Re: Room correction (Was Progress?)

Hi John,

> I have heard reports from high-end users (who could reasonably be
> expected to set appropriate fader levels) that analog summing can sound
> better than some DAWs.

I think the point of the SoS article was that people treat DAW mixing 
differently, because they believed they could get away with mixing hot 
and then taking the master fader down, on the basis of a belief that the 
digital mixer could handle it. I do know it's easier just to move the 
one master fader down when the red lights come on.

Also there may have been design mistakes in early DAWs which made the 
mixdown sound bad, and the impression has stuck with some people.

> Of course, by the time something gets put on a
> CD nobody will hear the difference (and how long will it be before CD
> is relegated to the same audiophile niche now occupied by vinyl, in favour
> of MP3?).

It's particularly ironic that as bit rates and sample rates have gone up 
in the studio, the distribution formats are getting worse. I bought an 
SACD/DVD-A player and I haven't found a single disc of either type I 
want to play on it yet. Fortunately it also plays traditional CDs...

> I've been using analog summing for years - I use an analog
> desk for mixdown ;).

I've just this week bought a whole bunch of new patch cables so I can do 
an A-B mixdown comparison between Ardour's mix buss and my old Seck 
8-buss analogue desk. It might have to be a blindfold test to make sure :-)

Cheers!

Daniel