General newbie question about mixers

[jonslaten]

What's up fellas. First of all I am running Protools 8 with an Mbox2. It has 2 DI inputs and 2 XLR inputs in the back so I am limited in that aspect. What I have as far as equipment is a roland drum set, 2 amps, a few vocal racks and some other things. So when it's time to record some of these things I get tired of unplugging and then having to plug in what I need to record. I know nothing about mixers, but was thinking that I could get one with 8-12 inputs and run all of my mik and guitar cables into that and run two cables out and plug them into my Mbox2 inputs. Can I do that and just activate, or deactivate any of these channels/inputs on the mixer when I need to record something? Hope I was clear with my question. I am still learning the terminology and what not. Here's my setup.

Macbook Pro 2.4 gHz OSX 10.5.8
4 GB RAM
Protools 8.03
MBOX2
Lacie 1 TB HD

 

[Brian Oshman]

Yes you can do that.

 

[jonslaten]

Thanks Brian. What brand do you recommend?

 

[Richard Monroe]

A mixer could expand some of your options on drum mic'ing, but it seems like a lot of added complexity and cheap preamps, when all you're really asking for is a patch bay. Yeah, it lengthens the signal chain a little, but it's neglegible. With the minimal gear you are talking about, you could probably do it in one rack space. The biggest expense is some patch cables. If you do decide to get a mixer, that doesn't mean you can't have a patch bay too. You will *always* want to connect and disconnect things, and the pile of stuff only gets bigger. Check out the Carvin Studiomate. It's a pretty good mixer. If you need cheap, buy a Yamaha, and not a Behringer. You heard it here first.-Richie

 

[ido1957]

Answer #1 = yes that's how I hook up my mixer to my USB interface and it works well. You can use the mains out or control room out to the interface. I had two mains out and a control room (monitors) out so I could use the mixer for live/record/mix. With one main out now I need to swap a couple of 1/4 inch jacks for recording. No big deal....but not as handy....

Answer #2 = I had an old Alesis Studio24 which had 8 XLR and 4 Stereo ins. Now I have the Alesis Multimix 16 which has similar inputs plus a 16 channel USB out. I still use my original interface though (I don't record more than two tracks at a time). Alesis isn't the best but it does the job. I'd also recommend Mackie or Yamaha the latter has stereo USB out.
Alesis Studio 24 = $150, Yamaha.Mackie/Alesis USB $400 (all on eBay used in good condition).