The Pro Tools "Pepsi Challenge"

[smash]

I just had a listen to the Pro Tools so called "Pepsi Challenge".

Comparing the difference between a mix done in 'tools using the Waves SSL plugs with a mix done on an actual SSL.

Now personally, I think that referring to it as the Pepsi Challenge is a bad move number, as I can easily tell the difference between
pepsi and coke, and prefer Coke.

Here is the link...

http://akwww2.digidesign.com/mitb/video ... ith_ID.sit

Have a listen... and then I'm gonna set up another Topic where people can talk about whether or not they can hear a difference, and
what, if any, that difference might be...

[TimS]

Here is the link to the page where you can d/l either Win or Mac formats for the PT Challenge..
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?langid=61&navid=49&itemid=25669

Just doing it all myself now..
TimS..

[Mark Bassett]

An engineer brought an EP in for mastering the other day and he had two different versions.

Verison A was a bounce from tools LE 002

Version B was played out of tools and recorded onto an external burner.

There was a noticable difference between the two, with the mixes from

the external burner preferred by myself and the engineer.

[jkhuri44]

bit hard to hear any differences on a highy compressed file, and on different slices of the music....

mite have to dl the non ID version :P

[toddd]

"An engineer brought an EP in for mastering the other day and he had two different versions.

Verison A was a bounce from tools LE 002

Version B was played out of tools and recorded onto an external burner.

There was a noticable difference between the two, with the mixes from

the external burner preferred by myself and the engineer."

Sorry to steal the thread a little bit, but :

Mark's statement makes me wonder if it would be better to bounce mixes onto another computer as a 2 track recording... Bounces in the box still sound a little bit 'off' to me, so would using another computer as a 2 track make a difference? - considering you would still have to bounce the 2 track out of the session you recorded it in...

cheers, todd.

[smash]

bit hard to hear any differences on a highy compressed file, and on different slices of the music....

mite have to dl the non ID version :P

They are 44.1/16 pcm encoded in a quicktime movie, if you turn of your computer monitors you have no way of knowing
whether or not you are hearing the Pro Tools or the SSL version. ;-)

[rob]

perhaps a passive mix is the ticket ! : http://www.broadcastproaudio.com/new.htm

Rob

[toddd]

haha, i know of the passive rob. it's in the equation...

[mfdu]

yeah rob - nice descrete plug there huh?

chris
mfdu

[rob]

only sort of plug in i know anything about :)

Rob

[mfdu]

yeah - my current plug-in format is 1/4" TRS. though i hope to upgrade to bantam someday.

i been trying to refind this joke site for ages - there was a plug-in site that had some really 'useful' stuff - eg. the Producer (TDM or RTAS) - sits at the rear of the control room with coke spoon up nose and a couple of groupies on hip, and makes uncharitable comments about the client whenever the talkback mic is open.

if anyone knows the site i'm rabbiting on about, i'd love to find it again!

chris
mfdu

[davemc]

Interesting the Alt rock I picked all but one this early in the morning, jazz and hard rock well not exactly my style I mix so I had mixed results.
Even though I been a Pro Tools guy for years, plugins really do not do colour for me. Colour is done with nice outboard I like a little real dirt in my mixing. I always in a mix at least placed a 2 buss outboard eq or comp on for years. That is why you always hear people say that just summing through a mackie desk makes things sound better then ITB. The mackie adds some dirt although I think it also adds some hi and low pass eq's,. Most desks are not real flat, digital depending on convertors is to clean, so you end up with crap in a mix you really do not want and no dirt in it. I have tried the stem out to desk to do A/B and like most A/B stuff you do it depends, as I would of mixed it different if I mix using the stems, I also mix different from one day to the next depending on how the mood takes me.
This debate will never end, personally I prefer mixing on 2" tape through a mixing console with a vibe. It costs a lot to maintain now a lot of desks need a lot of TLC and tape is not cheap. The reality is a lot of bands cannot play well enough to stay on tape, most are not happy to mix without automation and live with a mix and most do not have the $'s they need to record unless you doing label work. (Even then the money is not what it used to).
At the end of the day someone will take your mix and dump it down to 128k or less MP3.

[Kris]

meh... by the time it gets ituned, opti-mod'd and car stereo-ised I don't think it will really matter. Give me a song that will live forever, preferably one that I own the rights to! Ha!

[heathen]

[quote="toddd"]

Mark's statement makes me wonder if it would be better to bounce mixes onto another computer as a 2 track recording... Bounces in the box still sound a little bit 'off' to me, so would using another computer as a 2 track make a difference? - considering you would still have to bounce the 2 track out of the session you recorded it in...

cheers, todd.[/quote]

I've always done it this way, takes longer but still worth the effort, especially if you have nice outboard comps and eq's, decent converters with decent clocking will help greatly also. I still mix on an O2R from my computer which has an rme hdsp 24 channel adat card, my system is clocked from my Apogee Rosetta's, I use the rosetta 800 as main line inputs (while tracking) , sends and returns to my outboard gear (while mixing), and rosetta 200 from the o2r aes stereo outs (the o2r analog outs suck) with firewire card to my 2nd computer for mixdown with say outboard eq and comp patched in between the rosetta 200 analog outs and ins.

There is a bonus doing it this way with the rosettas as they have twin adat outs for double wire format, I use the second outs (its a mirror image in single wire mode) as returns to my o2r while tracking and patching in my outboard gear for ABSOLUTELY ZERO LATENCY monitoring.

Everything is clocked by the rosetta 200, every input and output is apogee and it is a rock solid system.

Sort of confusing but works great for me.

I tried mixing in the box totally and just can't do it happily bouncing to disk. I wonder if its all about good quality clocking compared with the internal clocking of a pc, i dunno, everything just sounds more fluid to me when mixed into a different 2 track device in real time, whether its a 2nd computer or external burner even without outboard gear in between.