SQ vs. DAW mixing

[BarryjamParticipant]

I know there are a number of users who are both DAW and SQ mixers. In the situation where you’ve recorded lots of audio tracks only (30-32) into your DAW from usb-B, what are your opinions of mixing using DAW EQ, Compression, reverb and gates vrs. SQ EQ, compression, reverb and gates.

I know I will use Cubase 10 for normalizing, pitch correction, tiny timing corrections, but what about SQ vs DAW for the final mix down to stereo? This would be eventually syncd to video as a band demo.

I have the opto and mighty add-ones along with dyneq and multi-band compressor on the SQ. I have stock Cubase plug ins and have used Old versions of Waves Renaissance that I could update.

So tell me how you would approach this situation and why? I know this is a very broad question. MANY THANKS in advance!

[volounteerParticipant]

I prefer to mix in the DAW as I can still make changes if I choose to.
Mixing in the SQ will bake that into the signal and could be hard/impossible to undo.

OTOH I prefer to mix with stems so I would tend to do some mixing in the SQ but not all of it.

[BarryjamParticipant]

So you like the eq and compressing in your DAW better or equal to what’s available on SQ?

Yes, on Sq, the two track final mix is baked, but it is easy enough to redo that if the overall sound is superior. Mixing down doesn’t alter the original individual tracks, so I guess I don’t understand the concern that mixing would be destructive in any way?

[Author]

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