PlanetZ forums - scopeusers.com

I'm not looking for a drastic difference or a Magic Box.

It definitely comes down to a lot of tracks for me. I'm
just looking for a no compromise solution that hasen't been hashed and dashed to fit onto an already taxed cpu. Quality first.

BTW When i mentioned mix quality in the first post, i wasn't talking about the art of mixing, I feel im alright with that in the digital realm, i am talking about before the mix process is even started. The best way i can explain it, pure sounding, untouched.


Just stm mixers would be fine. By the way is the pan law adjustable in scope and if it is what are the options as i wish to match these as well. No gain changes, just a straight run through. However I'm open to suggestions other than any coloring.(then again for pure curiosity i wouldn't mind hear a mix through one of the specialized mixes as well.)

PS. Ill be using hypersonic 2 and the plugsound collection for most of the production. I may or may not use Some wav samples. Ill et u know if i do.

ok, but i don't think the results will be that helpful, really. you want to know what the difference will be after adding effects. you want to hear the soundscape. unfortunately(or fortunately), you won't be able to hear that without doing a mix in scope.

I've worked on Mackie D8B and Spirit 328 digital desks. They did not sound the same (I'm talking about only working with the ADAT inputs only). The Spirit sounded closed and mushy compared to the Mackie.

Like Gary I'm not saying that the mixing engine is going to mix your records for you and make it sound pro. That's far from the case. However the resulting mix is still going to have the characteristics of the equipment or software you're mixing on. This is simply unavoidable as far as I can hear. Why that is I do not know, whether it's the resolution of the calculations, whether its integer or floating point maths, the headroom, sample-by-sample processing (and different approaches to it) compared to block-based processing in native systems... that's just a few from the top of my head.... as someone said earlier, there are a LOT of potential variables.

Anyway as I said earlier, you choose a sound that's right for your music and stand by it. You had every right to choose your system, and I have every right to choose mine. You mention world famous engineers like Paul Frindle but well, one of my favourite engineers, Russ Elevado, thinks pretty differently to Paul Frindle. Who's right and who's wrong? Who makes the better records? The answers to all these questions are subjective.

Just wanted to chime in a quick observation. There is a Behringer digital mixer which uses the same SHARC chips internally that our boards do. Even the summing in that box is nowhere near Scope, for whatever reason. This is before you start using eq & dynamics etc... Just a personal observation.

garyb wrote:Medway is wrong(imho), and the more tracks that are involved, the bigger the difference.

That's a myth, that more tracks start to show differences in summing. There is no difference. There's lots of niche DAWs that all claim the same thing, it's like a religion. I've heard the same talk for years now, and there's never any conclusive proof, because it doesn't exist.

darkrezin wrote:I've worked on Mackie D8B and Spirit 328 digital desks. They did not sound the same (I'm talking about only working with the ADAT inputs only). The Spirit sounded closed and mushy compared to the Mackie.

Like Gary I'm not saying that the mixing engine is going to mix your records for you and make it sound pro. That's far from the case. However the resulting mix is still going to have the characteristics of the equipment or software you're mixing on. This is simply unavoidable as far as I can hear. Why that is I do not know, whether it's the resolution of the calculations, whether its integer or floating point maths, the headroom, sample-by-sample processing (and different approaches to it) compared to block-based processing in native systems... that's just a few from the top of my head.... as someone said earlier, there are a LOT of potential variables.

Anyway as I said earlier, you choose a sound that's right for your music and stand by it. You had every right to choose your system, and I have every right to choose mine. You mention world famous engineers like Paul Frindle but well, one of my favourite engineers, Russ Elevado, thinks pretty differently to Paul Frindle. Who's right and who's wrong? Who makes the better records? The answers to all these questions are subjective.

I'm not suprised the two mixers would sound different. I assume you were using some processing other than just summing, as in their built in EQ/Compression etc... Those are older mixes are well, perhaps there were problems in the designs.

And I'm not debating that your sound will depend on the software. The issue was whether he could get as good as mix out of SX (assuming he's using the right plugins and techniques) compared to SCOPE. There is also the question of the summing itself which should not be considered a factor as there is not a difference.

I think too much concern is placed on the type of maths and whether or not something is running DSP or not these days. It's more about the design in my experience. Case in point the Oxford stuff is amazing and runs fine in Native because its designed correctly.

