How do I actually hook up outboard gear?

  • Thread starter Thread starter elenore19
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elenore19

elenore19

Slowing becoming un-noob.
So I'm curious. I know I should know this by now, and this is really a Newb question, but yeah.

So lets say I have a bunch of compressors and some reverb units and some eq's as well and then some preamps/

I have all those that I want to hook into my mixer. How do I go about doing that?

Do the compressors go in the mic chain? Like microphone->compressor->preamp->mixer?

Or yeah. I have a hard time grasping things without actually seeing examples, that's why I figure I haven't really figured it out yet. And I haven't really needed to you yet. I have a firewire mixer, and that's it. But I want to add some outboard gear. Plug-ins are annoying me as of late. Different topic.

But yes.

Thanks for the help. Sorry for the noob question.


-Elliot
 
search this forum on:
connect outboard

There're many discussions on or related to your question that you may find useful.
 
1st off, get yourself a patchbay.

2nd, take a long look at a pic. of the signal flow of your mixer...inserts, aux sends/returns, etc.

then wire up your outboard and mixer i/o to the patchbay, and get used to plugging shit in and out of the thing all day long
 
elenore19 said:
So I'm curious. I know I should know this by now, and this is really a Newb question, but yeah.

So lets say I have a bunch of compressors and some reverb units and some eq's as well and then some preamps/

I have all those that I want to hook into my mixer. How do I go about doing that?

Do the compressors go in the mic chain? Like microphone->compressor->preamp->mixer?

Or yeah. I have a hard time grasping things without actually seeing examples, that's why I figure I haven't really figured it out yet. And I haven't really needed to you yet. I have a firewire mixer, and that's it. But I want to add some outboard gear. Plug-ins are annoying me as of late. Different topic.

But yes.

Thanks for the help. Sorry for the noob question.


-Elliot
Click to expand...

Yes. You can go mike > compressor > preamp > mixer

But it would be better to go:
mike > preamp > compressor > mixer

Does your mixer have inserts?

In which case, get a Y lead and plug the compressor into the mixer at the insert
 
Compressors are used as inserts (most desks have insert points on all channels, and possibly the main mix). You use these with a Y-shaped insert cable which has a TRS jack one end (to go into the insert jack) and TS in/outs at the other end which go into the compressor.

If you don't have any insert cables then you can use normal jack cables and do a pre-fader aux/send from the desk to the compressor, then have the return coming line-in to another channel. Keep the fader for the original channel right down and record from the return channel.

Reverb, etc, is used in a send/return way. Some desks have return sections with their own faders/channels for FX returns. If not then you can just run the return onto a normal channel.
 
And all that assumes that you really want to apply compression or EQ when tracking -- as opposed to applying it later when mixing.
 
Your better off adding comp and eq after you did your tracking, specially if your just starting out getting to know your analog rack gear and are still messing with settings, you could end up ruining your one special take.
If your room isnt treated yet, Id spend some money on that first before starting with rack gear. Cause once you start buying rack gear...well you never end:o

Mike
 
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