Dangerous 2Bus, Cranborne, SPL Summing Mixers - Passive with Amp?

[canidoit]

Hi,

I am contemplating whether I am better off buying those DIY Passive summing kits or PCB and plug it into a good stereo pre-amp?

How much of an audio quality difference would it be against SPL Mixdream XP, Dangerous 2Bus-LT, Cranborne R8 sum section, Tegler Audio Tube vs a DIY passive summing with a Neve clone/API pre-amp on stereo output?

Any thoughts?

Thank you.

 

[ruairioflaherty]

Before asking "how best?" to sum analog you should ask yourself if it's actually better? This is of course is subjective and you may only be able to answer it by doing it.

My opinion follows based on personal testing and a lot of conversations...

I live in L.A. and through my work as a mastering engineer and acoustics work I spend a lot of time with high profile mixers. I'm not sure I can name one who is summing analog, either through a console or hardware summing.

Again as part of my work I'll often get the mix from a client in two forms. Just last week I had client send a mix summed in Pro Tools and then the same mix summed through the SSL AWS900, the ITB was better. A few weeks prior it was an API1608 that failed the same test. I literally just came from a friends studio who was telling me how much he's come to hate the sound of his Rupert Neve Designs summing box (fed with Lynx Aurora n).

I haven't mixed a record in maybe 8 years but I did a very deep dive then comparing several summing mixers, ITB, and ITB with 2 bus hardware. I tried every combo and in the end mixed ITB with simple bus analog processing (1 EQ, 1 Comp).

Despite the mythology on Gearslutz (and occasionally here) there is nothing to summing except added distortion. And that distortion can be added very effectively with simple 2 bus gear if it's desired (remembering that it's something of a trade off between the upside of cohesion and the downside of flattening contrast between elements).

Ok, this was a longer answer than I expected! I'm QCing a Bossanova album so had the time I guess

 

[pucho812]

do resistors have a sound? the biggest sonic change in any passive summing is the make up stage.
As far as making a sonic difference? You have just as much chance to make a sonic difference by coming out of the daw, into a piece of gear and back into the daw. In the end only you can decide if that change is a benefit or not.
Our Studio has a big, honking trident a-range desk. Our last few projects were mixed analog, but that is because the engineer running the show can't run pro tools and refuses to do anything digital. While all well and good, it would be better for him in the long run to learn pro tools and how to use it to mix. Being objective about it all, the desk, the analog gear and such is great for tracking, makes routing easier and all around is a nice show piece, but at the end of the day, in 2022 it's not nearly the requirement it used to be.

 

[john12ax7]

I've tried a few over the years including the 2Bus LT. Preferred passive summing with 512c make up. A lot will depend on the sound of the gain stages, so you really need to hear them for yourself.

On the more general topic I agree you should start with a good mixbus eq and compressor. But also feel summing can have its place depending on your workflow and style of music. Doing a mix ITB and then using summing as an afterthought can indeed sound worse. The converse is also true, get the mix going with summing and then switching to ITB often sounds flat and no depth.

I do disagree that sunming can be 100% completely replaced with just mixbus gear. Sometimes inserting a summing mixer makes things sound worse. But that is often due to adding extra electronics that you don't like for that mix. If it makes it sound better, then the more channels you sum the better the results. If summing itself made no difference then going to only channels 1-2 should sound identical to splitting things out to 1-24. I've never found that to be the case. This makes sense from a math perspective when you consider how non-linearities combine.

On a personal note I haven't used summing in years, mainly because I found hardware inserts to make a bigger difference and make recall a breeze if you print them.