Question on necessity of mixer

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Spelling Bee

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Hey, I have a quick question about the purpose and necessity of having a mixer. Im in the process of putting together a small home studio and am trying to make some educated decisions on what exactly is necessary vs merely comfort. I plan on using the digi 002R and using a Octane preamp. What exactly is the purpose of using a mixer between the mics and the oo2r/octane. I dont need more inputs (I would have 16) and I can do mixing in the box. Im assuming that they are mainly used to get the sound in the ballpark and then do the fine tuning later. Am I right? Also, would I benefit greatly from using a control surface? I dont personally have a problem using the mouse. Some swear by control panels and some dont seem to mind. Any opinions and comments are appreciated. Spelling Bee
 
For the setup you've described I don't see any value in putting a mixer in between your mic and preamp, you should be aiming for minimum signal path and the mixer is just unnecessary circuitry that will degrade your audio.

There are two schools of thought regarding 'tweaking' stuff during tracking. If you do any processing as you track it can't be undone at a later stage. My view is that it's probably OK for pro's who really know what they're doing but for us home recors it's probably best to do all the eq, compression etc. at the mixing stage.

I have a small Mackie mixer and I use it for headphone monitoring (zero latency) and for a couple of extra mic pres should I need them. I can also add some verb from an outboard unit to the headphone monitor mix this way (which will often help a vocalist with performance). Some folk control monitor speakers from the mixer as well but I have passive speakers so I go from the soundcard out, direct to the power amp and I control monitor output from there (again, minimum signal path for monitoring chain also).

Hope this helps.

Edit: I'd love a control surface but I see it as a luxury, it's certainly not a necessity. Every time I get some cash together I find myself spending it on mics, pres, plugs etc.
 
Are you wanting to record just yourself (or just one or two tracks at a time) or full bands all at once?
 
I've just been having a look at the 002R and it has 8 channels with 4 mic preamps built in to it. So the octane would leave you with 4 redundant mic pres.

So you might want to reconsider there, you only need an additional 4 preamps to make full use of the 002R's inputs.

Of course if your answer to Track Rat's question is that you'll only need a couple of recording inputs at a time then it would all be overkill as far as inputs are concerned.
 
My partner bought some crappy Peavy mixer before I got involved and switched everything over to computer based recording (he was using the mixer and a CDRW). I found the mixer to be useful even with a plain old SB Live soundcard because I could use the preamps and phantom power on the mixer, the headphone output, and the monitor output.

I just replaced that with a Tascam FW-1884 control surface/mixer/audio interface/MIDI router and the Tascam unit is so much better than doing things with a mouse that I'll never go back. So my old mixer is sitting on the floor of the control room but maybe I'll use it for headphone monitoring as was mentioned earlier. Using the 1884 with Sonar 3 right now. It came bundled with Cubase LE, but I like the native mode support of Sonar better.

If you buy a mixer, don't buy a Peavey RQ series. Mine sucks.
 
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Thanks for all the input. I appreciate it. Yes, the studio would be used for recording everything to solo to full bands so that many inputs would be necessary. I had drums more in mind than anything. Some people mic with just a few overheads but others like to mic each piece and that can take up some inputs. Ive heard of people mixing 8 or so mics down to 2 stereo using the mixer. I guess we all have our certain techniques. Oh, and the octane wouldnt give me 4 redundant pres. It works with the digi002r via lightpipe. Thanks again. Spelling Bee
 
Spelling Bee said:
Oh, and the octane wouldnt give me 4 redundant pres. It works with the digi002r via lightpipe. Thanks again. Spelling Bee
Click to expand...

Ah I hadn't considered that. Enjoy. :)
 
Just a quick check on arithmetic. The setup described gives you 12 tracks- channels 1-4 of the 002 and 8 by optical ADAT, from the octopre. There are 4 additional inputs, channels 5-8, and an additional 2 inputs by S/PDIF, but they have no preamps. So, you get 12 channels, and can add up to 6 more with the right outboard preamps. You have achieved quantity, but to achieve quality, you'll need to run some kickass preamps into channels 5-8. As far as a mixer, no you don't need one. You will need to learn to program some virtual faders, though. One of the big advantages of a hardware controller is the ability to simultaneously move multiple faders, sometimes in different directions, not do-able with a mouse. However, such crossing volume shifts can be programmed in Pro Tools.- Good luck.-Richie
 
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