Dangerous Music has published a short video in which sound engineer Ryan West (Eminem, Jay Z, Willie Nelson) describes the best way to use a hybrid mixing rig with analog summing.
From Flux Recording Studios in NY, Ryan points out why simply taking an in-the-box mix and spreading the channels out into an analog summing mixer isn’t going to instantly improve the mix, because that’s not the way analog summing works. It is a completely different environment so you have to “start from the beginning using a high-quality summing mixer” to reap the sonic benefits—the increased punch, clarity, stereo separation, depth, width and the “front to back three-dimensionality” that separate an average mix from a great one.
Ryan tells his story of how he switched from in-the-box mixing to using analog summing. He now uses the Dangerous Music 2-BUS+ and his mixes got “better, bigger, badder, and more exciting.”
“There’s a lot of mystery and even some controversy around hybrid mixing and using analog summing,” says Ryan. “For me, analog summing is the answer, the whole mixing system is larger than the sum of its parts, the monitor controller, great conversion quality, discreet analog channels of a summing mixer—those things taken together give you the ability to get a great mix. You can only utilize your skills when you can hear what’s going on. That’s how you get to where you want to be as a mixer.”
Ryan West has engineered at top New York studios including Stadiumred Studios NYC, SoHo Studios, and Baseline Recording Studios, cranking out hit after hit for today’s top artists. And gear matters to him too, “The more that I can hear, the more that I can control when mixing. That’s Crucial. When you are adjusting wonderful reverbs and delays and small sounds that can cause excitement in a mix without being in your face…having the sort of detail I can hear in the Dangerous converters is huge to me.”
As an accomplished engineer and producer in a variety of musical genres, #RyanWest is best known for chart-topping Hip-Hop and R&B mixes for today’s top artists such as Rihanna, Eminem, Jay Z, T.I., Usher, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent and many more. His mixes for artists have reached 19 Gold, 10 Platinum, 5 Multi-Platinum, and 1 Diamond RIAA album awards levels. He was nominated for the prestigious Album of the Year Grammy in 2004 for Usher’s “Confessions,” and again in 2011 for Eminem’s “Recovery.”
More information: Dangerous Music / Ryan West
