tracking with reverb - splitting a signal

[VirtualSamana]

Will the signal degrade if it's split? I would like to send the recorded signal through my preamp then to my soundcard. The other signal will be sent to my digital mixer with onboard effects for a headphone mix.

I have a digital mixer and would prefer the signal not pass through it before being recorded. The mixer is a roland vm3100pro, and although I have found many great uses for it, I have noticed that the converters on it are noticably not as nice as my maudio soundcard. I would like to try to avoid having to the signal flow through the mixer's converters and then my soundcards converters. The answer seems to be splitting the signal. Anyone tried this? Does it degrade the sound quality?

[Seanmorse79]

The quick answer is yes. Splitting the signal (without re-amplifying it) in any way before it's recorded will result in loss of some of the signal.

I'm not familiar with the specifics of Delta cards, but couldn't you get around it by routing an available output to the digital mixer? I was pretty sure that most of the Delta cards supported zero latency monitoring. This is what I do with my C-Port.

[Blue Bear Sound]

You can mult the signal at least once with no obvious loss....

[sjjohnston]

I'm with Blue Bear on this, I think.

I'm not totally clear where you're splitting the signal, but assuming what you're doing is taking a line-level output from a pretty normal, modern box (call it box "O") and connecting it two line-level inputs in other pretty normal, modern boxes (call 'em boxes "A" and "B), there should be no practical effect.

What happens when you mult (or "Y") an output into two inputs is you change the impedance ... or, in perhaps simpler terms (depending on how you look at things), increase the amount of current that box O has to supply at a particular voltage. The combined impedance is equal to (a * b) / (a + b), where "a" and "b" are the input impedance of box A and box B, respectively (you can derive this from Ohm's law if you know how to do very basic algebra).

In modern line-level equipment, the input impedance is much, much higher than the output impedance (hundred or thousands of times higher), so you can safely connect one output to at least two inputs.

[Seanmorse79]

This would not apply to a mic level signal though, would it?

I assumed it would be a mic level signal, as he was sending it through a preamp.

[Blue Bear Sound]

He also said "recorded signal to the preamp", which indicates this is not a mic signal....

One thing is sure, the signals are crossed somewhere!

[Seanmorse79]

One thing is sure, the signals are crossed somewhere!

...story of my life

[VirtualSamana]

Thanks Bruce, SJ and Sean,

My post was a bit confusing. I was actually multing the signal directly after the mic and before the preams. One of the split signals went to my ART Tube MP then into my Quattro and the other went to my digital mixer with built in reverb. It looked something like this:

Digital Mixer
Mic---<
Art Pre---Quattro

From what everyone said I understand that the above is not advisable but it would be OK for me to mult the signal like this:

Digital Mixer
Mic----ART Pre---<
Quattro


Sean: My Quattro does have direct outs. How do I take advantage of this so that I could monitor myself with reverb and still hear the backing tracks?

[Seanmorse79]

I'm not sure how the Quattro is set up, but it does advertise zero latency monitoring, so the incoming signal should be routed to an additional output (you may have to read-up on how it's done). Just run that into your mixer - that way you're not splitting the signal, the Quattro is pre-amping it and sending it back out.