This Amon Tobin record...
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
So I got the new issue of Remix in the mail the other day, and there’s a story about the recording of Amon Tobin’s “Foley Room” album, and it piqued my interest enough to go buy the album. (It should be noted that, eclectic tastes aside, I’m usually a latecomer to the “latest and greatest” electronic acts, simply not having enough time in the day to sift through all the dreck to find the diamonds.)
Whether you like the whole slice-n-dice thing or not, this record sounds fantastic. He mixed in Cubase, but summed with an Apogee DA16/Chandler Mini Mixer rig, through a Manley Massive Passive. The difference in sound quality between this record and another of its ilk done totally ITB (I’ll use Forss’ excellent “Soulhack” as example) is quite vast. The analog processing really knocks the edges off the inherently digital nature of this sort of music. Anyone that doesn’t think there’s any difference between mixing ITB and using a system like this is quite simply deaf, plain and simple.
In any event, this is a fucking phenomenal mix job for an electronic album; very pleasant and non-fatiguing to listen to. Two thumbs up.
31 comments
all of amon tobin records are a pleasure to listen to.
For those who don't have the mag, there's a snippet of some info on the album online at the Remix site (third section down): http://remixmag.com/artists/remix_go_forward_move/index.html
While I've only listened to the album online at his site, there seems to be a great deal of attention paid to the stereo placement of sounds, and the sense of literal depth it can give a track. Tobin's albums have always had this type of presence to them, but these compositions have a way of wrapping around your head on this one.
i've noticed that w/a lot of electronic stuff.. newer stuff.. it's missing that "done a reel to reel 8 track in the bedroom" warmth.
could be someting as simple as a different mastering engineer in some cases but in some things i hear way more painful midrangey stuff and the transients are kind of wacked.. things are just more brittle.
but there's also stuff that's really blown me away where i know it's someone on a laptop and that's it and they just know their shit (room, monitors, plugs, etc) enough to pull out amazing mixes w/depth and clarity.
hat's of to Amon Tobin though. i wish those chandler mini-mixers had direct outs per channel so you could record more than 2 channels at time thru it.
Or maybe the fact that the album sounds so good has little to do with analog summing, OTB mixing, or the Massive Passive, and a lot more is maybe a result him using super high-end microphones and preamps to sample all of the material for the album live, rather than rip sounds from old vinyl, vhs tapes, and 16bit cds like he did for most of the stuff on his other albums.
Yeah, but I agree it sounds fucking incredible.
The mics and mic pres aren't "super high end" really. Kind of run-of-the-mill high end. I have equipment of the same quality. In any case, this record has really inspired me to get my summing act together. My two options are as follows:
Chandler Mini Mixer -> Chandler TG1 ($9750)
API 8200A -> API 2500 ($5100)
Custom summing built from Neumann iron -> Chandler TG1 or API 2500 (~$4000)
There are certainly far cheaper options, but why do it if you're not gonna have iron in the mix? I already have the Neumann summing amp for the last option, plus a nice aluminum rack. Just have to put it together and buy the comp/limiter. So that's the cheapest option, of course. I think that I'm not gonna get the vibe I want though; those Neumann summing amps are essentially colorless when they've been recapped. I'm leaning towards the API system, as I have been for the last 3 to 4 years, but now that I've heard what can be accomplished with the Chandler rig, I'm having doubts.
I only need to sum four stereo stems, so the Chandler is overkill for me. Plus I kind of like the sends on the API. It's a tough call. I'm gonna make my purchase this summer; I probably won't know which one I'm gonna get until I get it.
-CR
fyi - lot's of opinions on the chandler/api etc on gearslutz.
the shadowhills stuff is supposed to be great. not any cheaper $$ but i think it has 3 transformer options via switch on the front panel and built in monitor control plus 2 mic pre's. it's called the equinox i think?
it's not really a fair comparison to compare this album to.. well..anything. While it may be true that a summing mixer can improve a mix, I still think it's possible to mix something spectacular ITB if everything else in your signal chain is up to snuff. When you take into account how many pieces of hardware/software most "electronic" albums are processed through, both in pre-production (ie. samples) and post, it's a goddamn miracle you don't get pure noise out the other end.
Now you get Amon here with "run of the mill high end" gear at top Foley stages around the world where he's bypassed about 50 different steps to reach the final recording.. no wonder it sounds better.
I've seen enough video footage of commercially successful electronic artists' studios to know that his gear list for this album is about 300 notches higher than what most people are working with.
Anyway, be sure to check out his website for the album ( http://www.amontobin.com/field/ ) pretty slick, lots of fun.
I work at a studio here in Nashville, and my boss uses the same Chandler path that you mention above, Chris. While I have not had too much hands-on experience with it, I can vouch for the end result sounding damn good. My boss has been through a ton of equipment too, and that is the summing path he ultimately ended up with.
