Mixing Board AND Audio Interface?

H

HawaiiR

New member
Hey guys,

Sort of a newbie here. I've been collecting gear for a while, and I'm finally starting to finish up my studio.
I have an A&H Zed 14 mixing board, but I've realized that I have more outboard gear than inputs on the mixer. I don't have space for a larger mixing board at the moment, so I can't really swap it out for a larger one. So, I've been thinking about getting an Arturia Audiofuse for the purpose of expanding my inputs, and I like that it has more input type options than the A&H.

Is this a bad idea, or is it bad praxis to have both a mixing board and an audio interface? If so, why?
And if not, whats the most efficient way to route the audio? Laptop > interface > mixing board > monitors?

Any help/feedback/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers!
 
Get a patchbay or two. No way are you going to be using all your outboard gear at the same time. Especially in this day of plugins.
Patch all your outboard gear into the bay and only patch what you need at the time into the mixer.
 
Is the Z14 presently your only interface? If so I see it only delivers a stereo mix for recording, and you might consider an interface with more channels such as one of the Tascams?

This, Arturia AudioFuse | does not give the interface an unqualified thumbs up and I would be wary of companies that 'dabble' in AIs? Better IMO to stick to the regular guys who are less likely to be found without a paddle when the next OS/Update comes down the creek of excrement.

The mixer does have 4 AUX sends and inserts, can you not utilize these, possibly with a patch bay as suggested? Outboard gear can also be put in series.

Dave.
 
Thanks, I think a single patch bay might do the trick? Are there brands you might recommend, or any you'd stay away from?
Not sure why I didn't think of this idea - I definitely won't need to have all my gear running at once, as you mentioned.

RFR said:
Get a patchbay or two. No way are you going to be using all your outboard gear at the same time. Especially in this day of plugins.
Patch all your outboard gear into the bay and only patch what you need at the time into the mixer.
Click to expand...



At the moment, yes, it's my only one. The tascam is really nice, and a great brand; I have considered it. The thing I like about the Arturia is that it has variety of input types/options, but I think there are a few other brands that offer that as well. I see your point though, and I'll definitely do some more research before making a decision. For now though, I suppose I could use some of the AUX in's for the time being - and as RFR mentioned, I highly doubt I'll be using all devices at once anyway. Not buying any other synths (so tempting though), before I actually make some good use of what I have.

What are your thoughts on PreSonus and Focusrite? I think the new PerSonus Quantum 2 might have the various input options that I was looking for.
ecc83 said:
Is the Z14 presently your only interface? If so I see it only delivers a stereo mix for recording, and you might consider an interface with more channels such as one of the Tascams?

This, Arturia AudioFuse | does not give the interface an unqualified thumbs up and I would be wary of companies that 'dabble' in AIs? Better IMO to stick to the regular guys who are less likely to be found without a paddle when the next OS/Update comes down the creek of excrement.

The mixer does have 4 AUX sends and inserts, can you not utilize these, possibly with a patch bay as suggested? Outboard gear can also be put in series.

Dave.
Click to expand...
 
ART P48 Jack Patch Bay - Patchbays - Accessories - Studiospares

48 ways might seem OTT but remember, EVERY bit of MONO kit has one in and one out! £100/$100 seems to be about the money and Art kit gets a good rep'.

The Quantum! Oooo! THAT sort of money eh? Lovely tho' it no doubt is, it only seems to have 4 ins for all that dosh unless you buy an ADAT box?

IMHO, buy the patchbay* and see how it goes. Meantime, keep looking, reading and asking. The audio side of computing is in a bit of turmoil at the moment (but in truth, WTF wasn't it!) . Already been a few gremlins in that Quantum, TB/TB3/USB 3.0/3.1 and MOBO implementation seems up in the air at the moment? They don't fly planes with the very latest, shiniest soft and hardware!

*Don't forget to figure in the cost of wiring and patch leads and if you can't presently solder..LEARN!

Dave.
 
People sonetimes overlook the beauty and workability of a patch bay.
Take a look at the back of your gear and count up how many jacks are on every piece. It will astound you.

Being on the back of the device, we generally are happily oblivious to it all until it's patch time and you gotta crawl around back with a flashlight. :D

I'm running a 20 input console with inserts on every channel as well as 4 aux sends and returns

The patch bays allow me to have all my connections in one easily accessible place with immediate visual benefit.

