Good bye Pro Tools. We were in love until you showed me your true colors. You never opened up to me and gave me your true secrets. This is why we cant be together anymore because all you do is throw shade. Limiting me to 32 outputs because I don’t have the hardware that you like. Why can’t I have as many outputs for what ever hardware I have. Don’t you love me for me?

All jokes aside. I have seriously stopped using Pro Tools 2018 as my everyday mixing driver. I have the privilege of owning the Zen tour and Orion 32 + from antelope audio that has given me the capability of having 96 inputs and outputs. Im really getting into outboard gear so I thought of limitless possibilities when I first hooked up both interfaces and made an audio aggregate. Then pro tools comes along to put a limit on my imagination. You can only have 32 inputs and outputs in PT. Now at first I was ok with that, until pro tools 2018 didn’t allow me to route audio past the number 32. So remember i said I have 96 IO with the zen tour and orion 32 together. I wanted to have 32 outputs in total amongst that 96. So If I wanted to use channel 55 and 56 pro tools didn’t pass audio to those channels. It only passed audio to 1 to 32. I was furious, at this point I wanted to force this to work. So I looked into getting pro tools unlimited, and guess what! You can have 64 IO…… if you own avid gear. Ive already invested in antelope gear pro tools due to the amazing ADC, DAC as well as FPGA based plugins. What is so special about avid gear? Lets wrap this point up by saying I don’t like companies in engineering who force engineers to stay in hole, not allowing appropriate interaction with other engineering groups. If pro tools opens up there limit to 3rd party interfaces to us more than 32 IO Ill be very happy to get rid of my rant. Now Im using reaper.

Pro Tools is my first love, but Reaper is my best friend who always has my back. Reapers flexibility is beyond wild. If you are a hardware junky, using inserts in reaper is possible on any sequence of channels. With my antelope gear I can route anything anywhere doesn’t matter what. Reapers editing is mature not as developed as pro tools, but you can live with it. Mixing is really cool once to get to the know the ins and outs of routing sends and outputs. Same for recording, once you take the time to learn how to use it, its second nature. Now the biggest thing that has annoyed me with reaper is buggy plugins. I have couple of plugins that misbehave in a session and reaper skips my audio playback when it encounters a problem. This makes it hard to bounce sessions. So I have to painfully find the plugin that is causing problems for the skips to stop. Overall I like reaper. Now this might be my imagination or it might not be, but reaper seems to have more of the 3 dimensional feel when mixing through it. In pro tools i had to work to get that same feeling.

Lastly I have not completely stopped using pro tools. I still use it for recordings, just cause I am faster In PT than reaper for recordings. I don’t mind using different tools for different things. Reaper is good for mixing and pro tools is good for recording and editing in my mind right now. So as an engineer what tools work best for you ?

Let us know

Hunter

Outbox Sound LLC

Summing boxes

Analog summing boxes are simple. They take many inputs and sum them into a mono or stereo output. The thing that’s cool about them is that this is summing on the voltage level. That’s what make it analog of course. The audio inputs are different voltages being combined to a summing bus. This summing bus will then be connected to the outputs. It is not more complicated than anything else in audio. Summing boxes can change the perception of your sound. Within summing boxes you could have different circuits that your audio signals goes through first before it hits the outputs. Hear me my fellow audio people! Let’s talk about this.

What is in a Passive Summing box

-Resistors (to Increase voltage drops, impedance matching)

-Capacitors ( stop Direct current(DC) from messing with your signal, coupling to ground)

-Transformers (Step up signals or step down signals)

-Diodes (rejects signals from harming your circuit)

Why does all of this matter, who really cares about this?

Ultimately there is a different between digital summing and analog summing. The concept is the same however, it’s just the processing is different. As mentioned before analog has voltages being manipulated. In fact the more components your signal runs through the more characteristics its has on the output side. You have voltages being manipulated and ultimately phasing being changed, especially if you have transformers or reactive circuits in you summing.

Now digital summing does not hold the same effects. Within your daw whether it be Pro Tools, Cubase, Studio One or any other you have to realize that it’s a computer program that calculates. When you put music in your daw it is a series of 1s and 0s that are governed by sample rates and clock timers. This Daw that we all use in the digital age is absolutely perfect. It makes it very easy to mix and record sessions right at home. With out the need of having too much outboard gear. However I do not see these daws emulating the true nature of summing and what it does to your mix.

What do you actually hear Sir Justin, what do you mean by changing my perception?

Welp. When you listen to our celebrities and the music they release. You love the sound, you can hear each instrument each vocal well balanced. We call it a 3D audio image here at OutBox Sound. This image is not just attained by using a Daw but these high end engineers mix through out board gear to help get that 3D imagery. The stereo width is also much wider and give you the sense of immersion. When you just mix in the Box (only in your Daw), it’s is a struggle to get perfect isolation. For example mixing lead vocals. You really want to keep that vocal at a good level over the instrumental. I have found that it is 10 time more difficult to do this in the box, cause you need more processing like ducking and compression. Mixing in the box has a very narrow sound, it also feels like the music is being strangled. It does not give the sense of depth or freedom.

Once again through some analog gear in the mix like a summing box and you can perceive that isolation and depth a lot better.

How can I use this summing idea ?

Ok I’m not telling you to go buy equipment that is thousands of dollars. In the link below is a DIY summing box that is only resistor based. Try that out. If you want more fun check out the other tools we at outbox sound use.

Cheap and fun DIY Summing Box $50

https://www.diyrecordingequipment.com/products/sb2-16x2-passive-summing-mixer

D-Box by Dangerous

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DBox

If you have the interface to handle summing I suggest trying it out for a couple of songs and just see what can happen. Your ear is the thing that you must trust not my words.

Also you can listen to our mixing examples on our audio page.

Thanks for reading

Justin Hunter of Outbox Sound

Pro Tools Vs Reaper

Sum That Ish!