Anyhow, in retrospect, that comment is practically worthless, as I am basically saying "Yes, that expensive equipment does sound really good".
"I've seen enough video footage of commercially successful electronic artists' studios to know that his gear list for this album is about 300 notches higher than what most people are working with."
Well, I guess I'm in a good place then, because other than the summing I have essentially the same gear. Converters, software, mic pres, mics are all the same; my monitors are a couple steps down, but not much.
I do agree that the vast majority of successful electronic artists make do with a pretty fucking sad setup. This is a very forgiving genre for recording quality, though.
-CR
i love a real desk. Besides the fun of working on it, the inserts, sends, monitor section, etc. are not extras. It's amazing what $8 - $20k will get you these days in a used console. Yes, it may require maintenance and will not be as pristine as a cranesong or chandler or manley or API, but if you get a really good one it's worth it. I paid 5% of the original cost of mine when new and have spent under 2k modifying and maintaining it in 4 years, even having moved it accross oceans twice. 500 pounds of PITA to some, music to me. Summing boxes I imagine are a sonically real step up from ITB, but sacrifice that last opportunity to fuck with the voltages until they make sexytime explosion. (sorry Borat)
I guess Roger Nichols is "quite simply deaf":
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun06/articles/rogernichols_0606.htm
"I guess Roger Nichols is "quite simply deaf":"
It would seem so. He doesn't acknowledge Sonar's 64-bit mix-buss either in the Q on 64-bit applications.
Oh and for what it's worth I love the new Amon Tobin album too. The accompanying DVD was interesting, but not exactly massively informative.
Foley Room is a great disc, but Out From Out Where is still my favorite of his, with Permutations and Supermodified tied for second.
I need to put his records down for a while though. I worked at getting most of what I was missing out of his catalog in Juanuary/February of this year....and by the time Foley Room came out, I was kind of burned out on his sound.
That being said, the Collaborations ep is a nice one too. I was listening to it yesterday.
vintage king has a nicely-done summing mixer "shootout" page:
http://vintageking.com/site/files/sumshoot.htm
i'd have to hear amon tobin's ITB stems vs. his externally summed mix to be convinced that external summing was the sole difference between 'nice... ok' and 'holy crap!'. nothing i've seen/heard with regard to the external summing trend has been *that* black & white.
external summing trend? ITB is the trend, external summing is how every record ever was made until recently. anybody not in denial who sits down at a desk, plays the ITB mix, and then breaks out the parts to channels will hear a definitive difference.
I've done in-the-box and summing mixes. I can't definitively say which was "better" because there were so many other different variables involved - the gear I was using, the speakers, the room, the material, etc.
I want to see a magazine or individual take a good project and mix it both ways, then have some "golden ears" evaluate. And/or do the old "throw one mix out of phase and listen to the difference".
Until then, I'll still take the convenience of totally in-the-box mixing over the hassle of a board any day.
How many of the "summing boxes" out there are using, to paraphrase CR, "some 5-cent op-amp" in the chain? Is the improvement in quality worth the extra DA-AD conversion involved?
a test at flat levels will show the difference but is besides the point if you want to actually DO things with a mixer, and all the outboard gear you can hang off that. Journalistic shootouts wouldn't be necessary if you just sit down at a desk and listen to the digital mix vs the separate tracks on faders.
Penzoil has the same experience I have. I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that breaking out even to stems from any DAW I've ever used makes the mix sound wider and more dynamic. I don't give a fuck about charts, graphs, and other people's opinions, truly. I'll spend a lot of money on things that I know from personal experience make my job easier and the results better. What Roger Nichols has to say on any subject at all means so little to me.
Q.E.D.: it's quite easy to mix a record well when the songs are top-flight, the musicians are some of the best in the world, their gear is as good as it comes and maintained by professional techs, they're in a studio that is second to none, and time and money are not objects. I'd get a Grammy too if I had that to work with, ITB or not. So he can bite me.
-CR
On the low end of the price scale, don't forget the Folcrom:
http://www.rollmusic.com/systems/folcrom.shtml
Totally passive box, 16 channels, each assignable to L/R/C.
$775 street.
That said, the Shadow Hills Equniox is one of the sexiest designs I've ever seen. $4k gets you 30 channels of summing, switchable iron, two micpres that double as the summing makeup gain stages, and a control room section.
Well...I just read the snippet on the website, and the thing that stood out to me the most was the fact that he collected all of his source on a Nagra. I'm don't doubt that a high quality analog summing bus is part of the sound of this record...but I wouldn't discount the effect of all that 1/4" tape either.