Unlike some I don't run them normalled. It just puts all my connections that are difficult to get to right at my fingertips.

It takes no time at all to plug whatever piece of gear to wherever I want it.
 
Half normalled RFR or just a bunch of ins and outs and permanent patch chords?

When my son was home doing his music I evolved a system that avoids the grovelling amongst the dust and spiders but was not a full blown patch bay. I had one desktop with 2 M-A 2496 cards in it and brought the audio (RCA) ins and outs up to a jack Break Out box on the wall above the computer. This fed* over to another BoB side of a Teac A3440. Thus signals could be sent/received. Next to the Teac is an A&H Zed 10 mixer and the balanced outs from that go across the room on 5mtrs of cable to yet another BoB containing 2 OEP 10k-10k line traffs. We could therefore hook mixer to PC or tape.

MIDI and S/PDIF are similarly brought out. There is also a MD recorder, Sony S cassette deck and a Philips Digital Cassette recorder. All could be link fairly easily.

Naturally this cluster ***k should be rationalized into a patch bay but now that I have the time and money, son has buggered off to France!

*Unbalanced but using a regime I call "Shielded Return" which avoids ground loops, can draw it out if required.

Dave.
 
Well, I've been saving for the Arturia for a while. Wasn't sure if I wanted to pull the trigger or not. The quantum isn't too much more, so I'm sure I could wrangle up the cash for it after I file my taxes (ugh) soon, and hopefully get a refund.

BUT, I'm seriously considering getting a patchbay now - it's definitely a cheaper option. I'll keep researching a bit more. I don't have to buy either just yet. The ZED is sufficient enough to connect most of my important gear for now.

Soldering - learning actually. I was suppose to practice a bit this past weekend, so I could finish up two turntables that I'm rebuilding. Never realized what an important skill that is, especially in the audio industry.

Cheers!
 
HawaiiR said:
Well, I've been saving for the Arturia for a while. Wasn't sure if I wanted to pull the trigger or not. The quantum isn't too much more, so I'm sure I could wrangle up the cash for it after I file my taxes (ugh) soon, and hopefully get a refund.

BUT, I'm seriously considering getting a patchbay now - it's definitely a cheaper option. I'll keep researching a bit more. I don't have to buy either just yet. The ZED is sufficient enough to connect most of my important gear for now.

Soldering - learning actually. I was suppose to practice a bit this past weekend, so I could finish up two turntables that I'm rebuilding. Never realized what an important skill that is, especially in the audio industry.

Cheers!
Click to expand...

Super! Way to go, slowlee catchee...Re soldering: I hope you have chucked at least $50 at a decent Solder Station. The Wellers are excellent but pricey and Hakko even better but even dearer! There is a pretty good 'generic' station readily available (CPC/Farnell will hunt mod# if wanted) Use LEAD solder 60/40 flux cored, just don't eat,drink,or smoke and solder and wash hands after. (actually, Pbfree flux fume is more toxic!)

Cable: For 'semi-static' cables to and from back of bay use FOIL screened cable of about 3-4mm OD . this stuff bundles better, smaller overall D and is a dream to strip and solder. There is a single bare 'drain' wire for the screen so no teasing out 'king braids that is time consuming and can lead to 'whiskers' and shorts. Again, will find site with samples if required. Patch cables can also be foil but look at pre made? You will need a LOT and so the time saving could be worth more to you than the dosh. http://cpc.farnell.com/belden/8451-...MI7auA8q7_2AIVqrXtCh0RMAotEAQYAiABEgIG6fD_BwE

Also! Neutrik jack plugs are the dog's danglers for rough use but expensive to just leave plugged in! You can buy 3 or 4 very good plugs for the price of ONE Nuky. The cheaper plugs are let down by poorer cable clamps and strain relief. You can fix both problems with the smart use of heat shrink sleeving. Use white and mark up wires with a Sharpie!





Dave.
 
ecc is right as rain here.

