Mixer advice

[interrogate]

Hey there, bout 6 months ago i purchased a sonar 250 power studio pack and am learning a bit bout home recording as a hobby, plus to lay down riffs and song idea`s etc. At the min i`m us`n the SPS audio interface which has 2 inputs and 2 outs, but i would like to upgrade and purchase a mixer to learn how to use one and to give me more inputs cause at some stage i`d like to try and mic up a kit, so i was wondering could anyone advise me on a mixer setup? Do i need to buy an interface to run with the mixer or do i buy a usb mixer to connect to my pc, i really hav`nt a clue so thanks for any advice on this!

 

[Anonymous]

With mixing a kit you mean a drumkit with several different toms, cymbals etc.?

for recording there are mostly two concepts:
- the total stereo (sub)mix of the kit into the recording machine: needs left/right channel
- each single mic separately into the recording machine: needs as many channels as mic's

With this you also limit the size and number of channels your mixer needs.

for the first concept a small eight channel live mixer is OK. Each tom, snare, kick etc will be mixed carefully, routed into eq and limiter/compressor etc. and mixed down to two channels before the recording - for playback only the sum left/right is managed. you just need a small 8 or 12 channel mixer with a 2 channel A/D interface and your other existing stuff.

the second concept records all channels separately - only the best signal of each microphone will be recorded. all processing, effects, eq whatsoever will be done later whith the recorded signals. Here you need a studio mixer with subrouting and channel inserts at several points in the signal chain, like pre/post eq, prefade, for effects etc. i also prefer in/out channels. another challenge is to get the multichannel recording interface to the pc or a-dat. here a > 8 channel parallel working input/output device is needed.

have a look here: http://www.tweakheadz.com/guide.htm

 

[interrogate]

Hey there dean, thanks for the advice and yes i meant drum kit sorry bout that. I won`t be recording a kit for a while yet but i`d like a setup that when i`m ready to that i`ll be fit to go ahead, want to learn bout the mixer and how to operate it properly so no major hurry. The second concept sounds more like what i`m after so i will start looking into it, cheers