How do people do it? Buying a new console

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pucho812 said:
who says they do.  A lot are financed from the bank or other Shylock.  Some get to pay it off just in time to buy another one.  In one case here in l.a. they took a loan out for millions using publishing to songs they had not written. they used the money to open a studio. it closed, their console was repossessed due to not making a payment on it,  and  they went to jail for bank  fraud.

I wonder what happened to the console...
 
a lowly soundcraft 24 channel can be stunningly good for very little money - though of course you won't get automation etc - but there are alternatives to that ... like automating in your DAW and using your DAW in tandem with the console for submixing etc etc
 
leadpoisoning said:
a lowly soundcraft 24 channel can be stunningly good for very little money - though of course you won't get automation etc - but there are alternatives to that ... like automating in your DAW and using your DAW in tandem with the console for submixing etc etc
Agreed, but the reason why about half the people buy a large mixer is for showing their clients how professional they are...
 
abbey road d enfer said:
Agreed, but the reason why about half the people buy a large mixer is for showing their clients how professional they are...

indeed! so keep the soundcraft in the back room and the nonfunctional Neve that you get for pennies on the dollar can sit in the 'show mixing room'
 
abbey road d enfer said:
Agreed, but the reason why about half the people buy a large mixer is for showing their clients how professional they are...

indeed, although thats changing a lot.
I can see a big change in the last 15 years on the client's perception of large format console related to being Pro or not

I can say that in the last 5 years most of the clients are not concerned any longer about seeing a large console or not.
But studio aestetics and confort still make a big difference of course, just without the big console in the picture

I used to work in a room with a big SSL 4K console in front of me, I liked it, but I don't need it or miss it.
The console is still in the same room/studio (although half of it broken) trying to get the client wow effect, even though it's not used to mix any longer
 
there are more affordable consoles that are new on the market but affordable is not a $$ tag so much as it is way less expensive then before.  I have seen some places that you just wonder how they can afford everything especially in places in San Francisco where you know everything is more expensive.

You can get a lot of console for little money these days.  If you do the Danial lanes approach,  you can really work something for little cash. He does the following: outboard and small mixers for input into his recorder of choice, Radar. From there he has a console that is purely for mixing duties. At his studio in Canada he has a Midas desk. At his studio in L.A. he sold off his old Neve and got a Trident 88(new console).  The trident is a great sounding desk as is the Midas. You can get a good Midas for little $$ and if you only mix with it, you are golden.  He does all his mixing by hand and sets things up so that he is down to 22 tracks using the last 2 tracks of his 24 I/O radar to be for the mix. Being digital can easily punch in when mixing by hand if a mistake is made or what have you.  I like the concept.

I just saw a calrec c2 desk on eBay. It has 40 mono channels and 8 stereo channels. with a asking price of 4K.  not bad at all considering the desk has lundhal mic transformers at every mic input. IIRC line transformers as well but been a while. They are well built desks that require little maintenance and being broadcast have a lot of redundant power supplies and such. I used to own one but sold it when I moved. I regret selling mine as my c2 I got for 500 dollars and it had 24 mono channels and 12 stereo channels.  good sounding desk with nice eq, it's not super flexible but it does have it in the right spots.  plus has a few VCA faders so you can group and mix by hand.
 
Mbira said:
I've been lusting after a "real" console with automation, DAW control and the whole deal.  It's just so crazy to me that something like a 24 channel SSL AWS 924 is $80,000!! 

I'm not really saying that I don't understand why it costs so much, it's more that I just don't understand how anyone can afford one in this industry.  Certainly no small personal studios can afford one unless the person is rich from some other business.  I'm 42 years old now.  I hope I get a chance to really put lots of hours working on my own music on a board like that before I die!

The most expensive console manufacturers cater to professional studio's, and there is still enough of them. Television broadcasts, mixing studio's for TV and movies, and high end music industry still records in professional studio's, centered around a huge mixing desk.

