ok, my main area as a musician is playing drums. which my set is miked with 7 mics, which i have ran into an 8 channel analog Peavey mixing board, that board is ran into my Delta 66 soundcard, and i use Logic Audio Gold software. but the problem i feel i would have more luck with a digital mixer. because with the software everything is recorded on one track, i want everything seperate tracks as it should be. i was recording a live band and it made it really difficult to manipulate and mixdown. also my normal soundcard is SB Live, and when i play back thru LAG it doesnt play, i have to run it thru Winamp or something like that, which i find rather inconvenient. another thing, i downloaded the new updates for LAG and now its not picking up anything from my Delta 66. so i am getting very frustrated, because i want to make good recordings and work on making cds, so any advice or info, on what i should do, or what i need to make this more successful would greatly be appreciated, thanks.
my recording setup - NEEDS HELP
- Thread starter sykotic
- Start date
my mixer is a Peavey Unity Series 1002-8 RQ, which i had prior to buying my delta 66 and LAG. but i need at least 7 tracks for my drums, so i can fine tune the recording of them, or i have thought bout snaking my drums into 1 channel on the mixer, leaving the other 7 open for vocals and guitars, but still its very difficult to get good recordings, cuz everything is recorded onto 1 track, yes true at most 4, which is still very limiting. maybe i just am not experienced enough to get quality recordings with just 4 tracks, but of course this is all new to me and frustrating. its very hard to troubleshoot, there are so many settings involved, from how things are miked, to my mixer settings, my 66 settings, and my Logic Audio settings. so for me its very difficult. but i appreciate the reply greatly, i just depserately want to make good recordings, as i think all of us do.
at least 5 for my drums, preferrably 7 if i use my over heads
at most 2 guitars
1 bass
and i would say 2 vocal mics
so this would be 12 tracks at least, i prefer to record as a unity like this and live. i could always record at most 4 tracks, and keep recording the others seperately, but then there is a little bit lost, cuz everyone feeds off of eachother. everyone playing at the same time is the most desirable goal. hope this helps.
at most 2 guitars
1 bass
and i would say 2 vocal mics
so this would be 12 tracks at least, i prefer to record as a unity like this and live. i could always record at most 4 tracks, and keep recording the others seperately, but then there is a little bit lost, cuz everyone feeds off of eachother. everyone playing at the same time is the most desirable goal. hope this helps.
Alchemist3k
New member
Well I would think about this seriously because the stup you think you require will cost you a fair sum (well for a home user anyway).
If you HAVE to record this many tracks at once I recommend:
1. Echo Layla Soundcard 10 or more inputs I think.
2. A decent analogue mixer with at least 8 busses ( this is going to cost you but nowhere near the same as a digital mixer e.g. Yamaga o2R costs almost £3000 here in the Uk!) Try a Soundcraft one for size.
How about this for thought though? When you record drums some think don't have to be recorded to their own track. e.g. if you have two overhead mics then they can be recorded to one track. If you have two bass drums they can go to one track.
If you can get away with getting an 8 Buss mixer then that is far preferable as mixers with more than 8 busses are going to cost a lot of money indeed.
If you DO have megabucks though! the get this
Yamaha O2R and RME project Hammerfall. Then you will be running a dogs bollox system.
PS please note. You have a delta card. I have one of these. Note that even if you get a digital mixer you can only record one track at a time becuase although the SPDIF is one cable the card ony has 4 channels!!!
If you HAVE to record this many tracks at once I recommend:
1. Echo Layla Soundcard 10 or more inputs I think.
2. A decent analogue mixer with at least 8 busses ( this is going to cost you but nowhere near the same as a digital mixer e.g. Yamaga o2R costs almost £3000 here in the Uk!) Try a Soundcraft one for size.
How about this for thought though? When you record drums some think don't have to be recorded to their own track. e.g. if you have two overhead mics then they can be recorded to one track. If you have two bass drums they can go to one track.
If you can get away with getting an 8 Buss mixer then that is far preferable as mixers with more than 8 busses are going to cost a lot of money indeed.
