Mixed Signature Routing Made Easy

Mixed signature routing

[Music] [Music] hey everyone this is Brian from provisions through years and today I want to make a video about analog summing through an analog board some of the methods I have showed in the past have been using stems or sending an entire mix or to track through a board for summing this video I'm going to send an entire session track-by-track through and this isn't a method that I normally use but it's one I want to show it's different than anything I've showed before and I picked this method up from yad nivo who is a famous mixer um he's worked with Pet Shop Boys and artists like that through the years he's um also famous working with waves he has several plugins that he's helped develop with waves several that I do use one of them today that you'll see is the nls the nonlinear summer that he helped develop an action as a model of his Neve console in his studio that is actually modeled to this plug-in so anyway I just wanted to give it a little intro to this video so you guys knew what it was what I was trying to do here this is a method again that I that I don't normally an employ but I watched the master class with yo ad recently and was so intrigued with what he was showing I wanted to share with you guys and show you guys another way to work outside of what I normally show again I want people to understand there's more than one way to mix there's not any real one way to say if you want to get a great mix you have to do it like this as a matter of fact I would say if that's your thinking then you're already defeated you should be understanding that the more flexible you are in your ability to work in a studio the better you can be at it because there's no one way that's going to work every time there's always a style of music there is a method of choice something was recorded there may be a certain effect you're going for that if you do it just if you only know one way to do it you've limited yourself to the to the sort of the ways that you can produce things so this is a method that I want to show you guys and um I'm I'll be back here again to the video to close it out all right let's dive in and see what we can get going here all right so here we are inside of Pro Tools I have a song that I wrote a couple years ago and the reason why I'm using it today because it's a large session or larger session than what I normally would encounter when that with what I record here in the studio with bands this has got um a more elaborate arrangement multiple multiple guitars multiple percussion choir is a a larger orchestral piece it's going to start it from the top give you guys an idea of what we're doing and all of this stuff right now all these tracks are there you can see there's no probably any plugins on there other than the virtual instruments and there are things running into a submix and then that's it there's really no processing so here's here's the soul [Music] you [Music] and then later on down here let's see then the drums come in right here [Music] and so on and so forth anyway so all right the idea of yo adne Vosges um analog summing through his console is because he has a Neve console that as a matter of fact he has an e 5116 console so it's a great console he's done some unbelievably successful mixes on that console so it makes sense that he would do his mix even if it's in the box and then when he's done he runs these tracks through his board how I normally do that is I will mix in the box and then I won't get my stems and I will stem out and stereo pairs um like on tracks 1 & 2 will be my drums tracks 3 & 4 will be my basis lower instruments 5 & 6 would be my guitars 7 & 8 would probably be my lead guitars 9 & 10 would be my sense 11 and 12 would be my vocals maybe 13 14 would be my effects depending on how I'm the saw was mixed that's basically how I do it when I watched his master class I was it was very interesting what he did is where he takes his session and then he routes each track through his board on in just track sequence so I could show it better than I can explain it on my board I'm just going to use tracks 1 through 12 in stereo pairs so I'm using 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 and 11 12 each as a stereo pair so first track the go 1 2 second track go 3 4 5 6 seven eight nine ten and then I'm going to stop at eleven twelve ah stop at eleven twelve I'm going to start over again one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve and again stop and then with the next track you would start over again at at one two that track is muted so I'm going to ignore that one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve again stopping at eleven twelve now on on his board he had 42 channels so he was able to go up much higher before he had to start over again so he wasn't sending as many tracks to each stereo Peretz I have to because I don't have a 42 channel board I've got a twenty two channel board all right so I'm starting over again one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve again stopping there and then start it over again one two three four five six seven eight nine ten and then that you would stop there you don't you don't send your of submix through here all right then what you would do is on your all the tracks you just sent for the purposes of this video I'm going to select them all I'm going to on their sit on the send I'm going to send them all to the sub mix with unity gain so I'll be able to I'll be able to give you the board mix as it's some through the console and I'll be able to give you the in the Box mix a B and back and forth alright so anyway the idea is is um you got your stereo pairs let's do it like this I'll introduce each one as it comes through the board [Music] all right there we go all of the EQs are set flat all I'm doing is analog summing I'm sending all the digital tracks through the console to get that circuitry that is not in the software it only can be imparted onto my audio tracks by running each audio signal through my board again because of unlimited to the tracks that I have here um I'm not use I'm having to start over sooner than what was on this other video that I watched I could use 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 but um I've got you know my mic and WAN and then these are Caesar stereo I don't want to get into all that so I just figured it would just be a great way to show you guys that are at home you may not even have 12 tracks you can still do it