Quality of CW Mixers Vs. Nuendo 2.x Mixer

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:25 pm

That 'old school sound' has as much to do with good musicianship as anything....maybe the 'warmth' issue gets exaggerated in importance purely because, in these days of one-man computer bands, people forget about the benefits of true collaboration with real musicians, and that well-played music sounds good on an old 78 ????.....I dunno - I still love technology tho', but until I get that $5000 dollar preamp I'm afraid the editing toolbox is king

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 3:46 pm

On 2004-07-06 16:25, Plato wrote:
That 'old school sound' has as much to do with good musicianship as anything....

Why?

I listen to music these days that is very clinical in terms of construction (i.e. no live players, or the live players have all been edited and quantized to death). Taking contemporary "music" and pumping it through old school colouring -- does that have anything to do with good musicianship?

At the same time, when one wants to actually record good musicians, why muddy their sound with old school colouring?

Cheers,

Johann

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 6:17 pm

I think you misunderstand me.....I mean the sound people associate with good records made in the 60's & 70's is as much to do with musicianship etc.....
my point is, you can have all the expensive gear in the world, but if there ain't any vibe it's still gonna sound like a bag of cats.
Having said all that, I do love good sound quality, probably to the point of obsession.....the important thing is to strike the right balance - I am conciously trying to separate writing from production & mixing at the moment - trying to get into the right headspace for each - doing everything at once can be confusing and stressful......sorry, probably going completely OT here....I think I'm just generally into re-evaluating a load of stuff in my life ATM

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 8:36 pm

On 2004-07-06 19:17, Plato wrote:
I think you misunderstand me.....I mean the sound people associate with good records made in the 60's & 70's is as much to do with musicianship etc.....

Ah! Sorry I read your previous post a little too quickly...

the important thing is to strike the right balance - I am conciously trying to separate writing from production & mixing at the moment - trying to get into the right headspace for each - doing everything at once can be confusing and stressful......sorry, probably going completely OT here

No need to apologize, I'm not exactly innocent of steering this thread off-topic myself!

Taking a step back, especially when things become confusing and / or stressful, is often a great idea. Sometimes a really big step back is probably a good idea too. I've heard lots of bands who should really step back and re-write their songs! Not that they're bad musicians, or that their music isn't interesting. But when, for example, you try to squeeze dynamics out of a song that has none to begin with, well... Time to go back to the drawing board.

I am curious about what you see as the distinctions between various stages of "making a record".

(Personally I didn't ever believe that there were any distinctions -- until my po dunk little studio got complex enough that it became a nightmare for doing solo projects. Sometimes I really miss the days of jamming with a little Radio Shack tape recorder on the floor.

)

Ciao Plato,

Johann

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:20 pm

On 2004-07-06 14:28, blazesboylan wrote:
Yeah, vox are a pain. Everyone uses crappy mics to record their vocals. Rent a decent mic, for gob's sake. I don't get why anyone would use an SM58 for vox. (Ducking as the Shure firebrands come storming in.)

Well, I'm not a Shure Firebrand, but Peter Gabriel recorded his vox for the album "So" with an SM58. Being of the opinion that "So" is a great album and not at all recorded like sh*t (not orgasmically amazing either, but very solid) makes me remember that mics are just a heavily marketed item, and that there's plenty of stuff in the chain between the instrument and the hard drive. SM58's a fine mics if used advisedly.

Sam

Basic Pitch · Post by **Basic Pitch** » Tue Jul 06, 2004 10:34 pm

Wow guys,

Ya go out for a bit after work and come back to a full fledge conversation turning about

you guys sort of hijacked the thread a tad but thats ok, I pretty much got what I was looking for out of it.

As far as the ASIO goes, nope, no mystical work around for this, but I have to ask, what difference does it make how many ASIO channels Nuendo sucks up? thats the beauty of the CW cards, you can have as many ASIO channels as your mixer will permit, being that I have mix n' masters I can do full surround with the 48 series, that should be plenty I would guess.

I can see how it might be an annoyance due to DSP consumption and maybe causes the PCI buss to stress a bit, but I can not say for sure the effects of this since I have yet to test this under any stressfull situations.

One thing that didnt get covered though is the audio quality, alot of users from upon the Nuendo mixer, especially its EQs, now I wouldnt say the are horrid, but certainly not comparable to say cambridge or oxford EQs, so thats what leads me to the question still at large?

Is there any sonic differences between the STM series and the Nuendo mixer and EQs, I would assume mixer "no" but EQ "yes" due to it all just being math correct?

Cheers!

dehuszar · Post by **dehuszar** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 12:48 am

Have you used STM 16&48S Mixers in surround sound? I find them to be buggy, but most people don't use them and I haven't been able get feedback to see if it's just me.

If anyone who has experience with these mixers could please contact me so we can compare notes it'd mean a lot to me.

Sam

On 2004-07-06 23:34, Basic Pitch wrote:
Wow guys,
... you can have as many ASIO channels as your mixer will permit, being that I have mix n' masters I can do full surround with the 48 series, that should be plenty I would guess.

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:30 am

Peter Gabriel recorded his vox for the album "So" with an SM58

Certainly a respectable accomplishment. I've added "So" to my list of to-buy albums, along with a Sinatra (can't remember which one, I've got it written down somewhere) and a score of jazz albums that are apparently well-produced. Thanks Dehuszar!

As for the SM58 -- a really experienced "engineer" can do a lot with very little. Me, I'm not an experienced mixer, and the folks I know who have used Shures for tracking had even less experience. With a good mic it's much much easier to extract a decent sound. As you rightly point out, though, a good "engineer" can get a good sound out of anything. Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois made careers out of this "less is more" approach IMO.

