summing box / head room substitute

[atticmike]

Howdy once again,

I've concerned myself with summing boxes after all these years in the box.

I got a at least eight good DIY pres at hand and was wondering if I couldn't simply use an edgy 312 mic pre or neve in order to at least send the stereo bus consecutively through one of the pres in question?

I mean, the master bus is nothing different than a good mic pre, especially the api one.

Let me know what you think / might ascertain.

Mike

 

[Humner]

So you are basically asking what is the difference between having a passive summing box going into a stereo mic pre VS sending the stereo outputs of your interface into a stereo mic pre?

 

[atticmike]

So you are basically asking what is the difference between having a passive summing box going into a stereo mic pre VS sending the stereo outputs of your interface into a stereo mic pre?

well both active and passive summing boxes during the mixing that manage all the subgroups against just sending the finished tracks through mic pres with transformers such as the api 312 or neve.

 

[hotbaby]

Hi Mike,

that´s an interesting question. Usually i use my summing box in order to go out of my interface with loud signals and amp every channel with a simple op amp design for each channel that is included with the DM 2Bus. The difference is very subtle. A mix out of the box can also sound very good but i like to play around with the output groups that are created by setting up a summing  box. In some highend gear instructions of tube preamps they write you can use it for mastering,... maybe subtle reamping is the right word for it. I think it is a cool thing, try it out. If it works and does something to the sound you say wow - go for it 

Also interesting would be setting up your eight preamps to the D/A interface and use a passive summing box at the end maybe with a 1:1 transformer  :

 

[atticmike]

Hi Mike,

that´s an interesting question. Usually i use my summing box in order to go out of my interface with loud signals and amp every channel with a simple op amp design for each channel that is included with the DM 2Bus. The difference is very subtle. A mix out of the box can also sound very good but i like to play around with the output groups that are created by setting up a summing  box. In some highend gear instructions of tube preamps they write you can use it for mastering,... maybe subtle reamping is the right word for it. I think it is a cool thing, try it out. If it works and does something to the sound you say wow - go for it 

Also interesting would be setting up your eight preamps to the D/A interface and use a passive summing box at the end maybe with a 1:1 transformer  :

Guessing the main reason why people use summing boxes nowadays is that they do all the EQing in the box instead of outboard processing to catch up with the saturation they lost during digital processing.