I have been doing this for 2 years or more.

It ain’t easy!

But then I don’t find mixing easy anyway..

To improve the sound, I have a Cranesong Hedd device

http://www.cranesong.com/products/hedd/index.html

As an insert on my mix bus, (it's also an excellent converter so I use it while recording too...)

I believe it is easy to mess the sounds up with plug ins...

I would stick to the following

Sony eq
Bomb Factory compressors

As for reverb, a dual engine outboard reverb unit running i/o of PT via SPDIF or AES will be V USEFULL to keep the memory drain low on your rig, good reverb sounds are just emerging, but they take up so much memory power... Lexicon & TC make affordable dual engine units...

Last word, I think the idea that you can 'do it all with plug ins' has faded to leave a more realistic - "I better get it sounding good on the way in" vibe.

I also use an Imperical labs FATSO tape simulator, I use it while recording not at mixdown (but you could to help fatten up the sound)

So to recap re mixing in PT

Good points:
The recall is amazing
It's a 'hip system' popular with clients
No tape costs
My business is built around Pro tools (I have 2 x Mix + rigs) I love it.
The ability to hop from one 64 track song to another in less than a minute - AWSOME!

Bad points
I felt I had to spend an additional $6,000 on the Fatso + Hedd to get a 'near tape sound' that wont piss me off
The 'plug in honeymoon is over', there are only a handful out there that are actually very good.
Needed to buy outboard reverb to save on memory & to get the quality I needed. (Now there are some good reverb plugins on the market)
Computer crashes are kinda scary, the threat of data-loss is also. BACK UP!
Setting up the mix bus per project is a big PITA for me, so far I have been just TOO DUMB to figure out how to use templates.. Seem each project needs it's own set up..
I find PT mixing takes LONGER!

Still I love it as a system!

I :) PT

:)

As for finding mixed in PT releases you can go and buy.. I think you may struggle to find just what has been mixed and how..
Certainly the indie label / bands first releases world will have a higher percentage of 'all in PT' releases (that’s the field I am in) But I believe the majority of big budget projects with PT have to date - preferred to patch out to a big desk (usually SSL) and mix there.
Many have levelled accusations at the PT mixer as sounding 'thin' and lacking warmth. I don’t disagree, however, I have work to do and "get on with it" and apply all my previous engineering experience to find (or buy!) 'work arounds' (described above)
Personally I am hoping a new upgraded PT due out in a few months will address any lingering sound quality issues.
I remain committed to PT as a system and so far feel my investment in time learning how to make a record in a computer with it, has not been time wasted and is indeed, "the way of the future"
:)

I'm with Jules 100% on this one. I mix all in Pro Tools except I go out to varios gear cause I can get the "feel" I want. Reverb One is good along with the Bomb Factory comps. C4, L1, and McDSP stuff I find myself using as well. Good conversion is a must. I use Lucid clock with RME ADI 8 Pro. I also use the Control 24 to get that board feel. I love my Pro Tools. Good mics and good pre's a must for smoothing out digital cleanliness.
Typical preamp setup
I get excellent sounds from Avalon 737 VOX, Avalon U5 for Bass, HHB Classic 70 for Kick and snare, Neve 1272 for overheads, using the Focusrite Pres on the Control 24 for toms and works very well (perfect for toms but may get an API box soon) Grace Design (ultra clean) for tube guitar cabs.

I find that with good colored gear combinations and experimenting you can achieve any complete customizable sound you want out of your Pro Tools system.

Jules, you may know this one but close the session and "get info" on the session you want as a template or creat a new one, clike the little SAVE AS TEMPLATE and your done. I use it all the time and even though I may change it a little pre song, I find I have a standard setup I generally use. It is a timesaver sent from heaven. (Digidesign)

Hi Jules, how did you come to the 19 samples number? I am looking to put together a digital delay management system for outboard analog gear connected to ProTools via the d/a and a/d. It would have different outboard gear such as (1176,LA2a,Distressors,DBX,Neve,API,etc)you get the point. I actually got the idea from John Klett's website. I think its about time this is done. I am tired of shifting tracks visually or aurally to get them not to phase with the originals. I tried the sample anmounts that are in the ProTools manuals, but they don't always match.

