How do you use outboard gear?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JasonBird
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JasonBird

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Hello. I've been recording for a while, and I use Sonar. I've been recording all of my stuff dry, with no effects or anything. Afterwards i would add effects from software plugins, like ozone, and the ones that come with Sonar. So, here's my question...I've aquired some outboard gear, a Behringer 1952 composer, and a Behringer 1954 Ultrafex . What's the best way to connect it all to the rest of my gear? I'm assuming that i still want to record it dry, and then is there a way to play the recording back through the gear and experiment till you get the sound you want? will i have to move cables all of the time? I have a Mackie 16 channel mixer and my recording interface is an RME Multiface, with 8 in and 8 outs. I currently have 6 channels from the mixer going into two of the inputs on the rme, and then two other inputs from a behringer 1953 tube preamp going into the other two channels on the rme. I have two out of the analog outs from the RME going to my Event TR8 monitors. and the rest of the outputs on the RME are unused. Is that where i should supply the inputs to the new gear from? I know nothing of sidechaining stuff, if that i need to be doing? Do i have this set up right? your help and advice will be appreciated! Thanks, Jason
 
You Are Ready!

You are set up fine!
What you will do is this. Record the tracks as you normally would into Sonar, in the case of the compressor (since you would typically run 100% of the signal to it) you would need to assign the output of the track(s) you want to send to it,to one of the unused RME outputs (say #3, or 3+4 if you have to assign it a stereo pair) then whatever you set those channel faders to will represent what is going to the compressor. You would then route the compressor outputs to 1 or 2 of the unused RME inputs, arm a track to record, then record the resultant compressed mix to your computer. (unless you are mixing to an external unit like a Masterlink or CD burner).

In the case of the Effects unit( since you would typically only send a portion to it) , it would be similar to above, but you would set up the output of one of your Sonar aux busses to the RME output (then to your effect unit), and the assign the wanted tracks to that aux bus.

I hope I made it clear, I am not the most articulate writer.

Shout back if I confused you.
 
thanks Tmix, i understand the compressor part no problem. I'll have to try and route the effects through the aux buss. If i run into a problem, i'll let you know. thanks for the tips!
Jason
 
Don't you run into the problem of degrading the sound quality by multiple DA/AD conversions? If the converters are good enough & the effects units are of good quality, I suppose it could be worth it. Otherwise it might be worth staying digital (although I haven't been enthralled with Cakewalk's effects in general - but I have yet to try some of the new ones in Sonar which I just finally installed last night).

I'm just rambling...:)
 
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