Multi tracks on soundcard??

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boogieman481

New member
Forgive the newbie.... but can you record multi tracks (such as 5 mics on the drums) on the the cards that only offer limited balanced 1/4" inputs or limited/no xlr inputs (such as MAudio Delta 1010-LT, MAudio Audiophile 2496, ....etc.
And is there any card that offers multiple inputs w/ preamps for recording multiple mics?
 
Yes, you can. But most of the cards do not have as many mic inputs as they have inputs. So you will need external mic preamps. There might be some solutions, but those will consist of or an external box going to a digital soundcard or a usb/firewire solution.
 
well i am willing to get what i need....just dont know really know what that is.... I have done some great things on a Audigy (dont laugh....The Black Sheep of the recording world...i know..) and i am ready to buy all new gear to record a new album with my band
 
The regular way is to put all of those mics into a mixer then choose how you want to route the mic signals to the card/breakout box. So you might end up with 8 mics condensed in the mixer down to 4 actual mixable recording tracks going from the mixer to the card/breakout box or patch bay. Condensing like that is good considering it's a computer that is receiving everything.

There's also those 8-channel mic-pres which I haven't tried out. Some of them have compressors on each strip. They're actually mixers too, but they seem to be more bang for the buck where you just get mic pres and plus couple of extras instead of spending money on all the features of a mixing board.

Be sure you know the outputs and route-ability of what you're shopping for so you get the kind of in to out routing you want. Some stuff out there will give you 8-ins forced into only 2 stereo outs.
 
With the Delta 1010LT, what I do is using a mixer with 6 mic inputs, and I have the Delta patched into the insert jacks on the mixer. The result is that it has access to all 6 mic channels plus two of the 10 line-level channels. I can thus record on any of those at once.

I don't use the sound card's on-board preamp at all, but I could if I needed to.
 
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