We did it by 'eye' gradualy nudging (doing a mental 'count' at the same time) till it was in line with the rest of the drums.

Bus out (= delay)
Trip through & Back via Apogee (different than an 888/24 remember) (= delay)

I doubt you need to do a survey of delays via ALL the various outboard units as, once you get into hardware, the time it takes for signals to rock through them is measured in picco seconds I belive, in other words, very f quick! But it would be interesting to see if there is any difference between them I suppose! (I bet not!)

:)

Plug and send delay is the main thing that pisses me off about my Pro Tools setup. Eyeing things sucks and doing by ear works but a PITA.

I've read that a lot of people prefer to leave the master fader up really high and leave the individual tracks further down (opposite of an analog mixer). It seems to sound better for me, but i dont know if i completely trust my ears yet. I also agree in not using a lot of plug ins and getting your sounds going in. The last project i did had a total of 6 plugs on the whole thing and sounded great.

what are the pros and cons of PT mixing?

Now this... THIS... is the question of the millenium, as it were. This is the crux, the axis around which the digital vs. analog wars, as of the moment, revolve.

Leaving aside the sonic questions momentarily, I'd like to examine another aspect of the PT vs. SSL argument.

Do any of you PT guys feel that your rig can match a properly equipped analog studio from an ergonomic standpoint?

In the final analysis, I (as a working producer/engineer, like most of you) can only bill for the projects that I've completed. I don't exactly get to bill by the hour, and in the rare cases where I *do* get to bill by the hour, the client won't be calling me back if I take too many hours.... nome sayin'??

Ergo... a HUGE consideration for me when evaluating a mixdown situation is: HOW LONG will it take me in this environment to get the result that I, and/or my client, demands?

And I have to say: I HATE the 'tech geek' aspect of ProTools mixing. I HATE fiddling around with drum submixes to make latency go away. I HATE having to deal with mouse clicks and GUI's instead of physical knobs. I HATE making my head hurt with I/O routings and aux tracks just to patch up a stupid analog compressor on a stupid channel insert. I HATE worrying about what each gain change and plug-in instantiation might (or might not) be doing to my sound. I HATE it when my Mac crashes.

:D

Having said all that, I LOVE what non-linear recording has done for the creative process. I really, really do. But when mixdown time rolls around, it takes me 10x as long to come up with a workable result all in the 'Tools, compared to a hybrid approach where I use PT exclusively as a 'multitrack replacement', and do my mixing, EQ'ing, outboard processing etc. in the analog domain. I know, I know.... I give up 'recallability', and my rig takes up a LOT more space. But I don't care. This is the way I want to work, and frankly I don't think I can be as productive when working "all in the box", at least at the current state of the art.

Of course, as soon as the 'brain-to-ProTools' interface is available from Digidesign's Biotechnology division, this will all change. :D

Jules (or any other of you Alsihad jihadi's), you can't tell me that the PT/ProControl thing, as cool as it is, is REMOTELY as fast as working in an adequately equipped analog studio... sound quality aside.

Originally posted by EJolson:
Jules (or any other of you Alsihad jihadi's), you can't tell me that the PT/ProControl thing, as cool as it is, is REMOTELY as fast as working in an adequately equipped analog studio... sound quality aside.

Can't we???

I'd like to examine another aspect of the PT vs. SSL argument. Do any of you PT guys feel that your rig can match a properly equipped analog studio from an ergonomic standpoint?

I suppose it all depends on what you are doing and how you are doing it!

I write/produce music for TV/Film. Many of the projects I've been involved with have had between 50-75 individual music cues. The speed of total recall in PT and the fact that I run my visuals from PT too means that even though it takes longer to mix in PT, I'm still way ahead of the game in the time saving stakes.

Another point to bare in mind is that there used to be a set deliniation of tasks: You would compose the music first, then record it, then edit it, then mix/produce it and finally master it. After about 7 years with PT I've found that my method of creating music has evolved and that the deliniation between the tasks has become much more blurred. For example I'll usually mix and produce certain tracks in a mix before I've even finished writing the piece. The affects of this early production then influence the completion of the composing. In effect the mixing and production are now part of the composing process. So when it comes time to mix there is often only a little tweaking to be done to create a finished pre-master.

