Rackmount Passive Analog Summing Mixer – Unique Custom Studio Solutions

Warm Up your Digital ITB mixes – add analog depth and vibe. Discover your DAW Interface analog potential and get a Console like Sound with a Custom Rackmount Passive Analog Summing Mixer

Any number of channels can be ordered with any type of connector! Do not find your Gear? Don’t worry! Just inform us about your requirements!


Rackmount Passive Analog Summing Mixer
Rackmount Passive Analog Summing Mixer

Why important summing box to be designed for your DAW interface? Answer: to achieve optimal sound quality, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and Headroom for your audio recordings.

Request professional assistance to construct your studio equipment. 8 to 64 input channel custom rack mounted passive summing mixer boxes designed for your analog hybrid studio mixing mastering recording workflow Antelope, Motu, Focusrite, Ferrofish, Presonus, Prism, Orion, SSL, API Audio, Roland, Tascam, Behringer, Apogee, RME, Audient, M-Audio and Synth, Keyboard, Drum Machine and more! Feel free to ask! You get the best custom summing mixer designed for Your studio.


CUSTOMER FEEDBACK – REVIEWS Rackmount Passive Analog Summing Mixer

I have been working with Bob Katz doing the mastering.
I want to share this quote from Bob.
“Things are a lot sweeter! Compared to the previous mixes this overall sound, including the vocal, is like milk and honey! Overall with better balance and natural tonality. The sound has very nice dynamics and impact. It’s a total transformation. Good clarity, instrumental balance, stereo image…
Feel free to use the +18 setting or even a hair higher if available as your peak level does not exceed -5.6 dB.”  Bob Katz
This is to the Dr Flouride Mix 24 summing mixer you made thank you. It’s letting me do world class work in a very remote environment.

Cr Jeffrey McLaughlin

The real deal maker is that you can get a custom built one that suits your exact needs. The international shipping was very fast to the West Coast USA, and the build time was within a week for my specific custom needs.  I’m so glad I came across Paul’s stuff. Definitely a great choice!!

Mike Castonguay – www.imaginationsurplus.com

Hi Paul,
After a few days of tweaking and tweaking the entire system, the summing is sounding beautiful and my mixes are crisp and full-bodied like never before! Stereo is wide and mono puts a lot of body and punch to the songs. Thank you very, very much.

Alexandre Ciaglia

My REVIEW: Clarity and Glue.

It clearly sounds better than in the box summing, but you all knew that would be the case. It also sounds better than the AMEK console that I had been using for summing mixes. I had sold the console and this was one of the replacement parts. I am Very Happy. I would highly recommend Paul Taylor’s custom built products. he was easy to deal with, great communication and ultimately a great sounding box that let me interface the preamps I already have as the 2 buss. A serious upgrade for a box that is reasonably priced for what it does. I would love to hear the other active summing mixers that he makes, but for now, I am a happy studio owner with the box he sent me.

Herb Belofsky Drummer · Austin, Texas gearpace (gearslutz)

Gearspace summing review

As a producer for 15 years, I’ve solely relied on in-the-box mixing to achieve the desired sound while working to eliminate the harsh cold digital computer sound. To add some analog beauty to my mixes, I make use of plugins such as Oeksound’s Soothe, UAD Studer Tape, Oxford Inflator, and others. Although I had heard about analog summing for years and highly recommended by Fab Dupont, I remained skeptical about investing my hard-earned money into something that “might” work, especially given that other mix engineers like Andrew Scheps claimed to do without analog gear.

However, after watching some Vintage Maker videos and learning about their reasonably priced product, I decided to give it a try. I contacted Paul at Vintage Maker and provided him with my setup details. He sent me all the necessary information, including a personalized visual direction sheet and a custom-built unit that met my requirements. I was pleasantly surprised when I received and plugged in the unit, as my mixes transformed from trying to fix harsh tones to having to brighten some of the tracks, which is a positive challenge.

The 3D stereo imaging is indeed accurate

particularly on effects, and the sweet warm sound of the summing mixer makes me want to listen instead of shying away from piercing guitar solos or female vocals. The customer service was exceptional, and the transformation of my mixes was well worth the $500 I spent. I am now a firm believer in the effectiveness of Vintage Maker’s summing mixer. Thank you, Paul and Vintage Maker!

Customer feedback: “Really cool passive analog mix bus summing box. Really well made. Noiseless, infinite headroom and no power required. The best way to mix outside the computer, enjoy clip free summing and then use the mic pres of your choice to send your mix back to your DAW recording and mixing”..

