Mixer routing to computer

thebigcheese

thebigcheese

"Hi, I'm in Delaware."
This is probably a dumb question, or at least one that I feel I should know the answer to, but it's causing me some grief. At school here, we use a big soundcraft mixer. All the mics go into it (well, there's a patchbay involved, but whatever), go down through all the channel sends and faders and stuff, and then each channel goes out to a Pro Tools HD setup. I am trying to do the same thing with my setup at home: everything goes to the mixer, through the channels, and out to my computer (except Reaper instead of Pro Tools). What sort of outputs is the mixer using to get this? Most of the mixers I'm seeing have direct outs, but then it wouldn't go through the channel. Right now I send 6 of my tracks to the left and right channels of 3 stereo busses on my mixer and that goes out to my computer, but that means I'm not using 6 of my channels (12 channel mixer). What do I need to look for in a mixer to let me have all the channels go out of their own output? I know there are mixers that do this, it just seems like none of the ones I can find have the right options...
 
direct outs can be pre or post fader. They might be using the busses on the soundcraft at school.

What mixer do you have at home?
 
thebigcheese said:
This is probably a dumb question, or at least one that I feel I should know the answer to, but it's causing me some grief. At school here, we use a big soundcraft mixer. All the mics go into it (well, there's a patchbay involved, but whatever), go down through all the channel sends and faders and stuff, and then each channel goes out to a Pro Tools HD setup. I am trying to do the same thing with my setup at home: everything goes to the mixer, through the channels, and out to my computer (except Reaper instead of Pro Tools). What sort of outputs is the mixer using to get this? Most of the mixers I'm seeing have direct outs, but then it wouldn't go through the channel. Right now I send 6 of my tracks to the left and right channels of 3 stereo busses on my mixer and that goes out to my computer, but that means I'm not using 6 of my channels (12 channel mixer). What do I need to look for in a mixer to let me have all the channels go out of their own output? I know there are mixers that do this, it just seems like none of the ones I can find have the right options...
Click to expand...

Look at digital mixers. Tascam TMD stuff is perfect for this
 
They're not using the busses and they're not using a digital mixer, I know that for a fact. Digital mixers seem to all cost way more than I want to spend, and I think I'd like to have at least 12-16 inputs (and none of this stereo input crap, 12 real inputs).

The mixer I'm using now is an oldish Sansui mixer. It's not that great, but the bus outs and tape ins are RCA plugs, which plays nicely with my cheap M-audio Delta 1010LT. How do you know if the direct outs are pre or post fader? I thought they were all pre...
 
I think Im going to do a "how to read a block diagram" article pretty soon

IF you can find one for your mixer, it would give you the tools to decide what the best way would be for your situation. Does this sansui have mic preamps on it?
 
Well, it has a trim control, so I assume it has some sort of preamp. I don't have it with me right now, so I can't really get a good look at what it has. Actually, check it out, there's already a thread here about it, the MX-12. At least, more or less. Is this what you're talking about?

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=157336&goto=nextnewest

Also, if this helps, the board my school uses is a Soundcraft Ghost LE.
 
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Looks like there are only 2 mic pre's on that. The rest would be better served going straight into the line ins on your 1010

For 11 and 12 just treat them as an external mic pre. plug in and take direct out 11 and 12 into two channels of the 1010. Push the fader up and down and you will find out right away if its pre or post fader
 
I guess what I'm asking is this: assume I'm going to buy a new mixer. How will I know if they're pre or post before buying it? Or maybe better yet, is there a mixer someone can recommend for me given all my requirements (and preferably one under $300)?

I tried looking at the brochure for the Ghost, but it didn't give me any useful information (well, I only looked at the pictures...) as to how my school does the routing. All I know is that all 16 channels on the board have their own input in Pro Tools, and it's all post fader, so there has to be a way to do what I'm trying to do. I'm not about to spend $5,000 on a board, though.
 
The Ghost is a mini, but nearly fully functional version of a real console. I had a 32 channel + 24 channel expander. It would be worth learning the entire signal flow of that console, educationally (though I know its nearly the last thing the schools could be bothered about teaching sadly)

One thing to understand extremely well, is how many gain stages are in any given path. EVERY amplifier in your path adds noise, distorts the signal and limits its bandwidth. AVOID amplifier stages at all costs. Im not sure why you would want your direct outs post fader, thats usually a bad thing

From memory, the Ghost can do either, but in the situation you are describing it is going thru the mic preamp stage, the insert buffer send, the insert buffer recieve, possibly the eq, then thru the channel fader amp then thru the direct out buffer.

Ideally, unless you were applying analog eq (no console under 25,000$ is likely to have an EQ you really want to run your signal thru) you would want to just have the mic pre amplifier and no other gain stages before tape or disc

If you are using busses, then yeah you are PROBABLY going to want those buss sends post fader (though not always)

As crappy as they are there are a number of behringer mixers that may fit your goals, they may or may not continue to work for a while, but they are cheap
 
I thought the idea behind adding a mixer to the computer setup was so that you could get all your levels set before going into the computer. I mean, obviously when you come back out of the computer, you want to go through the faders so that you can play with the levels (rather than fussing with the mouse to use the onscreen mixer). So if all you're using is the preamps, which makes sense if you have decent preamps (which I don't right now), what outputs would you be using to just go through the preamp? Do all prefader directs do that?

