You can completely mix in the box these days. It absolutely has a lot of benefits to mix in an digital environment. But on the other hand it can add a special flavor to a mix when some analog processing gets added. An easy and effective way of adding analog flavor to a mix is just to mix through a pair of analog mic preamps. How to use analog mic pre’s on a mix bus and what the differences are, I’ll explain in this article.
Watch the YouTube Video:
What are the benefits?
Let’s first have a look on what the benefits actually are. The most obvious stuff is the extra analog flavor. It seems to sound a little more natural when going through some analog outboard gear at on point. A digital environment is very linear. Even this has it’s benefits for example this is very reliable. But nature ain’t linear and reliable. This is where analog gear comes in to play. Every piece of analog gear sound a tiny bit different. And even this tiny differences on the left and right channel can make sound music a little more natural. even when it’s not audible on the first impression.
Another benefit is the additional saturation which makes a mix sound fuller, bigger and more three-dimensional. This is often considered as “warmer”. The additional saturation can also be some kind of compression. Which rounds of the transients a little and reduces the digital harshness on the top end frequencies.
Together with this, it’s also about loudness. You can get a bigger perceived loudness with some additional saturation at the same peak level loudness. Compared two of the same tracks one with additional saturation and one without and level matched to the same peak levels the track with additional saturation seems to be louder even when it’s technically at the same volume.
Compare the sample from the video
On the mix console you have on the first channel a sample from the mix ran through the analog mix preamps and on the second channel is the pure digital mix. You can compare these by playing around with the SOLO & MUTE buttons or panning one mix to the left and the other one to the right for example.
What mic preamps should I use?
What kind of mic preamps to choose absolutely depends on the style you want to mix. A good starting point could be a couple clean sounding mic preamps. They should not be too colorful as long as you are not know exactly which direction you want to go. Another advantage of a clean sounding mic pre is that it is versatile and you could mix a lot of different songs through them.
In my studio I’m using two PreSonus Channel Strips for this kind of stuff. The compressor and EQ sections are both bypassed on my mix bus and I’m just using the mic pre section for this. Another benefit of this channel strip is that I can add analog tube saturation to taste.
How to set this up?
In cubase we have the possibility to add external outboard gear in the insert section of each channel. At this point cubase is routing the signal out through the interface out at the point where the external chain is inserted in your signal chain and back in. This way you can use the external outboard gear the same way you would insert a software plugin. Cubase is handling the latency and stuff automatically in the background.
The only thing you need for this kind of routing is an interface with additional inputs and outputs. I’m using a UR44C from Steinberg for this setup. This is the most versatile way of doing it.
Another way
If you haven’t multiple inputs and outputs on your interface you can run the signal through the normal outputs you have and back in through the normal inputs. But this can be a little tricky and you would need to plug the whole chain in and out every time you need it or not. This is way more effort to dialing this in every time than jut to leave it as it is on a couple extra Inputs and outputs.
How to use analog mic pre’s on a mix bus conclusion
Using analog mic preamps on a digital mix bus is an easy and affordable way to add analog flavor to a digital mix. This way you can get rid of some digital harshness, increase the perceived volume and add a little more warmth and three dimensional atmosphere to it.
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