Recording via mixer into soundcard

[Brendon Bussy]

I'm trying to find the best way to get a signal into my DAW utilising the gear I have at present, and would appreciate suggestions as I'm feeling a little confused

My recording setup is the following at the moment:

Mic into balanced mixer input - Out via insert (pre eq + fader) - into soundcard input - then into CubaseSX.

The reason for going out via the insert is that the desk has no seperate channel sends and I want to utilise all 4 inputs of my Maya 44 mark2 card. The inputs are unbalanced.

As the mixer output is pre-fader, I'm not able to use the peak indicator to determine how much mixer gain to use.

So far I've tried the following methods:

1) Leave the soundcard mixer setting at 0db and adjust the input level via the desk gain so that it doesn't peak in the soundcard mixer. When I do this I don't touch the fader or gain in the Cubase mixer.

2) Set the mixer gain on max or almost on max, and adjust the soundcard mixer so that the signal doesn't peak. In this case I also don't touch the fader or gain in the Cubase mixer.

My mixer is a Samson MDR1064 - I guess a budget mixer, but not bad for the price.

I'd really appreciate input/comments.

 

[lukeslim]

Hi Brendon,
you have't got much help as yet so thought I my be of some help.

Not 100% sure on your set up but i do something similar with the gear i have.
I use my powered Studiomaster desk for gigs and home recording.
I have a M-Audio 1010LT sound card.

For recording the power amps on the desk are off and have the option of a
Left and right out,1 AUX out, a foldback out.It is an 8 channel desk and 6channels have line send/returns these are designed for signal processing,but i have used them as a line out of the desk into my sound card.
When useing the send/return inserts the faders on the desk don't come in to
play i set up the gain on the desk as normal and make adjustments on the sound cards mixer.Just got to be extra careful not to have the signal to hot.
The sound is ok buy my stanards.
If i am recording four tracks or less then i use the line outs.IE: vocals on channel 1 full pan left , guitar mic on ch2 pan right , guitar mic on ch 3 is sent via foldback line out and volume controled with fold back pot and fader.
The other track say madolin is sent via the AUX send and the volume controled buy the AUX pot.

Hope this isn't too confusing so in short with the desk i already have i can record 8 tracks at once no problems at all.

The sound card i have has 2 balanced inputs and the others unbalanced.
The Desks everything is balanced.
The send /returns are wired TRS so the cable to my sound card from these should be wired correctly as you are sending a signal and not returning it.
The if balanced cable is used tip/ring together .

Cheers Luke.

 

[Brendon Bussy]

Hi Luke,

thanks for the reply....

"When useing the send/return inserts the faders on the desk don't come in to
play i set up the gain on the desk as normal and make adjustments on the sound cards mixer.Just got to be extra careful not to have the signal to hot."

Ok, so this is pretty much what I also do.

How do you set up the gain?

How do you know if the gain signal is too hot? Look at the level in your soundcard or software mixer?

cheers
brendon

 

[lukeslim]

Hi,
Just loged on.

I set the signal level first on the desk even when I'm using the send/return
inputs the LED meters work.
On my desk each channel has a listen button that lets you check the signal
is not clipping via the LED meters the level is adjusted with the gain pot on the channel.
So my signal to the sound card is usally ok.
If i were to NOT have the meters on the desk i would do the following it is what i do when i have the desk packed away for a gig and iam fooling around
and don't want to un pack it.
I have a little pre amp that boost say a key board signal it has in / out
and a gain pot with no marks etc.
I open up the sound cards mixer and with my card you can adjust the line
in/out levels with little faders there is 3 different pre sets witch help as a guide.
There is also level meters for each inputs i make further adjustments using the pre amps gain pot making sure the signal does not clipping looking at these meters.
I like to have all the signal levels set up on the sound card mixer first,than i open up my software.I use Adobe Audition 1.5.

Once i got familar with my gear its now not to hard to get things going along without any hassles.

Keep the lound parts of your signal around -3 to 0db.
you are better to have your signal a bit to low than starting to clip as it will
sound not good at all.

Cheers Luke.

 

[Brendon Bussy]

Hi,

Ok - what I'm doing now is treating the sound card In level fader as I would use the volume fader if I were running through that part of the mixer. And treating the level in the software mixer, in this case cubase, as the master fader, as I would if I were going through the master bus of the mixer.

The only time this seems not to work is if I'm recording into Soundforge - for some reason even though the level's not clipping in my software mixer, the signal is too hot in Soundforge - seems as though Soundforge has some kind of gain boost built in - I'll have a look in Preferences and see if there's some kind of setting.

What you've suggested matches with what I've read in the Yamaha Sound Reinforcement book i.e. set mixer volume at nominal (+/- 0db) keep the signal as hot as possible at the gain stage.

Later on I'll do some experiments and compare the quality of my desk's gain and the cubase gain.

Anyhow, you've clarified that nicely - thanks for the help!

brendon