adding additional mic pres

[woody777]

If I have a unit with 10 inputs (Mackie 400F for example), but only 4 mic pres... how do I hook up additional mics to the unit if I want to record 10 simultaneous tracks? I know this is a newbie question... but I couldn't figure out what to search for on the forum.

Also, looking at the Mackie 400F... they advertise it as a 10 channel unit, but how is that 10 channels???

 

[littledog]

Assuming the unit has six line inputs in addition to the four mic pres, you would need to come up with six additional external mic preamps. These could be from a single multiple mic-pre unit (like an 8 channel mic pre) or even a mixer that has at least six built in preamps and individual outputs on each channel (like an insert point).

In either case, you would take the line level output of the mic preamp and plug it into the line level input on the Mackie. If the Mackie accepts balanced inputs and your mic preamps have balanced outputs, it is preferable to use a TRS cable, rather than an unbalanced instrument cable.