Thank you for you questions. They are in deed very interesting topics. Summing is a technique that became more and more popular in the last few years. It can definitely improve the overall texture, clarity and separation of a mix. To answer your questions:
1) It depends on the Audio Interface but in general I would say no. See, the advantage of using a summing mixer is that the mixing (and therefore the summing of the audio channels) happens in the analog/electric domani and not in the digital domain. When you send the signal out of your audio interface it is an analog signal that was translated from the digital realm of the DAW. As soon as you re-send it inside the audio interface it is re-sampled and therefore it is converted back in the digital domain. In most audio interfaces the summing happens after the conversion, basically eliminating the advantage of having the summing happening in the analog domain.

2) My advice is that if you decide to go for analog summing go with a good summing mixer. spending $2000 on a pretty good mixer that doesn’t have class-A channels is not worth it since you are trying to improve the sound of your productions to the next level. There summing mixers out there that are between $3000 and $4000 that I would check out instead than a regular mixing board. You need something with Class-A inputs in order to really go to the next level.

I hope this helps.

Take care,
Andrea

While it appears to be a pretty cool box, the Ensemble didn’t fall under the test criteria. I was looking at interfaces that could be used and seen by Pro Tools HD as a ’192′. I’m not planning on leaving the HD format at this point, so limiting the options to converters that are ‘plug and play’ was the first thing on the list.

Since I can now use other interfaces now w PT9, I guess it is possible to do that test. If for some reason an opportunity comes up, I’ll give it a try.

As far as Eros, I’ll shoot an email with details. I’ve done tracking, overdubbing, and mixing at various times on at least three of his records.

Cheers,
John

http://video.apogeedigital.com/2008/08/sbus-vbus-tutorial/

I hope this helps. Please if you have more specific questions do not hesitate to contact me.

Take care and happy productions!

Andrea

My name is Kevin Halter, a producer who uses large orchestral sample libraries via Native Instruments Kontakt 4. I recently purchased an Apogee System and the issue at hand pertains to a low spread of multi-core usage in Logic 9 via 3rd party audio units such as Kontakt 4. For example, when using Kontakt 4, only one core displays usage in my CPU meter window. I understand that creating AUX busses can help spread the core usage, however I am curious as to whether or not V-Bus would be of assistance to me with Kontakt 4. If so, can you provide me with the proper steps to route plugins to Logic 9 via V-Bus, as well as, a list of the available 3rd party plugins that are supported by V-Bus.
Thank you for your time.

Kevin Halter

GEAR
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Hardware
- Mac Pro 12 Core (2 x 2.66 GHz 6-Core Intel Xeon Processors, 16 GB Memory)
- Apogee Symphony I/O (8 Analog I/O – 8 Optical I/O, Version 1.2.17)
- Apogee Symphony 64 (Driver Version 1.2.9)
Software
- Mac OSX Version 10.6.7
- Apogee Maestro 2.1.26
- Logic Pro 9.1.3, 64-Bit
- Native Instruments Kontakt 4.1.3
- Audiobro LASS, Project Sam Symphobia, Cinesamples…etc
- Toontrack Superior Drummer 2.2.3
- Addictive Drums 1.5.2
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere 1.5
- Waves Plugins