Summary

Here's a 34-channel automation system with superb sonic quality, an elegant and comparatively painless installation, and some really superior capability. The computer screen display gives Ultramix a real edge over many installed systems, and the UltraPilot is a really cool solution to the external fader pack problem. Ultramix is easily expandable, should you so desire, and it seems quite reliable (with the caveat about copy protection limiting the life of the system). It will give your studio substantially enhanced capability over manual operations, and it has proved very easy to operate. If you already have the computer and the MIDI setup, at a list price of under $2500, it's a bargain!

Happy fades!

Dave Moulton would like to thank Alex Case, Mike Breault and Scott Loiselle for their assistance in this review.

Sidebar: Why automate?

Automation of mix levels and mutes is one of those operations that seems obvious, but turns out to be a little different when you actually get into it. At it's most basic, it is a way to take care of some mundane levels problem like mutes that are an essential part of our mixing craft - turning off tracks when they aren't in use. At a somewhat more complex level, automation allows you to set and change levels off-line, so that the final mix isn't nearly the "performance" it is manually, where you're trying to make all the levels 'n mute changes you want in real time.

To me, this is only the beginning of what automation really gives you, which is the ability to enhance the expressive performance of a multitrack recording through the use of very creative and detailed gain-riding. In a 16-track or greater context, such moves are physically impossible in real-time, because they all involve fairly complex musical performance issues. Automation is the only way you can accomplish things like accenting the back beat of the snare by a couple of dB through an entire song or boosting the sustained notes of singers when they run out of air.

Now this creative effort is no time saver - it takes much longer to do a mix where you try to write such things. The hope is that it gives you more powerful and musical mixers when you're done, even though it takes longer and costs more.

At the same time, it is important to keep in mind that automation is not a recall system that will allow you to recreate a mix exactly. To do that, you need to log everything going on in the control room during the mix, including synths, patches, outboard pieces, etc. It is unreasonable to expect a computer to log all of this. However, once you do log sessions completely, then automation allows you to very quickly recover something surprisingly close to the original mix, even years later.

So, Alex Case and I both view automation as sort of "second-order" mixing. We feel that it is faster and easier to set up a rough mix by hand, on the regular faders, doing all the EQ, signal processing, sends, returns, etc. just like in the good old days. Then, when you get to the point where the mix is beginning to "happen," you switch over to the automation, first writing all the mutes and then starting into fader levels and moves and beginning the slow, iterative polishing process that converts good tracks into a powerful musical experience.

When you're done, you've got to store both rough levels and automated levels. You do the former, plus all signal processing and other stuff by hand, or in my case, voice. The way I do it is to record by voice onto cassette all the studio settings as I zero the studio at the end of a mix session - then when it's time to set up again, I just play the cassette back and reset all the levels where they were. Only when you've done this plus your automation moves do you really have the mix stored.

So, don't short-change yourself by expecting the automation package to do it all. It can't.