I mention Paul because he has an intimate knowledge of how both analog and digital systems work at a high level of performance. Russ is known for using analog but its the context that he uses it thats important here. I'm not going to say there is some analog hardware that will work better in certain situations over digital, that's not at debate here. I have seen quite a few guys who just make records, great ones at that, who's ears are fooled regarding their opinion about how digital works. Although this is music we're talking about sometimes it does take a cold analytical look at it to really discern what we think we hear and what we really do.

When you say Russ disagrees with Paul what exactly does he disagree with?

valis wrote:Just wanted to chime in a quick observation. There is a Behringer digital mixer which uses the same SHARC chips internally that our boards do. Even the summing in that box is nowhere near Scope, for whatever reason. This is before you start using eq & dynamics etc... Just a personal observation.

It probably wasn't summing. The problem with the "summing" debate is that in many cases what people are describing in hearing differences in sound does not relate to summing at all but some other factor. It's become a catch all phrase now.

If it was the summing then there was some flaw in its design that any current DAW would be superior to, not just SCOPE.

I didn't say he disagrees with Paul per se, it's more a belief that even a crappy Mackie mixer will make a mix sound better than an ITB mix. Something that I agree with after personal experience.

Just out of interest, what do you consider to be the 'right' plugins? I really doubt we'll ever agree but I'd happily try out whatever plugins you think are good.

Re: the Mackie/Spirit - no I was not doing a lot of EQ/dynamics. I'm talking about the definition, body and character of the sound, and it was different between the 2 mixers. You mention possible design issues - of course this is possible. But why the assumption that native mixing does not have the same potential for design problems? Is CPU power not a concern? Why do some apps take less CPU to mix tracks than others? Does this indicate that all the calculations used are the same?

medway wrote:It probably wasn't summing. The problem with the "summing" debate is that in many cases what people are describing in hearing differences in sound does not relate to summing at all but some other factor. It's become a catch all phrase now.

If it was the summing then there was some flaw in its design that any current DAW would be superior to, not just SCOPE.

Well, there's summing in the sense that 'all faders are nominal including master fader and we're doing phase inverted tests to see if it cancels' and then there's summing where one uses volume & pan and listens to the result. Having used that board a lot at the club and having to consistently adjust the mix because it sounds crap when the master fader is attenuated too much (people just keep pulling it down usually as volume goes up on the faders) I can say that scope seems to fare a lot better when the master fader of a mixer is driven hard and then pulled down to keep the output under clipping. Typically this is probably referred to as 'headroom' and then I don't know what for the final gain reduction... Eq and dynamics didn't play a part yet...

yes, the argument relating to all faders at 0 gain is a specious and bogus one. NO ONE MIXES WITOUT EQ, EFFECTS, PAN AND GAIN CHANGES. there is a big difference in sound between the stm2448, the stm1632, the big mixer, etc. why not between apps? of course there's more than just "summing" involved, the whole process is bundled as "summing". i stand by my earlier assertions.

valis wrote:] I can say that scope seems to fare a lot better when the master fader of a mixer is driven hard and then pulled down to keep the output under clipping.

Valis, I agree completly on that point....

I even think that scope mixes are not too much affected by an overdriven channel, while in Cubase I had some strange effects:

channels have distortions although the channel level meter is showing me that the levels are okay...
in some cases the sound of a complete mix completly muted because one channels clipping. I don`t know why....
I read somewhere that floating point mixing works a bit different and a single strip cannot be overdriven unless the master fader is set up correctly.

maybe it has to do with the fact that scope mixers work with fixed point and cubase or other DAWs use floating point and work a bit different....

Scope handles the channel strips more like an analog pult, if one strip is clipping the complete mix still sounds good.

And even if you drive the master mixer fader into distortion (over headroom) the result is still good.
In Cubase, I get crackles and other strange results...

The scope implementation is just more correct if you compare to a real analog pult.

darkrezin wrote:I didn't say he disagrees with Paul per se, it's more a belief that even a crappy Mackie mixer will make a mix sound better than an ITB mix. Something that I agree with after personal experience.

Just out of interest, what do you consider to be the 'right' plugins? I really doubt we'll ever agree but I'd happily try out whatever plugins you think are good.