And there are also more than enough of stinky rich people, who do music as a hobby and willing to buy ultra expensive gear.
For some people, 80k is like 800 bucks for average people.

Of course for an average hobbyist it will always be out of reach, just like a F1 car experience will be out of reach for a regular car enthusiast.
But the question is, do you really NEED it to make better music? Most of the iconic soundtracks were recorded and mixed on pretty outdated and limiting gear by today's standards. And if you really have an album that must be mixed on high end gear, it would be wiser just to rent a professional studio. How many tracks can a full time musician produce on his own? 1 album a year is considered to be very productive. Impossible to justify the purchase of a huge console with that kind of output.
A DAW with small automated interface is really all you need these days. You can use some analog devices, if you want to add some analog flavour to your sound.

From my experience, buying fancy gear was always a rather disappointing experience. You spend a ton of money, then you have some fancy device in your possession, you look at it, twist some buttons... but now what?
I get so much more satisfaction at making DIY gear. At this point I don't even care much about music, just making stuff for the sake of it, and I love it  ;D
I sell most of my work, so money is not an issue.
 
He does all his mixing by hand and sets things up so that he is down to 22 tracks using the last 2 tracks of his 24 I/O radar to be for the mix. Being digital can easily punch in when mixing by hand if a mistake is made or what have you.  I like the concept.

There is a lot to be said mixing like this.  I did this back in the day of tape where it started.  You would mix in pieces to 2 track and cut it together.  We would Ride faders in sections of a song  and then cut it together in sequential order.  It would do wonders and create passion for what would have been impossible in a single pass.  Later when starting to work  with automation,  you could make the mix so smooth that it lost life and turned  into pablum.   

When I got protools, it had some automation but you mixed through a analog console without automation.  I would mix to a pair of tracks in protools. 

There’s something to be said about starting over when the mix gets mixed out.

Now I’m back to using an old console for summing and those faders have a nice feel ,  ( as long as I keep a can of spray cleaner handy).  You have to have time and it seems like more passion for what your doing in a mix, (no matter how you approach it) or it gets analytical and the dynamics get lost.   
 
Whoops said:
No you don't need it

I keep seeing more and more mixing engineers dumping thier consoles... Even Michael Brauer finally gave up his SSl... he still uses some outboard gear and a couple of summing mixers, but there really is no quality to be gained by mixing on an analog console, unless its  what you are already familiar with. 
 
john12ax7 said:
Where did you read this,  have a link? Would like to read about the new setup.

Its in the latest Tapeop, a diagram of his setup is at the end of the article.

https://tapeop.com/interviews/131/michael-brauer/

 
pucho812 said:
At his studio in Canada he has a Midas desk. At his studio in L.A. he sold off his old Neve and got a Trident 88(new console).  The trident is a great sounding desk as is the Midas. You can get a good Midas for little $$ and if you only mix with it, you are golden.

Do you remember which Midas he's got? Which one would you recommend?

I was researching Midas boards a while back and looked at a few schematics. Judging purely from these they looked decent, but not really great. Similar to Soundcraft, lot's of TL072/74 instead of the 5532/4 I would like to see.
 
living sounds said:
I was researching Midas boards a while back and looked at a few schematics. Judging purely from these they looked decent, but not really great. Similar to Soundcraft, lot's of TL072/74 instead of the 5532/4 I would like to see.
What's wrong with TL0's?
 
abbey road d enfer said:
What's wrong with TL0's?
;D ;D ;D  absolutely nothing.

I used truckloads of both selectively... 553x for stages driving low z outputs, and/or from low Z. I used TL07x for modest gain line level stages.

JR
 
In my console I get much lower distortion and noise with NE5532/34 than with TL072/71 even though the circuits were actually designed for the latter. Better grounding and decoupling was added, of course.

I guess if you were really carefull with loads and only used it in inverting configurations it could be ok, but it should be difficult to design an entire console with only TL072 and not make compromises wrt performance.
 

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