Headphone Mix During Take

[dcolewheeler]

Hey Dudes and Dudettes:

Just started tracking with some basic gear, a Mackie 1402VLZ into an AudioMedia III in my B&W G3 using Digital Performer 2.6. (as in "Hello, I'm five years behind all the rest of you...") and frankly, I'm having a blast. Here's one though... I can't seem to get the track in the cans loud enough during recording. I set levels with as little headroom as I dare, and yet can't get the cans to crank to where a vocalist is happy. I know there's an easy answer....

Thanks.

Cole

[bvaleria]

You didn't mention which cans you're using, but if they AKG 240s for example, they wouldn't be too efficient, requiring a lot of headphone amp power... (although they make good tracking cans!) You can either pick up cans with a better efficiency rating or get an external headphone amp - the cans being the cheaper solution of the 2 options....

Hope this helps...

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound

[dcolewheeler]

Thanks Bruce-- that's good info, as I am using very sub-par cans right now and need a good pair. I think I misstated my question though (which I realized right after I clicked "submit", naturally) which is this: using the phones out on the Mackie, how can I reduce the volume of the backing tracks while recording a vocal track so the vocalist can get a boosted sound without affecting the mix? Is it as simple as turning down the other track faders in DP 2.6 while I'm tracking? This really is like Recording 101, I know...forgive me. I need to play around with this stuff more.

[bvaleria]

Oh... ok... that's different... sounds like you're simply giving the talent the same master mix you're listening to as you track it. Normally, you would use one of the AUX sends to provide a headphone mix geared to what the talent wants to hear, as opposed to the mix you're hearing.
If you both want to use headphones, you need at least 2 headphone OUTs coming off your mixer, plus you would have to be able to select what each OUT is hearing. (Yours would have the master mix, the talent would hear only the AUX mix.)

If you only have 1 headphone OUT, then you could give the talent the headphone feed and you listen on the monitors... (not an option if you and the talent are in the same room!). In this case you would need the headphone amp...

Bruce

[dcolewheeler]

Thanks again Bruce. I'll play with the AUX Sends and see what I can do.

Cole