How to obtain individual headphone mixes?

[GmanJeff]

The lead singer in my 4-piece band doesn't like recording track-by-track, so we're going to try to record "live", with all of us playing simultaneously. To avoid issues associated with room acoustics and insufficient mics, we plan to go direct into a multitrack recorder, while tracking each other through headphones. We'll be using a Rolls RA53b headphone amp which accepts up to 4 different signals, so that each of us can hear a different "more me" mix. The question is, how do we generate those individual mixes? Am I right in supposing that we need a multitrack (or a mixer connected to the multitrack) which has aux sends on each channel, and at least 4 separate buses? Do mixers/multitracks with these features allow you to send varying amounts of each channel's signal to each of the 4 buses, so that at each bus there's a different mix?

Will we need additional or different capabilities in the mixer section in order to do this? Does anyone make a multitrack with that kind of feature set? Many thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[brendandwyer]

a mixer with aux sends would be very helpful. Each channel's aux sends can be varied independently so that you can turn the guitar up and the drums down in the headphone mix.

I've never tried to setup a cue mix from subgroups.

 

[Track Rat]

You'd need a mixer with as many AUX sends as you want individual cue mixes. Four different mixes, four AUX sends. Each channel strip of the mixer will have the individual AUX sends that you'd use to create a mix for each person.

 

[xstatic]

What soundcard do you have? Often times soundcards will allow several different mixes from the pre-OS zero latency mixer section. This varies from soundcard to soundcard though. A mixer is certainly a good way to go though (my preffered method).

 

[GmanJeff]

No soundcard at all! We presently only have available my Zoom MRS802B 8 track, which has no aux sends, and only a single stereo main out. Since it wasn't purchased with this kind of recording in mind, we're thinking about what other equipment we need in order to obtain individualized mixes as we track. Initially, we thought we'd upgrade to a multitrack which would allow us to record 8 tracks at once (the 802 only allows for 2), so we could mix after recording. But, it occurred to us that if we were going to upgrade, it might make sense to try to also acquire the ability at the same time to allow each of us to hear what we prefer while tracking; we're just not sure what gear we need in order to make that happen (beyond the headphone amp with the ability to accept 4 different mixes, once they're generated earlier in the signal chain).