These are gonna be simple questions, but...

[Seeker of Rock]

The 488MKII was, and still IS great. But we get bigger sometimes, as I did. So now I have a Mackie 24.8 and an MSR-16 (still at the tech and sent directly after purchase, but will return soon ). I have my small understanding of bussing, and I know obviously I have 8 busses on the board. Without further giving myself away, what would you recommend or describe the importance of multiple busses and how it would benefit your recording process? What are the best assignments you would recommend for say an electronic drum set with six outs, basic 3 guitar tracks, two vocals, one bass setup?

 

[Herm]

I would set up the board using the direct outs for all of the drum tracks. That is if you are planning on putting them on their own channels in the msr16.
No need to use the buss there Unless your going to combine toms to one track of the machine. Then you might need 2 of the buss outputs.
I would do the same with the bass guitar also unless he is going to need more than the one channel to do something else on.
The buss would be handy if you are using one vocal mic for all of the parts to do the harmonys and you will probly want to use the buss for the guitar cause he is going to want to put down about 7 parts on separte tracks.
I stay away from using the buss as much as I can as to keep things as clean as possible.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

The number of busses a mixer offers basically decrees how many simultaneous tracks you can record in one pass before you explore the direct out feature of the mixer's individual channel strips.

Direct outs are kind of cool but do have some short comings. Number one, they bypass the mute functions on most mixers and the buss assign buttons too so if you need to mute a signal such as a noisy guitar amp or a singer who insists on talking or coughing in between their lines, a direct out will be a pain. The second short coming of a direct out is that you must manually plug a wire into a jack each time you change recording channels where-as with busses, you just press buttons!

I like using the buss system on my mixer because of the conveniences it offers like muting, group fading, group inserting, fading in or out a part without worrying about wrecking a finely set recording level on the channel fader and the additional metering that is available to a buss for more accurately setting clean, optimum levels to feed to your recorder.

I know the purists out there try to avoid busses to keep the signal path a little shorter but, in reality, buss summing amps in decent mixers add negligible amounts of noise and when we look at the biggest offenders of noise, it's usually coming from guitar stomp boxes, guitar amps, inefficient microphones and actual room noises picked up by microphones like AC units, furnaces, street noises, dishwashers and other household appliances that leak airborne and electrical pollution.

The buss is the least of your worries.

Cheers!

 

[Seeker of Rock]

My understanding is that busses are ways of grouping, say two rhythm guitars or the complete drum kit, so if a widespread increase of decrease in faders needs to happen at a certain or many points of the mix, this is the way to do it. How close am I?

Now the Mackie 8bus, I believe like TASCAMS and probably others, are "inline" boards. i.e.-the way I plan to hook the board is direct outs to tape deck, channels one-sixteen, and return the same way. As I understand I can send the incoming monitor signals to mix b while recording new tracks with them. Seems simple enough, like the 488. In the end, I'm imagining I can monitor all 16 tracks through the board sending out the master lr to the master record deck?

 

[SteveMac]

Hmmmn, I've always used the busses on my mixers rather than the direct outs. Never considered hookin the direct outs to the tape deck. It seems more convenient to leave it hooked up the other way. But that's an interesting point about using less circuitry. I also usually keep the level on the buss about the same for anything I'm recording, about the -7, -8 range. Same with the channel faders and make adjustments with the trim knob.

 

[The Ghost of FM]

My understanding is that busses are ways of grouping, say two rhythm guitars or the complete drum kit, so if a widespread increase of decrease in faders needs to happen at a certain or many points of the mix, this is the way to do it. How close am I?

That's definitely part of what a recording buss is used for. Taking a six mic drum set up and mixing it across a stereo pair of busses or a group of singers, multiply mic'ed and summed down to a single buss or stereo pair is another. Or the most common is just to take a single mixer channel, route it to a single buss and record the track.

If you think about mixing channels and busses as roadways, it makes it much easier to comprehend what it all means and easier to see where your signal can and do flow. You need to go downtown to track 6 of your recorder? Easy. drive your signal down your local street, (a mixer's main channel strip), take the on-ramp to highway 6, (press the buss 6 button and turn to the left on the pan if necessary), and drive directly to your destination,( track 6 on the recorder).

Get the picture?

Cheers!

 

[Seeker of Rock]

It helps a little, but it looks like there is going to be a pretty steep learning curve I'll have to go through. I understood the part up until the routing, and just not sure why I wouldn't want to signal directly out from that channel into the recorder instead of sending it to a bus and then out? I think I just need to get everything up and start working with it. The bus as you explained sounds similar to the "assign" concept on a portastudio. Any similarities in concept or totally different ball game?

