Hey Bruce...or anyone else who can help for that matter...

[heylow]

A couple of questions, really. I targeted Bruce cuz he knows the Mackie 8bus and his way around this stuff in general.

First off...The deal:

I have a Mackie MDR recorder, a Mackie 24.8, a pair of Event 20/20bas (powered) monitors, a minidisc recorder (I'll get to why)and some various comps and whatnot.

Right now I need to hook myself up to use the board for band rehearsal (vocals mainly) to a power amp and floor wedges as well as hook it up for recording. Now, while rehearsing I like to be able to run a simple mix of vox, 1 OH, 1 Kick, Bass and guitar to the minidisc for ideas but of course do not want all that coming through the floor wedges. I also want to move between rehearsing and recording without tearing the whole rig apart!

So is this correct:

Studio monitors connected to "control room output" jacks, Minidisc recorder being fed and mixed from "Main mix" (top 1/4" jacks) and coming back through "2 track input" and Power amp/floor wedges mixed and fed via "aux send 1."

Then the Mackie recorder hooks up via the "tape out and ins" on the back, yeah? Please let me know if I have a handle on this? Is the best way to go? Any bits of advice? Better ideas?

One more thing.....

On the back of each of my powered monitors is an on/off switch. When I shut them off (inividually), I get a click/pop through them. You know the sound How can I avoid clicking and popping when turning stuff on and off? I have a small Furman rack mounted power conditioner thing....if I power everything (the main stuff) through that and just turn EVERYTHING on and off via the master switch, would that be good? Would it fix the problem, do you suppose?

Man, I just graduated all at once from the 4 track cassette world and it's a big step from that and my Mackie 1402 to what I got now. I just got a HHB Radius 40 I haven't used yet cuz I'm trying to figure this out before band practice Thursday!!

OK....sorry...one more:

On my 1402, you used to get levels by soloing and it did not matter where the channel fader was at. Am I to understand that the channel fader has to be up (at unity to start with) to solo and check levels?! If so, how does that work when you mix? If you turn the fader down quite a bit, the signal is still correct and uncompromised? Man, I think I'll be posting a lot more in the near future

Got a Rode NTK coming, all this great new stuff, and I'm still soloing and level checking my lousy 58 for rehearsal....think I bit off a bit more than I am able to chew THIS time!!

Thanks in advance Bruce and anyone else brave enough to read this far!


heylow
Not quite as much of a rock jedi lately/but still an indie snob

 

[TexRoadkill]

You are pretty close and if how you have it setup works then you are all set.

A few options to play with-

You can use the additional busses to feed the recorders, monitors or effects. You can also use the rear channel inserts to feed a recorder or FX with a prefader signal.

The solo should work the same as your 1402, it doesn't? The channel fader is so you can hear anything out of the busses or master and post fader aux sends. You adjust the pre-fader gain with the gain pot at the top of the channel. There may be a switch for the VU meters for PRE/Post monitoring.

The pops you hear are normal and nothing you can do about it (that I know of). DO NOT just shut off the main power (its okay for some gear but not power amps). When turning on use the main power, then the individual power switches. Reverse for power down.

 

[heylow]

OK....

I think I have it licked....

Thanks for the reply, Tex. After some sleep and with a little clearer head, I went back down and got it all up.

Yeah, I sort of understand all the other stuff...it was more figuring out how to do what I needed easily. I'm not used to so many options!

The click/pop thing was a combination of things. First, I was using an old office UPS to power most of the stuff and for whatever reason, not only was this thing creating (or emphasizing) pops and clicks but it was making the conditioner leds on my furman go nuts. Sometimes the UPS would switch to battery for no reason. My guess is it's toast....it's quite old actually. Beyond this it was a matter of figuring out the order it all wanted to be powered up/down in.

About getting levels...even the manual says to put the soloed faders at unity to get levels. It's wierd. If you don't, you don't get signal reading at the main meter. It works though, I guess. On my old mackie, the fader position did not matter but I suppose this is a different animal altogether.

Everything I hooked up seems to work now...so I guess I'm straight. Last night it just all seemed dysmal...reading the manual and trying to understand the whys and hows and ins and outs but today I think I'm ok. I only got blasted with feedback once!


heylow


PS I'm going to attempt to post a pic in case anyone is interested...it's not that I think anyone would be, I'm just excited to have so much new stuff!

 

[heylow]

oh and by the way.....the speaker stands are temporary!!!

 

[TexRoadkill]

Cool setup.

I guess they figure if you monitor at unity then you can set the pre fader gain with the VU meter. That is probably one of those little mackie quirks "we're to cool for a pre fader meter switch".