Who Uses a REAL Mixer in Their DAW??

U

undermind

Member
I've always used the internal mixer in the DAW. My thought on the matter has always been a concern that running through a mixer is one more possibility to weaken the audio before it reaches the soundcard. I've invested a lot into the quality of the couple of channels of front end that I need. I would think that running through a Mackie is not going to help anything at all. It seems that the only way to NOT hurt your audio is to run through something that will actually sweeten up the sound, like a high end board like a Trident or something; which is well out of my budget.

But when I walk into other people's home studios there is always a mixer. I've seen several studios with $1000 per channel preamps and Apogee converters running a Mackie 32 channel mixer. I don't know how they have it all routed, but it just doesn't make sense to me..

One last thing. I should note that I don't want to confuse my discussion here with MIXING DOWN. I do understand the importance of using a real mixer with summing amps for mixing down. But I'm curious about the everyday interfacing for tracking in a home studio..
 
We do. Our desk has great sounding preamps, and of course it gives us the option of zero-latency monitoring and talkback facilities.

Using it for mixdown always seemed to give us better results than in the box as well, especially as the desk EQ's sound better than most plugins we've used. We've only recently switched back to mainyl in the box mixing because the desk needs servicing to correct a level inbalance on the main mix bus.
 
I do, But not because I want to but because my Interface only has 4 inputs (Delta 44) so I use my 8ch mixer to mix the drums into a stereo signal and input it into Ch 1 and 2 of my interface and record Guitar and Bass through CH 3 and 4 on the Delta so I can record a 3 piece live and just overdub Vocals and lead guitar ect.....

So far it has worked out fairly good but I would rather be able to record every Piece of my Kit to a seperate Track but I would need an interface with at least 12 inputs to do that.....


:)
 
I do, primarily for monitoring and routing. I don't use the preamps for recording, but I do use them for auxilarily ins such as CD players and tape decks.
 
fraserhutch said:
I do, primarily for monitoring and routing. I don't use the preamps for recording, but I do use them for auxilarily ins such as CD players and tape decks.
Click to expand...
this is my situation as well....I have a mackie 1202 vlz for the headphone out. I have 2 delta 1010's....however the 2nd is not hooked up yet since I just got it. in the past, I would track drums with 8 mics. I would use the mackie for a couple of things....1 is talk back, 2 is to put a click in the phones, and 3, sometimes the drummer wants to hear a guitar so I would use an amp modler and plug into the mackie as well. After tracking the drums, the mackie is not used again until tracking Vox. Then I will route the entire mix to mackie for the vocalist....
 
I mix on mine as well as in the DAW (Hybrid setup). My outboard pre's go straight to converter though, and back out to the desk for monitoring. Zero latency here as well.
 
I do, too. Mostly for the (way) better preamps and stuff like phase flipping, options to EQ and/or compress on the way in, etc. I usually don't but its nice to have the options. Also the previously mentioned zero latency monitoring, and individual headphone mixes, outboard reverbs for monitoring (i.e. zero CPU load while recording), and that kind of thing.

Its also WAY more impressive looking than just having a computer sitting there at the desk... good for the website. :D

-C
 
They look cool under a Lava light.
 

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undermind said:
I've always used the internal mixer in the DAW. My thought on the matter has always been a concern that running through a mixer is one more possibility to weaken the audio before it reaches the soundcard. I've invested a lot into the quality of the couple of channels of front end that I need. I would think that running through a Mackie is not going to help anything at all. It seems that the only way to NOT hurt your audio is to run through something that will actually sweeten up the sound, like a high end board like a Trident or something; which is well out of my budget.
Click to expand...
That's the conclusion I landed on also. The Mackie is now completely out of the tracking path. (..and from the other end -out of the main monitor path. That part was an important move that I should have done way sooner.) There are either splits or the outboard pre's have dual-outs, one to the A/D's the others do phone/monitor mixes on the Mackie.
Down side- I'm still not hearing the pre's direct untill play-back. Mackie 'line in's go through their preamps.
If your s/c has zero latency monitoring you might not even need splits.
Wayne
 
I do. It's a tascam tm d1000. I route everything through it then into an RME HDSP 9652.
 

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once again for Zero Latency!!....oh....and the lava lamps needed something to spill onto. :D
DAW and a Desk all the way.....boundless oportunities seem to be the net effect.
 
I use mine as much as possible. I love the 0 latency thing, but I also love having a console full of killer EQ's and preamps. I use my console preamps for tracking as well, but they hold up very well agianst a lot of very expensive preamps, so that is why. I also like having two decks of faders. One set for tracking with its own full EQ and routing section, and one set for mixing (post record and with its own EQ and routing section again...) so that I can make whatever changes I want in the control room without affecting the headphone or record sends.
 
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