Outboard Comp with Firewire Interface?

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dewhitt

dewhitt

Dave DeWhitt
Hi All,

I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum for this question...

I am in the process of trying to get better vocal recordings in my small(ish) home studio. Here is the background: I play all of the instruments and sing, and I record one track at a time. I play rock music with heavy guitars, usually recorded with either a Line 6 or IK Multimedia device and an amp plug-in, but some of what I do is acoustic based, so there is a need to accommodate vocal styles ranging from high energy rock to more quiet and "intimate" sounding songs. My room is already pretty well treated, with 6 DIY bass traps that I built, along with Auralex foam in strategic places to help with flutter echo - I used the mirror trick to place the foam where I can see the monitors from my listening position. I use a Rode NT-1000 condenser mic for my vocals, and I am thinking of buying a t.c. electronics Desktop Konnekt 6 firewire interface to get the analog signal into the digital realm, which is Logic Express on a Mac. (On a side note, I recently tried an Apogee Duet, but had lots of issues with digital noise, so decided to stop fighting with it and just try something else...but that's another story.)

So, finally to my question :) Assuming I go with the Desktop Konnekt 6 as my preamp and interface to the Mac, if I wanted to add a compressor to my vocal signal path, and I'm thinking about the FMR RNC, how in the heck would I connect that with the Desktop Konnekt 6? Is it even possible? How do others use an outboard comp with a firewire interface that has a built-in preamp and ADC?

Thanks for any advice!

Dave DeWhitt
 
Nevermind...

Ok, I guess I should have spent a little more time reading the existing posts on outboard gear vs. plugins before I posted my question. Since the Desktop Konnekt 6 doesn't have insert points, it looks like there's no way to use an outboard compressor unless I put an outboard preamp into the chain before it, and after reading some of the other posts here, I'm not sure I need a compressor in the input chain anyway...seems better to record the uncompressed signal and compress later if needed in software. :o
 
You've run up against a common problem... you bought an interface with limited ins/outs.

You're going to have to use software compression.

And consider selling your interface eventually and getting one with more i/o.
(You'll always need twice as much as you THINK you do...)
 
Thanks Tim, I appreciate the response.

The good news is that I didn't actually buy the Desktop Konnekt 6 yet, and after reading an excellent Pro Review by Craig Anderton over on Harmony-Central.com: http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1897084 I think I'm going to spend a little more and go with the Line 6 Toneport UX8 instead. I've used Line 6 stuff before and the thing I really loved about it was how it just worked and never got in the way of the creative process. I'm a little worried by all of the driver issues that people reported over the past several years with the TC stuff, and I just wasted a bunch of time dealing with a bum Apogee Duet, so I really want to avoid another experience like that :mad:

It's so easy to get sucked into the whole gear lust syndrome and think "Gee, if only I had better preamps and compressors and converters and confabulators and flux capacitors, etc, then I could really make a good recording". Craig Anderton has a quote over in that thread that I just loved: "Frankly, I think if someone can't get a good recording out of something like the UX8, I think they need to look elsewhere than their gear for the problem." Man, those are some words of wisdom right there :)

The bad news is....wow, I guess there isn't any....woohoo!

Dave
 
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