The Fender elves appear to be working (a guess)

[Ken Morgan]

What if...the DAW mixer could be bypassed completely, and mixing relied on a 3rd party (or host DAW) system that was in essence a 16/24 track fully automation capable summing unit with hardware already built in? Not digital emulations, but actual analog circuitry.

Think SE III or other digital mixer operating independently of SP, running its own plug in sets. Doable?

 

[SwitchBack]

What if...the DAW mixer could be bypassed completely, and mixing relied on a 3rd party (or host DAW) system that was in essence a 16/24 track fully automation capable summing unit with hardware already built in? Not digital emulations, but actual analog circuitry.

Think SE III or other digital mixer operating independently of SP, running its own plug in sets. Doable?

How much room would you have for such an 'analog mixer with all analog channel strip components built in'? Remember that the desk not only needs enough room inside for all those analog modules but also enough surface area to harbour all the knobs and buttons of those modules, on every channel and output. This is why the big analog studio's of the 60's and 70's were quite literally big too, because of the cubic feet of gear they carried. It's a romantic thought to build something like that from the bottom up today (some do!), but I predict that it would require an extension to the house too

 

[Ken Morgan]

This is exactly the scenario I was referring to above...basically all that's needed at desktop would be faders and an assignable control knob and a 'channel select' button...with all of the remaining circuitry in a 2-3 space rack tucked away neatly off to the side (Ala McDSP, SSL, old Orion and other forward thinking developers from 25-30 yrs ago.

At his point Im sure I either haven't explained my thoughts clearly, or they are so (backwards/advanced, pick one) as to be outside the realm of conceivable.

 

[SwitchBack]

You know that for a permanent analog 24 channel setup you need 24 units of everything, right? With VSTs you can use as many instances of the plugin as you like at once, but analog requires a separate unit for every position you want to use it. You'll need way more than 2-3 rack spaces.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Really? I never would have guessed

(Insert eye roll here)

I’ll say this one more time: the McDSP is a single space unit with 16 analog compressors, 16 analog EQs…it most certainly is NOT 16 or 32 rack spaces