I know that the majority of PT users don't use PT like I do but even for those that don't write their own music PT is an integrated product that can blurr the lines between editing, mixing, production and pre-mastering. As far as the actual control surface is concerned, an SSL beats PT hands down, even with a ProControl. However, I don't believe the overall ergonomics of an analog system containing an SSL are better than a PT system.

Greg

Originally posted by EJolson:
Jules (or any other of you Alsihad jihadi's), you can't tell me that the PT/ProControl thing, as cool as it is, is REMOTELY as fast as working in an adequately equipped analog studio... sound quality aside.

Perhaps not as fast but I had all the eq and compression I needed on an 80 fader session (many stereo I might add) recently. That is a BIG DEAL in my tiny little set up. If I had the analog spend that my Procontrol cost there is no way I could have an 80 fader automated console. (correct me if I am wrong) = the small footprint of the PC is great!

With only 16 faders there were a few times where I was going slightly crazy trying to find stuff!!! (but not that often)

Banking through faders works fine overall.

My priorities:

1) Wheel em in wheel em out - assembly line operation
2) Low (no) tape costs
3) Hoping from one job to another (between spec & paid)
4) Trendy hip system with a good rep amonst musicians
5) absolute session recall
6) Low mainatanence
7) Sound quality sufficient to earn a living with.

PT suits those needs, ProControl helps further to not 'shut out the clients' they can grab a fader.

If PT sound quality, ease of operation and my skills on the PT platform are playing 'catch up' so be it! Bring it on! Onwards and upwards!

Make a list of what YOU need for studio survival and buy accordingly.

:)

I can fly on the control 24. It took a little time and always learning. The plugin control on the C24 is better than the Pro control for now. You'd think Digi would impliment more scribble strip for plugin tweak on the Pro control. I've chosen my weapon based on my needs.

My vicarious and trusty advice is not to mix on PT. It sucks. Get an external analog or perhaps digital mixer and you should hear well recorded material open up.

Borrow one to try out if you have to, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the difference.

Good luck :)

Many hope that the new PT system will improve 'mixing in PT'
Fingers crossed!

Several of the top mixers do it all on digital boards now...

:)

Pro Tools mixing would be alot easier with Plug In Controllers thru Ethernet.

Email me for Picts

Albums mixed in PT out there now in the big leagues:
Palo Alto/ Palo Alto (Rich Costey is the mixer I believe)(American Recordings rick rubin produced)
Rival Schools- United By Fate(Same)(Island records)
The Misfits- 13 Hits From Hell(Alan Douches is the mixer it was recorded about 20 some odd years ago and remixed by him should be out now on caroline records)
As well the Misfits new singles comp on Roadrunner the songs Steve Evetts mixed were done all in Pro Tools as well he mixed the new Skinlab on Century Media all in PT.
The latter 3 I think sound damn good and heaps above most of the stuff out today but definitly not in that Andy Wallace/Mark Trombino percentile.

My vicarious and trusty advice is not to mix on PT. It sucks. Get an external analog or perhaps digital mixer and you should hear well recorded material open up.

Sorry can't agree with this. I started off with analog and digital mixers. I switched to PT mixing as a step up in quality, not down. I had a SoundTracks desk, I used an O2R for a couple of years and I had a D8B for a while as well, none of them produced the audio quality I can get with PT. If you are talking about the high end, say a Neve analog desk or a Sony Oxford digital desk then yes, I agree, you will notice an improvement but you'll also notice a hole in your wallet that's a bit too serious for most of us!

I don't want to get back into a re-hash of the anaolg/digital debate. What I would say is that if what you are really after is that high quality analog sound then you are probably going to find yourself getting frustrated with ProTools or just about any digital system for that matter. The only way to really get that high quality analog sound is to use a high quality analog recording and mixing chain!