I don't agree with the crappy mixer beats ITB at all. My eyes and ears opened when I took a mix I had done in Logic 5.51 and sent out 24 streams into a Neve 9098i console and then into some TubeTech compression.. I expected a huge difference. Turns out the Logic one was more open and overall fit the vibe better of the track. Granted I wasn't used to the studio or console at the time but I would have expected it to beat the pants off stock Logic eq and Creamware compressor.

A long time ago I would have agreed though with the Mackie statement. I say this because around 2000 era I was getting into ITB for the first time. It was a struggle to get mixes that sounded as good as tracks from complete beginners using Mackie desks.

Digital deffinatly forced me to hone my mixing skills way beyond what I had achieved with analog consoles.

At this point I will say that analog gear can have a nice tone to it that is either hard to or impossible to achieve yet with plugins.

But for overall clarity, width, and power ITB is fine. It's basically just a bit cleaner sounding than the all analog solutions.

In my line of work, electronic dance music, ITB can actually be an advantage. For sheer deep clear bass it can't be beat.

Its' really now down to a personal choice and what suits the mix, but there is no overall "better" mixing medium at this stage.

As far as right plugins I've already mentioned the Sony stuff, thats all first class.
Vinco is great for 2 buss, its saved some of my ITB mixes in the past. The sonalksis stuff doest the job for both EQ and compression. For color I like some of the Nomad stuff, even though its got a bad rep. URS can be ok as well. AirEQ does great stuff on low end. Recently I've been checking out Electri-Q as well.

Fact is I know guys making mixes just using the stock SX eqs that do the job.
But I will say the above mentioned plugins do make the job easier. For me compression is where it gets tougher and that is one area I've gone back to analog, although its the lowly Alesis 3630 (great for dance pumping).

The biggest problem I see when I get tracks to master is overuse of limiting and plugins like VintageWarmer. Other than that its just bad mixing technique.

darkrezin wrote:Re: the Mackie/Spirit - no I was not doing a lot of EQ/dynamics. I'm talking about the definition, body and character of the sound, and it was different between the 2 mixers. You mention possible design issues - of course this is possible. But why the assumption that native mixing does not have the same potential for design problems? Is CPU power not a concern? Why do some apps take less CPU to mix tracks than others? Does this indicate that all the calculations used are the same?

It does have the same potential. I just haven't measured any noticeable difference in all the years I've been studying this.

valis wrote:

medway wrote:It probably wasn't summing. The problem with the "summing" debate is that in many cases what people are describing in hearing differences in sound does not relate to summing at all but some other factor. It's become a catch all phrase now.

If it was the summing then there was some flaw in its design that any current DAW would be superior to, not just SCOPE.

Well, there's summing in the sense that 'all faders are nominal including master fader and we're doing phase inverted tests to see if it cancels' and then there's summing where one uses volume & pan and listens to the result. Having used that board a lot at the club and having to consistently adjust the mix because it sounds crap when the master fader is attenuated too much (people just keep pulling it down usually as volume goes up on the faders) I can say that scope seems to fare a lot better when the master fader of a mixer is driven hard and then pulled down to keep the output under clipping. Typically this is probably referred to as 'headroom' and then I don't know what for the final gain reduction... Eq and dynamics didn't play a part yet...

In digital there is no "driven hard". It's either clipping or its not. And all DAW's just flat top the waveform.

And time again people have compared mixes with volumes and panning and the result is complete null.

Its possible what you are hearing is the converters. Remember 0dbVU is about -18dbFS. So hitting near 0dbFS is really pushing the analog component of the mixer and this is probably where people are noticing changes in sound.

hifiboom wrote:

valis wrote:] I can say that scope seems to fare a lot better when the master fader of a mixer is driven hard and then pulled down to keep the output under clipping.

Valis, I agree completly on that point....

I even think that scope mixes are not too much affected by an overdriven channel, while in Cubase I had some strange effects:

channels have distortions although the channel level meter is showing me that the levels are okay...
in some cases the sound of a complete mix completly muted because one channels clipping. I don`t know why....
I read somewhere that floating point mixing works a bit different and a single strip cannot be overdriven unless the master fader is set up correctly.

maybe it has to do with the fact that scope mixers work with fixed point and cubase or other DAWs use floating point and work a bit different....

Scope handles the channel strips more like an analog pult, if one strip is clipping the complete mix still sounds good.

