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this is a summing test i did to see if summing off a board was better then daw summing. These mixes are both identical mixes. One was subbed at unity gain with identical panning and used internal makeup gain of a dm24 digital mixer no pan pots were touched and perfect level matching the other was summed in pro tools le that is backtogether1. Backtogether2 trys to put the dm24 at a disadvantage to the daw. It’s mixed at 16 bit 44.1 at unity gain and used the 001 pres for the makeup gain "aka" took the 20 db pads off and level matched with the master fader. Who would ever want to stick an entire mix through crappy digi pres? I dont know, but can you tell which is the daw mix and which is the dm24 mix? And which mix is better? Again all levels were 100 percent equal and the songs overall volume are within 1 db of tolerance. Any diffrence in the tracks is do just to summing. Check it out for yourself. http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/?aid=2997/singles

Please note these mixes are 100 percent dry no eq verb compression nothing 100 percent dry and zero automation.

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doulos21 Fri, 08/06/2004 - 03:37

not really cause i used the analog ins and outs of the board. Possibly converters, but again i went back in on the same converters so if anything it would give the mixer a disadvantage cause its an extra coversion a d a vs a d. Basicly i ouputed 8 outs to 8 ins of a digital mixer took the stereo analog out back into the 001. The only diffrence here is one is summed off of a board vs summed in the daw So this is not the same as a summing test between daws. I am going to get ahold of a mackie and do the same test with it so it will be truely analog summing all the way but finding the time and hauling my gear up to a place to do this is an issue. Shouldn't be to long though and i really am pretty sure the results will be about the same.

Guest Fri, 08/06/2004 - 07:48

doulos21 wrote: not really cause i used the analog ins and outs of the board.

The Tascam is still going to use digital summing internally, though. You're really comparing one type of digital summing vs. another type of digital summing, with some extra ad/da conversions thrown in on one of them. I don't think that there's any analog summing going on there at all.

Not that the test won't reveal any information at all, but I don't think that the resulting information will quite indicate what you might think it does.

doulos21 Fri, 08/06/2004 - 14:14

the test was to show that summing in the pc and stand alone summing had different results and taking the direct outs of a pc card and mixing it outside of the box has a different result Even if all you use it for is summing making everying even at unity gain same pan positions etc. with crappy makeup gain. I said this before and I'll say it again i will get a crappy mackie board and test this to make sure what i say is correct, but don’t be supprised when the results come back the same. Ive worked on mackies as well as many digital boards and still feel that summing to them makes a difference in the mix vs mixing in the box when using host dependent software" Aka uses the computers pc to mix." I'm not arguing that the dm24 is using software to mix this, but I'm saying It's not really digital summing vs digital summing test cause the tascam has the extra conversion against it. In a fair digital vs digital test obviously the a to d conversions would have to be the same. The tascam is mixing this through software, but the point is there is something changing the sound of the mix in the summing process when mixing in my daw vs mixing outside of the box using a 001 with pro tools le. I can’t say this for other daws cause i don’t own them and cant test them. and since it is software it could even be a version issue for all i know. I'll find out more as i continue my tests. Grant You it doesn’t surprise me that a $2,200 digital mixer could mix things better then a $800 sound card, but the next tests will be more equal based this is getting interesting fast.

anonymous Sat, 08/07/2004 - 12:26

One issue I see here is that summing isn't normally done in the sound card when using Pro Tools LE. It is software summing within the computer and the soundcard wouldn't make a difference. I believe that PT LE is using 32 bit float internal resolution as opposed to a TDM system's 48 bit fixed resolution. Although, it is interesting how different digital mixers can come up with different mixes (panning laws excluded). I suppose it is all in how that the math is applied (rounding errors maybe?).
-Erik