Single Room Recording Setup..

[tobe2199]

Hi,

I've got the following in my little single-room recording setup:

Audiophile 2496
Behringer UB502

The soundcard is connected to the mixer via the Tape In/Out jacks.
Room monitors are connected to the mixer via the main out.

All audio processing happens in the DAW only so I generally only monitor the soundcard output when recording. This generally works fine. Tape to Mix routes the soundcard output to the monitors which I do for playback. Tape to Phones gets me the same in the cans which I use when recording.

The only minor annoyance with this setup is that when recording with a microphone I have to reach over and turn my speaker monitors right off.

What I'm looking for is either a routing solution for the UB502 or a recommendation for an alternative mixer that will allow me to, essentially, press a button to mute the room speakers whilst still being able to monitor the soundcard output through the headphones.

Any ideas anyone ? (And thanks in advance).

--
t o b e

 

[Waffleness]

Any ideas anyone ? (And thanks in advance).

Ok so I had a look at your setup. If I were you, I would connect all of your instrument and mic inputs to the behringer desk, and output the signal from the tape-out into your soundcard inputs.

Connect your monitors to the output of the soundcard. Connect your headphones to the behringer desk. So when you want to mute the main monitors, you can do so using the software, but this still leaves all inputs on the desk going through the headphones.

Is this the solution you were looking for?

 

[tobe2199]

Connect your monitors to the output of the soundcard. Connect your headphones to the behringer desk. So when you want to mute the main monitors, you can do so using the software, but this still leaves all inputs on the desk going through the headphones.
Is this the solution you were looking for?

Not really. As I said.. I want to monitor the PC output with headphones whilst recording through a mic in the same room. Your solution.. if I understand correctly.. would mean I can only monitor the mixer inputs whilst recording.

Thanks for the reply though...

 

[adam.carstensen]

Well if it were me, I'd use the headphones jack on the UB502 for headphones, the tape out for the soundcard connection, and connect the monitors to the soundcard's out. If your headphones support L/R, then use main out for your headphones.

This way, you can always monitor your pre-computer mix with your headphones, after recording you can play your mix through the monitors, and if you ever want to monitor live recording, you can switch off the mic to avoid reverb and uncheck the input mute via your sound settings.

Normally you won't have any feedback as long as you don't rest your headphones on your mic, and everything works fine.
-
Adam

 

[Waffleness]

Not really. As I said.. I want to monitor the PC output with headphones whilst recording through a mic in the same room. Your solution.. if I understand correctly.. would mean I can only monitor the mixer inputs whilst recording.

Thanks for the reply though...

Well to be honest, if you dont have any aux's on your desk then you have no way of splitting off a second signal. You need 2 signal paths from the PC soundcard to the headphones and the monitors. I dont think you can do this without physically turning something off the monitors.

Your best bet is either turning the speakers off or only monitoring what you are recording.

Sorry

 

[tobe2199]

Well to be honest, if you dont have any aux's on your desk then you have no way of splitting off a second signal.

I kind of suspected that might be the case.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a small mixer that *does* have this kind of functionality. Is this what's called an Alt3-4 switch or am I getting that one wrong ?

Cheers.

 

[Rivers]

[edit: quick look at the UB502 manual, the '3/4' does not appear to be an 'Alt' (alternative routing to a stereo or mono output buss), it's the designation on the stereo channel input. Apologies for the confusion below. You can plug two sources into it but generally stereo channels have less control and fewer features. You can use it as a single channel input though, plug into the left channel and it treats it as mono, this is called a 'half normalled' jack I believe]

[edit 2: ideally, and generally speaking, you're right to want to monitor the signal at the recording point, not upstream at the mixer. If you haven't already done so Google 'ASIO' for endless discussions on latency and why this can be problematic unless you're running a grunty PC and soundcard]

Re. 'Alt3-4': On compact Mackie mixers the channel signal is routed to the Alt3-4 buss when you press the channel mute button(s). Depending on what you're doing this may or may not be useful - I never found a solid use for it doing live sound or recording on a Mackie 1402 but there you go. I dunno if that's how you route to Alt3-4 with a Behringer. [see above edit for clarification]

I got so fed up with jumping through obscure routing hoops that eventually painted me into a corner I upgraded to a Mackie 24/4 Onyx w/6 aux outs, among many other routing options, and now I'm really really happy. Not to mention the mic pres, EQ, meters, a nice transparent compressor, better faders and just about everything else are a world better. If I were in your situation, wanting to flip-flop main out feeds, there's a button (with a very bright blue light when it's engaged) to route (only) the tape input to the main mix. Just remember to press it on playback, and turn it off afterwards.

Sometimes you just outgrow your gear and have to upgrade. I'm the world's worst sound engineer but believe me it's a lot easier on a full-featured board even though it looks more complicated. One of life's little ironies, a small mixer is incredibly hard to use, a big f***-off mixer with lots of lights, buttons and knobs is a piece of cake. Well, almost. If you can do it on a small mixer you do learn a lot and that will stand you in good stead.

 

[tobe2199]

Google 'ASIO' for endless discussions on latency and why this can be problematic unless you're running a grunty PC and soundcard

Luckily I do.. latency on my set-up is typically about 6 msec (So I guess about 12msec if you want to hear DAW generated reverb on vocals, for instance)

I got so fed up with jumping through obscure routing hoops that eventually painted me into a corner I upgraded to a Mackie 24/4 Onyx w/6 aux outs. Sometimes you just outgrow your gear and have to upgrade.

Which is where I figure I'm at now.. The Mackie 24/4 looks like a bit of overkill for me.. this is a one-room, one-track-at-a-time setup after all. Although I'd like a rig that doesn't totally rule out perhaps a 4-mic drum session now and then.

Whilst looking at the Mackie mixers I did come across the Soundcraft series. The 4-channel version looked suitable for my needs.

Although of course, I could just rig a button up that disconnects my monitors when recording. That's the only functionality I want after all