I've used the Emprical Labs Fatso to great satisfaction -some harmonic distortion, some compression, etc.

My thought is: Are these mixes predominantly sent to a Pro ME or are you doing most mastering in-house? If the former, and you're otherwise happy with your mixes ITB than I wouldn't be as concerned.

I think the benefits of doing a two track bounce-down ITB and then going to an outboard processor for those two tracks will be minimal. In your scenario, you are still summing in the box.

The benefits of analog mixing/summing don't come into play in my opinion until you do some summing of buses OTB. Once you start dealing with 8-16 buses being summed analog then taking that through a final processor you'll get much more of the effect you are looking for.

Incidentally, I've done the FATSO and Vari-Mu thing as both of you have described and wasn't blown away by it. I used to own both those units.

great replies. thank you. actually, the majority of the material is "mastered" in-house.. i'm quite confident of my ear, and my system,and especially my plug ins.. the only drawback is that i'm mastering my own material.. which isn't always good...

but, interesting about the summing issue, and i'm glad to hear from folks who have tried what i'm trying.. thank you.

i do have a friend who has (or maybe had, depending if he had to bring it back to his main studio/client) a Vari-Mu in his studio.. best thing would be to borrow it and see if i like what it does.

i'll look into the Fatso.. just out of curiosity, as i've never heard of it before.

You could get a passive Folcrom summing box for about $800. Might work great...Many folks seem to love it. I haven't heard it (so I can't really recommend it) but it's worth a looksee...

mckay

I have yet to hear benifit to summing outside the box myself. I've tried it but in my situation it seems to sound worse than doing it ITB, which really is the whole idea of DAW.

I think those who report significant improvment are using large format consoles or very high end summing solutions that actually impart a sonic signature to the audio.

When ADATs were popular I used to get a lot of people tell me, "I hated the sound of these things until I heard them at your studio ... and I would answer, "That's beacause all you've heard them through up to this point was a Mackie mixer. The MCI JH636 makes all the difference."

If I still had my MCI, I would be mixing through it, of course. But the whole idea of going DAW was to eliminate the expense of housing and maintaining the large console.

This is not exactly the same but I mixdown from my o2r/mackie hdr rig from the stereo out and patch into an Alan Smart c2 comp.Was such a massive improvement I then went out and got myself an apogee psx 100se for conversion,then I was happy with my sound for the first time in a while,the combination of those 2 peices of gear was an amazing improvment.The c2 just seems to hold everything together perfectly.Analog summing gear wont make immediate improvments as Kurt said.But the right piece of gear on the right track will always make an improvemet.The c2 was that for me,it is exceptional.I probably would have gone for the vari mu though if it were'nt $8000 here in Australia.I'm happy though and so are my clients.I say don't just think 1 piece of gear think of combinations.The Apogee I picked up on special new for $2500au was $7500 when first released.There are some great bargains to be had on superceeded or second hand gear.The psx in reality is probably just as good at conversion as a new rosetta,just no firewire though.

actually, i'm looking seriously at the new Neve Portico tape emulation box... getting massively good reviews..

might be exactly what i'm looking for....

I know this thread is old but, I've been on a similar quest lately!!! Doing lots of research so my answer is tentative but it's what i'm heavily leaning towards. This forum has some great info, even if some of the posts are dated.

I read great stuff about the Louder Than Liftoff Silver Bullet, which seems to be a "If I only get one analog processor" item for some people.

My route to hybrid also includes analog summing, then going into the Silver Bullet, then a bus compressor - but i've only purchased the D-Box so far.

My research has led me towards a hybrid setup utilizing analog summing from a D-Box then taking the summed signal through stereo analog processing. My wishlist for this post summed analog processing section is a Louder Than Liftoff Silver Bullet, then using the insert point through a VCA bus comp like SSL GBus, Serpent SB4001, Dramastic Obisdian, or maybe hitting the bus comp after the Silver Bullet.

*Take this opinion with a grain of salt as I have not been able to try using these pieces of hardware (my D-Box is to arrive tomorrow), just have done a lot of hours of research reading and listening online and asking more experienced friends for advice.

Please, anyone else have a magic box that gave them that Eureka i've HEARD it! experience?

Presuming your DA has enough channels to mix otb, just get a passive mix resistor array. Shouldn't cost an arm and a leg and it just might show you if it's worth proceeding.

These are especially handy if your DA has it's line outs on a D25, Tascam style. The resistor array can be had with a D25 connector and just plugs onto the DA.

If what you're hearing isn't what you expected, there's no use going further with analog summing, as you're looking for something else. Compression, EQ, messing with phase, whatever. It just isn't the summing.

And, yes, even this simplistic summing is affecting sound. Some people like it, some don't. A lot of people can't tell the difference. It's subtle.