Inside the Studio: A Little Summin, Summin

A Long Time Ago in a Studio Far, Far Away…

The summing wars have been going on for a long time. More specifically, analog emulation has been going on for a long time. The quest for harmonic distortion is real. I can remember when the Pro Tools Mix and Mix Plus systems came out and we first started seeing debates on what sounded better: a console or Pro Tools. Fast forward to today and there are thousands of (what we call) hybrid setups. The Bigfoot software running into the Loch Ness summing mixer with Unicorn converters and a Kraken monitoring system. I’m starting to think that there’s more and more equipment being made to solve problems that don’t really exist, but I digress…

For a piece of software to catch my eye, it has to be more than a one-trick pony. Sound is obviously important but why else would I want to fool with it? There has to be more than one trick up its sleeve to get me to want to abandon a platform that I’ve been using for years and know like the back of my hand. That said, let’s say there was a platform that might: A, sound good and B, give me options for shaping the sonic landscape of a piece of music, and do it in a way that’s adaptive and intuitive— then, we’d have something to consider. What if?

Enter LUNA and Universal Audio console emulation technology.