Jan 12, 2008 08:02 am run you mic into your preamp or mixing board, and then either use the insert points on the mixer for the compressor, or run the outs of your preamp to the ins of your compressor.
Please help me set up my compressor!
Posted on Jan 12, 2008 06:38 am
Billy van Duuren
Member Since: Aug 11, 2007
Hi, I'm Australian and i recently was in the U.S and i bought a behringer multicom compressor. I am using an Alesis Multimix 12 Firewire and i told the salesman that and he told me gave me the cables i would need which are 2 sets of paired 1/4" cables. I dont really know how to explain them but there is a total of 4 jacks which are in pairs of 2. He told me how to set it up but that was a few weeks ago now and im back home and cant remember what he said. Can someone please help me? I'm new to the game so i dont really have much of a clue. Although, I'm pretty sre it has to do with the Aux sends and returns section. Thank you in advance!
Billy
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Jan 12, 2008 08:02 am run you mic into your preamp or mixing board, and then either use the insert points on the mixer for the compressor, or run the outs of your preamp to the ins of your compressor.
Jan 12, 2008 11:57 am Insert point would need a Y cable, sending and receiving signal on 1 jack.
Since you don't have that, you'll need to use the aux send and return, as stated. But there's a few things I'd be concerned about:
1. using an aux on 100%, does the completely block out dry signal, or is only wet signal returned back into the bus. I'm kinda thinking it does, if you have send on 100%, and receive on 100%
2. using aux, you may only have 1 or two channels to work with, whereas the mixer and the multicomp both can handle 4 channels.
If'n it were me, I'd buy 4 'Y' insert cables. They're specially made cables, with (2) 1/4" mono jacks on one end, and (1) 1/4" stereo jack on the other.
This way, you put the stereo end into the insert point on your mixer channel, and the other 2 plugs into the input and output of your compressor. Do this for all four channels, and you're using compressor on all four mic channels.
Here's a picture of what's going on with the cable:
Dec 22, 2009 11:32 pm Billy,
I just bought a Behringer Multicom 4 channel compressor and I'm trying to use it with the Alesis Multimix 8 firewire, so basically the same setup as you.
Since you and I don't have I/O jacks, I imagine that this thread did not answer your questions.
I'm wondering if you ever figured out how to set up the compressor with, I'm assuming, Aux sends and returns?
I'm having a struggle getting everything to work together and since it looks like you have the same basic setup I was hoping you could help me with the answer.
Thanks,
Ray
Dec 23, 2009 12:28 am No insert points -- Weird, but for this application, not inappropriate.
You could pre-fade aux out to the compressor and back on another channel's line input.
THAT SAID:
I'd pay extra NOT to have that compressor (or the vast majority of compressors) on the input chain. The input is not the time to mess with the dynamic range of the source...
Dec 23, 2009 01:23 am Soooo I could send the mixer out via the Aux sends and then use the Aux returns to put the processed signal from the compressor back into the mixer?
At this point I just need to figure out how the compressor hooks up to the Alesis 8 which has no Insert so that I could use the gate function which is most important to me at the moment because I have a train that runs through my backyard;)
Dec 23, 2009 12:29 pm No, the CHANNEL out through the aux buss (pre-fade, or you're going to be in a world of hurt).
IMO, you most certainly don't want to gate on the way in either. Digital gates are better, quieter, more transparent and non-permanent.
Don't get me wrong here - I'm an analog freak. And back in the 80's, we'd occasionally compress to tape (usually for the flavor of the unit) and perhaps gate a source or two (because most studios only had a handful of gates to use). And I can certainly recall dozens of takes that had to be re-recorded because of gates chattering, slamming, cutting heads, reacting poorly to dynamics, etc. You won't have *any* of those problems (plus you won't be running the signal through an additional range of questionable circuitry) if you wait until the proper time (and use the superior tool) to worry about such things.
Dec 23, 2009 03:59 pm Massive,
Thanks for all your input, you are way advance and I'm simply trying to get things to work before I can get too technical and perfect this whole thing:)
Right now its hard to even tell if things are working or not...I'm currently taking the main mix out to the compressor in and the compressor out going into the Aux return pre-fade (A) on my mixer.
