Connecting up a rack (compressor, pre-amp, mixer, audio interface) in order to record

J

JakJak

New member
Hi,
I was wondering whether anyone could help me, in terms of connecting up a compressor, pre-amp, mixer and audio interface to my computer so I can record.

Im a newbie to this complex recording.
At the moment I just run my guitar, mics and midi keyboard through a Tascam US- 122L audio interface into my my computer and record in logic.
But now I think I want to improve my sound with an external rack.
Is that a good idea?
I dont have too much to spend, would it work with it?
What would connect to what? And how would it work?

Thanks,
Jack
 
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Save your money and do a lot more reading. The Behringer stuff isn't going to be any kind of upgrade.
 
JakJak said:
At the moment I just run my guitar, mics and midi keyboard through a Tascam US- 122L audio interface into my my computer and record in logic.
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That's a reasonable way of doing things, and there's no need for you to change it.

JakJak said:
But now I think I want to improve my sound with an external rack. Is that a good idea?
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It's kind of a good idea . . . but . . .

1 If you want to 'improve' your sound you would need to make sure that the outboard gear you get has the quality that would actually make a difference. For the most part, effects that you can get within Logic are likely to be better than outboard gear, particularly as you "don't have too much to spend".

2 If you do pass your signal through outboard gear before it gets into the computer, you can't undo what you've done, so if it turns out to be unsatisfactory, you have to re-track, whereas you can modify effects within Logic to get exactly the effect you want.
 
Gecko Zzed's advice is sound. A cheap Behringer compressor will certainly give poorer quality than the "in the box" ones in Logic.

Beyond that, as has been said, any effect applied before recording is there forever. You're much better off keeping your signal as pristine as possible at the recording stage and applying any modifications later when you can control them much more (and have the option of an "Undo" command).

The only reason I can think of to use a compressor at the recording stage is to avoid clipping. However, if this is an issue, it probably means your gain staging is wrong. You want to be recording so the average waveform is around -18dBFS with peaks always well below 0dBFS. Your Tascam has a low enough noise floor that any makeup gain later in the process won't cause any S/N problems.

Having said all that, I often do use a limiter in the chain when recording as sort of a "belt and braces" approach. However, both the limiter and my gain setup are adjusted so it only ever kicks in once or twice a year to save a rare take (and I don't record myself...I work for others so I have less control over when they "let rip"). However, even this is by virtue of using a $12,000 digital mixer with a comp/limiter on every channel. Prior to going digital, I never used outboard compression.

Bob
 
Thanks for the help.
So, it would probably be best to keep with the Logic compressor so it gives me more flexibility.
But in terms of, for instance a pre- amp or limiter would that be a similar story?
 
Some people swear by external pre-amps but, frankly, unless you spend a LOT of money on one, I don't think it will make much difference to you. However, at that point you run into the concept of matching the quality of your gear. There's not much point in have a very expensive pre-amp if you run anything less than an expensive microphone into it.

Limiter? Well, that tends to be part of a compressor, so again it's not really something worth cheaping out on. For a home studio, I know that the 98 Euro Behringer sounds like a lot of money but, in the last pro studio I designed, the Drawmer compressors were about £700 each for a 2 channel device...and they were far from the most expensive you can buy.

Bob
 
I would recommend running mic -> pre -> compressor -> interface. You'll want to compress very minimally just to make the signal a bit tighter and tame the peaks.

I'm also a newb at all of this but I bought some external gear for what I think is good value after doing a fair amount of research. You CAN get good gear for a reasonable price. The FMR Audio RNC is a good compressor for under $200. The SuperNice mode is very transparent for tracking. Beyond the RNC, I purchased a store demo UA710 (pre-amp) for $600, a Focusrite Pro24DSP firewire interface for under $400 and a Rode NT1A for under $300 which I'm having modded by Oktavamods for $300 which will make it sound similar to a U87. All in all, its cost me under $2000 to get a decent external set-up when its easy to spend this on a pre-amp alone.
 
Forgot to mention that the Focusrite has good quality mic pre's so the UA710 wasn't really required. I just wanted the flexibility of going from solid state to tube which the UA offers.
 
Track Rat said:
Save your money and do a lot more reading. The Behringer stuff isn't going to be any kind of upgrade.
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I second the motion;)

I recently went rackless, as in no outboard compression. Just mic -> pre -> AD/DA -> DAW. It was starting to become a bitch to set up correctly because once outboard compression is recorded, there's no way to get rid of it. Now I add in compression once in the mixing phase.

If clipping is an issue, you could set one up to just level out the top.
 
