outboard gear

[Chris Jahn]

I have no need to use any outboard equiptment at the moment cuz im in the learning process, BUT in the future how does analog gear work with a digital setup?

for instance, if i want an out board compressor with your standard 1/4" jacks or XLR or whatever, were does it sit in my signal chain? does it run "in-line" like an FX pedal,ie: am i runing through it. Or am i sending signals to it, and am i limited by its ins and outs if im recording digital?

I use firepods for my interface by the way and Logic to record if this helps answer the question.

Side note: why isnt there ANY forum for, or talk of Logic on this thing, does it suck? Cuz i love it, but mabye im missing something.

 

[LeeRosario]

Side note: why isnt there ANY forum for, or talk of Logic on this thing, does it suck? Cuz i love it, but mabye im missing something.

I'm not exactly sure on why logic was left out, but I can assure you logic does come up in the industry often. Definitely dosnt suck! It's very popular with MIDI stuff (that's the only thing I don't get into).

About the outboard stuff...

In terms of hooking that up, you'd have to consider the calibration of analog gear to a digital system. Analog gear and Digital gear don't read quite the same.

Traditionally, when your talking about dynamics processors, you're definitely thinking to place it after your preamp in that signal flow, usually before you hit your aux/fx section. That's a basic start. That's kind of like telling you Los Angeles is somewhere in California.

As you get deeper and more comfortable with it, you can really start trying things that defy that order a bit.

However, after that it can be placed at multiple spots in that chain. So how you decide that will be totally up to you. Each has it's pros and cons.


For example, you may decide to patch pre/before your EQ, or you may decide to patch post/after EQ. Both have different sounds, outcomes, etc.


When you start getting into multiple outboard processors, you'll going to hear quite a bit about something called a patchbay, or sometimes called, a jackfield. That in short is like a central hub for all your gear, but don't worry about that as of yet.

The other issue is connecting that with your interface. You'd have to be aware of balanced vs unbalanced connections. Professional levels vs consumer levels. So for that, it would help to read through your interface manual and it should be able to tell you exactly what kind of inputs/outputs (I/O) you're working with.

Does that make sense?

 

[Chris Jahn]

it does make sense, and ive had experiance with patch bays, i guess im just not seeing the whole picture, am i sending the instrument being processed through the processer before it hits the track (much like a guitar pedal) or am i sending the recorded (or recording in present tense) track to the processer and then back? Or is a litlle of both depening on the situation.

 

[LeeRosario]

Or is a litlle of both depening on the situation.

you know, it can be. In the end, I'm always an advocate of people turning into little mad scientists on these kind of things.

For some, it may turn out that compressing at the pedal may get the guitar sounding like complete shite on playback. It might just not work for the mix. But for other's, that can be a trademark sound. I personally do what I can to get it to sound right without the outboard gear, like a hierachy process to simplifying my job later, but it can easily go either way in any given situation.

Some people actually tell you to keep it as clean as possible during the tracking stage. Meaning no EQ, compression of any kind. To leave it for mixing. In fact, you can bypass most of the channel strip, like your pre, straight to your multitrack on the console. Tons of engineers do that alot too.

Others compress, EQ & whatever, during the tracking. Honestly, I've seen both work terribly well.

That's the beautiful thing, there's nobody who can tell you what you did was bullshit. You just do it enough to where most people just accept it as fact.

It just depends on what school of thought you go with. And really, the best school comes from getting kind of scientific with it.