routing out to a mixer - questions

R

rhythm

New member
I know much of this is subjective, but I'm still interested in your opinions on this matter...

Suppose I've already recorded several tracks to my PC. OK, great, now I can do everything from this point 'in the box' if I choose and be done with it.

HOWEVER, I'm thinking I may also want the option to route my tracks out to an analog mixer so I can do my mixdown, EQ usage if any, and outboard effects if any, on a board and bring the two-channel resulting mix back onto the computer.

My questions - if I'm going to stay at or under the 500 dollar range (or close) for an 8-input mixer, will the signal and EQ quality on the mixer be good enough to make it worth my while, or will I be better off staying on the PC and not routing out to the mixer at all? Will the quality of the converters on my PC audio interface play a large part in this decision, since I'll be adding two steps of conversion? (FWIW, I'm considering several interfaces in the 300-500 dollar range if I'm going to go with 8 analog output capability).

I like the idea of using a console, as opposed to the mouse and CRT, and I like the idea of being able to choose whether I want an analog-processed or digitally processed sound for mixing, EQ, effects, etc. But I won't do it if a mixer in my price range will significantly degrade the quality of the result. (But perhaps a slight "degradation" is part of the beauty of the analog sound??) Opinions? I'm hoping to make a decision on this before buying an interface, since this will determine whether I get one with 2 or 8 analog outputs.

Thanks,
Greg
 
there's only one way to find out. if you don't end up with the results you want, resell or return the gear.

i really don't know, because i have'nt tried it, but i would think that staying in the box would be best on your budget. the d/a and a/d conversions thru a cheap interface would probably degrade the tracks quite a bit. also, i doubt a cheap mixer would give any better results than staying in the box. just my thoughts.
 
If all you're a concerned with is the end result, then I'd stay in the box at this point. The degradation in signal quality from budget coversion and a budget mixer is probably not worth it. People who do this regularly tend to have a fairly pristine signal path to work with. If you really don't mixing in the box though, it may be what you need to do; and just upgrade portions of your signal chain as your budget allows.
 
thank you - and a couple of followup questions

Thanks for the replies, Travis and Alex. No matter what I ultimately end up doing, I'll be doing everything in the box to begin with, for financial reasons. My initial outlay will be for mics, a mic preamp, and an audio interface (and perhaps a compressor as well.) I still may consider getting an audio interface which provides 8 analog outs in case I do want to go the analog mixing route sometime in the future. Would the converter quality of items like the Delta 1010, Layla 3G, Firewire 410, etc. be good enough if I were to eventually use them to go out to a mixer and then back into the PC? Also, for those of you who do this, what gear are you using and how have the results been?

Thanks,
Greg
 
The interface for my current setup started out with a Digi-002R, with 8 analog inputs and 8 analog outputs. Only had 4 preamps on the 002R so I picked up a Soundcraft M12 board with 12 mono channels. The 002R has ADAT input/ouput to get an additional 8 channels. I needed them for tracking, so decided to pick up an interface that had 8 ins&outs so I could get 16 tracks back out of the computer. I tried mixing once back to the Soundcraft and didn't notice an improvement in quality. Beyond that, I had to send stem mixes to the board anyway as most of my recordings have 20 or more tracks. I don't have much in the way of outboard gear, with more invested in plugins for the computer. Beyond that, I appreciate being able to easily save mixes, including alternate iterations of mixes, easily. For me, it just makes sense to stay in the box at this point. To go out I'd need a different interface than the 002R with at least 24 outputs and a board that could handle that many inputs; along with outboard gear to compliment it. I'm a home-studio budget recordist, so it just doesn't make sense to upgrade along that path at this point. I didn't come from an analog background, so mixing with the mouse in the box really doesn't bother me.
 
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