Hybrid mixing setup explained
hello, everyone, this is @phatstudio and today we are going to take a look at what a hybrid mixing set-up is and why you could choose to work on that
A hybrid mixing set-up uses both analog and digital equipment and thus gets the best of both worlds. so let's take a look at some workflows. What would be a typical set-up and workflow in a hybrid type of studio?
For several reasons tracking and recording is most convenient in a digital environment. So simply said recording in the box and mixing with the help of outboard gears.
the several set-ups that I can imagine that use good things from both the analog as well as the digital world. so let's look at some that I think are good set-ups especially for home studios and smaller project studios.
Set up 1:
Mixing in the box using outboard gear:
In this set up the computer is the heart of the process. Besides that, we have the audio interface with a number of in and output, and these in and output can be used to have analog gear as an insert on our DAW channel, this allows us to use some external processor in the digital mixing set-up. Many DAW allows us to set-up outboards and input of your interface to be used as an insert in your project. It could also be very helpful to look for a midi controller with faders as many people prefer faders and knobs over mouse clip when mixing music.
Another setup could be**
Mixing with a mixer using a DAW:
The computer is still the heart of the process as it will play the multi-tracks from the DAW. but mixing is done with an analog board, which means that the output of our interface are all connected to the input of a mixing console. This allows us to have the computer more on the sides rather than in the center of our set-up, we can then still use outboard gears by using the sends and return on the mixing desk.
In this routing set-up, we focus more on the traditional and less visual way of mixing.
you can still choose to do certain processing use plug-ins from within the DAW. So this way you really get the best of both worlds and you can be very flexible. As we routing our multi-track through the mixing console during mixing we will have to record the output of the mix-buss back to the DAW as a mix. we can also record stems in case we want to still be able to process groups of tracks like drums, instruments, and vocals on separated stereo tracks.
Things to take note of:
When working with analog gear there are literally things to take note of
- All the settings that you have to dial into your outboard gears need to note down in other to recreate the same mix when might have to open the session once again. This means that you will need to note
- Which insert is used on which channel
- Which devices are used on the inserts
- Also note the settings and presets on the devices
These settings can also be noted on the actual session in the DAW as most DAWS actually allow you to take notes.
Even if you want the possibility of working in a digital environment like tracking, editing, automation and total recall functions, it can still be possible to en-corporate analog outboard gears in your work-flow and you are still going to be able to upgrade to better gears over time.
So I hope you guys learn something today? check out the next article I will be doing here on how to set up your DAW to work with external processors as inserts in your software mixer.
You can as well check other articles on audio engineering on my blog and also stay up to date with some very exciting things that will be coming up in a very near future.
Once again this was @jamesub thank you guys for reading and i hope to see you soon.
