Online mixing and mastering through digital processing is unmatched when it comes to the shear amount of editing and automation features available. The freedom and ease of mixing and matching, routing and re-routing throughout the signal chain is unparalleled. The creative power is seemingly endless, only limited by the CPU and the imagination.

Patching and re-patching analogue gear and components can be a time consuming and tedious job when online mixing and mastering, especially with high track counts and lots of gear. Keeping track of a large mix or online music mastering session when the patch-bay looks like a spaghetti mess takes discipline and organization, and when the producer decides to change something like reversing the order of compressor and EQ while adding a side-chain trigger from another channel and a delay effect through a separate aux channel, be ready to grab your notes and make it happen.

Available Track Count:

Digital online mixing and mastering ITB processing offers high audio track counts often only limited by the computer processor and other peripherals. However, large audio track counts being mixed ITB can have a tendency to sound chocked as the headroom in digital summing can be quite limited, and the more processing you eat up with high-end, resource hungry plug-ins, the more apparent this chocking can come across in the final mix. Pro Tools HD users don’t tend to have this problem, but higher audio track counts mixed ITB on most systems can also have a tendency to lack punch, depth and separation, which are all synonymous with analogue multi-track online mixing and mastering.

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