Adding Outboard Effects

[Rick Shepherd]

I am totaly clueless when it comes to adding outboard effects to my recordings.

Here is my setup:

mic --> mic preamp --> AD converter --> computer soundcard input --> Sonar Producer 4

I want to add outboard effects using my Lexicon unit, but I have no idea how to do this.

I have the E-MU 1212m soundcard that has 1/4 inch as well as SPDIF ins and outs

Any advise?

 

[Bristol Posse]

You're going to need some kind of summing box or outboard mixer (not control surface) and analog effect that sums the signals to a stereo pair
You'd then send say a stereo guitar track to the outs/Software returns of your DAW software and cable those physical outs of your interface/DA Converter to the ins of the effects and then cable the outs of the effects unit back to the ins of your converter.

If you wanted to send multiple stereo tracks to the same effect unit you'd probably have to go to a summing box first to sum them to a stereo pair and then to the effects unit if you wanted to do all analog or send the tracks needing the effect to a submix bus in the software out to the effects unit and then back to the ins of your AD Converters

Sounds more complex than it is, really you're just making a big loop of the signal out to effects and back to the computer again

If your AD/DA conversion is not good it may add noise/artifacts to your signal and unless you have some really nice analog effects it may not be worth sending the tracks on the round trip through your converters.

 

[Massive Master]

You shouldn't need a summing unit assuming you're simply assigning an aux send... Aux to a set of outputs, effects unit out to a set of inputs. Assign an input track. More or less that simple.

THAT SAID:

If you don't have enough I/O, this ain't gonna happen. If your monitoring controller is being fed by the TosLINK or S/PDIF outputs, (or you can feed the unit through said outputs) you're in business. Otherwise, you need more I/O.