But now I think I want to improve my sound with an external rack.
Is that a good idea?
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What do you want to improve about your sound?
There are some cheaper pieces that (if you know how to use them) can give nice results

If you do pass your signal through outboard gear before it gets into the computer, you can't undo what you've done
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This isn't necessarily a bad thing IF you know what it is you want to achieve and how to set up out board gear to get it.
FOR EXAMPLE: If i know that I want a bass guitar sound with a punch to the attack, and I am going to use a compressor with a longer attack time to allow the initial punch of the bass through and then compress the tail of the note, there is no reason not to compress on the way in. If I am confident that I can get the external compressor set up to achieve that then why not. It's one less decision to make come mix time.
If in this example you have no idea what the track should sound like in the mix you probably shouldn't use a hardware compressor on the track on the way in. You can either record clean and spend hours messing around with ITB effects or continue working on your vision for the song so you can record and effect (either with HW or plugins) quickly and effectively once you are ready

However I wouldn't advocate randomly buying cheap/low end rack pieces such as compressors unless you can specifically say what it is that you need to improve and understanding how such pieces will help you get there

IME I have found that room treatment, rehearsal and more practice/understanding of mixing have given me far more improvements than any piece of gear, Cheap or expensive, every time which is a shame cos it's always fun to buy shiny things with flashing lights and VU meters and assume that this will be the magic bullet that will take your sound to the level of (inset favorite artist here)

YMMV
 
JakJak said:
But now I think I want to improve my sound with an external rack.
Is that a good idea?
Click to expand...

It is if you know exactly what needs improvement and how to improve it with a particular piece of hardware. If you are just throwing gear at a problem that you don't understand then it's a bad idea.
 
To be honest I am thinking along the lines that more technological equipment will improve my sound.
However this is not always the case.
But on my Tascam audio interface I do have to the gain dial to nearly its peak so I thought the pre amp may offer me a louder, cleaner sound.
And I do prefer having the flexibility of messing with compression after ive recorded as I am relatively new to this.
Sometimes I just think that like in good studios they always have lots of effects boxes (compression, limiters, pre amps...)
Its feels like you've got more going on and that its better because its external and 'real'- you can see it physically happening.
 
RokZtaR said:
I would recommend running mic -> pre -> compressor -> interface. You'll want to compress very minimally just to make the signal a bit tighter and tame the peaks.

I'm also a newb at all of this but I bought some external gear for what I think is good value after doing a fair amount of research. You CAN get good gear for a reasonable price. The FMR Audio RNC is a good compressor for under $200. The SuperNice mode is very transparent for tracking. Beyond the RNC, I purchased a store demo UA710 (pre-amp) for $600, a Focusrite Pro24DSP firewire interface for under $400 and a Rode NT1A for under $300 which I'm having modded by Oktavamods for $300 which will make it sound similar to a U87. All in all, its cost me under $2000 to get a decent external set-up when its easy to spend this on a pre-amp alone.
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Thanks for the advice, I might look into that FMR Audio RNC. Is it worth the money? And what sort of job does it do? Also im thinking about this: M-AUDIO DMP 3 - Thomann UK Cyberstore as my pre- amp, its a bit closer to my budget. What do you think? Im stuck between not getting a compressor (so I have the flexibility in Logic to add the compression or undo) or getting one. Will the compression quality of the FMR Audio RNC top the built in Logic compression facilities?
 
I might look into that FMR Audio RNC. Is it worth the money?]
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If you need a straight forward, very clean single channel or stereo Compressor it's a good bang for buck compressor. If you are looking for a color piece or 2 channel or dual mono compressor it can't do those things so I guess I'm saying it's value depends on what you need from it

And what sort of job does it do?
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It does a very good job of clean compression from medium soft to very soft knee in Really Nice mode

Will the compression quality of the FMR Audio RNC top the built in Logic compression facilities?
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depends on how you use it. Logic's compressor is more tweakable and the metering is better. RNC will very likely allow you to get a lot more gain reduction before you start to hear nasty artifacts. however if you are shooting for gain reductions of less than say 6dB I think you would be hard pressed to listen to tracks compressed via Logic vs RNC and reliably be able to pick out which one was which

M-AUDIO DMP 3 - Thomann UK Cyberstore as my pre- amp
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DMP will give you 67 dB of clean gain which is probably a little more than you get from the tascam. whether you prefer one over the other (or can tell any difference at all) will be subjective and unique to you

Just one experience & opinion from past experience with owning and using both RNC & DMP

Sometimes I just think that like in good studios they always have lots of effects boxes (compression, limiters, pre amps...)
Its feels like you've got more going on and that its better because its external and 'real'- you can see it physically happening.
Click to expand...

what you mostly have in good studios for tracking and mixing is:
Very talented musicians playing well rehearsed material on good instruments. The recording space is acoustically very good. Mics are well chosen and well placed, gain staging of analog front end (regardless of gear used) is correctly set up. the mix engineer has lots of experience, a properly treated mix room and monitors that will accurately tell him what is going on as well as input from the producer/artist as to what the vision for the song is

Dropping various different bits of gear or plugins into the mix of the above will make tiny differences, some better, some worse, some just different.

Without all of the above dropping a DMP and an RNC into the picture won't make things sound better and more like a studio in my (sadly painful) experience, and with all of the above in place dropping those pieces into the picture will give you more options for your already studio sound
YMMV
 
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JakJak said:
But on my Tascam audio interface I do have to the gain dial to nearly its peak so I thought the pre amp may offer me a louder, cleaner sound.
Click to expand...

What is your target recording level? If you are getting peaks near -12dBFS then you don't need any more gain.
 
When you put it like that its probably best to stick with my current setup.
When I have a bigger budget it will have more of an effect on my sound.
Cheers for the help.
 
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