I seen a few post about mixers/peoples mixers etc.. But I just wanted to know, if its a benefit to have a mixer in the studio for recording? and why?
Maybe I’m just a little to makeshift to understand why a mixer would be useful.. so far I just use my LP and Nord lead 1, and mics etc and just run it through a m-audio fasttrack pro into my Mac using Ableton… What would a mixer do to improve my setup? I’m just curious because I’m looking at ways to improve my setup/improve sound quality, wether it be software or hardware, and I was looking at mixers and just realized I’m totally clueless about them.. I could see how they would be useful live, but in a studio?
In my case there is no interface with so many inputs and outputs. Currently I use 2 stereo channels and 30 mono channels. Besides that, I like to control the sound physically and not with a mouse.
If your interface works great for you there is no need to look at a mixer. You could implement a mixer in your setup to do analog mixdowns of your tracks.
The least hardware between the audio source and the recording the better from a simply puristic point of view. Hardware components always dump in low level noise signals in an audio path. In this digital era, this amount is very low and can be processed a number of ways.
Similarly to you, I use a mixer for blending different instruments into a single signal in live situations.
For recording, I like to minimize hardware induced signals (or the illusion of it), so I am recording all instrument directs (not even third party software) one at a time, tapping into the sound card directly. Things can always be mixed digitally later on. However, I am not advocating abuse of one track at time direct recording. It raises more problem than it solves. Music is best played with people and friends, live. I don’t know all the internals of commercially available high quality sound processing hardware, but it seems to me mixers will always be part of the studio environment and recording process. The technology of sound processing and mixing even at the hardware level is high enough for one not to worry about this.
See my post in the Mixer thread on the Voyager forum.
I am currently using a Mackie onyx400f, I love it. 4 crystal clear preamps, 8 ins/outs all assignable in the software mixer. First software mixer I’ve ever bought, it flashes the firmware every time you close the mixer. 192khz isnt bad either. It saves me a lot of space, 1ru. I have a ART preamp to add more preamps to the equation. The ART sucks compared to the Mackie ones! I run a snake so all they ins/outs in the back is great for me, it does have 2 line/mic in outs on front for easy access. I think I got it bstock for pretty cheap from musiciansfriend.
I think its the bit about the preamps that interest me the most, and is something i’d like to look into… like I said earlier, right now I’m using a M-Audio Fastrack Pro, and I can’t help to think the pre-amp is a little low on the quality side. It would be nice to run all my mics and synths through 1 mixer that has some higher quality preamps in it.. though with the ones I’m looking at, I’d still need some kind of interface to run to my mac…
No need of an interface or complex mixer hardware thing to achieve boosting signals. Look into products such as dbx Passive Box (10 dB) or Active Box (20 dB). It’s not bad and very affordable. I have one passive in line with my audio system for plugging guitars and other low level output instruments. They also have a professional studio grade line of products. Many other companies offer similar products. I remember one being mentioned on some user group for as low as $30. Users reported being very satisfied with the product.
Thats why I like the Onyx400f, firewire, quality preamps, low latency, the 800f has 8 preamps. I am impressed with the Mackie and Focusrite mixer/preamp/interface units. I was leaning towards the Focusrite, but the price was hard to pass up on the Mackie.