Unit Audio sent word that they are giving away a Milli-Unit Passive Summing Mixer.
According to Unit Audio, “These mixers add back the sparkle and punch of analog recording that is so often missing in a purely “in the box” mix. Easy setup makes these mixers the perfect companion to a Digital Audio Workstation.
Unit Audio will enter all of its Facebook followers into a drawing for a Milli-Unit PSM. (So, to enter, “Like” them on Facebook.) The drawing will be held on Febraury 29th.
Note: Passive summing uses analog electronics to combine multiple channels of audio, usually to complement digital DAW’s. Some prefer the sound of analog summing.
Facebook link broken.
Link updated!
It looks like the FB link you have there is wrong. The correct one is http://www.facebook.com/unitaudio
Question: how can a completely passive summing mixer add “sparkle and punch” of analog recording?
Answer?
I wonder if there is such a thing as the “audio placebo effect”.
There’s two ways to test such a thing:
1. Take the original and the summed versions, align, gain match, invert phase of one and sum. The resulting audio is the difference.
2. A/B listening tests that are double-blind.
I’m not saying that summing is not a valid thing, but something about it seems fishy.
Question: how can a completely passive summing mixer add “sparkle and punch” of analog recording?
Answer: by not filtering out all the ‘sparkle and punch’ that well-designed electronic circuitry can obviously be expected to do. On the other hand, I have to say that digital mixing makes no sense to me whatsoever, and never will.
Also, by lionizing “passive”, people can make big bucks by selling boxes full of next to nothing. Less costs more.
Maybe the color green has something to do with it. I admit I want one just for the color.
Summing externally works by bypassing the summing algorithm in your DAW, which blindly combines the 1s and 0s of your recorded audio. Analog summing almost always sounds better. Looks like an awesome little box.
this would still require high quality converters and preamps to make up for gain loss.
i have never heard a comparison where analog summing sounds clearer than digital.
however i have heard some comparisons where analog sounds different and better.
so if digital has more clarity, but analog is preferred, then analog is distorting the sound in a pleasing way.
digital is also unforgiving to any mistakes and analog turns mistakes into “warmth”
overall i’m not committed to either, and in different cases one is more preferable than the other.
It took some digging but here is a video they posted a/b’ing various summing mixers. Unfortunately, the Unit Audio piece is not one of them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LATFdWu0uEI I had been seeing ads in TapeOp for the Dangerous Audio summing mixer wondering what it was for without really being compelled to investigate. Now I am a little intrigued.
This is getting into ‘icing on the cake’ territory. But there are definitely some people that swear by analog summing.
Really cool to see in on your conversation here. We had a feeling that there was some real underlying interest in passive summing. Terry, our engineer/designer would be pleased to field any of your questions at [email protected]. I am not an engineer, but have been a performing musician since I was very young, and believe I have a pretty good ear for sound (That would be my left ear. My right ear not so much. My lead guitar player for 4 years worth of hard driving “Southern Fried” rock was always on my right! Damn Marshalls). Anyway, I was skeptical about how much differnce it would make as well. Terry ran a live A/B test for me in his studio through a pair of mid grade JBL studio monitors (you can ask him what model they were) and I was surprised at the difference in sound with the PSM in the signal chain. I would never say “better” because “better” is a subjective term. I have heard the analogy “it sounds like it takes a blanket off the mix”. That would sum up my impression. Again, thanks so much for interest and enthusiasm.