Help! Computer to Mixer and back to computer

[nemal]

I want to take multiple audio output from cakewalk, send it to my Yamaha Promix 01 digital mixer (all In and Out's are audio, not digital, except a single coaxial stereo out), mix down and then feed it back into my computer.

Can that be done? I am new to this stuff.
I plan on buying a Echo Layla. I'm hoping that will allow
me to simultaneously playback from the computer and then mix it and send it back to other tracks.

I will be upgrading to a better computer in a few days, but for now I have a 200MHz Pentium, running Windows 95, and a very cheap sound card that I think is duplexed, but I'm not sure.

The problem is, with my current sound card, anything that goes into it is mixed with what is coming out. I know this because I can hear it. So, if I have sounds coming out of my computer, going through my mixer, and then back to the computer I get a feedback loop that isn't healthy for my equipment. Will the Layla let me record data without sending it back out? Am I even making sense? Am I going about this all wrong?

Thanks for any help.

 

[ola]

Almost all soundcards nowadays are "full duplex" meaning that they can play and record at the same time, without creating the mess that you describe. The recorded tracks are new tracks and you have the old ones left as well. You simply feed the line outs from the soundcard to line ins on your mixer and feed the master out (the final mix) on the mixer to the line input on the soundcard. Keep in mind that the recorded tracks will be slightly delayed compared to the original tracks (latency) as the D/A and A/D conversion takes a few milliseconds. You will notice it if you go in and out of the computer a couple of times and compare it to the original tracks. If you record the final mix only, it won't matter as you won't play the mix and the original tracks at the same time. Also, you'll need as many soundcard outputs as you plan on having tracks as you need one output for each track, which can get expensive...

Most computer recordists will recommend that you mix in your music software and mainly use the outputs to feed your monitors. just using the computer as a tape recorder is pretty expensive. Then you can have as many tracks as the computer can handle, which is prety darn much today. Especially if you "settle" for 16bit/44.1kHz quality. It gets worse if you aim at 24/96.

Good luck

/Ola