Multi-tracking and setting up 2496, Cubase 5 and Soundcraft Spirit M8

[midest6]

I have the M-audio Audiophile 2496 card, a Soundcraft Spirit M8 mixer and my DAW is Cubase 5. After I record one audio track, my next recorded audio track picks up the previous track as well. How can I play along to the first track but not record it as well, that is how to monitor my already recorded tracks while i am recording a new one, excluding the whole mix from this new track? How should i set up the Soundcraft and the 2496 in order to avoid this? Please note that i am sending the monitor outs of the Soundcraft to the analogue audio ins of the 2496, while i am feeding back the console's playback (P/B) inputs with the analogue audio outs of the 2496.
Any help will be greatly appreciated...

 

[jimmys69]

I believe you should be feeding your soundcard from the direct outs of the channels you want to record. The monitor out is going to output the sum of all faders. You would mix these in the Cubase mixer. You are essentially only using the mixer for it's preamps.

 

[Bobbsy]

Direct outs is one good way to do it.

A second way would be to feed the main outs from the mixer (with your sources panned hard right and hard left so you get two discrete channels). Bring the ouput of the 2496 back into two spare mixer inputs and use one of the prefade auxes to create a mix of the Cubase output and the new material. You'll have to feed the Aux out to some form of headphone amp for this to work--but even a basic hifi amp with with a headphone socket would do it. This'll allow you to customise the headphone mix a bit too.

Or you could use a hybrid of the two and do the direct out to the 2496, use the main outs for your monitor speakers and the aux for headphones while recording.

 

[midest6]

thank you both so much.
the direct outs method works. i did it somehow before, but because i have all of my synths plugged in, i was kind of lazy to switch between channels and looking for an easier way. now i am trying the second proposal.