Use of talkback mic

  • Thread starter Thread starter zebedy
  • Start date Start date
Z

zebedy

The Kid From The Kibble
Hey folks hope your all well

got a question for yall again.

Im running with a Motu Pre 8. and i'm usuing all 8 inputs for micing my drums.

For talk back with the control room, Would the

Tapco by Mackie Mix 100 Compact desktop mixer do the ticket,

If I ran a microphone through that and sent that signal via the outs on the pre8?

or am i talking jibberish here?

help folks

also could i run a guitar through the mixer and send it to my headphone mix for a guide guitar while laying down my drum track?
 
Hey man,
hope someone gets back to you on this as i'm in EXACTLY the same position as you using all the "ins" of my 8pre.

With regards to your guitar i reckon what your better off doing is sticking your guide guitar down to a click before your drummer thinks about recording (doesnt have to be great quality guitar recording - just a guide), then your drummer will be able to play to either the guitar (which is in time, the click which is in time (depending on how well he knows he song) or both through the headphones
 
If you got a little mixer then yes, you could run the outputs of the Motu into it, as well as a talkback mic, then use the outputs of the mixer for the headphone mix. Just make sure you get one with enough inputs/outputs... the flexibility of the outputs is quite important because you might want to have the mix going to monitors in the control room as well as to the drummer's headphones, and you might also want to run the headphone off an aux-send or something so you can chose to only send the talkback mic signal to the headphone mix (to avoid feedback / having to listen to your own voice.).

The guitar thing would also work - I did this a few weeks ago where the drummer couldn't lock into a bit of the song and so I DI'd the bassist and him play along with the drummer in his headphone mix. I had the outputs of my Motu 896HD running into a desk (Yamaha 02R) which I'd been using for setting up monitor mixes and a talkback mic exactly like you've described. The 02R is a little bigger than a small Tapco mixer though :) Shame that kind of digital desk is becoming fairly obsolete now.
 
say i had a band recording with me that didn't want to do the whole click thing. As many people who have never used a click before will often say no to using one as it's not as easy at one first thinks.


Could I run, the guitar player into my headphone mix from the control room using the desk.

And for my own band, using a click and a guitar track not recorded but played through the mixing desk and put into my headphone mix.

Is this possible?
through the Tapco I mentioned at the top of the page?
 
So what are you using for headphone distribution? The easiest way I know of is to use another pre (*any* other pre), and jack the line out into an aux in on the headphone amp. Hell, when I was really short of pres, I used to use my Korg PXR-4 Pandora, a micro-sized digital recorder, as the preamp for the talkback mic. Dynamic mic to any pre or recorder, even an old cassette deck will do > line out of preamp/recorder/whatever > aux in on headphone amp. And if you aren't using a headphone amp, you probably don't need talkback anyway. I find that it's the one place where I like a dynamic mic with an on-off switch, to avoid distracting crosstalk/bleed/latency issues. That way, it doesn't suck up any inputs. It doesn't have to sound great-you're not recording it.-Richie
 
Hey guys, I like your thinking here, and I think that mixer would work, but I thought I'd share my set up just incase it might be something you want to consider. I'm running a Firepod, so practically the same thing as the 8pre interms of ins, but I have 8 outs, and I use 6 of them. I have a Samson C-Control, which works pretty well but, like all samson products, can be hit or miss. Luckily, mine was hit, because it works great. The C-Control has 4 stereo inputs and outputs, as well as a built-in talkback mic. So I run the channels 1-2 into the mains on my C-Control, which then run out to my monitors (Speaker A) and my sub (Speaker C, I don't use Speaker B). I then also run the Cue out on the C-Control to my Behringer Powerplay rackmount 4-channel pre-amp. This gives me 4 headphone channels of the mains, and I can talkback to the Behringer using "Talk to Cue" on the C-Control. I then also run 3-4, and 5-6 into 2-Track A and 2-Track B. These are for two separate headphone mixes that go to two separate Rolls 4-channel headphone amps across the room. Then for 2-Track C, I originally had a 3rd headphone mix, but realized I don't need that many and instead leave it open for an iPod or something if the musician wants to play me something. The C-Control also has a "Talk to 2Track" button on the talkback mic if I want to communicate to the headphone mixes (usually for the drummer).

The C-Control works really great, especially since I don't have a control room, so when I need to turn my monitors off to record something live, I can just press "Speaker A" and "Speaker C" on the front of the unit to turn them off, rather than having to reach around back of my monitors and turn them down and up. And having the talkback is pretty nice too, although I mostly record singer-songwriters, and they generally track right next to me, so I don't really have to use it too often. Anyways, check it out, it might be what you're looking for, and it's pretty cheap too. Presonus and Mackie have products that are supposed to do similar things, and are of better quality, but I actually found that the Samson fits my needs better for the set up I was trying to do.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top