Greg

Steve Evetts is mixing in PT now? I used to love some of the stuff he's recorded (the recordings, not the music). I couldnt imagine mixing a big metal record all in PT. Just doesnt seem right.

Originally posted by Julian Standen:
We did it by 'eye' gradualy nudging (doing a mental 'count' at the same time) till it was in line with the rest of the drums.

:)

Try this:

-Bring the original bass drum track and the insert D/A - A/D looped bass drum track up on a fader each.

-Flip the phase on one of the tracks.

-Nudge the insert looped track forward (left) in time while listening. (Count how many samples you move). When they audibly cancel, you have your exact sample latency.

Regards,

Graham

Quote:-
---------------------------------------
I don't want to get back into a re-hash of the anaolg/digital debate. What I would say is that if what you are really after is that high quality analog sound then you are probably going to find yourself getting frustrated with ProTools or just about any digital system for that matter. The only way to really get that high quality analog sound is to use a high quality analog recording and mixing chain!
-----------------------------------------

I understand your angle, however I feel that given the opportunity and budgets aside, it could all sound a shed load better. I am curious to know that if the mentioned great sounding tracks had been mixed on an out board mixer would they have been even better. My bet is that any experienced engineer would be able to produce a MUCH better sounding track.

Yours respectfully

Gentlemen(and women),
Good info supplied here and much thanks...Could it be said that the PT rigs we're talking here are in fact the 'higher end' units and not the semi-pro home recordists based LE or 001 rigs? Just curious....... :)

Ha! I can see it now- you buy a couple of Bomb Factory 3 rackspace ethernet controllers, a rack of Waves controllers, a Metric Halo channel strip controller (that thing's gonna be six rack spaces, at least-maybe put some tubes in it), and one or two generic ones, stick them in a big rack... Hey, you could even get TT patchbay ethernet controllers!

BTW, email? You mean those guys with their faces painted blue? What's the shipping on them? Aren't they dangerous?

Originally posted by Produceher:
Pro Tools mixing would be alot easier with Plug In Controllers thru Ethernet.

Email me for Picts

Maybe, but speaking strictly digitally (ignoring the front end for a minute), the 001 software sounds better. 32 bit float vs. 24 fixed is why I think it does, but just listen. I know some mastering guys who keep Digi001 around to mix stems with for exactly that reason.

Originally posted by sonic dogg:
Gentlemen(and women),
Good info supplied here and much thanks...Could it be said that the PT rigs we're talking here are in fact the 'higher end' units and not the semi-pro home recordists based LE or 001 rigs? Just curious....... :)

You mix-in-ProStools guys should all go to Dangerousmusic.com and check out Chris Muth's excellent box for creating an analog mix bus from the individual outputs of a DAW. I have not personally used it, but several people tell me it sounds so much better than a digital mix bus.

All that seems like such a PITA a - working system that SOUNDS GOOD would be far better.
:)

Could it be said that the PT rigs we're talking here are in fact the 'higher end' units and not the semi-pro home recordists based LE or 001 rigs?

Both Jules and I are using minimum Mix 3 setups with: ProControl + fader pack, proper clocking, good or very good outboard gear, good mics, decent monitoring environments and quite a few years experience.

... the 001 software sounds better. 32 bit float vs. 24 fixed is why I think it does, but just listen.

Hi Jon, if you are talking about stock systems the 001 can sound better because of the Apogee converters in the Rosetta. The difference in resolution between 001 and TDM is 32bit float vs. 48bit fixed (not 24bit fixed). Not much in it but 48bit fixed has the slight edge, don't ask me to go into the maths to prove it though!

Greg

Interesting. I was told it was 24 bit fixed, although I have never bothered to corroborate it. When I've asked Digi reps about it, they've sort of shrugged it off as not very important.

Lots of people are misinformed, then- PT being '24 bit fixed and married to it because of the DSP cards' seems to be a common, if thin, thread in the complaint department.

And I was speaking strictly digitally- import and mix stems in 001 or mix, burn or otherwise export and compare through the same DA.

Originally posted by Greg Malcangi:

Greg

I didn't know Evetts mixed the Skinlab on PT. One thing I know is the band wasn't happy with his mix and took the album to be mixed by someone else!

