I saw this site recently on a White Sea Studio video. From what I can tell, these guys “digitized” the controls for the hardware, and basically rent you time to run tracks/mixes through it. Brilliant.
Has anyone used this site or heard of it before? I have IK’s FC670 sitting on my mixbus. It’ll be fun to hear how a real one compares.
Honestly, this is one of the coolest and most “out of the box” - pun intended 
- ideas I have come across!
I signed up for the service a while back… definitely going to try it at some point just for fun. If it works as advertised it’ll be a super cool and not-that-expensive option for some different flavors.
I saw something a few years ago where somebody was doing this, don’t remember if it was that site or another. Since MixAnalog’s site is still in Beta I’m thinking it was someone else.
What an awesome idea! They are working on a plugin so that this can be done directly from our favorite DAWs in the future. These guys are from Slovenia, really cool idea.
Mix:Analog has a Youtube channel here.
And here he explains how they do it.
sooo… this idea is really cool and impressive, in theory .
BUT…
how do you know (for sure) that its really analog plus two digital (DA/AD) conversions? And why would you even care? I do analog STYLE mixes AND mastering, but its really just beautiful digital emulations of the best analog gear, simple EQs and vintage compressors etc…
People say they like it (mostly) - but that’s because they probably haven’t worked it out for themselves yet (how to do it).
There is no difference to my ear anymore, I can’t tell the plugins from the real analog. Its taken decades, but now I can’t tell.
I really can’t.
Maybe somebody can try it and tell me it’s better…
I think that’s a very good point. The software technology seems to get better and better all the time, which is no surprise I guess. Innovation. When I see new products coming out they keep talking about fancy new algorithms and emulations that truly replicate some kind of hardware etc. Or maybe that’s the new gear marketing hype (“pristine”, “effervescent”, “velvety”).
The guitar amp sims aren’t just code written to sound like it … they now claim to be mapping tube tone and numerous other lifelike characteristics of classic guitar amps. I didn’t get the Bias Amp stuff, but that seemed to be what they were touting (customize your tone) and it did seem pretty cool.
The console and effects emulations seem to be quite advanced now too. I don’t know if they’ll get to the point where you can say that they work in exactly the same ways, but there’s probably a valid argument to whether you can hear the difference or not.
DAW features, interfaces, preamps, converters, microphones … all getting at least marginally better over time with new technologies and features I would think. At what point can you say the new stuff is actually better? I’m sure there will always be nostalgia for the past technology, but there could be an expiration date leading to its obsolescence.