even if you only got four tracks available to you you can ping-pong you can bounce back and forth between 1 2 3 4 and send your mix up that way normally the way I work is I would take all of my like instruments like all my acoustics I would put them on 4 & 5 you know all my synth instruments would go on a stereo pair all of my bass instruments would go on stick and I would do it that way sort of in stems this is another way to work I just thought it Baird showing you guys that method I what I'm going to do now is I'm going to bounce back and forth between the UM the the board mix and the in the box mix matter of fact I'm going to start off with in the box [Music] all right here is the mix through the console [Music] bored mix I'm sorry in the box [Music] bored mix [Music] in the box [Music] consult [Music] in the box [Music] consult in the box also once again you [Music] in the box [Music] console [Music] all right there you go um that is really a night and day I mean you really can't compare the two the openness the depth the machine to polish the punch everything is there when it's some through that when you run the checks to the board to get that insert to get that analog warmth on it um it almost sounds like there is a blanket over top of the mix in the box and again before I did this in the box it sounded good to me I was like ah man cool I got a good starting point running it through the board like this again I'm not doing anything eq's are flat everything set at unity not there's no boosting there's nothing that's being done on the console other than running audio through it so it's it really is a again I'm not trying to say that you have to go out and get analog console I'm just trying to show you guys the pros and cons to analog you know working on an old gear there's there's been a question that was asked of me recently about recalling mixes through your analog console ok if you were to use yo a divos method of analog summing which is basically he's just passing you're doing all your mixing in the box and at the very end you're just passing audio through you're really not mixing on the console you're just using this as a summing engine then you would not need studio recall you would not need to know where all your EQ is are now that may sound like a waste of a lot of really good of Sapphire asymmetric EQ it and it is I mean to be this is an awesome EQ that's on this board and I'm not really utilizing that right now but the point is this is that if that is a reason why you wouldn't buy this board this is a way you could use this board and get a great great quality get that sound craft analog sound without having to go and recall your sessions every time you can get this board a calibrated properly to where each track is giving you the same thing on the same level running through it and basically you do your mixing in the Box put your EQ your compressions everything you want in your mix on the tracks and then you just pass those through like the way I set it up right here and if you don't like this method you don't think it makes any sense to you I can understand that when I first saw the video I was like well I don't know if that'll work then when I came into the studio and I actually did it this way I was like wow that really does open up the mix it really I can hear the difference um and I don't have to do a lot of EQ in' on the board I'm actually able to get straight to in a print a stereo some again the other way I would do it is I would use my like tracks and I would send them all to stereo pairs and then I would do some EQ right now I wouldn't really want an EQ because I've got multiple tracks going into a stereo pair that aren't like instruments so an EQ curve that I may put on the low end to benefit my kick may boost the low end on my clarinet which I don't want or whatever else I had sent there let's see one two uh so I got my Cathedral right here that may not be bad but I'm sure at some point there's an instance where I've got um yes until my strings I got staccato strings also going through stereo pair one two which wouldn't necessarily be something I would want to boost the low end on so um I hope this makes sense again um I'm not trying to say that this is how you have to work I have made in the past where I've showed how to analog some through stems a whole set in a whole session through the board so this is like a third way that you can analog some I did want to show you guys one more thing and I'm not showing you this to make you go out want to buy the plugin I just wanted to show the up the plugin that um would allow you to sort of do this in the box this is the NLS plug-in by waves this is modeled off of yaadon Evo's um Neve board this also has an SSL on it would be this one and um I think what is Mike Lowell got uh Mike uses of the EMI TGI one two three four five he has a mark 4 and spikes cut to 4000 G SSL so anyway you've got three different consoles that you could use um and at that point [Music] you could mix through if if you didn't have an analog console you can go out and purchase the nls channel from wavez and you could use this as your analog summer obviously you're in the box but you can still analog some with you know with a modeled console Steven slate has a very similar product that he uses through up slate digital so you could look that route if you're into that kind of thing or you could stay completely in the box and not worry about anything like this this does not have to be done this does not make your mixes any better this is just a taste thing if you're looking for a certain style or certain taste to your mix this would be something that you might consider of implementing into your next session alright so that's basically a an analogue some through a a console let me know if you guys have any questions or comments in the comment section below this video you can email me BB uck a 2 2 at gmail.com you can also go to my website provision studios.com you can click on the contact tab and a formal co-op that you could actually fill out and I'll get a message let me know that you've sent me a message and I can communicate with you that way either way I just want you to know that I'm looking to help out any way I can if there's something you saw here today that you don't understand or there's something you saw here today that you want a further explanation on reach out to me I will certainly get back to you as soon as I can until then I'll talk to you guys and you have a great day bye bye [Music] [Music]