Best practice recording from a mixing desk

BlueWotsit57

New member
Hi everyone, hoping this forum can help me with a couple of questions which I have.

First and foremost I am a photographer not a musician. One of my young friends is an up and coming musician - singing and playing guitar

We have been experimenting with recording him performing live both at home and in pubs.

At present he has a small Alto ZMX122fx mixing desk, which he connects his microphone and guitar to, if a friend joins in a keyboard is also connected, and then sends the output straight to a single Behringer speaker.

What we are trying to do is capture the sound to a good level with the view to producing a promo video for him, to this end he has purchased a Zoom H4n Pro recorder unit.

Recording using the twin built in mics the sound is good but sadly as expected in a pub environment you get all the shouting and cursing etc also captured. At home he can connect direct to the unit but cannot setup the settings he would via the desk.

What we would like to do is if possible take the sound out from the mixing desk straight into the xlr connections on the Zoom recorder.

Where we are experiencing issues on quality is identifying the best way of sending the sound from the mixing desk to the recorder.

Any advice on which outlets to use and other settings would be great. The outlet options that are obvious on the desk are twin RCA, twin CTRL room and twin main mix

The other question linked into this is can the sound from a microphone and the guitar individually be sent to separate recording channels with this setup or as implied the output is always mixed by the desk


Thanks in hope
 
You can go out of the desk and into the Zoom via a pair of RCA to 6.5mm jack leads. The Zoom has combo inputs, which means you can use either XLR (for mics) or jack (for line in) as inputs.

You can keep voice and guitar seperate using the above method, but it means panning one hard left and the other hard right. That, of course, would mean that one or the other goes missing from the one speaker you are using.

However, another way of doing it is with a pair of 6.5mm jack to 6.5mm cables. Plug one int the Aux Send 1 output on the Alto, and the other into the Aux Send 2. The other ends go to the Zoom. To get vocals one one track, turn up Aux 1 knob up and Aux 2 down on the vocal channel, and the reverse on the guitar channel.
 
Thanks for this I have copied the message over to my friend so he may well come back with more questions as he sets the desk up.

A few questions which occur to me as a non musician, hopefully not too daft to be asked

1. At present I think he connects the speaker to the Main mix outlet - is this better than the Control output or is it identical sound that comes from each. Would having two speakers still see the "missing sound" scenario using the first suggestion

2. Would the missing sound in the speaker(s) still be the same in the scenario 2 you kindly detailed. If so presumably affixing some type of speaker as a monitor to the Zoom might be an option

3. If the keyboard is also attached am I correct in thinking that the Aux knobs on that channel will need to mirror those of the guitar, so that a mixed sound is sent in one channel, and vocals on the other


thanks again
 
^^ Either solution will work for you this way to the Zoom, however, you are still left with an uneditable audio track as far as I know, unless you have video software that will then allow you to do further 'mixing' of the audio.
I'd recommend sending the mixer's outputs (using the Aux's as Gecko suggested) to a separate audio recorder, then mixing that on a computer and then adding that to the video in your video software. This would also allow you to mix in a little of the camera's audio (specially applause after a song).

Assuming this 'promo video' is to get him more gigs? More often than not a bar manager or booking agent is going to watch/listen to 10-20 seconds of the video on a phone, so it is important that the mix is done to mono just in case they are listening with a bluetooth earpiece or a single earbud.
 
^^ Either solution will work for you this way to the Zoom, however, you are still left with an uneditable audio track as far as I know, unless you have video software that will then allow you to do further 'mixing' of the audio.
I'd recommend sending the mixer's outputs (using the Aux's as Gecko suggested) to a separate audio recorder, then mixing that on a computer and then adding that to the video in your video software. This would also allow you to mix in a little of the camera's audio (specially applause after a song).

Assuming this 'promo video' is to get him more gigs? More often than not a bar manager or booking agent is going to watch/listen to 10-20 seconds of the video on a phone, so it is important that the mix is done to mono just in case they are listening with a bluetooth earpiece or a single earbud.

Hi, the Zoom is a separate audio recorder. What I do, is import it into my video software and sync it to the video audio track, which can then be deleted. I can edit the audio either in a program like Audacity, or in the audio editing built into my video software. Very good point though about the length for promo and will certainly take that on board. With the Zoom, I can simultaneously record a stereo track from its built in mic inputs to get audience sound if desired - cheers
 
1. At present I think he connects the speaker to the Main mix outlet - is this better than the Control output or is it identical sound that comes from each. Would having two speakers still see the "missing sound" scenario using the first suggestion

Main mix is fine. The Control output can be used, but it has a different purpose. If you have two speakers connected, one to Main L and the other to Main R, then you would get vocals in one and guitar in the other (depending on which way you pan them

2. Would the missing sound in the speaker(s) still be the same in the scenario 2 you kindly detailed. If so presumably affixing some type of speaker as a monitor to the Zoom might be an option

In scenario two, you would not have the missing sound (unless of course you hard panned the vocals and guitar). But you don't need to in this scenario, because you are getting separation of the two for recording via the aux sends. Either one r two speakers connected to the main outs would be fine.


3. If the keyboard is also attached am I correct in thinking that the Aux knobs on that channel will need to mirror those of the guitar, so that a mixed sound is sent in one channel, and vocals on the other

If you attached a keyboard, you now have three elements that can only go into two inputs on the zoom. So a reasonable thing to do is to use, say, aux 1 for vocals to go to zoom, and aux 2 for both guitar and keyboards to go to the other channel on the zoom. You then have to hope that you get a reasonable balance of the two instruments, which you would control via their respective aux 2 sends.
 
Main mix is fine. The Control output can be used, but it has a different purpose. If you have two speakers connected, one to Main L and the other to Main R, then you would get vocals in one and guitar in the other (depending on which way you pan them



In scenario two, you would not have the missing sound (unless of course you hard panned the vocals and guitar). But you don't need to in this scenario, because you are getting separation of the two for recording via the aux sends. Either one r two speakers connected to the main outs would be fine.




If you attached a keyboard, you now have three elements that can only go into two inputs on the zoom. So a reasonable thing to do is to use, say, aux 1 for vocals to go to zoom, and aux 2 for both guitar and keyboards to go to the other channel on the zoom. You then have to hope that you get a reasonable balance of the two instruments, which you would control via their respective aux 2 sends.


Fantastic this seems to make sense even to myself. Will pass onwards to him and am looking forward to putting this into practice

Thank you so much for this detailed response it is much appreciated - I know where to come now if I need further help

regards
 
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