Jesse Vainio, multi-award winning Finnish mixing and mastering engineer recently tested the Phoenix Audio Scion summing mixer and ended up buying two of them from us!
"Recently I upgraded my summing mixer to Phoenix Audio Scion. I was so impressed about the sound quality that I bought immediately another one. Scions really do help me to get the sound I'm looking for project after project.
My 1st Scion is mainly for drums & basses, taking advantage of all 4 different sounding outputs. 2nd unit is for vocals, guitars, keys, synths etc., using mostly cleanest output and spreading it a smidge with stereo width knob. I'm really enjoying having all these sonic options.
To me Scions are a crucial part of getting that lovely analog sound I'm so used to. They allow me to mix faster and more accurately. They simply make me a better mixer." - Jesse Vainio
We also asked Jesse to share some context on his signal chain, explaining why and how he uses the SPL Mixdream, Dangerous 2Bus XT, and Burl Audio converters and he explained, that the reason he also uses the SPL and Dangerous Music summing mixers is simple: they provide even more sonic options.
The Scions add a lot of character to the sound, even at the cleanest settings, using clean outputs and relatively moderate input levels. The results are absolutely fantastic, but he sometimes finds it can be a bit much, especially for today's pop music where tracks are already heavily saturated and processed. In those cases he often relies partially or entirely on the SPL, which is a much cleaner sounding unit than the Scions.
Both the Scions and the SPL are summed into the super-clean Dangerous 2Bus XT, which doesn't add any color or saturation. He also routes specific elements through the Dangerous when he wants the cleanest possible analog sound, for example female vocals, synth basses, or other key elements.
From the Dangerous 2Bus XT, the signal goes into his Liaison A bus, where he can choose to apply mixbus processing. It then passes into the Burl AD1 converter. The Burl AD2 converter acts as a separate matrix (DA --> Burl AD2 "bus"), used when he wants to add something to the mix without any mixbus processing. Both buses are fully time-aligned in Pro Tools and summed digitally. From there, the signal flows into his digital mastering bus.
Jesse Vainio is an established Finnish mixing & mastering engineer. With over 25 years in the business, he has mixed countless hit records for countless multi-platinum artists (James Marriott, Sunrise Avenue, Sarah Brightman, Apocalyptica) Jesse delivers mixes in all formats including Dolby Atmos (certified).
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