Communicating With the Booth!

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swindle

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GOD it feels good to have a support group to go to for these burning dilemmas. I used to have a nice recording set-up until last weekend when every home recordist's nightmare came true,...my studio got robbed.
Now all I have to work with is a Mackie 1202vlz and my G4 Mac (thank god). I'm using Logic 4.8 as my multi track recorder. Okay, now that you know what I'm working with, I have this question that I'm hoping you all could help with. What is the best way (using this available gear) to communicate with and record the vocal tracks of vocalist in the vocal booth? The current set up has Logic's out going into the Macki 'TAPE IN'. Then the 'MAIN OUT' is is sending just the Mic (that's plugged into one of the XLR preamp ins o fthe Mackie) to an armed Logic track. Audio monitoring of armed Logic tracks is disabled so the vocalist can hear his/her voice directly out of the Mackie (instead of the annoyingly delayed Logic monitoring) right over the playing back Logic instrumental tracks.
Since Logic's playback tracks are going into the Mackie via the Tape in (which is routed so it does not play out of the Main out) this set up seems ideal for allowing clean vocals to be sent into Logic while everything can be monitored as a complete mix DURING recording. The only problem is, this complete mix needs to be heard by me in the 'control room' (beadroom) AND the vocalist's headphones in the 'vocal booth' (empty closet) at the same time BUT somehow we need independent volume controls for both. The monitoring mix is coming out of the Mackie 'Control room/Phones' output (which has a stereo 1/4" plug on top of the mixer for headphones and 2 (L and R) 1/4" outputs on the back which are going to the powered monitors. THIS DOESN'T ALLOW FOR INDEPENDENT VOLUME CONTROL, if I turn my control room up, the vocalist get's his ears blown out and vice versa. Damn that was a long explanation, sorry. Anyway, if you have any sorts of creative ideas on how to get seperate volume control for the vocal booth and the control room, I'd love to hear them. I've attached a picture of the mixing board to this post and here's a link to some more info on the mixing board http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail.php?itemid=1202vlzPro .

P.S. Ideally, the Mackie mixer would have TWO headphone outputs with a volume knob for each, but that's not the case. Thanks to all.

P.P.S. After the insurance claim is settled I am going to rebuild the studio, any suggestions on what to buy (new mixing board etc.) that will make all of this computer recording run smoothly?
 

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Good idea. So this would mean I would have to have to go from the control room output of the Mackie into the headphone amp in. Then plug the vocalist's headphones into one jack and the studio monitors into another jack. But the studio monitors each have their own 1/4" plug so I would have to use a 2 mono input female to 1 stereo male 1/4" adapter (right now the studio monitors plug beautifully right into the back of the Mackie (control room out 1/4" jacks). Any ideas on how to keep the studio monitors plugged into the Mackie and have some sort of independent control of the vocalists headphones?
 
You could use the tape outs to feed the monitors or adapt them to feed the headphone amp.

You could also use an aux send to feed the headphone amp if everything she needs is coming in on a channel just assign how much she wants of each channel on the aux send. This might be best because you can actually give her a custom monitor mix.
 
Keep running the monitors from the rca jacks, and just plug the headphone amp into the 1/4" out. You can then adjust your monitors, and then add or subtract some volume to the headphones w/ the volume control on the headphone amp.

Hope this helps.

Matty
 
The problem with that is the RCA jacks (TAPE OUT) doesn't output the entire mix, ony what's plugged into the mixer channels. And since LOGIC is coming into the TAPE IN RCA jacks, it can't be heard through the TAPE OUT.
Should Logic be inserted into a stereo mixer channel instead? That would solve the problem of the two independent volume controls (one output from AUX or TAPE OUT and the other output from CONTROL ROOM/PHONES.) But then the problem arrises again, how do we send just ONE channel (vocals) into Logic to record while hearing the already recorded Logic tracks and NOT have those Logic tracks get re-recorded with the vocals. Maybe it's a matter of using the 'alt 3-4/mute' switch. What would be an ideal configuration of this 1202 pro so that ONLY specified channels get recorded into Logic but an ENTIRE mix is able to be heard through aux as well phones/control room?
P.S. Thaanks for the patience.
 
Here is how I would do it. I used to have a 1202.