 

[A Reel Person]

The larger mixer "buss" (assign) function is exactly the same as the "assign" (buss)

function on the Portastudio.

As well as all the good technical reasons for buss/assignment of inputs to tracks, I just see it as a matter of convenience,... also as stated above. You may plug your inputs and leave them stationary, while you push buttons to do the work of routing,... with no repatching necessary. Simple as that.

You may also group similar parts into a combined signal, which I do a lot of, too.

One of my favorite "stealth" techniques it to combine a line-in (DI) guitar signal with a close-mic signal on the body of the guitar, for a full but live/ambient sound to electric guitar,... with no amp in the signal chain. It works quite well. This technique may be applied to line-in guitars with distortion pedals & stomp boxes, too,... all guitar sounds (in this example) being developed, mixed & recorded without the aid of an amp.

One of my firmly held beliefs is that the "line-in" sound of a guitar by itself is notoriously "dead" sounding. The close-mic mixed with the line-in guitar sound livens up the sound considerably. I've recorded almost all my electric guitar tracks like that, line-in/close-mic & no amp,... for many years now, with pleasing results. You should be able to dial in any sound you want, from "acoustic" sounding tracks to "distortion" tracks with aid of stomp boxes.

That's all for now, before I go seriously off topic!

 

[ausrock]

My setup is a Soundcraft Spirit Studio 24/8 with the choice of either a Fostex D160 h/disk recorder or a Tascam ATR-60. Depending on which one I'm using, I always have all 16 trks running from the direct outs to the recorder and the returns patched back into the console channels. The busses only get used for controlling groups of instruments to the master outputs.

My main issue is trying to establish a reliable patchbay setup which will accomodate the Fostex's unbalanced in and outputs and the Tascam's balanced system.

 

[FALKEN]

I only use the busses while mixing. I use them to combine tracks to send through the outboard gear. I could care less for the levels, except for on vocals. here is what I mean: toms I usually sub down to a stereo track while recording to save tracks, but if there are 2-3 bass tracks I'll want to subgroup those on mixdown to send to 1 compressor channel and 1 eq. same If I recorded say 3-4 vocal tracks but I'm only using 1-2 on mixdown, or doing "comps" I would want to send all of the vocal tracks to a sub to send through the same compressor, eq, etc, channel. its also nice to group guitars for volume control, but I like to retain independence with drums, because sometimes its just the snare, or whatever that needs to be affected.

I am interested in purchasing the same mixer for my e-16. it looks like the best deal out there but a lot of people complain about them. I also am afraid of the "thin" mackie sound imparting too much of its own character onto the recordings. I am curious to hear some tracks when you are done.

 

[Seeker of Rock]

My setup is a Soundcraft Spirit Studio 24/8 with the choice of either a Fostex D160 h/disk recorder or a Tascam ATR-60. Depending on which one I'm using, I always have all 16 trks running from the direct outs to the recorder and the returns patched back into the console channels. The busses only get used for controlling groups of instruments to the master outputs.

My main issue is trying to establish a reliable patchbay setup which will accomodate the Fostex's unbalanced in and outputs and the Tascam's balanced system.

Ya see, that's what I'm thinking exactly, but obviously haven't made the jump from all-inclusive portastudio yet. In buying the new gear, I figured this...I have a 16 track reel with 16 ins, 16 outs. Let's buy (with much help on here mind you) an appropriate board. Well, with much help and a bit of research, I learned an "in-line" setup was what I wanted. In theory, no patching, but working with the board to switch between recording/monitoring/mixing without having to unplug cords, aka patch. I'm the world's laziest songwriter, or in this case aspiring engineer (as I would call it personal producer, after all it is just me at this point!). Anyhow, that makes sense now, but in reading through the manual and, of course, listening to my Mentor Ghost (who has always steered me right and helped me to understand things well), I need to delve into it. Just trying to get as much info as possible before messing with the first major learning curve, which will be my first hookup of board to reel, then trying to track for the first time , but the first time or 100 will be
Honestly, it is good to have such great support there for help.
Thanks again to all for the guidance...I'll figure this out yet.

 

[SteveMac]

Well, with much help and a bit of research, I learned an "in-line" setup was what I wanted. In theory, no patching, but working with the board to switch between recording/monitoring/mixing without having to unplug cords, aka patch. I'm the world's laziest songwriter, or in this case aspiring engineer (as I would call it personal producer, after all it is just me at this point!).

I'm the same way. I don't really like spending much time with gear. I love laying down the tracks and making a song work. I like to have things set up so if I have a song I want to record I can just jump from track to track. I spend a lot of time getting sounds for the drums, guitar and bass to work together and then I keep the settings written down as a starting point so I don't have to spend too much time setting up.