If you want to understand how summing affects your mix, and your ability to mix, you need to do a direct comparison which includes the mixing process. This does not have to be performed blind. The difference is too obvious when performed within the context of an actual mix.

You’re not looking for some magical coloration that makes you happy. I’m talking about a core and systemic difference in how you will connect with the music you’re making and the decisions you’ll make in the process. Once you understand just how much you actually fight digital summing, then you understand how it’s flawed.

Here is how I suggest one test a summing box in my boo Zen and the Art of Mixing:

“Testing Your Summing Box

If you’re going to try a summing box out for yourself, and I highly recommend that you do, there’s a specific procedure that I recommend. If you mix a song to completion, and then you put it through a Dangerous summing box, you’re going to have a difficult time with the evaluation. The summing box will change your mix. Even though the mix will be far better in some ways, it will also be different. It’s difficult to get past the inherent balance changes that will occur from such a radical change in your summing. Therefore, you don’t want to test a summing box on a finished mix, as it’s really not a comparison that you can accurately evaluate. There is really only one way that I can figure to fairly and accurately judge what a summing box can do for you.

Start by installing a summing box into your system. Run the analog outputs from your converters to the inputs of your summing box. By running all of
inputs of the summing box, you remove the sonic nature of the summing box itself as a variable when making your comparison. Mix a song in your DAW by digitally summing through outputs 1 and 2. Make your way through discovery, and frame a decent static mix. Go beyond the point where the mix is singing and you feel good about it, just to the point where you’re beginning to struggle with the mix.

Now switch your channel outputs so that you’re using all the channels of the summing box instead of just the first two. This switchover takes a few minutes, since you have to select new out- puts for every channel. If you have a good summing box (and the only one I can vouch for is the Dangerous 2-Bus), you should notice a greater depth of field, considerably more clarity in the bottom end, a seemingly broader frequency range, and more overall punch. The difference should be night and day, and you should immediately find yourself struggling less with the mix.

Don’t be put off by the changes in your mix. If there were no changes, it would be a useless and superfluous box. The whole reason for making the switch at the struggle point of your mix is that it’s not going to cost you time. In fact, the mix should improve so much where impact is concerned that you’ll likely find it considerably easier to mix.

Now, this isn’t a scientific way of determining a difference. It’s a practical one. You can’t devise a scientific test to prove this for your- self or anyone else. For starters, you can’t perform the switch in real time. The reason you can get away with performing a listening test in this manner is because it’s meant to reveal how much easier it is for you to mix on an operational and process level. It’s not meant as a subjective listening test, although you’ll likely think your mix sounds better. Regardless, if you’re finding it suddenly easier to mix, there’s a reason for it. It’s easier to mix when summing analog.

I’ve used many DAWs and in my experience they are currently all flawed at summing.

Enjoy,

Mixerman

I tested the Vintage Design 16ch summing (cant remember the model name), the SPL Mixdream and the Speck X-sum.

What i did was I took a mix project that I had in my DAW and made summing groups (16ch) via my interfaces through the boxes at unity gain etc and then recorded them back into the DAW. All the pannings in the DAW was exactly kept and I used only full LR stereo groups in the boxes. The song was a kinda avant garde rock song with both really quite and really loud parts.

Now, comparing these mixes with the ITB mix made no real difference to me, (except when using the transformer in the mixdream in which case i could hear a slight coloration/warmth) I would much rather buy another cool piece of gear that I feel actually makes a difference to my sound and/or workflow.

To make a long story short (not enough time right now to fully elaborate), after a full day of testing and listening I came to the conclusion that it’s not the summing itself that makes people like analog mixing but the unlinearity, the “flaws” etc. I see no real point in buying a really clean summing mixer for the sake of sound only. (A tube one would be a diffrent story though because of distortion)
Of course a summing mixer can be very useful anyway, routing, insert points etc. And I also have to add that I use SSL Soundscape as DAW, which is a (according to tale) very good sounding daw, whatever that means. So I do not know if Pro-Tools or other DAWs benefit more from summing OTB.

/Magnus

What helps me even more (and quicker) is to detach myself from the inner workings of the track, knowing what is what and how it’s built and whatnot.
I find it useful to print the mix and listen to it in the Finder Preview only, that sad bland look immediately removes me from the visual representation of the track within Ableton Live, where I believe I often listen too much with my eyes and/or brain anyway. It’s akin to the “don’t look at the meters” thing I guess.

Also, SoundCloud is great for notetaking on tracks. I simply upload the current mix and add timed comments, makes it easy to keep track of your thoughts, mix versions, and such.