It seems like its working and I'm trying to judge this by changing the gate to hear if i can block out sound when not talking but its hard to tell...in fact it seems like more sound gets blocked when the gate is set all the way down, really weird.
I'm still trying to figure out how the Aux A fader affects things as well as the Aux A return level...its hard to play around with if i dont even know if things are hooked up the way they should be.
so my mic is going into channel 1, then main mix out to the in on the compressor, then the out on the compressor going to aux return A and everything is being taken back out of the mixer into an Edirol digital audio recorder.
Any ideas if im on the right track with the mixer i have, Alesis Multimix 8 firewire?
Thanks again for all the feedback.
Dec 23, 2009 04:28 pm If you're doing that and it's not exploding, something is wrong. DON'T DO THAT!!!
I can't stress it enough - You're really, really on thin ice if you're not wrecking something. You can't take the output of a board and loop it back into the board (therefore looping it back out, back in, back out, back in, etc., etc., etc.) without something rather bad happening sooner or later.
The CHANNEL PRE-FADE AUX SEND to the compressor. Fader down, the only thing up is the aux send at unity and the head amp gain at wherever you need to to be to get the mic level signal to somewhere around line level.
That aux send physically connects to the compressor.
The compressor's output physically connects to a LINE IN on a channel on the mixer.
THAT channel goes to the board's outputs, which are connected to the interface (or in this case, actually IS the interface if I'm not mistaken).
AND ONCE AGAIN: I would do everything in my power to NOT HAVE THAT COMPRESSOR CONNECTED in the first place. It's not a nice unit, it's reasonable for live use, it has no purpose in a recording chain (there, I said it) other than to add noise and overdrive the head amp of the previous input.
(EDIT): Sorry, we were talking about a gate. I'm involved in too many threads around the internet today.
Same thing stands. Recording through a gate is just silly (IMO/E) unless there's some freakish reason to do so (something so freakish that I haven't seen it in at least the past 15-20 years at least).
And if you can't tell if it's even working -- what makes you think it's even necessary?
Dec 23, 2009 05:28 pm OK thanks so much, I think I'm close and appreciate your honesty.
I certainly dont want to damage my system in any way but I'm still trying to make this work so I can play with it and just see how a compressor/gate works.
Things seem to be working but the only way for me to get sound out into my headphones and into the recorder is by turning up the made fader/level on whichever channel I have the compressor going into. You mentioned having the fader all the way down, did you mean the bottom most fader, the main fader for a given channel?
Here is how things are set up now and working but I'm afraid it will damage something if its not right after what you said.
Currently the mixer is sending Aux A to the compressor's input and the compressors output is going into the mixer via line-in channel 5 (or any other channel) with that channels Aux A fader at the mid point but the only way to hear the audio is to turn up the main fader on the channel that has the incoming line from the compressor. Adjusting the Aux A fader on the channel does nothing if the main volume fader is all the way down.
Again, everything works and I can definitely control the gate which is nice because im trying to record with no edits and this is the reason i wanted this processor in the first place. I want to be able to take the file directly out of my Digital Audio Recorder and upload to the web sounding great without ever having to go into an editing suite and applying these same processes in post.
Dec 23, 2009 07:12 pm Let's say you have a mic in channel 1. You set the input gain at the head amp and leave the fader all the way down. You send that channel via the aux output to the compressor and the compressor's output back into a line in on channel 2 (or channel 5, or whatever). THAT fader is now the 'active' input channel. You shouldn't need to use the head amp gain (or simply set it to unity), you can use the fader. You DON'T (for the same reasons listed before) want to send THAT channel to the aux buss.
Dec 27, 2009 01:53 pm So I think I have it set up correctly with the Aux send going into the compressor and the compressor coming back into the mixer via channel 5. It seems to me that there still seems to be a hissing sound present when using the compressor. Is this something that is added by the compressor or a result of it being hooked up wrong? Obviously if its going to introduce noise into my recording that is not going to work.
Dec 28, 2009 12:42 am As mentioned before, it's not much of a compressor for recording... It's certainly in the "more noisy" category... None of them are silent.
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