Concerned about "mixing in the box"? Want to really hear the side effects of different software mixers, analog consoles, digital consoles, bus summing? There are 29 mixing platforms here, with the "A" set being done at unity gain and the "B" set with fader changes up to -3 dB and master fader up to +3 dB. There are two CD's with many 24-bit, 48 kHz stereo WAV files on them. You load them in, listen, and try to sort it out. It's really tough, and I know that you'd need to put way more time into this than I wanted to if you wanted to gain any real understanding. I listened for a while, and made notes. Then I went to the website to see which was what. Surprising! It's hard to quantify while you're listening; and for borderline ADD folks like me, it's difficult! The one thing I noticed is that the mixes all sounded a bit different in subtle ways. A "connoisseur" could decide which format to mix in based on the song-a new sort of audio snobbery! This is a great test and listening exercise, and once again we are grateful to Lynn Fuston for putting a project of this scope together.
Plug-Ins, Software | No. 139
Saturn 2 Saturation and Distortion Plug-In
by Dave Hidek
FabFilter’s Saturn was one of 2012’s most celebrated plug-ins, offering multi-band distortion and saturation, along with a sleek GUI, plus a powerful modulation section that was embraced...