Seeking studio hook up advice

R

RoscoeVanZandt

New member
Wanted to setup a home studio. First time trying this. Bought some components, tried hooking it up myself (laughs).

How would you hook up a Mackie 1604VLZ Pro with a DBX 576, DBX 586, and out into a USB computer interface? All you have is a keyboard, MPC drum machine and a few mics. Nothing fancy.

No need to worry about MIDI stuff, let's just get the audio working.

Ideally, you'd want to be able to audition the incoming instruments and mics on, say, tracks 1-8, and listen to the effects processing on say, tracks 9-16. Lastly, you'd want to record, so you'd have to hook the Mackie up to a computer audio interface.

Attached is a rough diagram of the ingredients. Maybe you can draw some lines, re-upload and help me make this into a masterpiece? :D

rig.jpg
 
wait so you own all this stuff and dont know how to hook it up? is that what your saying? or are you saying you want to buy all this stuff and then hook it up? confused
 
This isn't the forum to be asking this anyway - this is the forum for physically building the rooms that you then put the equipment into - you really should be posting the in the NEWBIES forum......................

l am surprised that you do not have documentation for this equiptment - the docs give you exactly the best hook up options.

Rod
 
Kidding aside...I remember my early days, when I first managed to afford a small pile of new gear...and then sitting there for two days trying to decide how to hook it up. :D
Thing is...there are probably a few "correct" ways to do it...but you have to figure out how you like to work, and then find *your* way.

Sometimes it's good to just get going with it...think about your signal paths...and that should guide you with how to hook up the outputs and inputs (so you don't have any loops ;) ).
And then after you live with it for awhile...change it if you find it's not working for you and after you get more familiar with all the gear.

I find that patchbays certainly make for less hook-up anxiety, since you don't need to decide on any one way...you're always going to use the patchbays to make the hook-up you need for a given situation.
With a "smaller" gear list...one or two patchbays is more than enough, and not that much work to set up.
 
Thanks for your help. This studio was once running fine, but I tore it all up to clean it out and move it. It was never really working 100% smoothly, so thought I'd start over. However a pro engineer hooked it up the first time, and it was a mess of cables and connections and patchbay that didn't make much sense.

The DBX manual say to hook up to the soundboard in series.
The Mackie manual says to hook up compressors (like the DBX) in parallel.

Huh?

I just want to be able to monitor the incoming instruments (easy, got that done) but then be able to apply the DBX to any signal, and then route that out to my USB computer interface for recording.

Appreciate any strategies you might have. The patchbay might be overkill, I'm not sure. I don't record more than one instrument at a time anyway.
 
How to Hookup an Analog Mixer To a Soundcard or Audio Interface:
http://www.tweakheadz.com/how_to_hookup_a_mixer.htm

(You'll want to bookmark and read through all of Tweak's guide while you're there...)

Lots of help here too:
Home Recording for Musicians by Jeff Strong - $15
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/04...mp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0470385421
(Wish I'd had that when I started; would have saved me lots of money and time and grief)
You can also pick up this book in most any Borders or Barnes&Noble in the Music Books section!
 
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