And even if you drive the master mixer fader into distortion (over headroom) the result is still good.
In Cubase, I get crackles and other strange results...

The scope implementation is just more correct if you compare to a real analog pult.

The Scope mixers differ in how they handle clipping at the channel level. Ijust did a quick test of this and noted the Micro and ST1632 will not clip on the channel level even when raising th fader. The Micro will though if you add gain via the trim. The ST2448 will clip at the channel level with just fader gain, the level shows up in the trim area. This is a little odd though.

Not sure what problems you are having in SX, I've never encountered those. SX will not clip anywhere except the master unless you have a fixed point plugin somewhere in the signal. If you're abit more methodical about checking out how SX is behaving maybe you'll come across the problem.

I'll tell you though that SX does nothing weird as long as you understand the basics of its signal structure.

medway wrote: In digital there is no "driven hard". It's either clipping or its not. And all DAW's just flat top the waveform.

And time again people have compared mixes with volumes and panning and the result is complete null.

Its possible what you are hearing is the converters. Remember 0dbVU is about -18dbFS. So hitting near 0dbFS is really pushing the analog component of the mixer and this is probably where people are noticing changes in sound.

Now this isn't true (about no 'driven hard'--I'm *not* referring to clipping the individual channels here). There is something called maximizing your available headroom. Regardless of where you're mixing, if you pull the master fader down to account for a high level of volume on your tracks you're going to get a different result than if you attenuate each track and leave the master fader up. This is at least my experience, and again this has nothing to do with clipping really. And in regards to pushing the analog component, I do have 2 outboard mixers that I occasionally use for this and it is NOT what I refer to here (although the same thing applies tbh, one should strive to keep the master fader fairly nominal and make gain adjustments track by track).

In the digital realm it differs slightly whether you're dealing with floating point or fixed point math, but in either case there are definate reasons for this. Perhaps tom or someone has the brainpower to go further on this point. Especially in the case of floating point (there was a discussion on this a while back).

I can't even believe this discussion is still going. Medway you're definitely entitled to your belief in this matter. If I cared enough about convincing you I would do a test, but really it doesn't matter at all I have nothing more to add except what I've written already. *Of course* it's going to be subjective if 2 different sound characteristics are better or worse. We simply cannot help what we 'like hearing' or find pleasing/natural to listen to. If I like something better than something else, I'll say "it's better".

darkrezin wrote:I can't even believe this discussion is still going. Medway you're definitely entitled to your belief in this matter. If I cared enough about convincing you I would do a test, but really it doesn't matter at all I have nothing more to add except what I've written already. *Of course* it's going to be subjective if 2 different sound characteristics are better or worse. We simply cannot help what we 'like hearing' or find pleasing/natural to listen to. If I like something better than something else, I'll say "it's better".

What I'm saying is that there is no sound difference in DAW's summing capabilties so there's nothing to be subjective about. There's never been a test to prove this, only claims of "I hear it".

valis wrote:

medway wrote: In digital there is no "driven hard". It's either clipping or its not. And all DAW's just flat top the waveform.

And time again people have compared mixes with volumes and panning and the result is complete null.

Its possible what you are hearing is the converters. Remember 0dbVU is about -18dbFS. So hitting near 0dbFS is really pushing the analog component of the mixer and this is probably where people are noticing changes in sound.

Now this isn't true (about no 'driven hard'--I'm *not* referring to clipping the individual channels here). There is something called maximizing your available headroom. Regardless of where you're mixing, if you pull the master fader down to account for a high level of volume on your tracks you're going to get a different result than if you attenuate each track and leave the master fader up. This is at least my experience, and again this has nothing to do with clipping really. And in regards to pushing the analog component, I do have 2 outboard mixers that I occasionally use for this and it is NOT what I refer to here (although the same thing applies tbh, one should strive to keep the master fader fairly nominal and make gain adjustments track by track).

In the digital realm it differs slightly whether you're dealing with floating point or fixed point math, but in either case there are definate reasons for this. Perhaps tom or someone has the brainpower to go further on this point. Especially in the case of floating point (there was a discussion on this a while back).

It's been proved many times there is no difference in raising/lowering the master fader as opposed to single channels. And the floating vs integer debate has no weight either (assuming you're not clipping integer signal paths).