Recording live drums
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Posted on Feb 05, 2004 11:14 am
leland
Member Since: Feb 05, 2004
Hi There - I've been recording with a small Cubase setup for the past year using an Alesis SR-16 for drums but I would now like to make the leap to recording live drums. I purchased a Horizon 8x4 snake (no returns) and would like to
run 7 drum tracks (Kick, Snare, HH, T1, T2,T3, OH/Room) into the board. I'm using a Behringer MX1604A mixer. Does anyone know how if can set this up so I can run the Guitar & Bass guide into the last stereo channel, feeding only the drums to the Soundcard, but have everything routed to a headphone mix?
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Feb 05, 2004 07:15 pm Ah... This is the same mixer I have. First of all, how many tracks can your soundcard record at once? If you want to record more than 1 stereo track (2 inputs) for the drums then you'll have to get a different mixer that has direct outputs and/or lots of subgroups. If you just want to mix down to a stereo track than you're all set. However, that mixer only has 4 pre-amps, so I would definately recommend cutting back the number of mics you're using on the set. Consider starting out only using 4 mics (Bass drum, Snare drum, 2 overheads). That will prevent any major phase conflicts that you won't be able to fix later. It's best to get a handle on less mics first, in my opinion. To route the guitar and bass guide just to the headphone mix, mute the channel (which will send it to the ALT 3-4 output) and then make sure that the "ALT 3-4 to Phones" button is pressed. If you have any other questions just ask, because I can go into more depth if necessary. Hope that helps.
-Porp
lelandMember
Since: Feb 05, 2004
Feb 05, 2004 09:48 pm Hey Porp - Thanks alot for the help. I have the Audiophile 2496 Soundcard so I only have 2 in/outs. I had planned on just recording to one stereo track but know you've made me aware of another bigger problem with the pre-amps. I do also have an old ROSS 16 channel mixer that I may be able to use and I just came into a Mackie 1604 board but it's a little too advanced for me yet.
Would I be able to run some of the mics from the ROSS board preamps? Also, I know the Mackie board has 4 sub-groups available. How would this help to record more than 1 stereo track?
Again, thanks for the advice
Feb 06, 2004 01:43 pm Since you have the Audiophile 2496, the Behringer will do the trick-- but, like you say, you'll need more pre-amps, or a board with more pre-amps if you really want to use more than four mics on the set.
I took a look at that Mackie you say you have and it looks like it's quite a nice board! I would recommend you just use the Mackie instead of the behringer (Not saying that Mackie is necessarily better-- they are about the same). This way you don't need to run preamps into preamps and get things mixed up.
There are different ways to do it, but I would say you could probably route things something like this:
Send all the drum channels ONLY to the first pair of subgroups (It's one of the 4 buttons next to the channel fader). Then send your guitar and bass channels ONLY to the main mix. Route the output of your soundcard to one of the mixer's stereo channels (or 2 mono channels) and route that channel ONLY to the main outputs. The main outputs should be routed to the headphone mix, and if you have monitors you can plug them into the main mix outputs. So, basically, your main mix is the headphone and monitor mix, and your first 2 subgroups are for the drums (The stuff you're actually recording). Plug in the outputs of the first pair of subgroups to your soundcard's inputs and make sure that the subgroups are NOT being sent to the main mix (leave the two buttons above the subgroups up). You're all set. Any more questions-- just ask. This might not be very clear.
-Porp
Oh yeah, and you still can't record more than one stereo track with the subgroups, it's just that IF you had four soundcard inputs, you could then use each of the subgroups as a send to each of the four inputs, whereas with the behringer you only have 2 outputs altogether (actually, there is a way to do it with the Behringer using the ALT 3-4 output, but I won't get into that...)
