBack]

It wasn't about reverb but about mixing. Mixing 12 violins in a mixer is very different from 12 violins mixing in air.