simonsez
Well-known member
Is it normal practices to saturated the mix bus, especially when mixing rock music?
Regards,
Simon
Regards,
Simon
MIX BUS SATURATION
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Even when using slow average responding VU meters I also included peak LEDs to indicate bus clipping.
While I can only speak from the hardware design perspective. There is no accounting for how mix engineers may operate even properly designed gear.
Evidence suggests that modern mix engineers are less averse to clipping now than in the past, but there may be some push back from quality conscious customers. If not there should be. IMO
JR
Even when using slow average responding VU meters I also included peak LEDs to indicate bus clipping.
While I can only speak from the hardware design perspective. There is no accounting for how mix engineers may operate even properly designed gear.
Evidence suggests that modern mix engineers are less averse to clipping now than in the past, but there may be some push back from quality conscious customers. If not there should be. IMO
JR
Does saturation necessarily mean hard clipping?
Saturation for a bipolar transistor IIRC means that the collector voltage is closer to the emitter voltage than the base voltage. This means that the base collector junction is now reversed and forward biased. I vaguely recall some classic definitions for saturation that involves the ratio of base current to collector current, but I find the voltage definition wholly adequate.
So technically you could a saturate a fraction of a volt before hard clipping, but I don't find that difference audibly significant.
While this saturation definition applies to a simple single common emitter stage, for a more complex active solid state devices the mechanism is similar.
Overload characteristics can be more gradual for other mediums. Tape saturation is not as abrupt, and tube paths become progressively less linear before stopping hard against a rail.
JR
So technically you could a saturate a fraction of a volt before hard clipping, but I don't find that difference audibly significant.
While this saturation definition applies to a simple single common emitter stage, for a more complex active solid state devices the mechanism is similar.
Overload characteristics can be more gradual for other mediums. Tape saturation is not as abrupt, and tube paths become progressively less linear before stopping hard against a rail.
JR
What a great subjective question (at least for me)
I think it depends on the gear being used
I have driven and API console hard and it sounded good. I have driven a Mackie console hard and well...not so good.
For me there's a point at which I can hear the detrimental effects of driving the mix bus. There's a certain harshness to the program from the distortion that's happening, and I don't mean the hard clipping distortion sound.
You can probably set up 2 different mixes and hear it for yourself. Do one with the mix bus pushed then go back and reset the gain structure so it's not pushing and has headroom for the dynamic content.
I have a feeling that you will like the non pushed mix better in the long run. There will be more depth and punchiness (is that a word?) to it.
Just my 2¢
Dave
I think it depends on the gear being used
I have driven and API console hard and it sounded good. I have driven a Mackie console hard and well...not so good.
For me there's a point at which I can hear the detrimental effects of driving the mix bus. There's a certain harshness to the program from the distortion that's happening, and I don't mean the hard clipping distortion sound.
You can probably set up 2 different mixes and hear it for yourself. Do one with the mix bus pushed then go back and reset the gain structure so it's not pushing and has headroom for the dynamic content.
I have a feeling that you will like the non pushed mix better in the long run. There will be more depth and punchiness (is that a word?) to it.
Just my 2¢
Dave
SSLtech
Well-known member
John, this gets my goat a little...
People don't actually mean 'saturation'... what they mean is 'driving it hard'... -And there are as many different answers as there are engineers.
In the mid-1980s I was making a living mixing rock music on SSL E-series boards (the G-series evolution was still a few years in the future) and nobody felt the need to push the level until the meters were 'reading the maker's name'...
But fast forward to nowadays, and I hear instructors in school telling kids that 'the way to get that 1980's rock sound is to mix on an SSL and push it HARD...
There's an awful lot of bullsh*t being spouted, and many of the people who talk it simply do not have the experience to judge... but of course, "on the internet nobody can hear you mix a band", and it's much harder to judge the actual ABILITY (or knowledge, or wisdom) of someone who tells you how it was.
Truth be told, until the 1990s, I simply didn't use outboard preamps. -Neither did any of my colleagues. We didn't 'bake' the stereo buss either. Nor did we agonize over what compressor to use. -We either used what was in the rack or we moved the mic, or got the singer to help out with decent technique...
And we didn't go looking for 'that analog sound' either. -Matter of fact, we didn't want the tape machine to give us ANY sound... we wanted it to act like a short piece of straight wire, with 'storage'.
But that's not how the internet wisdom says it was, oh no. -Apparently you can't make a good sounding record without an armory of mic preamps... a panoply of compressors, an arsenal of equalizers, and analog tape -or some manner of simulator- is pretty much essential, because nobody wants it to come out sounding like it went in...
...and apparently, people always used to 'push the bus' until it glowed.