If you DO have megabucks though! the get this
Yamaha O2R and RME project Hammerfall. Then you will be running a dogs bollox system.
PS please note. You have a delta card. I have one of these. Note that even if you get a digital mixer you can only record one track at a time becuase although the SPDIF is one cable the card ony has 4 channels!!!
Alchemist3k
New member
PS I am not sure what you meant by your mixer has 8 channels? DO you mean that it is a small mixer with 8 channels and only a few busses? Or is it an 8 buss mixer? If it has 8 busses (8 outputs that is) then get the layla or an M Audio Delta 1010. That is an economical yet very option.
Alchemist3k
New member
Cubase VST 5.
Busses - well if you have a mixer it will have a certain number of input CHANNELS. The seven mics you have for drums are all plugged into a single channel each - with their own EQs etc on the mixer respectively. The OUTPUTS of a mixer are called BUSSES. So a basic mixer may havemany inputs but onyl 2 busses. You would route each channel to one of the two busses. In thios situation most people would make buss one the left speaker and busses two the right speaker. So in a computer situation, where the busses will go to the input channels of your soundcard you would only be able to record two tracks from the mixer at a time which would contain all your drums. For some tpeople this is ok but semi-pros and pros would have each drum mic preferably being recorded to its own track. Hence you will need a mixer with lots of outputs so that instead of combning the drums channels into a few mixer otuputs you can afford to have each input channel being routed to its own output buss. For 7 drum mics you would need an 8 buss mixer. If you intend to reocrd the whoel band in one go you will need a mixer with even more output busses than that! Pro Studios often use the term 24:24 mixer. This means that they have a dog bollox mixer which has as many outputs as it does inptus! 24in/24out! These start at £10k upwards so forget about it...
a twelve buss mixer woudl be ideal but perhaps the most costly part of your setup.
All mixer usually have a desciption like this 16:4 this means 16 in and 4 busses..
This is why most home studios use drum mahcines becaus emost of us cannot afford the outlay to buy the mixer and mics necessary to record real live drums well.
Also note that for the number of outptu busses on your mixer you will need a soundcard with at least that manyt inputs. There is another problem right there. After about 8 or 1 inputs (like the Delta 1010 or Echo Layla) the soundcards rarely come as an all in one package. What do i mean? Well a soundcard has two parts - the recording circuitry and an A/D/A converter which changes digital info into analogue signals And back. Card which are for Pro like the hammerfall have only ADAT interfaces and no A/D/A converter but they can handle a HUGE number fo channels. You would need to buy a good rackmount A/D/A converter. This plugs via a single ADAT interface to the digital IO of the soundcard. This is what pro Studios use.
e.g. a serious home studio make consist of this
a 12 buss analogue mixer into an Analogue to Digital converter into a good digtal IO soundcard.
This s#could be costly but by buying sensibly you could save a fortune. You only need reasonable AD converters not amazing ones. e.g some studios have Apogee converters that cost £6k!!!
but you can buy them for FAR FAR less than that.
As you can see it may seem bewildering but this is why seemingly expensive mixers such as the Yamaha O2R are becomign so popular with serious amateur and pro alike. It will have good AD converters build in and a digital out. So all you woudl need is the digital mixer plus a card like the RME hammerfall light.
PS i always consider that when buying some studio hear it is prudent to see if you can get some items second hand. They always tend to be in good condition and you can save a fortune.
Personally, I dont know how much you are willing to spend but realisticly if you are looking to record the whole band at once it could simpy be outwith your budget ( I know it is out of mine!). if you dont mind having some items record to the same track them or recording the band parts at different times (which is way more common) then you could geta good setup with some ease. I would recommend a 8 buss analogue mixer and a Delta 1010 or Echo Layla card. This would cost about £1500 so convert that to Dollars and that is what you would be looking at.
You have to be realistic... it is a home studio not a pro facility so unless this band are paying good money you might be better getting that 8 buss mixer and record the drums ( and hey woith the extra buss that's left you could do the bass at the same time!) together then record the guitars and vocals etc.
This mixer would be ideal if you need an 8 buss mixer....