Paul makes some amazing high quality summing mixers. I’ve owned the Dangerous 2 Buss and the Roll Folcrom, and this easily holds its own with those units


Coloring or non coloring amp? that is the question….

Well, you can use a really warm tube amp for sound colour, or a really transparent non coloring amp for clean sounding, that’s your choice, and depend of your audio material. IMHO my customers really don’t like to change their mix character. On the other side the nice and pleasant harmonics can make the magic on your music.

btw — add an EQ for coloring / adding tone can massively redefine the tone of mix, and sounds really cool..:)

So no problem at all If you do not have expensive microphone preamplifiers, You can use for gain make up Your existing DAW Mic Preamps or instrument line inputs with GREAT success because you will get a custom built passive summing mixer designed for your preamps work range.


Frequently Asked Questions – Passive Summing – FAQ

Can I use my DAW interface “stock” mic preamps or line input’s for summing mixer gain makeup?

  • Yes, you can. By prior consultation the mixer will be designed for your DAW mic preamp working range, so you can use your DAW interface mic preamp without any compromises.
  • To make the best gear for you, just let me know your interface type, gain range of your DAW mic preamp or external preamp (like +20dB /+30dB/+55dB/+65dB or more relative to 0dB)

You can order different gain reduction mixers as:

  • -6dB,
  • -10dB,
  • -15dB,
  • -20dB,
  • -25dB or more

Variable gain switch like:

  • -6/-16dB,
  • -10/-20dB
  • 15/-25dB or more
Mic Pre (max gain) / Summing reduction ratios example: 
  • 30dB Mic Pre = -15dB Summing reduction
  • 60dB Mix Pre = -25dB Summing reduction
  • *plus minus 5dB

Based on customer feedback, these values provide the best SNR and Headroom 

The other passive mixers on the market come with huge  -35dB to -40dB gain loss, which requires +50 to +60dB gain make up, which in my humble opinion is meaningless, and it requires expensive preamplifiers, but if you have them, you are a lucky man:)
For example customers with -25dB gain loss summing use +50 dB to+60 dB  range gears like Neve 1073, Avalon etc. with great success based on  customer feedback since 2010′.

Why Passive Summing gain reduction?
  • Gives Analog Headroom
  • Provides load isolation 
  • Channel to channel isolation

As all analog mixers as well the passive summing network circuit need to have summing resistors placed on channel inputs,due to those (Vishay Dale) resistors  provides load isolation and improves channel to channel isolation.

The point is, it couldn’t be summed different instruments without resistor (gain loss) isolation, if you try to do without resistors as result you get over 0dB, furthermore you get clipping above 0db actually cause worse audio quality…

  • Headroom is how much room has your audio signal has before it starts to get compressed and distorted.
  • Headroom – It provides buffer zone for harmonics, transients or loud sounds without risking clipping, which result a more dynamic open and wide, depth 3D sound. Also it provides space for Gentle Harmonics Distortion. 

In digital and analog audioheadroom refers to the amount by which the signal-handling capabilities of an audio system exceed a designated nominal level.[1]Headroom can be thought of as a safety zone allowing transient audio peaks to exceed the nominal level without damaging the system or the audio signal, e.g., via clipping. Standards bodies differ in their recommendations for nominal level and headroom. (wikipedia)

Driving the PASSIVE SIDE will add harmonics to help ‘image’ sounds. 

By proper gain staging can achieve the Analog Harmonics Sweet Spot

How to hit analog harmonic distortion ?

Simply boost up your DAW output Level (master fader) – and you get some “nice” distortion because you’re pushing the summing quite a bit over its nominal level  

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melbourne pughouse studios summing mixer add analog depth and vibe and discover your DAW Interface analog potential and get a Console like Sound! Antelope, Motu, Focusrite, Ferrofish, Presonus, Prism, Orion
Vintage Maker Analog Passive Summing Mixers

Summing mixer for Ableton Live 11, Logic Pro, Presonus Studio One 6, Bitwig Studio 5, Audacity, Digidesign Avid Pro Tools, Garage Band, Steinberg Cubase Pro 12, FL Studio 21, Cockos Reaper, Propellerhead Reason, Digital Performer, Fruity Loops, Bitwig Studio, Harrison Mixbus32C, MOTU Digital Performer, Cakewalk by BandLab, Apple GarageBand, Acoustica Mixcraft 9 Recording Studio, Akai MPC Beats, Serato Studio