You're right that they don't teach you that, but I'm sure the studio manager would be happy to explain it to me if I asked. I'll probably do that just to find out. Just to get the gist of what you're saying I should do, the setup would go like this:

Mics->Mixer
Mixer direct out->Delta 1010LT (level adjustment with preamps?)
Delta 1010LT outs->Mixer tape in

Right? Also, since you introduce additional stuff at the mixer stage, using the mixer at the output should only be to help me figure out how I want the mix to go so I can automate it on the computer, right?

Thanks for all your help pipeline. You've been answering all my tedious questions lately.
 
Nowdays the usual reason to add a mixer to a setup is to get a bunch of extra mic pre's for cheap

for a lot of people anyhow. If you can set the level to tape with just a single gain knob, you are pretty set
 
Ok, cool. So the mixer is really just for mic pres. At school we also run the audio back out to it, adjust the mix there, and record that mix into a new track. We also add external effects in that way. I kinda like doing it that way, but I'm sure if I had a control 24 I'd be fine with leaving it on the computer. It's just too annoying to have to adjust it on the screen. Do you know if that mixer I linked is a decent enough mixer to be worth buying as a long-term investment, or is it more like something to be replaced later?
 
If you want to use the mixer to mix analog and insert analog fx easily (though I say easily, one of the more responsive daw manufacturers has recently made this much less of a headache), then a high quality analog console is the place to go. Those dont come cheap, and though I would say you can get decent, nay, excellent mixes out of a ghost, its really not traditionally in that category. Much cheaper than that, for that specific function is a lot of compromise...NOT to say you wont do excellent work on it anyhow, just as a rule of thumb...

Personally I gave up faders a ways back, and though I usually do have a control surface of some sort, I dont use it much except to do the fader wave to impress clients :) But I know lots of people who use the faders so maybe Im just weird.

I dont know about that console in the other thread but if the "mistake" is under a thousand dollars and is useful for other purposes anyhow, its hard to complain
 
So if I understand correctly, you are suggesting that I either get some nice pres and run those into my interface or just go direct into the interface and then do all the mixing on the computer? That makes sense, I suppose, since for the best audio quality I'd want to do the final mix on the computer, anyway. Do you do all the fader adjustments with your mouse, then? It just seems so much more efficient to be able to move multiple things at once...
 
It all comes down to preference. But the implementation can be economically dependant as well.

The traditional large format mixing console is probably out of the question. Its cheaper now than it ever was back in the day, but you are still looking around 50k$ for a decent setup

Then there is "treat the PC as a tape recorder, but mix sortatraditionaly" approach. in lieu of buying an expensive automation system, you could do level and send moves on the PC while still working the real faders. For automating pans you'll need twice the number of I/O channels into your PC as you'd have tracks...so if you were mixing 5 tracks of stuff you'd need 10 channels (not about to get into a pedantic war over the more modern definition of channels vs tracks, but I think you see what I mean)

To get a good sound out of this you are still looking at a fair chunk of change, though I've seen people pull this off on Mackie 32-8's and Ghosts and such, which of course are still enough to buy a car with.

There's "buy a crapload of retardedly expensive mic pre's, converters and other front end" then record into the PC (my perferred approach ,but not fun for everyone)...use the mouse or control surfaces like the MixedLogic or MCU to mix In the Box

As we go down from here, it gets more and more dubious. You can Buy a cheaper console with lots of mic pres and lots of direct outs, like a mackie or a behringer eurobuss (certain models anyhow), use the PC asa tape recorder and mix on the console, or in the box...

Some interfaces figure what you are going to do and provide mic/line inputs

It really depends how much you really want to get your hands on real faders

The only REALLY sore spot for me about not using faders comes if I want to directly move two faders at once, in varying degrees of opposite directions...some will have a higher pain tolerance than I, some will have lower, it all depends
 
Thanks for giving me these nice, long, informative replies (seriously, it's awesome). I guess for me, a control surface makes the most sense because then I get the benefits of both worlds, but a control surface with enough tracks to be useful (hell, even one with only 8) is a ton of money... Heh, I didn't even realize until you pointed it out that I haven't been using any pres with my recordings because I've been going into the non-pre channels on my mixer... I guess the 1010 has 2 pres built in, so I've used those, but that's it. So at this point, I guess I should be looking for a good way to get a bunch of pres. I know that pres add a certain color to your sound, but how important are they, really? Would it be fine to just go straight in?

This seems to be exactly the sort of thing I should be looking for. The review I found liked it. Thoughts?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/prod...ltichannel-Microphone-Preamplifier?sku=187700
 
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thats the right sort of thing for sure. Normally mics need mic pre's, line level gear needs line level inputs and high impedance sources like passive guitars and basses need a direct box then into a mic pre. Im not sure how it even worked plugging mics into line inputs, but I suppose some will work, albeit noisy and odd sounding.

I don't know much about that SM brand personally, but I think some others on this BBS have some of it.

I've seen people have some success with the really cheap behringer BCF units for fader control. Im probably going to pick one up for testing purposes here in a bit.
 
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