Behringer 8 buss mixer
u could also see what Mackie hhave in that way too....
Busses - well if you have a mixer it will have a certain number of input CHANNELS. The seven mics you have for drums are all plugged into a single channel each - with their own EQs etc on the mixer respectively. The OUTPUTS of a mixer are called BUSSES. So a basic mixer may havemany inputs but onyl 2 busses. You would route each channel to one of the two busses. In thios situation most people would make buss one the left speaker and busses two the right speaker. So in a computer situation, where the busses will go to the input channels of your soundcard you would only be able to record two tracks from the mixer at a time which would contain all your drums. For some tpeople this is ok but semi-pros and pros would have each drum mic preferably being recorded to its own track. Hence you will need a mixer with lots of outputs so that instead of combning the drums channels into a few mixer otuputs you can afford to have each input channel being routed to its own output buss. For 7 drum mics you would need an 8 buss mixer. If you intend to reocrd the whoel band in one go you will need a mixer with even more output busses than that! Pro Studios often use the term 24:24 mixer. This means that they have a dog bollox mixer which has as many outputs as it does inptus! 24in/24out! These start at £10k upwards so forget about it...
a twelve buss mixer woudl be ideal but perhaps the most costly part of your setup.
All mixer usually have a desciption like this 16:4 this means 16 in and 4 busses..
This is why most home studios use drum mahcines becaus emost of us cannot afford the outlay to buy the mixer and mics necessary to record real live drums well.
Also note that for the number of outptu busses on your mixer you will need a soundcard with at least that manyt inputs. There is another problem right there. After about 8 or 1 inputs (like the Delta 1010 or Echo Layla) the soundcards rarely come as an all in one package. What do i mean? Well a soundcard has two parts - the recording circuitry and an A/D/A converter which changes digital info into analogue signals And back. Card which are for Pro like the hammerfall have only ADAT interfaces and no A/D/A converter but they can handle a HUGE number fo channels. You would need to buy a good rackmount A/D/A converter. This plugs via a single ADAT interface to the digital IO of the soundcard. This is what pro Studios use.
e.g. a serious home studio make consist of this
a 12 buss analogue mixer into an Analogue to Digital converter into a good digtal IO soundcard.
This s#could be costly but by buying sensibly you could save a fortune. You only need reasonable AD converters not amazing ones. e.g some studios have Apogee converters that cost £6k!!!
but you can buy them for FAR FAR less than that.
As you can see it may seem bewildering but this is why seemingly expensive mixers such as the Yamaha O2R are becomign so popular with serious amateur and pro alike. It will have good AD converters build in and a digital out. So all you woudl need is the digital mixer plus a card like the RME hammerfall light.
PS i always consider that when buying some studio hear it is prudent to see if you can get some items second hand. They always tend to be in good condition and you can save a fortune.
Personally, I dont know how much you are willing to spend but realisticly if you are looking to record the whole band at once it could simpy be outwith your budget ( I know it is out of mine!). if you dont mind having some items record to the same track them or recording the band parts at different times (which is way more common) then you could geta good setup with some ease. I would recommend a 8 buss analogue mixer and a Delta 1010 or Echo Layla card. This would cost about £1500 so convert that to Dollars and that is what you would be looking at.
You have to be realistic... it is a home studio not a pro facility so unless this band are paying good money you might be better getting that 8 buss mixer and record the drums ( and hey woith the extra buss that's left you could do the bass at the same time!) together then record the guitars and vocals etc.
This mixer would be ideal if you need an 8 buss mixer....
Behringer 8 buss mixer
u could also see what Mackie hhave in that way too....
