Recording from a Eurorack MX2642A -to interface

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silvercn

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Hi - this weekend I am going to attempt recording a friend's band at a live gig. Last year I recorded a surprizingly good session from a PV mixer just using the phone out jack to my two channel interface, to my laptop / DAW - Sonar 8.5. The room ambience was very minimal since there were no mics facing the audience.

This time the mixer is the MX 2642 - I have not messed with yet - but reading up on the PDF manual - which is somewhat confusing at this point. There will be about 7 mics / lines going into the mixer - then out to a PA - in a small venue. What suggestions are there for getting the signal to my interface, which now is a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6. It appears that my options are the Aux sends, or the board has 4 subgroups (two seperate faders), with their own outs.

Thanks: Charles
 
You've pretty much covered it on your own i think.
Every channel should have three buttons near the fader.
Main, sub 1+2 and sub 3+4

Make sure main and sub 1+2 are pressed for all your used channels.

So you'll be setting as normal with the main outputs feeding the PA, and everything's going to subgroup 1+2 as well.

Plug the outputs from sub 1+2 to the line inputs on the rear of your interface and record that. (line 3+4).

It's a shame, if the interface has 8 line inputs you could have made use of the direct outs on the behringer and multitrack recorded.

Remember to make good use of the panning and eq at the time (if you want), because you're recording in stereo, but you won't be able to adjust that later.
 
Well I have not done this recording yet...so if I get enough cables, I suppose I could come off every direct out on each channel as you mentioned. In doing so I will not have any control over the levels of each channel apart from how the band decides to set the slider of each channel - correct? At this point not being at the interface, I cannot recall, which of the 8 ins are assigned to my left and right level controls - so I would have some seperate level control at a two channel level with the interface...
 
Wait, I think we've got mixed up somewhere here.

I was saying you can't use the direct outs because your interface doesn't have enough inputs.
IF you could have used them, you would have had control over the levels after the recording,

but as it stands, you can only really make a stereo recording using one of your sub mixes as described above.
 
Make sure to return effects to channels rather than aux returns so you assign them like the other inputs.

Don't assign the record bus to the main mix.

If any instrument has an amplifier or is just acoustically loud (drums) there's a good chance it will be mixed low in the mains (and your recording) compared to the vocals. If that's the case do your recording mix on headphones then take anything too loud out of the main mix and into the group not used as your recording output (I'd record from 3-4 and use 1-2 as your "loud stuff" group) with the faders pulled down a bit. If something is just so loud it needs no amplification just assign it to your record bus and leave it out of the mains.

If you want some audience noise and room reverberation in the recording you can set up a couple of mics and assign them to just the record bus. Better yet, plug them right into the front of the interface and record them on separate tracks. Later you can time align them to the board feed and mix to taste.
 
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You are absolutely correct - I did get mixed up (no pun intended!)- the interface is just two channels in - I misread that! A stereo recording is acceptable in this case - it's just for a demo the group wants for future gigs.... Hey I appreciate all these good responses. I have not been on this forum in a long time, and now will check it out more often.... Charles
 
Cool.

Take a good look at what BSG said there.

I totally get the ins and outs and practical setup of this kind of thing, but I'm not a live sound guy so i didn't really think through the levels thing.

It makes sense, if something is really loud on stage, then you'll have it turned down on the desk for the PA, and then your recording will be off a bit so,

the front two inputs have line ins also,
You could have a main mix out of a subgroup, but anything that's too quiet in the mix could be send via direct output to input 1 or 2.

For example, drums and bass are sub 1+2 to input 3+4, vocals are direct out to input 1 and guitar is direct out to input 2.
 
I have one last question before doing this project. Regarding the calbes I run from the mixer to to interface, can I just use for example a standard guitar cable(s) or do I need to use something else (I know that the sub-outs of the mixer are 1/4"). thanks
 
silvercn said:
I have one last question before doing this project. Regarding the calbes I run from the mixer to to interface, can I just use for example a standard guitar cable(s) or do I need to use something else (I know that the sub-outs of the mixer are 1/4"). thanks
Click to expand...

Balanced cabling would be nice if both ends are balanced. If distances are short then unbalanced 1/4" should be okay, but look out for balanced/unbalanced interfacing issues. Check out Rane Note 110 for some insight into that.
 
Just to give an alternative suggestion...

The FOH mix of a band playing live is often not ideal for recording, especially in small venues. Often, instruments that are loud on their own (drum kit, miked guitar cab, etc.) are well down in the mix while vocals are pretty prominent.

A way around this that I've used is to do a specific recording mix on pre-fade auxes. It takes a bit of time to dial this in (probably on headphones) but if you're careful you can get a very nicely balanced mix going to your interface--and you can tweak things as you go if the live engineer is cooperative.

Obviously this depends on having two pre fade auxes available but, if you do, it's a worthwhile way of working.
 
Using auxes you can get exactly what you want on the recording (if you can hear what you're doing) and exactly what you want in the house mix. If you're not the one doing the house mix it's a little tricky to reach into the sound guys space to tweak your mix.

I'd almost be tempted to set the vocal mics to post fader. When the drums and amps get louder then you'll push the vocals in the house mix and you probably want that on the recording too.
 
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