Tegeler Audio is a company based out of Tegel, in the north of Berlin, founded by Michael Krusch
For the past 15 years or so, they’ve been focusing on producing high-quality audio hardware. We’ve previously done videos on their Myth EQs, their Creme EQ/compressor, and their Magnetismus.
Today we’ll be delving into their tube summing mixer—a 40-channel in, stereo-out, tube-based summing box.
In the world of pro-audio equipment, you start to notice trends every few years. At one point, it was all about tubes, then vintage transformers, and summing mixers had their moment as well. So, I guess this unit ticks a couple of those boxes.
Well, around 1999, Dangerous Music released their 2-bus unit, a rack-mounted device that accepted 16 tracks and combined them into a stereo output.
This is similar to mixing on an analog console and routing everything into the master bus, where the channels would combine internally.
People were starting to feel that doing this directly to a digital channel at the end of a DAW mixing chain lacked a certain “something,” whether it was transformer coloration, headroom, spatial imaging, detail, transients, or the natural dynamics you’d get from an analog desk.
This was the origin of the summing mixer. Digital recording had practically taken over the industry by this point, and people were realizing that it was possibly missing a little of the warmth or texture that analog processes added.
It was definitely a great time to buy a second-hand tape machine!
The Tegeler summing mixer we’re looking at today accepts a massive 40 channels—32 via D-Sub and an additional 8 via TRS—all run through high-quality capacitors (Wurth and WIMA), a pair of full-voltage 12AU7 tubes (none of that starved plate voltage stuff), a pair of unidentified transformers, and then back out again.
It’s a simple box, and that’s kinda what you want in this situation—two VU meters on the front, an attenuator knob in case you run it too hot, and that’s about it.
It’s not a passive unit per se, but it doesn’t add any gain to your source whatsoever.
Today, I’m going to sum a track by All Her Years titled “Little Fire” into the unit and see what it does.
You’ll have the video and audio cycling back and forth between bypassed and engaged modes so you can hear for yourself what this box does to the audio and draw your own conclusions.
And there we have it—the Tegeler 40-channel tube summing mixer. This big ol’ summing mixer lets you run your digital mixes through and gives them a more analog-style cohesion.
It’s definitely a useful studio piece that’ll give a little extra flavour and oomph to your computer-based mixes, and it comes in a good-looking wooden box.
The Tegeler Tube Summing mixer retails for around $3,200 AUD and is available from all reputable pro audio retailers.
Head to Tegeler for more info.
