Analog Fuel for Digital Audio: Great New AES Gear
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Dangerous Music Boxes

Dangerous Music is one of my favorite audio companies. Owners Chris Muth and Bob Muller are two down-to-earth guys who create audio products that fill a huge gap in the ever-expanding personal studio market. As you may know, there's a huge debate in the professional recording industry about whether mixes created exclusively on the computer can rival mixes done on a large-format analog console like an SSL or Neve. People who make their living mixing "in the box" (ITB) will vehemently defend their stance, whereas the staunch old-school guys will raise their analog batons in retaliation. However, there are many Grammy-winning engineers who work with both systems and will tell you their honest opinion.

Given the choice (and I have asked a lot of top engineers), they agree that sending audio from a digital audio workstation (DAW) out of multiple outputs and summing it via analog truly gives their mixes a wider stereo image and more depth. That doesn't mean that ITB mixes don't or can't sound amazing—so please don't start blogging me on this debate. It just means that the ears I trust think analog summing sounds better.

Enter Chris Muth, Bob Muller, and their Dangerous 2-Bus systems. These boxes take your DAW's multiple outputs and sum them via high-quality analog components to a stereo output that you then send back into Pro Tools, your half-inch tape recorder, or whatever device you mix to. There are two models: the Dangerous 2-Bus and the smaller, less expensive 2-Bus LT. At $3,000 and $1,500, these units aren't cheap, but again we're talking bang first, buck second. If you want your mixes to sound like they're going through an analog console, look here.

Muth goes above and beyond in his designs; I can tell you that he meticulously hand-picks every knob and circuit to maintain as much integrity in the hardware as he does in the sound. I replaced my SSL with a Dangerous Music system after researching and testing other summing systems, such as APIs. Before selling the SSL, I ran three mixes: one on the SSL (no EQ or compression), one in-the-box mix, and one through the Dangerous system. I invited a handful of Austin's best engineers and producers to listen, and in blind tests, we had a unanimous decision that the Dangerous mixes beat out everything. They were simply cleaner and warmer to everyone.

The 2-Bus boxes have been out for a while, but at AES Dangerous Music unveiled what became my favorite piece of gear at the show: the Dangerous Monitor ST ($1,899).

The Dangerous Monitor ST (shown with the 5.1-channel SR expander on top) restores hardware control and signal routing to a software studio. (Click to enlarge.)

This is the Mackie Big Knob with a PhD and a personal trainer. The Monitor ST restores the hardware features that were lost when recording went virtual: a hardware volume knob; a cue system; a talkback system; a speaker switcher with level control for individual speakers; a headphone amp; four extra inputs for your CD player, DAT player, and mixdown deck; and more.

The icing on the cake is the sexy remote controller that connects to the one-rack unit with an Ethernet cable. I am so used to little handheld plastic remotes that I break or lose at some point. This controller is unique, substantial, and crafted out of metal. Every single feature of the Monitor ST is accessed through this remote, so now you can sit in your sweet spot and configure your entire system without reaching down and losing your mix perspective. Muth has built the ST to be expanded as well. Simply add another one-rackspace Monitor SR box ($1,299) and mix in surround. The Dangerous Monitor ST is one the most well-thought-out enhancements I've ever seen for DAWs.

Switching to Coleman Audio

Another boutique manufacturer at the show was Coleman Audio, owned and operated by audio guru Glenn Coleman. Coleman specializes in meters, speaker-switching modules, and monitoring devices such as the M3PH MKII, which provides four stereo inputs and three speaker outputs. The Rolling Stones reportedly travel with two Pro Tools HD systems that they use for live percussion loops in songs such as "Sympathy for the Devil," and they use Coleman's M3PH to switch between systems, in case one goes down. Coleman says the M3PH is more commonly used as a control-room monitor switcher and has become very popular among top mastering engineers.

My personal favorite piece of Coleman gear, since my passion is always for the DAW user, is the TB4 MKII, which is similar in concept to the Dangerous Monitor ST. In one rack space, this unit offers a main volume knob, four stereo inputs, a cue and talkback system, a separate headphone jack that allows the engineer to switch between the cue system and the control room source, and even a mini jack that supports a remote talkback device.

The latest addition to the Coleman line is the SM5.1 ($1,250), a six-channel VU-metering device. It was obviously built with surround metering in mind, but it would also be a terrific add-on for multichannel DAWs that don't provide accurate metering.

The Coleman SM5.1 brings high-quality analog metering to a computer DAW. XLR pass-through jacks on the back prevent the meters from affecting the signal.