Can't say I've ever mixed on an API, although I've recorded some particularly enjoyable albums by some extremely well known acts on them. -I never felt the need to push anything. Not even the mic pres. -And I always thought that people who 'drove' SSL buses 'hard' were idiots. -I don't hear anything better compared to running them at sensible levels.
Some people will disagree with me. -Possibly quite a few.
Whether they -or I- actually know what we're talking about, I'll leave for the reader to decide.
But from my viewpoint, the idea would be laughable, if it weren't depressing that so many people seem to think it necessary.
To address the original question: "Is it normal practice....?" -For some people yes. -But I think they're mainly idiots.
People don't actually mean 'saturation'... what they mean is 'driving it hard'... -And there are as many different answers as there are engineers.
In the mid-1980s I was making a living mixing rock music on SSL E-series boards (the G-series evolution was still a few years in the future) and nobody felt the need to push the level until the meters were 'reading the maker's name'...
But fast forward to nowadays, and I hear instructors in school telling kids that 'the way to get that 1980's rock sound is to mix on an SSL and push it HARD...
There's an awful lot of bullsh*t being spouted, and many of the people who talk it simply do not have the experience to judge... but of course, "on the internet nobody can hear you mix a band", and it's much harder to judge the actual ABILITY (or knowledge, or wisdom) of someone who tells you how it was.
Truth be told, until the 1990s, I simply didn't use outboard preamps. -Neither did any of my colleagues. We didn't 'bake' the stereo buss either. Nor did we agonize over what compressor to use. -We either used what was in the rack or we moved the mic, or got the singer to help out with decent technique...
And we didn't go looking for 'that analog sound' either. -Matter of fact, we didn't want the tape machine to give us ANY sound... we wanted it to act like a short piece of straight wire, with 'storage'.
But that's not how the internet wisdom says it was, oh no. -Apparently you can't make a good sounding record without an armory of mic preamps... a panoply of compressors, an arsenal of equalizers, and analog tape -or some manner of simulator- is pretty much essential, because nobody wants it to come out sounding like it went in...
...and apparently, people always used to 'push the bus' until it glowed.
Can't say I've ever mixed on an API, although I've recorded some particularly enjoyable albums by some extremely well known acts on them. -I never felt the need to push anything. Not even the mic pres. -And I always thought that people who 'drove' SSL buses 'hard' were idiots. -I don't hear anything better compared to running them at sensible levels.
Some people will disagree with me. -Possibly quite a few.
Whether they -or I- actually know what we're talking about, I'll leave for the reader to decide.
But from my viewpoint, the idea would be laughable, if it weren't depressing that so many people seem to think it necessary.
To address the original question: "Is it normal practice....?" -For some people yes. -But I think they're mainly idiots.
I'm with SSLtech here....+1.
Even 10 years ago, I had a hard time selling people vintage tube preamps because they usually thought they had too much distortion inherent. FF to today and everyone wants those same pre's, AND they want to know if they should install an output T pad so they can drive it harder. Redonkulous.
Even 10 years ago, I had a hard time selling people vintage tube preamps because they usually thought they had too much distortion inherent. FF to today and everyone wants those same pre's, AND they want to know if they should install an output T pad so they can drive it harder. Redonkulous.
shabtek
Well-known member
thanks for the thoughtful response Keef--some food for thought.
simonsez
Well-known member
I found that at some point it give me the "rich" sound, my client give a CD called Velet revolver as a mix references. I can't get the similar sound with my normal mixing process.
So it's a normal practice to some idiots...
but sometimes they just do what the band want, CRUNCH N LOUD!
So it's a normal practice to some idiots...
but sometimes they just do what the band want, CRUNCH N LOUD!
So those great sounding Faces and Rod Stewart records don't have tape saturation?
I have a client who thinks everything should be as loud as possible at all times, he hates limiters and compressors, and when recording himself he purposefully clips the AD converters to achieve hot levels. On everything on the way in, and on his mixes.
craigmorris74 said:
Whoa...... Tape saturation is a completely different animal than clipping a mix bus.
Way back when, the gradual limiting of tape overload was commonly used on some instrument sources as a crude form of compression. Modest saturation on individual tracks is far more musical than overload on the entire mix. Not to mention that solid state overload is not very musical on anything but perhaps electric guitar, and that is only selectively desirable.
JR.
+1SSLtech said:
Way back far enough, console noise floors were not as low as today, so there was arguably merit in hitting the bus hard to optimize S/N, while still there was never merit in clipping it.
BS is not a recent development. I escaped from the Hifi business decades ago because it was even worse. The thing I like about live SR is how hard it is to BS thousands of people at the same time... you must satisfy the laws of physics to make good big sound.
