Getting the right mixer/interface for my multi-track homestudio.

Marmew

New member
Hi everyone,

First of all, thank you for welcoming me and running this forum.]

I have some experience with home studios myself, as I made some productions in the past. I just moved to a new place with a musician friend, and we are looking to go next-step and forming our home-studio that will be mostly dedicated to live music playing in the appartment.
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How many tracks do you want to record at one time? There's a ton of audio interfaces available under $500. (Forget 'mixer' - mixer are used for live mixing of multiple instruments/mics to fewer outputs, although some newer mixers do have USB multitracking capability.)
 
That would about 4 audio input (jack/XLR, some unbalanced and some balanced) and 2 midi inputs, meaning 6 tracks recording at the same time.
I attached a scheme to the original post.

Understood for the interface, the first step for me is indeed to define the vocabulary. It would be important for me that this interface gets different buses for different monitor mixes.
 
Hi and welcome to HR! :)

If any of your midi devices are USB then that's fine; They can stand alone.
If not, midi devices can be chained as long as A: one of them has a thru port in addition to in/out, and B: Each allows you to set a custom channel for it to operate on.

If your devices don't meet that criteria, then you would need and audio interface with multiple midi inputs, or a separate usb midi interface.

For audio it looks like you just need two XLR microphone inputs and two DI/instrument inputs.
A lot of interfaces have a switch to allow DI/instrument on their first to inputs, so have a shop around and see what you can find.

At a quick glance, something like the Focusrite 6i6 should cover your needs with two DI and two XLR with phantom power, simultaneously, and a midi input.
It, like most audio interfaces, also has your headphones and main monitor outputs covered.


Multiple headphone mixes can be a bit tricky.
There's two main ways this is done.
One is a fancy system that sends everything to everyone and offers each headphone-wearer their own 'mixer' or control panel to customise what they hear.
That's $$$.
The other is to manage submixes in your daw and send them to different stereo output pairs on your audio interface.
So musician A is hearing a mix going to out 3+4, musician B hears what goes to 5+6, etc.

The latter option means you'd need multiple line outputs on the audio interface, and a headphone amp to go with each pair. (or a multi in/out headphone amp.)
That focusrite I mentioned only has two pair line outputs, and one of those is main mix, so that would afford one additional custom headphone mix.
I guess you'd be looking for something with, maybe, 8 line outputs?
 
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The submixes solution seems effective enough to me. Indeed it would mean to get an interface with more outputs. Would you have any reliable references?
I think my MIDI devices will come with native USB.

I was wondering, in the case we only use an interface, are there any numeric mixing controllers to pilot DAWs?

Thanks for your reply!
 
I was wondering, in the case we only use an interface, are there any numeric mixing controllers to pilot DAWs?

You're looking for a hardware controller for what you see on screen?
Behringer make a cheapish option. People like Euphonix make more expensive ones, although I think they're Avid now?
There are ones in between from Mackie and I'm sure other manufacturers.

As far as specific DAW compatibility/usability I can't really help, but maybe someone else can. :)
 
Alright, thank you it's already way clearer for me.
Would you have any references for cheap (or easy to find on second-hand market) headphone amplifiers? Either I buy a simple one multiple times, either a multi-channel one.
Have a great day
 
I've had the same little 1in/4out headphone amp here for years so I'm not really up to speed on what's out there,
but hopefully someone else can give you some pointers. :)
 
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