My 2c.
penzoil -
yeah, of course analog mixing is the norm. the 'external summing trend' i'm referring to is the fairly recent proliferation of 'summing boxes' offered by dangerous audio, et al. the idea with these being that you mix in the box, then send your 16 or 32 tracks/groups out to be summed to stereo in the analog realm, and that's it. any tricks beyond pure summing that you want to add in the analog realm are fine, but at that point you're no longer 'summing' for the sake of this argument... you're 'mixing.'
i can easily hear an audible difference between ITB and externally summed audio when A/B'd next to each other. but the difference is subtle. and whether or not it's actually "better" is anyone's guess. either way, it's definitely not a magic-special-sauce-mix-fixing process.
just sayin'... i'll need serious convincing to point at the amon tobin cd and say, "this mix rocks and external summing is why."
The mix rocks, and the iron in the pathway, coupled with a good analog 2-buss EQ and compressor is why. It doesn't have much to do with the summing at all. I'm not sure how we got on this tack. I think if he had run the whole mix through 2 channels of Chandler mic pres, the Massive Passive, and the 2500 would provide essentially the same result, mix-wise.
But why have two when you can have eight, right?
-CR
I am of the mind that at some points in the process it is the gear and at some points it is the process. i am running a lynx aurora 16 -> rolls folcrom -> focusrite adl600 -> rolls super stereo compressor
sometimes a portico 5042 comes into play, sometimes an eq-2nv
i also have a sm audio pm8 here and had a neve 8816 on eval. point is when i was deciding what do buy to fill up (we'll call it the mixdown rack) i had some different pres, eq, compressors etc that i was playing with along with the different summing boxes. each time i switched out the gear i noticed some kind of audible difference EXCEPT when i switched out the summing box. ie. the above chain sounded the same to me whether it was the sm pro set to passive, the folcrom or the neve. change the compressor, all bets off, new ball game, change the pres, totally different sound but change the summing box, same sound. since the sm pro is 1/10th the cost of the neve, i thought this was significant.
That's interesting. I think that the Chandler and the Geoff Tanner boxes, which are advertised as colorful, might give one a distinct flavor, where the boxes you mentioned, which are essentially just summing networks with makeup gain, would not color at all. At least, that's what I think.
It's worth noting that the Folcrum is essentially a box with 34 resistors in it, and the SM Pro is the same thing with some makeup gain. The Neve gives you a fairly sophisticated control room section, as does the Chandler, and the Chandler has iron on all the input. Does the Neve? Can't recall.
-CR
How many years did ITB last as the end-all be-all of mixing. Laughably few - the D2B has been out for years and plenty of people were summing externally prior to that - or never left behind their consoles to begin with. People often seem to take a new technology, especially if it's cheaper, and use it to model an older technology only to realize later that while new tools suggest new applications which compliment existing technologies, they do not necessarily obsolete what came prior. I love my Liquid Mix, but its models do not obsolete my 1176's - I use them differently, and at different phases of a project. The ITB tribe on the net have a social consensus on the belief that the trouble and expense of owning a console is for deluded relics, and yet most haven't even experienced the difference first-hand. The OTB people, on the other hand, have the option - sometimes necessity - to hear productions both ways on a regular basis. So it's funny to hear the carping about how it's all the same from the people least positioned to know the difference first hand.
The Neve does and i was certainly expecting (and hoping) for flava. I should confess that the Neve came late and by this time really wanted to allocate funds to the purchase on a Musonics Mutator and a couple of other things so perhaps my mind was made up at this point. That said i have touched and smelled the Chandler and it is a beautiful piece.
I encourage anyone that wants to play to check out the SM Pro, it can go full passive a la the folcrom and is so cheap that anyone on the fence should buy one (i paid $375 CDN for mine).
On the Amon Tobin tip, the new CD is an extremely well recorded/mixed etc. release. At night, sometimes, i do the headphone listening thang through, what i think is, a pretty swell setup (ARCAM CD digital out->Benchmark DAC1->Sennheiser HD650) and the sound on the Tobin CD stands head and shoulders above other stuff i have been listening to lately sound-quality-wise under these conditions.
the new speck X-Sum looks great as well, as a mixer and summer.
so, if you're working with a performance that it is 2 (or 4 channels tops) how important is a summing mixer? Seems easy to build your own for this if so. Just running things through the newer Joemeek TwinQ Iron is pretty nice BTW.
why is an 8 channel opto-compressor from SMpro, with meters on each channel, $100 less than this? shouldn't we be able to get a quality 8 channel summer for about $200? is it just demand? hell, how's their opto? ineteresting? i doubt anyone would want 8 channels of it.
Wouldn't sending your 4 stereo stems out each stereo at a time into an API, NEVE, SSL, whatever stereo device.. give you a "nicer" overal sound (and the same as an 8 track summer) ?
The 8 track summers are just more channels and more work done at the same time.
Or is the actual summing in analog the key ? Instead of the channel drive thru colouring ?
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