Signal Chain Question ?

[Pier Calacino]

Hello All,

Does it defeat the purpose of a good stand-alone mic pre to patch it through a board and then to the recording device ?

Shouldn't you go directly to the recording device rather than through a mixer board?

Unless thats the color/sound you want?

Pier

[The Green Hornet]

OLA Pier:

I guess most folks would say the more patches you patch in, the more it may or may not affect the signal.

I run my mic into the Grace 101 then out of the Grace into the Yamaha 2816. It works fine.

You can try running your mic signal both ways and see what gives you the best result. But, I'd guess there won't be any extreme difference.

Happy Summer


Green Hornet

[FZfile]

Sometimes you may want to monitor the sound going INTO the recorder before it goes through any of the recorders circutry.

They say the shortest path possible is always the cleanest but if you have a decent mixer you may only be adding a negligable amount of signal change.

I have every thing plug into my patchbay first because I can then split the output and route to multiple destinations.
Like I may plug my mic pre into the Track1 input of my bay (which is essentially direct) but then split it to also go into my compressor and then maybe EQ (maybe not) and then to Track2 so I can then mix a compressed and uncompressed track to taste .......or even just to a/b the tracks.

A mixer will allow you options that may outweigh any amount of added noise or whatnot, but it depend if you need or want those options during tracking.

But anytime you add circutry tothe signal path you are going to change the sound....however slight.

-mike

[mixsit]

Don't know if others do this, but with mackie, line-in is through a pad, tossing some gain, then back up into it's mic pre.
I like to have a pre with one direct line to the converter, and a second or split going to the mixer for no-latency monitoring.
Guess it depends a lot on how you like to work it.
Wayne

[Pier Calacino]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the replies.
I just thought if your were after a particular sound with a pre, and you put it through another pre that you didn't like, that would defeat the purpose?

Pier

[sweetnubs]

holy flying pigs it's the day hell froze over. why on god's green earth would you buy an outboard preamp, run it through your mixer, then to tape? it defeats the purpose of buying an outboard preamp. monitor your "tape" returns through your mixer. A good solution is to buy some decent outboard preamps and by bypassing the mixer and using it for monitoring only, you get better quality tracks which then you can take to a real studio and mix down.

[christiaan]

Joemeek preamps (maybe others too) have a cool feature.

Two identical outputs
One goes to the recording device, the other one is for monitoring.

[gordone]

My soundcard (Delta 44) is capable of routing an input directly to an output, so I have my outboard pre go into an input for tracking, but I then route that input to an output, which goes to my mixer for monitoring, so I have a whole channel strip for the monitor signal (along with its aux send, panning,, and fader), but the recorded signal stays unadulterated by the mixer.