I took a weekend about 15 years ago and built a patch bay, as well as a whole set of patch cables, XLRs, and various extension cords. I still use them today. I could have got away with some premade stuff though :)

Do yourself one favor- spend a couple extra dollars on some nicer tape.. like this stuff. I used regular masking tape for labels and its kind of gummy now. You need to take the 20 year view.
 
if you're just recording ( not live gigs) an interface with mic pres is all you need. i've got the same dilemma. my mixer is used as interface only. one day soon i'll sell it and get me a good interface with 8 preamps.
 
I agree. Get a balanced patchbay like the Samson S Plus and get an interface with at least 4 ins/out so you can use outboard gears. I'm like you, still got my zed12fx mixer that I hate to part with. It's got too many I/O to patch into the patchbay.
 
You could have a tascam us1800 and a patchbay for less than that Arturia thing. But you probably wouldn't need the patchbay or the mixer anymore.

One cool thing about a patchbay is that the modules come out! You've then got a little deally that can extend a pair of 1/4 cables or split one 1/4 source to two destinations. Wrap some of that blue painter's tape around it just to make sure it can't short against things and use them as necessary.

After all the years of building studios and then splitting into multiple studios and then recombining and splitting again in various combinations I ended up with like seven spare patchbays. I currently have two in use, but I've got a large stock of those modules that I can use as necessary. I always keep a couple in my "gig bag", which is a bag I carry to gigs with spare cables, a few adapters, a DI or two... not like the soft thing you'd carry a guitar in.

Back in the late 90s when the studio was at its most absurd, I had four different patchbays running. Everything in the studio was (half)normalled to the mixer with default signal paths for our typical workflow and the mixer was (half)normalled both to and from the ADATs... I didn't bother to label the bays themselves. Instead I built a database driven web page on our intranet. Use dropdown boxes to choose the two devices that you want to connect and it tells you which holes on which bays to plug into. The other folks who used it still found it confusing. :/
 
the home center has all sort of different colored vinyl electrical tape that I have been using as cable labels. Two or three patch bays will always make life simpler AFIK
 
Oh we had soooo many of those multicolored HOSA snakes! I've got my own color order (blue green white black red grey orange yellow) that's just coded into my brain by now. "What channel is this?" "What color is it?" "Black" "4". Lately, though, I've been buying from other companies, and their colors are sometimes different, so I have to remember which color I substituted for which. "What color?" "Purple" "Hmmm...Purple is...Grey?" :)

I love to rip these things apart, too. It's always cheaper than 8 similar single cables, even if you get them in multipacks.
 
ashcat_lt said:
Oh we had soooo many of those multicolored HOSA snakes! I've got my own color order (blue green white black red grey orange yellow) that's just coded into my brain by now. "What channel is this?" "What color is it?" "Black" "4". Lately, though, I've been buying from other companies, and their colors are sometimes different, so I have to remember which color I substituted for which. "What color?" "Purple" "Hmmm...Purple is...Grey?" :)

I love to rip these things apart, too. It's always cheaper than 8 similar single cables, even if you get them in multipacks.
Click to expand...

Why on earth not use the international resistor code? Two small rings of shrink codes 99 cables.

Dave.
 
Because they come already colored. ;)

The insert snake is where I got the pairs from, and the tip/ring colors in those pairs told me what order they came in, then the order of the four pairs was kind of arbitrary, but basically I left orange and yellow for last cause I'd rather not use them if I can help it. :)
 
LOL! ^^^

A couple years ago, I was doing a live gig with somebody else's system that was only about half plugged together. I texted my friend who had worked with the rig before, and he texts me back the color order, and it makes no sense at all based on what I was looking at. The I was like "Wait! Aren't you color blind?"

But actually, he was with the guy that owned the system and was just telling me what that guy said. That guy, though, was thinking of some other system that was the same gear but different colors, which goes to show why standardization (at least within your own realm) is important.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
Color blindness - Wikipedia
Click to expand...

Yes well, I am pretty sure you would not get far in the practical electronics/electrical industry if you had trouble with colour discrimination!

When I worked for a network hardware company I started as a solderer but moved on to a certain amount of wiring CAT patch panels. Or/Wh/Or, G/Wg and so on for CAT 5 did not faze me but the 96 way Telco plugs defeated me (the 'slates' and 'greys') I was by this time in my late 40s and my eyesight was generally poor.

There are now some excellent number cable labelling systems.

Dave.
 
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