DIY summing box

[Nostalia]

I recently made a passive summing box with a bunch of vintage carbon resistors, just basically a line mixer that routes 8 outs to 2 channels. I go out of PT7 LE into my box and put the 2 channels into a crane song flamingo for makeup gain.

Here's a quick drum sample of the summed tracked. It sound much warmer and better placed than digital summing to my ears.

http://www.nostalia.net/drums.mp3

let me know what you think

Mark

 

[KeithRT99]

it sounds pretty big, but i've gotta say the drum sounds are kinda harsh/hard edged. Any pics of the summing box?

 

[Nostalia]

what would you suggest to soften the drum tones? The drums aren't real, it's a real drummer but it's a DIY kit into a TD-12 all mapped to DFHS. I am pretty happy with the overall quality of the drums, but I can always learn more about mixing of course.

 

[Unavailable]

First thing to fix would be the snare. It's kind of a clappy weird snare.

But damn, that's a powerful mix. I'm sure it helps that you've got a great drummer as well.

 

[Nostalia]

It's the Ayotte setting in DFHS, I kinda like it for that roomy tone, but I must agree it needs to be tightened as far as decay and sizzle. maybe I'll try a new snare sample sometime.

 

[egan.]

It's kind of hard to form an 'A vs. B' opinion on your summing box w/ no 'A' isn't it?

 

[Nostalia]

I posted a new file just use the old link the file is now updated

A= sum with preamp
B= Digital summing through busses in Pro Tools.

The sound file is continuous and changes from A to B to A to B etc... every 10 seconds. You can hear it mostly in the lower frequencies and some of the reverb seems wider to me. The digital summing seems flat compared to the analog summing. It doesn't really affect the higher frequencies, in my opinion.

Let me know what you guys think.

Mark

 

[Ben Johnson]

Sounds punchier, and as you say, wider.

Was this a DIY you found on a site somewhere, or did you whip it up yourself? Either way, I'd like to check out the schematic.

 

[Nostalia]

yea I found the schematic here:

http://www.forsselltech.com/downloads/schematics/8chsum_2.pdf

It's very simple and they have a lot more online at the prodigy forum. if you can find a chasis it only costs about $50 to make. I figured it was worth a shot. I just need better DA now to make more use of it. The 002 DA isn't cutting it...

 

[Ben Johnson]

Cool. Thanks!