Audio Interface > Mixer > PC?

[Jordan-Tom]

Hello,

I have been doing some research and purchased a decent mixer for multi track recording but I have been told to completely take it out of the signal flow and to use an Audio Interface. I understand that an audio interface takes sound from your instruments direct to your PC via firewire or USB however I need to use my mixer because it has 12 channels which I need for micing a drum kit.

Is there any way I could do this?

Also I want to use a DI box for my guitar to get a cleaner sound than recording it through a mic so would I be able to include this in the signal flow and if so how can I do this?

Thanks,
Jordan.

 

[Guelph_Guy]

Hello,

I have been doing some research and purchased a decent mixer for multi track recording but I have been told to completely take it out of the signal flow and to use an Audio Interface. I understand that an audio interface takes sound from your instruments direct to your PC via firewire or USB however I need to use my mixer because it has 12 channels which I need for micing a drum kit.

Is there any way I could do this?

Also I want to use a DI box for my guitar to get a cleaner sound than recording it through a mic so would I be able to include this in the signal flow and if so how can I do this?

Thanks,
Jordan.

Hi Jordan;

what you have to ask yourself is ...

Do I want to record drums to a stereo pair?

If so.... you would only need an interface that records 2 channels at a time (left and right)

But this would mean that you would have to take the stereo (mains) output of the board and connect it to the interface.

However, if you want to record each of your drums seperately, you'll need an interface that will allow you to run multiple microphones ( say 8 microphones instead of a stereo pair)

If your mixer supports "direct out" on the back, you can connect the direct channel out to the input of the computer interface for each channel that you need to record on..

I used to have a 24 channel mixer that had direct out on each channel. I bought 3 digital audio interfaces (PCI) that were 8 channels each ( 24 channels total).. this allowed me to use the whole mixing board.

So how many microphones do you expect to be using at one time, and work the plan from there..

cheers
RJ

 

[MrWrenchey]

It depends... Some mixers actually have a firewire/USB output on the back that you can use (Mackie's i-series, Alesis Multimix mixers).
If yours doesn't, if it's a fairly nice mixer you'll have direct outs on the back (as stated by Guelph_Guy) that you should plug into an interface (which of course ends up defeating the purpose of having the mixer for it's 12 channels, as you'd need an interface with 12 inputs to get each and every track onto it).
So basically, this is the how things are going to work for you...
1.) If your mixer is Firewire/USB capable, great! Just plug that into your computer for multi-tracking.
2.) If it doesn't have Firewire/USB, and doesn't have direct outs, you're going to have to just take the L/R data coming from your stereo buss and send it to a two track interface.

Like I said before, you could technically use direct outs if your board has them, but you'd need an interface that could accept all of the inputs from the direct outs to do it, which defeats the purpose of not getting an interface and just using the 12 input mixer.