We recently mixed a record of which half was done out of a Mix+ in a good Neve room and the other half was done in small lakeside cabin on a 001. The cabin final mixes that started out as pre-mix ideas over beers, ended up sounding better overall in the end. I think one of the biggest factors in the outcome, was the time we ended up spending per song. Having a relaxed setting with time to burn in terms of studio time(cost)allowed that extra day of perspective per song. Maybe the extra ear time helped off-set the material disadvantages.

"Maybe the extra ear time helped off-set the material disadvantages."

Exactamundo...

Now there ARE many ways to skin a cat but one aspect of the Neve room or SSL room 'big mixdown session' is the "Dear hunter syndrome' or "one shot" aspect of it. Now that can be a healthy challenge or a downright no-go, all depending on the material, vibe and mix person.

I enjoy the extra ear time that mixing in my own 'producer clubhouse' affords me.

It is also clear as a bell that some at the top of their game can mix a track come what may in a day and a half - just once. But often, behind the scenes, there are a team of engineers that spend a great deal of care prepping the material to be mixed in advance. With the huge charges levied for the work there is going to be some QUALITY delegation taking place!

Mixing 'all in a DAW" allows for extreme tweakage to be embarked on.

Whatever work best for you.

I 'painted myself in a corner' with a high track count production recently that I ended up dreading mixing. I was relived when another producer offered to mix it! (it turned out great!)

Bad points of the 'one shot' analog method are = high costs CAN lead to A&R / artist manager paranoia NEEDING to belive that the mixes are fine because they cost so much!

Bad points of the epic tweakage in PT or a DAW = endless tweakage CAN sometimes lead to fatigue and loss of the 'whole picture' and an elaborate unfocused MESS!

:)

Jeronimo are you positive about that caus eI was at the mastering session for that album and the band was there and they were evetts mixes.

i am growing to hate drum edit that digital systems can allow :)

anyway: the TDM bus is 24 bit fixed. so all the effects have their friggin' remainder's dropped after processing. this is bad.

interestingly, for all that it is a pain in the ass, paris [what i work on because it was cheap [$ 3,000 when i bought it, and 1,500 upgrade recently that i would have prefered not to make] has a 52 bit floating mix bus. it sounds GOOD. but it's not as stable as it could be...
how stable is PT for all yall, and how long does it take to learn to optimize yer system to make that stability happen?

however, as my ears have gotten better @ hearing A/D conversion i am getting more an more pissed about going out to my beautiful [small] collection of outboard, cause it kills the tone.

converters my friends: SO key.

--o

Hi Jon and Owen,

Lots of people are misinformed, then- PT being '24 bit fixed and married to it because of the DSP cards' seems to be a common, if thin, thread in the complaint department.

Absolutely true ... Lots of people are misinformed! The mix bus in PT creates a 48bit result rounded from a 56bit accumulator. 56bit being the resolution of the motorola chips on the DSP cards and all of these bits maybe used for summing and storing the mix bus. All internal processing in PT is at 48bit fixed, although this isn't always the case with plug ins, depending on the developer.

The issues you may have read or heard about from the DUC with regard to the mix bus or processing are due to the fact that Digi never published exactly how the internal workings of PT operates, so there was a lot of ignorance and erroneous speculation. After the two longest threads in DUC history, where Digi did go into the fine details, pretty much all the serious concerns have been laid to rest. Digi even developed and released free of charge a dithered mixer which addressed the concern about how you get the 48bit result back to 24bit. Digi did this even though we are talking about information in the -288dBFS to -144dBFS range, way below the noise floor. The only slight concern still left is that the data path to and from inserts is only 24bits wide.

how stable is PT for all yall

Stability is one of the great strengths of PT TDM. I installed PT 5.1 about a year ago; touch wood, in all that time I've yet to experience a crash or anything even resembling a crash.

Greg

Good LAWD... I take a week off from the forums and there are, like, 300 new msg's!!

"For God's sake, get a LIFE, would you, people... I mean for crying out loud, it's just a TV show!"

Haw! J/K! Anyway, back to the debate at hand.

