Preamp conflict?? with bonus converter q

[rushofblood]

This may be a stupid question.

I'm looking into getting some real pres, after figuring out that this is probably what I need to ''take my recording to the next level'. (currently using none, been at the end of those limitations for a while now, just thought it was my mixing abilities that were turning my tracks into cold mush)

Say I build a couple of SCA's.
I'm running a little soundcraft mixer (compact 10, cheap thing) in front of my sound card (delta1010) for mixing/bussing purposes (+ using the channel inserts to send to the different in's of the delta).

If I run the out of the pre into the channel on my board is this going to ruin the signal? In that case, should I just upgrade my soundcard/converters?

If so, can you think of anything to use? Preferably at least 8 xlr ins without pres, and good A/D?

[I'm Painting Again]

Well it may or may not "ruin" your signal..depending on how you are using it and your personal taste..It will make it sound different more or less..probably less..I mean if you use it without distorting it and your gain staging is cool..even the cheapest beringer mixer is mostly transparent..

do you have a specific need to run through the mixer?

because you can just go pre-converter and skip it if you wanted to..

I would focus on preamps right now..i think you will notice a bigger leap in quality there over converters..at least thats been my experience..

[rushofblood]

Well it may or may not "ruin" your signal..depending on how you are using it and your personal taste..It will make it sound different more or less..probably less..I mean if you use it without distorting it and your gain staging is cool..even the cheapest beringer mixer is mostly transparent..

do you have a specific need to run through the mixer?

because you can just go pre-converter and skip it if you wanted to..

I would focus on preamps right now..i think you will notice a bigger leap in quality there over converters..at least thats been my experience..

The need for running through the mixer isn't really great, It'd just be for when I'm doing more than 2 tracks at a time, because the delta only has 2 xlr ins, the rest are rca.

and for sure pres over converters, I was just thinking if i had to upgrade, i might as well do it all

[I'm Painting Again]

I'd stick with the delta unless you could afford a lynx aurora, newer apogee, mytek, or above that in price/quality..

[rushofblood]

ok, thanks for the help

[I'm Painting Again]

Your very welcome!

Oh BTW..

you can wire XLR to RCA with pretty good results usually..you will be unbalancing the line and putting what is probably a +4db into an input that want to see -10db or something similar to that..those figures are two different kinds of db units actually though so they are about 6db (on a meter) apart, not 14db as it looks..long story short you will probably be going in hot..

here is how you would wire it:

http://www.vandenhul.com/artpap/wiring2.htm

in your case it would be figure 1 or 2

go by trying BOTH and seeing which is less noisy or sound better to you..companies don't list the types of output stages on their gear..a real bummer..and completely rediculous imo..

if you want to mate the two in a technically proper way build or buy an isolation transformer/line level shifter like the one ebtech/morley sells:

http://www.ebtechaudio.com/lls-2des.html

though it's possible your card is unbalanced RCA +4..you have to figure it out or contact the maker..

[RodC]

The RCAs on the delta are selectable between +4 or -10 unbalanced. You should be able to mach the level pretty good. The XLR in is mic level but can be used a line level.

If your mixer has inserts for each channel you can tap in to each preamp and record them seperatly. Use the mixer in the Delta control pannel to mix your monitoring. It will be latency free.

[Ethan Holdtrue]

Sometimes a good compressor can go just as far as a good pre... :]

[rushofblood]

If your mixer has inserts for each channel you can tap in to each preamp and record them seperatly. Use the mixer in the Delta control pannel to mix your monitoring. It will be latency free.

That's what I've been doing so far, I was just afraid of bottlenecking the quality at the mixer if I got some better pres