Recording on seperate tracks in session

[Streamer321]

Is there any kind of a router or other device that allows me to plug into channel one on my mixer and have that signal sent to track one in a session in CEP, and channel 2 to track two and so on?
I have been laying all of my tracks down seperately and its very time consuming. I love the program and am getting some nice stuff out of it but it is taking forever to lay down my drums, then my bass, then my guitar, then my piano....you get the idea. I like having all of my instruments on seperate tracks because then I can go back and enhance them in post. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks...I just found this site this week and Im getting a lot of my questions answered here. Thanks for all of your input.
Any specific links to a type of specific equipment I need would really be appreciated.

 

[chrisharris]

What kind of soundcard do you have? If you have something with just the typical "line in/mic in," I think the best you can do is 2 at a time, and that's done by designating track 1 to record "L" and the other "R." On your mixer, you'd pan channel 1 hard left and channel 2 hard right. At least, I think that would work...I don't record multiple tracks at once, but yeah...if you're recording drums, you just need a soundcard with a ton of inputs.

 

[Streamer321]

But is there a way to sync with my mixer to the soundcard so that it knows that the signal on channel one is to go onto track one? And channel two onto track two. I have a Tascam TMD-1000 and there are not that many outputs I dont think. Maybe there are...hmmm wish I had it right here in front of me now.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Let me jump in here: I use a TM-D1000 connected via TDIF outs to an IF-TAD (great name, what?) that converts the TDIF to ADAT lightpipe, then to a Terratec EWS88D sound card. If you use the digital outs this way, hit the "Select" button on the channel you want to record from and then hit "L-R" (so you'll be able to monitor through your phones) and "Direct Out". This will send the signal on the same track as the channel. For example, if you are using Channels 1-4, you would then select the Inputs for those tracks in Cool Edit Pro as Track 1: 1L; Track 2: 1R; Track 3: 2L and Track 4: 2R. [As an aside, I have the TM-D1000 configured so Ch 1-8 are analog inputs and Ch 9-16 are digital from the sound card for playback/monitoring. I have a stereo preamp patched into the unbalanced inputs of 7 & 8 so I have 6 mic inputs; soon I will buy a Focusrite preamp with stereo S/PDIF outs that will go into 5 & 6 for a total of 8. The lack of mic inputs -- and the 48KHz sampling rate -- are real limitations on the Tascam. But they're cheap.]

An alternate to that is to select buses on the mixer: Channel 1: select "L-R" as above and "1-2", then pan that channel hard left; Channel 2: same but pan hard right; Channel 3: select "L-R" and "3-4" and pan hard left; Channel 4: same but pan hard right. You would select the Ins in CEP as above. The problem you'll run into is if you use the analog outs on the mixer. I guess you could use the buss outs into your sound card, depending on the number of analog inputs on it. I've never used the analog outs for anything other than monitoring so I'm no expert.

 

[lpdeluxe]

Another thing I left out: I'm not sure when CEP started doing this, but my current version (AA 1.5) has, in Multitrack View, File/Default Session/Save Current Session As Default. If you are using the digital outs and the "Direct Out" routing on the TM-D1000 I detailed above, you could have the inputs in Cool Edit Pro for Tracks 1-8 set as (in order) 1L, 1R, 2L, 2R, 3L, 3R, 4L and 4R, then save that as the default session. Then every time you called up a new session the ins would be configured that way. If you find while recording that you want to kill the signal to one or more tracks, just hit the "Mute" button for the channels effected on the Tascam.

In the same way, you can set up the outs in CEP to correspond to the channels 9-16 on the Tascam (assuming you have set it up like I have -- see the above post) which will give you a fader for each track. This is really useful if you are mixing down to an external machine, but not really the way to go if you're mixing in the computer. For that I use a Tascam US428, and I could no longer live without it.