Re: my above comments on 'ergonomics' and recallability... watch me eat crow. I am neck deep in jingle hell at the moment, working on 30 individual music cues for a particularly finicky client. As Greg M. alluded to above, the line between composition/tracking/mixing is no longer clearly delineated... especially in this case, where I have to do MIDI "mock-up's" of every cue BEFORE we hire the very expensive live musicians and singers to do the "real thing".

So for this project, I would complete a round of music concepts, send 'em off for approval, and then begin to replace MIDI tracks with "real" tracks on each cut as it was approved by the client. Because I was simultaneously tracking instruments on certain pieces and moving on towards "final mix mode", AND hammering out MIDI roughs on other pieces that still needed client approval... I found that I was leapfrogging back and forth between idea generation/composition, music tracking, and mixing... in some cases, multiple times per day!

To make things even more complicated, I've found that with all the client changes, I am mixing and re-mixing the same pieces of music 6 or 7 times in some cases! And since there is no 'instant PT recall' for me, this means patching in a bunch of outboard (by hand), re-setting all the knobs (by hand), trying to remember how I had my console levels set, auxes routed, etc. We're talking easily 30 mins to a full hour just to get set up for one of these stupid cues. Times 30 cuts. You do the math.

After this bloodbath is over, maybe it's time for me to drop the dough for a blown out "PT HD" rig with one o' them newfangled ProControls. I frankly woulda probably made the jump long ago, if it weren't for the hassles associated with interfacing PT to my beautiful outboard gear.

Hey Jules (and others), how do you feel about the round trip A/D/A conversion when going to and from analog outboard? I know you probably prefer to get things sounding right "on the way in"... and maybe I need to rethink my whole approach to tracking/mixing. I am so used to (...spoiled by?...) having the freedom to tweak sounds at the mix stage, depending on how an arrangement gels. The idea of committing to extreme processing "on the way in" is kinda scary... I mean, I compress the sh*t out of EVERYTHING when I mix. Yikes. Move over, Mister Lord-Alge.

Do you now apply the magic 19-sample time shift to all outboard-bound tracks?

Do you use your HEDD full time on the mix bus? Do you bus the 2-mix out to other gear too? I've got a HEDD and frankly never use it on 2-mix... by the time I get done squashing 2-mix thru my CraneSongs or Alan Smart, I've got all the 'saturation' I want. I'm sure mixing all in PT would change this scenario though.

Have you experimented with the "minimalist analog summing mixer" thing? e.g. Manley 16x2, Millennia Mixing Suite, or that new "Dangerous 2-Bus" thingie? Might make sense to go this way as I'd still wanna use my analog outboard on the 2-bus anyways.

Thoughts?

And by the way... ignoring for a moment the issues of interfacing "analog" outboard w/PT, what is gonna happen when interfacing DIGITAL outboard with the new PT? Will I be able to track at higher sample rates, but still interface with my older Lexicon/TC/Cranesong outboard at 44.1/48k? Or do I have to lower the overall sampling rate to the "lowest common denominator" of any given session? Hmmm...

Originally posted by EJolson:
Good LAWD... I take a week off from the forums and there are, like, 300 new msg's!!

"For God's sake, get a LIFE, would you, people... I mean for crying out loud, it's just a TV show!"

I feel your pain, EJ! I took 11 days off to go to Florida, and when I came back there were three pages of "yellow" threads in the producers/engineers/hardware section alone! Took me almost a week to catch up!

Do you now apply the magic 19-sample time shift to all outboard-bound tracks?

Yes, if I can remember or I am there, an outside engineer likes to do this much more than me (patching out to outboard from PT but it DOES work great for em) and I am not sure he & my assistant bother to do the delay minus offset trick.

Do you use your HEDD full time on the mix bus?

Presently yes = YUK! without it IMHO

Do you bus the 2-mix out to other gear too?

Rarely - if so - out to an SSL comp

I've got a HEDD and frankly never use it on 2-mix... by the time I get done squashing 2-mix thru my CraneSongs or Alan Smart, I've got all the 'saturation' I want. I'm sure mixing all in PT would change this scenario though.

