the future. now.

i have spent the last year developing what i consider to be the most bad ass hybrid recording system around. the system takes the benefits of analog and the benefits of digital without any of the negative side effects of either. the fact of the matter is that if you use the analog and digital world in harmony you will save yourself a lot of trouble and make some unbelievable sounding records.

here are my findings:

i don’t care what they say, nothing will ever sound better than preamps and compressor that use actual circuits and actual tubes. the character that these analog pieces bring is incomparable.

on the other hand, i don’t care what they say, editing digitally and tracking digitally is wildly more time efficient than any other solution.

the premise of the rig:

two channels of the best pre amps and compressors run into your DAW, summed analog with an insert of analog preamp and compressor on your main mix bus.

*i still think that nothing can replace a big console and big room for drums so go elsewhere for that step*

you need:

two really classic, high end mono preamps.

two really classic, high end mono compressors.

a DAW with very nice converters (like an apogee ensemble).

a summing box (the dangerous D Box is awesome)

a stereo mic pre and a stereo/buss compressor.

you essentially want to use the tube signal of the pre and compressor and leave the pre’s on whatever your a/d converter and interface is to a minimum. once you have tracked something go about your editing, routing and mix functions as usual but hear an incredible difference with your busses being summed in the analog world and your main mix having a really great stereo compressor strapped on it.

happy hunting friends.

gib

This entry was posted on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at 5:40 pm and is filed under analog recording, digital recording, recording tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.