Moog Music Forum

-what im concerned about right now is using a mixer with 1/4" plug in and outs to send the my voyagers audio to a sound card in stereo, along with a couple other digi synths and beatboxes in stereo and mono. i want to record these along with some vinyl samples and whatnot to sequence tracks on my computer and add effects and whatnot.

--whats a good brand/type? is this bad idea, cause then im not working in analog anymore (on the puter)? i dont want some dumb usb/firewire type interface cuz i've allways used a mixer (vestax06), and it worke perfectly fine, for what i was doing, but i havent always had a moog. so i to upgrade to a new one(mixer that is)

i already posted this question on a previous, unrelated topic, but i decided to get all redundant on everyone and repost it under a new topic. its not entirely voyager related but it is.

how do all yall record into computer seqeuncing environs?


muchas gracias, muchachos y muchachas
Mr.ZEEBRA9

I have two diffrent setups in my small studio. One PC is working with RME Hammerfall DSP and an Multiface, the other PC got a Creamware Pulsar II together with an A16. Some of my instruments are connected directly to the A/D Interfaces, some of them first to an Mackie-analog-mixer, which is routed then to the A/D.
In my eyes (ears) most important about mixing to a Computer (mac/pc) is the soundcard. You will never be so satisfied with e.g. a Soundblaster as your recording card like with on of the above...,... but you will still hear the diffrent of your Voyager to your other gear. For sure a nice and good sounding mixer is important, but when it comes to digital recording, a highquallity soundcard is more recommended, so you can record your voyager direct to the PC and mix it there.
Stefan

--why 2 computers? what do you use the hammerfall and the pulsar for?
--if you have a mixer why do you need the multiface and the a16?
--if you had one computer, a/d convertor, a good soundcard, and
a mixer wouldnt that sufficient? dont some soundcards already do the whole a/d conversion thing or is that what your talking about??
pardon my stupidity.
...zebra...out

StefanH wrote:I have two diffrent setups in my small studio. One PC is working with RME Hammerfall DSP and an Multiface, the other PC got a Creamware Pulsar II together with an A16. Some of my instruments are connected directly to the A/D Interfaces, some of them first to an Mackie-analog-mixer, which is routed then to the A/D.
In my eyes (ears) most important about mixing to a Computer (mac/pc) is the soundcard. You will never be so satisfied with e.g. a Soundblaster as your recording card like with on of the above...,... but you will still hear the diffrent of your Voyager to your other gear. For sure a nice and good sounding mixer is important, but when it comes to digital recording, a highquallity soundcard is more recommended, so you can record your voyager direct to the PC and mix it there.
Stefan

Sorry for missunderstanding!
I DOESN'T MENT THAT YOU NEED TWO PC'S!!!!
One is enough to do everything, honestly! It was happening to me and i use both of them, but most of the time i am recording into this one with Hammerfall DSP and Multiface; and i use the other one most for the excelent Devices (Synth's from John Bowen, Minimax, Sampling and some very fine EFX) which routed to the main PC via Adat. Because of some very good EFX and a nice Vocoder i rout some of my outboard stuff to the A16 > PulsarII > Multiface > Recording PC. Sounds weird, is weird; but works fine and can use the DSP-Power of the Pulsar for Devices and other Creamwarestuff.

No, if have the RME Hammerfall DSP you need one Multiface or Digiface, otherwize you do not have any I/O's. There are other RME Cards which have some i/o's directly mounted on the card, but Multiface was the best resolution for me (8 analog I/O's, SPDIF, ADAT, Wordclock and MIDI I/O), very fast and stable and a fantastic support.

Hope it is clearer now (my english is not the best), you need only one PC and have to decide which Soundcard is fitting your needs.
But still with an mixer i can tell you that i can't have enough Inputs sometimes. It happens that i route my A16 to the Adat input of the Multiface to get 8 more analog inputs. I like to record everything first on seperate channel to keep the track most flexibel.
Ok. Voyager got only two outputs, but what's about the MachineDrum, Virus or NordModular? Well, it depence how you recording your stuff. Also i do need sometimes only one channel...
Stefan

...one more thing. If you only have a stereo input on your soundcard, you are not able record more tracks at once, that's why i make use of the multichannelthings...

you didnt misunderstand...

what about synths with a mono output like the sidstation?


---Z-BRAa999er

What's about Mono? Well, then you need only one input.
My sidstation and my FR-777 use one channelinput each, the Evolver two, because Evo is a monophonic Synth with an stereooutput, like the Voyager.

But it really depence the way you work. I have a lot of synths and sequencer. I do most of my sequencing with external gear, not with the PC.
So if i programm a drumtrack, i like to record the bassdrum, the snare and hihat on a diffrent channel inside of Cubase, if there is allready a bass sequence from Voyager (just to stay on topic) i allready need 5 Inputs to record them sepratly, If you use only a mixer and record all of this onto a stereo input you are not able to change something of the reverb for the snare... etc.