Thanks for explaining busses to me, i have a much better understanding now. as far as the recording i have done, my friends band came over, but they dont have a bass player, so it consisted of a drummer, guitarist and vocalist, so i recorded them all at once, and then the drummer can play bass so he listened to the recording and added the bass in afterwards. it came out ok, considering i didnt do anything to it, so it remains a rough cut. today i recorded a quick guitar riff(remember im not a guitarist im a drummer lol, so it sucked) nonetheless i messed around with the effects and stuff to see what the program was capable of. in some instances i find that it is kinda better to record all instruments seperately and edit and mix them down, but that can be tedious and very time consuming, and i know as a musician i play better when playing with others as opposed to soloing my part. so really i consider their to be pros and cons either way you go. Troubleshooting is the biggest problem for me, there are way to many things i have to check in order to get the sound i want, that is very frustrating. i think my goal right now is figuring out the software, and how to start out with a rough cut of all the tracks and mix it down into a good recording. as far as my method of getting things recorded, im ok with it, part of me always wants the multi-million setup lol, but realistically, i can do the same thing, just more time consuming, and not as professional obviously.
sonusman
Banned
Sounds like you got Caviar tastes on a Velveta budget! 
The only way that you will be able to record that many instruments at one time, and have them all on seperate tracks is to have a recording system that has the capability to record that many tracks at one time. In the PC world, this is expensive and hard to set up. It also requires that you have other equipment, such as a mixing board like described above, that will allow you to convert that many microphone level signals into line level signals and output each line level signal seperately from the other. Not even "budget" mixing boards by Mackie and Behringer offer that many outputs. Some of their more expensive models do though, but be prepared to spend around $1200 (US) minimum for that kind of capability.
Welcome to the fun world of recording! If it was easy, everybody would do it well....
If great results were cheap, even more would be doing it....
Good luck.
Ed
The only way that you will be able to record that many instruments at one time, and have them all on seperate tracks is to have a recording system that has the capability to record that many tracks at one time. In the PC world, this is expensive and hard to set up. It also requires that you have other equipment, such as a mixing board like described above, that will allow you to convert that many microphone level signals into line level signals and output each line level signal seperately from the other. Not even "budget" mixing boards by Mackie and Behringer offer that many outputs. Some of their more expensive models do though, but be prepared to spend around $1200 (US) minimum for that kind of capability.
Welcome to the fun world of recording! If it was easy, everybody would do it well....
If great results were cheap, even more would be doing it....Good luck.
Ed
Alchemist3k
New member
I looked at some 8 Buss mixers today and thought to myself that next time I move up a level in my recording setup I am getting a decent 8 buss mixer and good soudncard with really good A/D converters...
TO be honest though I just got my omni studio and in the near future i think it will be fine. I am going on the premise that if I ever have to record real drums I will buy a Mackie VLZ 1604 mixer and sub-mix the drums etc....
TO be honest though I just got my omni studio and in the near future i think it will be fine. I am going on the premise that if I ever have to record real drums I will buy a Mackie VLZ 1604 mixer and sub-mix the drums etc....
camn
Active member
or you could get a Tascam tmd-1000... for less than $500. Its only 20-bit.. so maybe just use it for drums. Its 8channelss..... get something like this: http://midiman.com/maudiofrontpage/tdif/tdif.html
for $250... use your Delta for everything else... and youre cool
you even have another SPIDIF in.. so if you get some MORE $$.. get a NICE pre or two for vocals.
this would put you at...
8 ins...20bit...Tascam board via TDIF
4 ind, 24/96 on your Delta..
for a mere.... $750-ish.
Add a FEW nice pres to your 4 total spidif ins...and you have a 16 track-at-once system.
xoox
for $250... use your Delta for everything else... and youre cool
you even have another SPIDIF in.. so if you get some MORE $$.. get a NICE pre or two for vocals.
this would put you at...
8 ins...20bit...Tascam board via TDIF
4 ind, 24/96 on your Delta..
for a mere.... $750-ish.
Add a FEW nice pres to your 4 total spidif ins...and you have a 16 track-at-once system.
xoox
Ok i checked out the Omni Studio, and i was wondering if that would be helpful in my setup or is it necessary? since i have the 66 i would just need the front end unit. i am just not sure how i would hook everything up. but any ideas on whether i should get it or not, and if i do, how should i hook everything up. By the way i think, a 4 or 8 bus mixer should suffice, so i will check into those boards that were mentioned, so far the price rang for them isnt too bad.
Once again, thanks to everyone for your help and input.
Once again, thanks to everyone for your help and input.