mixers: i think i want one but can't be sure why & for what

[ismaelson]

eventually i want to build myself a little recording studio for myself & others. for now, i just want something to work with for my band and other projects.

i was thinking of getting a mixer but i am not sure what good it would do me now. for one, i am not even sure what i can do with them though i have some pretty good ideas. one thing i was wondering about was whether i could, say, record through a couple of channels and run them into one track on my 4-track, you know, cheating the system by piling more in there. it seems intuitive that i could and i know that the quality will degrade some but i'd rather not make assumptions and get an expert opinion.

one of the local papers has a Sunn 16 channel mixer (with phantom power) [$150] and a Tapco (series 72) 8 channel mixer [$50].

danke.

[Cyrokk]

Originally posted by ismaelson
i was thinking of getting a mixer but i am not sure what good it would do me now. for one, i am not even sure what i can do with them though i have some pretty good ideas. one thing i was wondering about was whether i could, say, record through a couple of channels and run them into one track on my 4-track, you know, cheating the system by piling more in there. it seems intuitive that i could and i know that the quality will degrade some but i'd rather not make assumptions and get an expert opinion.

Keep in mind that in the end everything gets mixed down to two channels, left and right.. so you're eventually going to "cheat the system" somewhere down the line.. and remember too that many great albums have been recorded on 4-track equipment, so it's not what you have, but what you do with what you have, that makes the biggest impact..

A good mixer is not only essential to good recording (either live or on a track-by-track basis), it's extremely versatile and flexible.. Some examples: 1) you can work with several projects at once by dedicating projects to different mixer channel settings 2) using a mixer allows you to get a rough idea of what the final product will sound like and allows you to make judgements of what adjustments may be needed to certain tracks before you record, and 3) mixers have aux features, which allow you to fly in processors such as reverb and delay without affecting your original tracks; and using the master aux sends allow you to dedicate individual channels (or groups of channels) as a mix to at least two individual tracks, while listening to the overall sound via the headphone jack of the mixer.. and I didn't even mention better level matching..

A good rule of thumb is to have twice the number of channels in your mixer as you have tracks on your recorder.. But in your case I would recommend a mixer with at least 16 channels.. you may decide later that you want to use more than four tracks..

one of the local papers has a Sunn 16 channel mixer (with phantom power) [$150] and a Tapco (series 72) 8 channel mixer [$50].

danke.

Don't know about those.. but you may want to check out Studiomaster mixers at www.studiomaster.com.. they are geared more towards the home studio owner..

Best of Luck..

Cy