ADAT HD24 ---> Awesome!

[Fishmed]

Thanks for the reply. I'm a novice on the home-front. Tons of mixers out there. I saw the Masterlink ML-9600 the other day but I don't know if this is what I should be looking at. Basically, I have the HD24, a Roland HP-557R digital piano, a Godin Freeway Classic guitar and a Roland Fantom X7 synth. I also have a Dell 1600 laptop (minus firewire port but if needs be I'll use ethernet ftp transfer but I'd rather just record and mix from hardware direct. Would buying the Masterlink ML-9600 be a waste of money (duplicating functions already on the HD24) or what mixer should I be looking at. What interface should I use for hooking the instruments into to record into the HD24?
Mark

Although the Masterlink ML-9600 is not a waste of money, it is not a mixer. We can give you some ideas of what kind of mixers to get, but we first need to know what your budget is for one.

 

[Cazzbar]

I'd suggest getting the Behringer RX1602 line mixer to go with the HD24, purely to monitor all the line outputs. It's rack mountable and only 1 unit high, and obviously cheap as. It also has a handy send for adding vocal FX. It's worked fine for me but the quality doesn't matter because it's not in the recording signal chain.

For inputs I'm going straight into the HD24 for 1/4" line level inputs, and attached a Focusrite Sapphire 8 Pre via ADAT for mic inputs (although the berry ADA8000 could have done the trick if wanting keep the costs down). And added a 6 way headphone distributor amp when recording the band and not wanting any bleed.

Quite pleased I've got all this in a standard 6 unit gator rack box, not having to carry around your typical over-sized mixer is cool.

 

[cusebassman]

Did you buy a 1500 dollar HD recorder not knowing what it does?

Eh, beside the point.

Okay, as was mentioned above, the inputs on the HD24 are line-level. If your synth has line-output, you should be able to run the L & R to two separate channels respectively.

For mics, you will need a preamp of some sort. One pre per channel of input you want. The M-Audio DMP-3 is good for the money (120-150 bucks I think mine was somewhere in there). You also listed no mics as far as I can tell... if you are running guitars and whatever into the machine Direct-Input, you'll need a DI box on top of the mic pre, but those are much cheaper - the Behringer DI (40 bucks) is actually a good unit, even tho the brand name would lead you to think otherwise.

As for monitoring - yes, you would need some sort of mixer that can handle as many mono channels as you plan to use (both record to and monitor afterward while adding more tracks) if you want to monitor what is going in, and I'm guessing you do. I have some ADAT tape decks that I use, and I run em out to a Yamaha MG32 - good board for the money (1100), especially if its just for monitoring. However, if it is JUST monitoring, you can probably get by with the cheapest 24-mono channel console you can find, which I think is the biggest Behringer Eurodesk they make, the 32-channel one (24 mono channels, 4 stereo). That thing's 550 I think... and if its just for monitoring, would probably do the job.

Hope that helps. Any more questions, feel free to ask!

 

[cusebassman]

That little Behringer rack-mount also looks okay, but it isn't going to offer the full monitoring capabilities of the HD24, as 1) it only has 16 line inputs, and 2) I think it may really just have 8 stereo line inputs, rather than 16 individual... but I could be wrong - I only read the product spec

 

[cusebassman]

Hell... for the money, if each of those line mixers is 8 channels @ 109 bucks, you could buy three, run each set of 8 outputs from the HD24 to each of the three mixers respectively, and somehow mix the stereo output from each together to get one final mix... but that might involve a fourth line mixer

It would all be rack-mountable though, I guess... just seems like a lot of extra wiring. But, even with the fourth rack mixer for mixing the outputs of the first three (which would represent the 24 tracks of potential recording), you'd still be lookin at 100-200 cheaper than the cheapest 24-mono channel board.

 

[cusebassman]

I'd suggest getting the Behringer RX1602 line mixer to go with the HD24, purely to monitor all the line outputs. It's rack mountable and only 1 unit high, and obviously cheap as. It also has a handy send for adding vocal FX. It's worked fine for me but the quality doesn't matter because it's not in the recording signal chain.

For inputs I'm going straight into the HD24 for 1/4" line level inputs, and attached a Focusrite Sapphire 8 Pre via ADAT for mic inputs (although the berry ADA8000 could have done the trick if wanting keep the costs down). And added a 6 way headphone distributor amp when recording the band and not wanting any bleed.

Quite pleased I've got all this in a standard 6 unit gator rack box, not having to carry around your typical over-sized mixer is cool.

Say, how do you hook up 16 tracks to that little Behri? Is it really 8 stereo channels or 16 dedicated mono channels? Just curious!