The dramatic cost reductions in recording gear in the '70s-'80s gave many more individuals access to the basic equipment. Since they didn't magically come with a full instruction set for how to make good recordings, vendors popped up to sell them magic boxes to punch up their sound.
This is especially ironic... the attraction to legacy gear because of some euphonious distortion must have the original design engineers spinning in their graves at 78 rpm... They worked very hard to make their paths as linear as they could.
The story on the API as related to me by a guy who claimed to know, was that their use of discrete circuitry and higher voltage rails gave them more bus headroom, so therefore less clipping for a given output level. In practice the extra supply only buys them a few dB. But the lesson I draw from this one old school observer is that they were pursuing a clean unclipped sound, not "saturation". Thats what the tape machines were for.
I try not to have strong opinions about how customers use a product I designed. They paid their money, they get to drive. That said I did not encourage bus overload and provided tools to help avoid it. The last big console I did (more than 100 stems to L/R) I gave the mix engineer a -10dB gain trim on the mix bus amp to help them avoid clipping.
JR
Biasrocks
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
Biasrocks said:
Which API console are you talking about..? I recall when the original API console company was being sold, and I was invited down there (somewhere in VA) as a consultant for the group considering buying them. IIRC this was back when Paul Wolff was still a tech there and Sol Walker was the lead engineer (Blackmer had already left years earlier). I vaguely recall something like +/-40V rails, but this was a very long time ago and I did not get to take away actual schematics.
Since then the small API stuff has probably gone through several evolutions, first by Paul, then later by whomever. I recall Paul converting the DOAs to SMD, in the years after that, etc.
BTW I am not advocating high voltage rails in a day of 3.3-5V A/D convertors, just replying to Keith's comments in the context of the time (1980s).
JR
Biasrocks
Well-known member
JohnRoberts said:
As far as I know John, all API consoles run on +/-16V's.
The 2520 opamps are speced to +/-20V's, so maybe that's where the 40V spec comes from?
http://danalexanderaudio.com/ApiInfo/api2520_01.jpg
And yes, the 2520 is mostly SMD parts now, sadly they don't sound anything like their predecessors but that's why we've got a bunch of great alternatives now.
To the original question,
I find when you push a console you can sometimes gain benefits.
It depends on the console, the mix and what you're going for. My Ward Beck console would sound great when pushed, but there was a limit where it started to sound smaller.
Is it responsible for the sound of any decade of music, not likely.
Perhaps this decade, mostly because of the sheep factor.
Regards,
Mark
Short and simple answer for ya. Yes.
A little bit of the right kind is great. To much and it starts to sound awful, fast. Digital saturation never sounds good to my ears.
Throw a pair of Missing Links on you mix and you can hear the difference. Most of that is small amounts of the right kind of saturation/distortion/harmonics.
A little bit of the right kind is great. To much and it starts to sound awful, fast. Digital saturation never sounds good to my ears.
Throw a pair of Missing Links on you mix and you can hear the difference. Most of that is small amounts of the right kind of saturation/distortion/harmonics.
Biasrocks
Well-known member
12afael said:I just remember the Metallica´s death magnetic mix...
I'm pretty sure most of the destruction was performed in the mastering stage.
I've had some masters come back to me sounding nothing like what left, crushed, distorted,
lifeless. Needless to say I didn't send them anything else.
Regards,
Mark
Perhaps it was 40vp-p the guy who told me was a marketing wonk... and I was not shown schematics when I was there kicking tires back in the early '80s.Biasrocks said:
That makes the headroom difference even smaller than I thought.
Right, I recall Paul showing me early prototype SMD opamps at an AES show back in late '80s (? maybe early '90s). Well after he acquired the company and was bringing it back from the edge.
As a circuit designer, with a long time interest in popular myth, I am not aware of any significant mechanism in linear solid state audio paths that significantly alter the sound's character with level, away from the extremes of clipping or noise floor.
OTOH human perception varies dramatically with SPL (Fletcher Munson curves, etc.)
Bob Katz is a proponent of mixing at a nominal SPL to normalize for human perception shift.
Whatever... I don't have much to contribute to modern subjective mix practices. If we're talking about clipping the console path, lets speak plainly. Modest clipping can easily be audible. Short of clipping, the sound character coming from the console shouldn't change when pushed harder, besides getting louder. There may be subtle differences with monitor speakers being driven harder (more distortion and perhaps spectral balance shift if one driver is experiencing power compression), then there is overloading the power amp, and perhaps subtle room effects with SPL.
Least subtle change with loudness is our ears. They change a bunch.
JR