Mic to Channel 1 - Insert out to Logic (cleanest signal path)

Logic back in on one of the stereo channels.(you can mute it if you dont want it. You can also not assign the vocals in logic to an output while recording. That is what I do when tracking)

Master or Conrol out to control room monitors. Control out is good because it changes what you hear during SOLO and PFL.

Aux 1 or 2 to Headphone monitors ( for the performer you can now assign as much of her vocals as she needs and the logic monitor channel can be assigned to her headphones. When you do this do not assign the armed recording track in logic to an output. Or you can assign the armed track to another output on your sound card and have it go into the mackie on its own track. In this case you can monitor the recorded signal (soloed) yourself, just dont send it to her heaphones or she will hear both signals.

Does that make sense?
 
I reread your original post and the main thing you are missing is the INSERT on the back of the mackie. This will send just that one channel to Logic.
 
I use this same setup all the time w/ no probs:


  1. [1]route the mic through the 3-4 bus(MUTE/ALT 3-4 button down) and, of course Logic's in to the 3-4 outs on the mixer. Set level on 1202 pre to optimum for recording, not mixing. Set mix(currently recording track and prerecorded tracks) with Logic's mixer(s). Hint: the Logic output level(monitoring level) of a track to be recorded can only be set after the track is armed and it does not affect the level being recorded. Notice how the fader changes when the track is armed/unarmed. This way you can set and forget seperate levels for monitoring during *and* after recording.

    [2]Logic out to a stereo channel routed to main bus(MUTE/ALT 3-4 button up)

    [3]monitors/amp to main outs

    [4]phones to 1202's phones jack. Hit the 'Main mix' button.[/list=1]

    Make the monitors as loud as you want w/ 'Main Mix' knob. Phones are only as loud as 'ctrl room/Submix' knob.

    Only downside is the highest phone level is limited by the Main mix knob. But, it probably doesn't even apply in your case since the phones will probably have more than enough level with even moderate monitor levels. If not, turn up the levels on the amp or monitor itself.
 
BTW, you can make the 'Main Mix' knob and 'cntrl room/submix' knob independent by performing modification #3 described in the 1202 manual. Involves just a little soldering.
 
Okay, with all your help, I'm one step away from having a perfect (for me) recording set up using only a Mackie 1202 and a G4.
If you read my original post you'll notice my original problem is that I didn't have independent monitor volume control for me in the control room and for the vocalist's headphones. Now I am using the inserts to send just the vocalist's vocals to Logic. I want to use the aux send 1 to give him/her a mix of their live vocals and the pre-recorded Logic tracks coming into another pair of channels. The problem is I think that plugging into the insert (to send those vocals to Logic) is dissallowing that track to be heard through the aux (or any other route for that matter). is this a 'feature' on the Mackie. Will I not be able to hear that channel anywhere else is a 1/4" plug is in the insert jack? That seems a little primitive and it sort of reminds me of a simple imac headphones set-up in which plugging into the headphone jack overrides the speakers. Is there something I'm missing? Is there any way to be plugged into an insert jack of a channel and also hear that channel through and aux or control room/phones etc?

One other snag: The only way I've found so far to monitor a whole mix (Logic and live vocals) is when I send Logic back into a mackie stereo channel from the out of the soundcard (emagic Audiowerk2). The problem is that those vocals are slightly delayed. This as you know is unacceptable. Vocalists (at least the ones I am working with) must hear themselves exactly as they speak/sing. Is there any way to beat this latency in Logic or Digital Performer 3 so that it's as if they are monitoring themselves directly through the mackie?
 
If you only plug the cable into the insert point up to the first 'click' (about halfway) then you can 'steal' from the insert without interrupting the signal to the rest of the board.

In Logic you probably need to disable 'Software Monitoring' in Audio Preferences.
 
Or just send the track that is being recorded back into the mackie's Logic monitor feed. As long as the latency isnt to noticeable you should be okay.
 
Which brings us to our final obstacle... latency.
I am using an emagic Audiowerk2 card with Logic 4.8.1 Platunum on a G4. The latency is slight but as you know, the vocalist must hear themselves EXACTLY as they sing/speak. If there were a way to reduce the latency then we could do as you said and monitor the input mix feed from Logic. How can I beat this latency?
 
Buy two pairs of wireless headphones, use just one of the transmitters. The headphones have thier own volume control, no headphone amp needed.
 
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