YUP!

Have you experimented with the "minimalist analog summing mixer" thing? e.g. Manley 16x2, Millennia Mixing Suite, or that new "Dangerous 2-Bus" thingie?

No ! What a PITA that all seems.. it dosent fit in with my plans to move up to PTHD either... I am determined to try to get great mixes in a DAW !

:)

(cough!) I think older digital outboard will be OK ;)

Originally posted by owen muir:

how stable is PT for all yall, and how long does it take to learn to optimize yer system to make that stability happen?

I have a PT Mix Plus system running on a G4/400. I followed Digi's setup instructions and approved hardware lists to the letter. I've NEVER had a crash in over one year of solid, unforgiving useage. The system is phenomenal. For that reason alone, not to mention a myriad of others, it is worth every penny. Pro Tools overpriced? No fuckin' way.

Hi EJ,

Will I be able to track at higher sample rates, but still interface with my older Lexicon/TC/Cranesong outboard at 44.1/48k?

Yes. The 192 I/O has an SRC built in. Let's say that you set up a session at 96k, everything that goes into the 192 will be sampled (analog inputs) or resampled (digital inputs) so that even your 44.1k gear will match the 96k sample frequency of your session. Of course we won't know how good the SRC is at maintaining the audio quality until we get our hands on it.

Greg

The one thing about all-in-DAW production and mixing that seems to cause an avalanche of problems is procrastination of decision-making. When most of my work was done on an old Trident and 2" deck, I committed to my "sound" earlier in the process. Over the years, as I've worked more and more inside the PT environs, I've moved more towards a model of this--making things sound the way I want them to on the way IN. It's so easy to leave things undeccided--"well, I can try Filterbank and RenComp and see if they sound better than .. yadda-yadda.. It's a trap, and spawns excessive plug-in use, degradation of some apparently unquantifiable "goodness" in a mix and, a time-bog that can ruin the vibe of a mix regardless of whether it's in PT, or an SSL. Back when my medium was mostly analog, this was common procedure--you'd eq and compress to tape to avoid bringing up noise-floor by doing so in the mix. Now it seems to be a courageous act to commit to a sound on the way into a DAW.

People also complain that use of excessive plugins in an all PT mix somehow compromises the audio quality. I suppose it does, but haven't any of you ever heard an overprocessed analog mix, or overloaded an analog mix with outboard "plugins"? There seem to be no posts here about the degradation of mix-quality that can come from going in and out of a mile of lousy cable and patchbays to get to your favorite analog outboard, but these things do have a negative effect in accumulation.

Like Jules, I enjoy using "Plug-Outs" in my PT mixes: to oddball limiters, to digital and/or spring reverbs, and other unmimicable outboard gear. Most of the time, my reasons for going out of "the box" are to alter the sound significantly, and I usually find the slight degradation from the additional D/A-A/D stages to be less significant than the positive change made by the "Plug-Out" in question..

And Jules, someone previously added a tip for making session templates. They were slightly off. Make a naked PT session that has your cue-mixes and routing set up the way you like it, and tracks named and ready to go. Save it without recording any audio into it. Then, in the finder, "get Info" (cmd-I) and click on the "stationery pad" button therein. Then, when you open this session in PT it immediately gives you a choice of altering this file, or doing a "save as" procedure before you start. Very handy. . . . Mmmmm, templatey.....

-dave G.

"And Jules, someone previously added a tip for making session templates. They were slightly off. Make a naked PT session that has your cue-mixes and routing set up the way you like it, and tracks named and ready to go. Save it without recording any audio into it. Then, in the finder, "get Info" (cmd-I) and click on the "stationery pad" button therein. Then, when you open this session in PT it immediately gives you a choice of altering this file, or doing a "save as" procedure before you start. Very handy. . . . Mmmmm, templatey....."

It's just that , for me, each mix has SOOOO much custom tweakage routing etc that dragging / remnaming files into a template (I have done it several times BTW :) ) just seems like MORE work... I dunno.. geuss I am just too dumb or a mashochist or something..

Each mix is HAND CRAFTED!

:)