I still think SM58s are crap though.

you can have as many ASIO channels as your mixer will permit

No, you can only have max 64 with SFP.

Yes, I plan on mixing an Oasis album some day...

(Retching in background.)

One thing that didnt get covered though is the audio quality

I think Tom / Astroman suggested a good way of trying it out. If you pester me I'll even do it for ya. Otherwise let us know what the results are Basic Pitch!

FWIW, I have fallen in love with the CW mixers and EQ. In spite of my background of hating plugins. I recently switched from using outboard EQ (not "expensive" mind you but very transparent) to using CW, because SFP's PEQ4 is so smooth. The outboard still sits on my desk, I just don't use it.

Oh and -- sorry for hijacking the thread. It wasn't deliberate, honest!

Have you used STM 16&48S Mixers in surround sound?

There are certain aspects of the surround mixers I don't particularly like, but generally they work well for me.

Incidentally, though, I'm using the 8 outputs as buses for MIDI automation (using only 2 MIDI cc's). I'm not doing surround work and I haven't tried turning on the LFE sub channel.

Cheers,

Johann

Plato · Post by **Plato** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 3:32 am

On 2004-07-06 21:36, blazesboylan wrote:
I am curious about what you see as the distinctions between various stages of "making a record".

Well, I've always done everything at once....writing, arranging, mixing etc has always been part of the same thing.....basically just making music, but I'm currently having a go at trying a different technique....my 'art' is not really reaping enough in terms of financial gain at the moment, so I've got a cold, calculated, cynical project on the go....trying to write some hits, and I think that sort of thing really benefits from a more 'traditional' approach.....get the song working first of all, with just a piano - no production - concentrate on the SONG - then work out what production techniques to use, then have a session or two purely on mixing.....I think has relevence across all genres - I'll keep you posted as to how successful it all is.....I just hope you can forgive me for selling out

Stige · Post by **Stige** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 4:12 am

I can't say there is a definite difference between cubase/nuendo mixer and SFP mixer. Both can sound good or crap, depending what you are feeding them.
But I did a phase cancellation test with cubase mixer and STM2448. They didn't cancel eachother 100%. That test indicated that SFP mixer gives a wee bit more dynamics. Though there is some time when I did it, so I can't be sure if it was properly done. I'll see if I have time to do it again..

firubbi · Post by **firubbi** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 6:16 am

SFP will sound better coz its gonna use its own DSP and nuendo will not.

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 8:41 am

On 2004-07-07 07:16, firubbi wrote:
SFP will sound better coz its gonna use its own DSP and nuendo will not.

that´s not true!
if you use good native plugins, you will have the same quality....
i´m using sonalksis plugins together with SIR and i´m shure, this quality is hard to top!

firubbi · Post by **firubbi** » Wed Jul 07, 2004 1:01 pm

does native is same as cw dsp!

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 7:36 am

scope is indispensable in my studio-setup due to the latency-free mixing and routiing environment! try to make a monitor mix with control-room and talkback during a real recording session... it´s simply not possible without scope or expensive hardware-stuff

final mixdown is another story....

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: AndreD on 2004-07-08 08:39 ]</font>

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Jul 08, 2004 11:29 am

and has far less realtime demands...
If you have that supa-finalizing-chartbreaker plugin noone would mind if it calculates an hour if the result is guaranteed to rule

There is no evidence that a program running on a Pentium or G4 CPU produces worse results than a DSP based.
It's a simple matter of statistics that the majority of native apps is programmed by, well, not the brightest minds exactly...

That doesn't mean that no gems exist - they are just more difficult to find under the amount of wannabes.
But one remains for shure: native apps aren't better due to a high clocked CPU - THAT has nothing to do with audio quality. If it's crap, it rains crap - however fast it's calculated

cheers, Tom

AndreD · Post by **AndreD** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 1:45 pm

On 2004-07-08 12:29, astroman wrote:
But one remains for shure: native apps aren't better due to a high clocked CPU - THAT has nothing to do with audio quality. If it's crap, it rains crap - however fast it's calculated

cheers, Tom

..but the number of possible realtime instances grows

(even for high quality plugs like sir, digitalfishphones or sonalksis)

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Fri Jul 09, 2004 2:41 pm

your statement is of course undeniable, but imho it's perceived a little different in public:

with a high powered CPU I can run a more demanding (=better) algorithm, hence my sound will be better...

statistically, because humans are lazy by nature, the opposite will be the case: the high powered CPU makes any sh*t run at decent speed, so the programmer 'can afford' to think fewer about the details of processing, regarding both physical background and software implementation.

but as said it depends on the work in each single case

cheers, Tom

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Sat Jul 10, 2004 1:36 am

Well I no longer feel guilty about hijacking poor Basic Pitch's thread. Everyone else is doing it too, so it must be OK.

trying to write some hits, and I think that sort of thing really benefits from a more 'traditional' approach.....get the song working first of all, with just a piano - no production - concentrate on the SONG - then work out what production techniques to use
.....I just hope you can forgive me for selling out

Well I've never tried to sell out, I don't really have anything to sell in the first place.

But writing a solid pop song must be durned hard work. I certainly envy people who have the patience to work at a song / bunch of songs for months on end. Usually, though, the people who take periodic breaks from a particular project produce more visceral material -- which is also important in a good pop song. So make sure ya get some sun!

And keep us posted, sounds like a challenging but fun undertaking.

OK I'm done hijacking the hijackers...

Johann