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notbradsohner
Compression Addict
Nick The Man said:
Only if you have 16 mics you can use at once.
Only if you have 16 mics you can use at once.
Nick The Man
New member
and 2 open PCI slots on my motherboatd .. which i dont
warble2
Not an expert
notbradsohner said:
Why 16 mics? Why not have the ability to mix up mics and running stuff direct into the inputs?
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notbradsohner
Compression Addict
Ok, Nick, how many mics do you have?
Nick The Man
New member
uhmmmm probably like 12-13 that i actually use
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notbradsohner
Compression Addict
Can you actually find a use for 13 mics and 3 DI's? Miking some kind of symphony?
Nick The Man
New member
notbradsohner said:
hahaha i see what your saying its a good point.
A
Adam P
Well-known member
If you want to expand your inputs to 16 simultaneous, just get something that converts 8 analog channels to an ADAT digital signal. Your Tascam interface supports ADAT and SPDIF...18 channels simultaneously.
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notCardio
I walk the line
Just to clarify
I'm not suggesting you need 16 inputs, but 8 can be somewhat limiting, especially in a live situation, depending on the size and instrumentation of the band, obviously. But you were sort of insinuating that you wanted the 24 ch, which would be good for double duty for live sound reinforcement, but seems to me like pretty extreme overkill for what I thought you wanted to do with it.
You might want to thing about doing live sound on the side, though. Pick up some extra bucks, get better known among guys who might want be potential customers, and learn a heckuva lot along the way. I'll warn you, though, it's tough work, extremely frustrating, your equipment gets abused (and possibly stolen), and if you suck, you'll never live it down and nobody will want to use you.
You should check into Adam's suggestion. I don't know enough about that kind of stuff to have an opinion.
I'm not suggesting you need 16 inputs, but 8 can be somewhat limiting, especially in a live situation, depending on the size and instrumentation of the band, obviously. But you were sort of insinuating that you wanted the 24 ch, which would be good for double duty for live sound reinforcement, but seems to me like pretty extreme overkill for what I thought you wanted to do with it.
You might want to thing about doing live sound on the side, though. Pick up some extra bucks, get better known among guys who might want be potential customers, and learn a heckuva lot along the way. I'll warn you, though, it's tough work, extremely frustrating, your equipment gets abused (and possibly stolen), and if you suck, you'll never live it down and nobody will want to use you.
You should check into Adam's suggestion. I don't know enough about that kind of stuff to have an opinion.
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Adam P
Well-known member
I think something like the 16 channel 4 buss Onyx and something like an Alesis AI-3 or Behringer ADA-8000 for AD conversion would serve you well. You'd have 16 channels of preamps and 16 channels of simultaneous recording.
By the way...
Two overheads
Two snare
Two kick
Three toms
One room
Two guitar
One bass (or channel for DI)
Scratch vocal
There's 14 channels right there, easy.
By the way...
Two overheads
Two snare
Two kick
Three toms
One room
Two guitar
One bass (or channel for DI)
Scratch vocal
There's 14 channels right there, easy.
Nick The Man
New member
i dont understand how those work...
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Ironklad Audio
New member
ok...
the 24-channel onyx is meant mainly for live use...not to mention it only has 4 more preamps than the 1640, and doesn't include the FW option, assuming you give a shit about that
and again, like stated before, running another mixer into your tascam still won't give you more than 8 inputs to your PC
what it comes down to is what you NEED, what you WANT, and what you can AFFORD...personally, i needed the ability to track at least 12 inputs simultaneously, and it seemed to me like the best option for the $$ was the 1640 w/ the FW card...however, since you already have an interface at your disposal, it may well be worth it to find a way to expand what you already have, rather than scrapping the current setup for something else
the 24-channel onyx is meant mainly for live use...not to mention it only has 4 more preamps than the 1640, and doesn't include the FW option, assuming you give a shit about that
and again, like stated before, running another mixer into your tascam still won't give you more than 8 inputs to your PC
what it comes down to is what you NEED, what you WANT, and what you can AFFORD...personally, i needed the ability to track at least 12 inputs simultaneously, and it seemed to me like the best option for the $$ was the 1640 w/ the FW card...however, since you already have an interface at your disposal, it may well be worth it to find a way to expand what you already have, rather than scrapping the current setup for something else
A
Adam P
Well-known member
Nick The Man said:
How what work? The ADAT input?
Say you bought the Onyx 1640 (the 16 channel, 4 buss board). It's got 16 direct outputs on two of those DB25 connectors we talked about earlier. You would get two of the cables that have DB25 on one end and 8 TRS on the other. Direct outs 1-8 would go to the 8 line inputs on your Tascam. Direct outs 9-16 would go into the line inputs on your ADAT converter (the ADAT converters I mentioned are the Alesis AI-3 and Behringer ADA8000...both affordable and seem like they would be adequate for your uses). The ADAT converter has an ADAT fiber optic output. You get an appropriate fiber optic cable, and go from the convertor's ADAT output into your Tascam's ADAT input, labelled "ADAT/Optical In".
Another option would be to sell the Tascam and just get the Onyx and the FireWire card for it. The only downside to this is you're giving up any versatility and future upgradability that you have with the Tascam. I personally wouldn't do it, but that's just me. With the Tascam and 8 channels of ADAT conversion, you have 16 simultaneous channels of recording that you can patch any system into. If you're mixing in the box, then it should be more than you'll need any time in the near future. If you want to mix out of the box through the Mackie, you'll have to learn to pare your tracks down to a total of 16, either through more judicious tracking or by using submixes, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. There's no law that says a song has to have 30 or 40 tracks of music for it to sound good.
I think one thing that you're going to see is starting to rear its ugly head is the high cost of cabling things up. The more channels and effects you have, the more cabling adds up, and quickly. Personally I have a 24x8x2 Allen & Heath board into an Alesis HD24. Just to patch the two together I have an 8 channel snake from the buss outputs of the board into the Alesis, and a 24 channel snake patching the Alesis back into the board for mixing. I'm moving next week and I plan to patch two rooms of my house together with 32 channels of cable between the rooms, which is going to cost me several hundred dollars and countless hours of my time soldering everything. It's worth it though, because high quality cable is going to last for a long time and probably won't give you any troubles such as trying to find out where the one bad cable is that's causing that annoying hum or hiss.
So basically, if you took my advice (which is nothing more than how I would personally expand on things if your setup was my own), I'd be looking at the following:
Mackie Onyx 1640 board
(2) DB25 - TRS Male connectors
8 channel ADAT A/D/A convertor
Word clock cable for clocking the Tascam and the ADAT convertor together
Also, you have an M-Audio TAMPA, correct? I would patch that into the Tascam's SPDIF input, for a total of 17 simulaneous channels of recording.
Nick The Man
New member
wow possbily the most informative post ive read .. thanks a ton i like that post lol
alright well i canteven think of a question to ask you cause i think you just answered everything
and your right i plan on keeping the tascam
alright well i canteven think of a question to ask you cause i think you just answered everything
and your right i plan on keeping the tascam