recording with a Roland vs-840

[Muzic4me5150]

I use a Roland vs-840 in my home studio. I am thinking about buying a mixing board. I am not sure how to hook it up to my recording equiment. Do I record through my guitar set up to the mixer to the digital recorder or My guitar set up to the digital recorder to the mixer. I have a master out from my recorder so I cant mix each track one at a time if I run from the recorder to the mixer. So my question is how do I record using a seperate mixing board?

 

[KeninDFW]

If you are recording guitar you will want to make sure that you have your impedance matched. I believe the mixer will be a low impedance (Low Z/Line level) connection and guitars are high impedance (High Z) instruments. That is why Roland put a separate input in your 840 specifically for guitar.

You can still plug your guitar into the mixer, it shouldn't damage anything, it's just that if your impedance is not matched you will loose some of the power in the signal. If you have an amp with a line output you could plug that into the mixer. You can also mic your amp and put that through the mixer.

Having said all this why would you want a mixer?

1) A mixer will likely have phantom power (which the 840 does not) which will allow you to use higher quality condenser mics.
2) When recording with a mic you can use the mixer EQ rather than the 840's menu driven eq. Visually I find it easier.
3) The 840 has a limited number of inputs (4), however a mixer may have 16 or more (depending on the size you get). You can use this to your advantage if for instance you want to mic live drums with 6 mics. You couldn't do it with the 840 alone. With a mixer you could get everything condensed down to the 4 inputs you have on the 840.
4) You can take the outputs out of the 840 and go into the mixer and add outboard effects prior to recording onto a CD.
5) The mixer will have mic preamps so you can avoid the 840 preamps, which seem to me to be week.

I'm sure there a other uses as well. When buying a mixer some things to look for are:

1) Does it have an effects bus and how many effects can you hook into it at one time.
2) Does it have subgroups? You will want it to have at least one subgroup if possible.

Hope this helps. I have an 840 as well and purchased a mixer a few months later. I bought a Behringer MX2004A. It doesn't have a real subgroup, but I didn't know about subgroups when I bought it. It does have a separate independent stero bus from the master with its own stereo fader, so it almost has a subgroup.

Yes I know Behringer mixers are not the most desirable, but it has served me well. My biggest recording limitation is not my equipment, it's my lack of talent.