Your Analogue Mixing Desk: Think Twice Before Selling It.

Recently on a trip to Wales I had the good fortune to sit in with a very good sound engineer who was mixing down five tracks for a band that he had recorded. The engineer, who shall remain nameless in this article, had basically set up a digital studio in a farm house and was using an adjacent barn to record in. He had a multi core going from the barn into a small room in his cottage that was essentially his control room.

His basic set up was a 24 into 4 into 2 Behringer mixing desk which was hooked up to two delta 10/10s which were in turn connected to his PC ( a 64 bit AMD chip on an ASUS board….. that is if I am not mistaken). As a software sequencer he was using Cubase SX3 with the waves diamond pack, the waves SSL pack and an assortment of other plug-ins that I was less familiar with. He also had a Behringer stereo valve pre amp and a couple of stereo compressors. Pretty modest you might think, and you might be right but I soon found out he did not need much more. His microphone collection was nice I thought with a Neumann TLM 103 being the pick of the bunch and a Shure SM57 and AKG D112 shoring things up in the drum department.

The band he was recording was a metal outfit who were good musicians and the music being mixed displayed much prowess in structure, melody and dynamics. This however does mean it was easy to mix. When I arrived the engineer and the band’s manager were ruminating over the snare sound. In fact it was the first thing I noticed when I came in and as the afternoon wore on it became clear that this was really the only problem with the mixes. Generally speaking, though, the music sounded pretty damn good and after I made a few coffees and teas I started to ask a few questions about the engineers set up. He was the first one to admit that his gear was ordinary and that he even bought the desk second hand on EBay for less than two hundred pounds. That said, he used twelve microphones to record the drum kit and its overall sound was jaw dropping.

The engineers main point about not having an expensive set up was that you just do not need it. Why? He told me that the most important piece of equipment is your ears and of course he is right. Afterwards, he argued, knowing where to put the microphone, getting enough signal to tape, knowing how to use EQ, compression, and reverb were essential and these skills, as many of us know, take some time to master. Some never get the hang of these skills completely completely and not knowing what you are doing is going to sound just as bad through a Neve desk as it is through a Behringer desk. Point is: Technical prowess does not come in a box and there is no silver bullet.

To eliminate room sounds when recording in less than ideal environments he advocated recording as close and dry as possible and being isolated from the source obviously gives you the chance to hear what you are recording and make those essential adjustments before going for a take. A close sound could easily be made to sound more back in the mix or larger with convolution reverbs or with other types or reverbs and delays.

Perhaps the most interesting thing I discovered was how he routed his soundcards into and out of his mixing desk. Bearing in mind that most people recording with a modest setup seem to only use their analogue mixing desk for tracking and then stay in the digital domain even until after mix down. This engineer had four stereo group tracks, as well as his Buss Mix going from Cubase, through his Delta 10/10’s into his mixing desk. Of course he had routed some back into Cubase. What is the point you might ask? Well, lots to be honest. Firstly, he could easily EQ any of the stereo groups using his analogue EQ’s on his desk and I do not care what anybody says, using an analogue Equalizer is more intuitive and usually sounds better than using a digital equalizer. Remember you can send reverb and effect sends out onto these stereo Busses. This gives you much more hands on access to your mix and can really help you shape your mix or identify where it is going wrong.

He also had hands on control for muting, soloing and fading. He could easily route them back into Cubase if he wanted. He could use his outboard compressors and valve pre amps which were all patched into his desk auxiliaries and patch bay. The master Buss on his Behringer desk, had become, in real terms “The” Master Buss and was routed back into Cubase when he wanted to run off a mix.

There is no doubt to my mind that the analogue desk and outboard gear also really helps your mix to sound, well, more “Real” and warmer. Driving home, I was reconfiguring my own studio in my head and I have finished my reconfiguring and have started mixing and remixing pieces for my royalty free music website. In fact I am really happy as I have realized that I now want to keep and utilize much of the analogue gear I have that were starting to gather dust. If you are thinking about getting rid of you analogue mixing desk and all those great pieces of redundant kit you have lying around, you too should think twice.