By the way, what kind of soundcard are u using ?

ok well maybe what i should tell you what i plan on doing:

what i plan on doing is mainly one track at a time. i need a good mixer so i dont have to keep swapping cables all the time. swapping once in a while is o.k. know what i mean? the soundcard issue understand. i need a good
no-noise mixer that will interface well with the soundcard. thats my plan.

ill record a track. then sequence or track it and add virtual effects. then repeat as necessary. i have some non virtual analog effects, like space reverb, and spring reverb so ill send tracks out of the computer to effect them, then send them back into the cpu. i dont plan on having a bunch of synths just the 2 i have now, the mini, and the sidstation, maybe a monomachine pretty soon.

along with a couple beatboxes and vinyl samples (mainly for drums, vocals, and whatnot) and thats it. (for now, i hope)
im also looking into a kyma capybara system, that way i can have virtually any kind of virtual synth or effect i can design all on one computer (once i figure the damn thing out), that i can also sequence and record with. but shhh.. dont tell anyone about that.

my main concern is that that the voyager sounds funky fresh and fat through it all.

so i will just connect all this into the mixer then to the soundcard. to me this sounds fine, but what do i know? im open to suggestions.

whats a good mixer brand/model? should it be analog or digital?

-sirzebrathepalehorsefromplanet9

besides the soundblaster audigy that came with my computer i have a
m-audio 1010, that im not really liking at the moment

awww im so jealous Stephan , u got an A16 , i need to get me one o those fer my pulsars. Ive found that any half decent analog mixer with a low noise floor will do the trick, it is the soundcard that you want to max out as much as possible for.. since it is the objective that all things finally connect to. A decent pair o monitors always helps , i have a pair of KRK V4's and i tell ya u cant beat the price/sound quality.As for kyma... i still think they need to get their gui into the year 2000 cause it just looks budget and i think it would cause alot of eye fatigue ( CREAMWARE R0X )

Take it easy!

Hi Tony,
that is what i tried to explain, so said it. You can have the best sounding mixer, but if the A/D is cheap, you sound cheap. Tony, i have still the "old" A16, but this is a wonderfull tool. As you was reading in some of my previous messages, i make use also of the the Multiface from RME, which is very felxibel and also is fine in A/D. I bought this multiface first for my notebook, after playing around with i bought also the PCI-Card, so it makes it very easy to setup live performance on my Desktop and port it over to the Notebook on the run.
Speakers, Monitors ahhhh, yes, very important. I use Genelic 1091 and ADAM!
If i have the money i would like to have this speakers for 5.1.....
Cheers,
Stefan

haha Stepan any A16 is a good A16 in my book 5.1 would be so fun for synth soundscapes thats for sure!!
Zebra i use a 10 year old crappy Sampson mixpad...u know the ones that cost like $150 hahah and just to show you that you dont need a really costly mixer heres a little song i did using only the MMV for synths plus Reason for the drums and a guitar. Enjoy... anything is possible even on a tight budget !!! http://members.shaw.ca/puppetshow/TonyRmoog.mp3

i totally get what you both are saying. i guess i was just asking about mixers, mainly whats a good brand. but as for this whole A/D thing i like both, (high and low end) i mean i think that the cheapo soundblaster sound might be good sometimes, like when you want to get all gritty lofi and stuff (for example sidstation). now i am not not saying that hifi is bad, because it isn't at all, i wouldnt have gotten a moog if i didnt appreciate the value of rich, smooth sounding gear. was just worried about losing that analog warmth in the translation to the cold digital world, which can and does happen. i mean vinyl sounds so much nicer to me than cd. and thats why i was questioning the merit of recording the mini into my puter. it almost makes me want to dump the cpu altogther and stay in the analog realm somehow, someway to make my music, (there should be analog computers) but that aint happening, so...
what im trying to is the way i look at it you should embrace that whole cheapy digital lofi sound for what it provides, instead of trying to make it sound like something it isn't, work with it. then incorporate that with the hifi (digital or analog). they both sound cool to me. its all about diversity in my mind. use both sides of the spectrum pick and choose your bit rates, keeping them seperate, but together, if that makes any sense, then thats what i want to do.

4 bit forever

peace out,
ZEBRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!
AWAYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TonyR: i like your song. but i cant really tell anything from the MP3 about your sampson as it was an MP3. know what im saying? anyways i did like the song it sounded good for an Mpeg3 file and whatnot. did you make those patches yourself? i dont know anything about sampson, so it that analog or what? im interested...



ZEBRAERK...

Heya Zebra, the patches are mine, first thing i always do with a new synth is browse the patches see wut the synth is capable of and then either modify them or totally delete them, i always like to work with a blank sketch pad so to speak so that if some1 listens to a song they cant go " oh ya thats a blah blah synth using patch #62 ". As for my mixer its an old analog one , its only got 8 channels and i got it for like $200 8 years ago, its very small about 8 inches by 8 inches. No phantom power or onboard FX just a bunch of potentiometers .Ive had to strip the thing down twice now and clean out the pots hahaha. So really u cant go wrong with a mixer these days, ive seen ones by beringer for under $200 US which is not bad at all like this one: http://www.behringer.com/02_products/pr ... A&lang=eng and if u like the old skool C64 sid stuff you should check out the quadraSID vst-i by Re-FX i believe, would be fun to sequence that along with your sidstation.