mixers

A

Azza666

New member
hi all,

i've just started recording recently and am hunting around for the best equipment whilst building my new home studio lol :)

just wondering if someone could give me a bit of info on how mixers work if your using a computer for recording instead of a "studio in a box solution"..... e.g. do you need to get one that uses firewire/usb or how does this work do u need some other sort of direct connection? and can u load each track of the mixer separately into your DAW such as reaper

also, how do you go for the soundcard? would you just use the mixer as the soundcard and have it running to your amp and speakers?

i currently have a ux2 and just use that for my soundcard.... would i be able to continue doing that or would i need to route everything through the mixer?

sorry if some of these questions are stupid lol im still new to all this and trying to get an idea of how things work and the best way to do it

any help or advice would be much appreciated :cool:

thanks guys!!
 
If you get a firewire mixer, it will definately stream all tracks to your PC individually. A USB mixer typically sends only the 2 channel stereo mix. A fw or usb mixer appears in your OS as a sound card.

If your mixer does not have firewire or USB, you'll need an interface. You'd need a mixer that has direct outs on it, and you plug the direct outs into the interface's inputs. The mixer in this scenario is sorta unnecessary, because you could be plugging the mics right into the interface directly, which is what you ought to do unless you have a really nice mixer with significantly better pre's than the interface. In this scenario, the interface will be your pc's sound card.

In either case, disable the pc's existing soudncard in bios if possible. Then use the mixer/interface to play your mp3's, video games, and windows sounds thru your monitors.
 
The amount of tracks you can record "simultaneously" into a computer depends entirely upon how many inputs your "interface" has. If you must record a complete band playing at once, you'll need an interface (USB/FIREWIRE/PCIe/PCMCIA) with many inputs. Your UX2 can record a total of two at a time. Some USB/Firewire mixers double as interfaces, giving you more inputs to the computer, but be aware that multiple inputs used in this way over that kind of conection IS limited by the power/speed/ram of your computer and the bandwidth used for it's connection.


The amount of outputs on an interface is often limited to two or four. Two for your monitor mix, and maybe two more for sends.
 
ok wicked thanks heaps for the advice guys i really appreciate it!!

i just had one last question..... are you able to record simultaneously from two different interfaces? say i had the ux2 and another firewire mixer, can i setup the DAW to record from the both at once?

most of the settings seem to only allow for one input so yeah just thought i would ask :)

cheers!!
 
I use Cubase 4 and it only allows you to record from one interface/soundcard at a time. Other DAW's may allow you to do it. There are interfaces out there that you can daisy chain together to act as one interface. Presonus firepods, most MOTU stuff can be daisychained.

And remember that your mixer wouldn't necessarily have to have direct outs to send a signal to your interface...you could use the sends on each channel with the 1/4" male plugged in to the first click. Just an option.
 
If you use the ASIO drivers you can use multiple interfaces IF they use the same drivers. Ie. multiple firepods, no problem. A firepod and a motu8, not gonna happen.

Sometimes you can have ONE interface connected to your PC, and another interface/pre connected to the 1st interface via adat or whatever.. The 2nd interface would NOT be connected to the firewire bus. Your PC would see only one interface, but there would be 16 channels of inputs coming off of it.
 
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