Can we have a thread for embarassing noob questions?

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vivalastblues
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Can we have a thread for embarassing noob questions?

Post by vivalastblues » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:27 am

For when you're too scared to make a whole thread for your silly question...

anyway something I always wondered but no one ever answered for me: if you have say a desk with 24 channels but only 4 outputs/busses, what's the point of having all those channels? 20 channels for overdubs? Seems a little bit much to stick that many channels on a board and not have as many outputs.

I'm asking this because I just picked up a Soundcraft 400 and it's in exactly that situation. I have outboard pres to use to use up the full 8 tracks on my tascam 38 simultaneously, but it's something I never understood.

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Post by vvv » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:53 am

I haven't used a board for recording in a while, being ITB, but the busses are for submixes, processing, etc. For example, you might take some or all of your drum tracks down to a buss ...

Also, most boards in my experience have either direct-outs or useable (as outs) inserts on each channel.
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Post by vivalastblues » Mon Jun 27, 2011 6:54 am

The soundcraft doesn't have any direct outs, but it's got inserts. I just never thought of that as a 'legitimate' way to output because it skipped the eq section.

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Post by vvv » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:06 am

vivalastblues wrote:The soundcraft doesn't have any direct outs, but it's got inserts. I just never thought of that as a 'legitimate' way to output because it skipped the eq section.
Well, it might be considered a "limitation" of the board, or, in the Microsoft sense, a "feature". :lol:
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Post by Aquaman » Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:06 am

if you have say a desk with 24 channels but only 4 outputs/busses, what's the point of having all those channels? 20 channels for overdubs? Seems a little bit much to stick that many channels on a board and not have as many outputs.
This is one of those questions that could be answered by actually doing a project with the board instead of just wondering about it. You'd find out pretty quickly how many inputs vs how many outputs were necessary.

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Re: Can we have a thread for embarassing noob questions?

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Jun 27, 2011 9:36 am

vivalastblues wrote:what's the point of having all those channels?
i believe the idea is you mix them together. this may be why these things are known in the industry as "mixing boards".

if you had a 24 channel board with 24 outputs, what would you do with them?

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Post by drumsound » Mon Jun 27, 2011 11:25 am

When speaking of older consoles made for recording, they were often designed for recorders with 1-8 tracks, so 4 outs was often quite sufficient.

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Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Mon Jun 27, 2011 12:18 pm

drumsound wrote:When speaking of older consoles made for recording, they were often designed for recorders with 1-8 tracks, so 4 outs was often quite sufficient.
Yep. There's also no shame in using those inserts as direct outs. Use the buss sends for anything that needs to be eq'd before hitting tape/computer. For everything else you can eq with mic choice and positioning.

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Re: Can we have a thread for embarassing noob questions?

Post by Brett Siler » Mon Jun 27, 2011 7:05 pm

vivalastblues wrote:For when you're too scared to make a whole thread for your silly question...

anyway something I always wondered but no one ever answered for me: if you have say a desk with 24 channels but only 4 outputs/busses, what's the point of having all those channels? 20 channels for overdubs? Seems a little bit much to stick that many channels on a board and not have as many outputs.
Say you wanted to record a band live. They have a 5 piece drum kit, bass, 2 guitars and a vocalist. You can mic up all the instruments with multiple mics, a mix some of them down to the buss, or to stereo out and into you DAW or Tape machine.

Example:
drums channels 1-8, send to buss 1
Bass - channels 9-10, send to buss 2
guitars - channel 11-15, send to buss 3
Vocals - channel 16, send to buss 4

send the buss's to four individual inputs of your DAW/tape machine and mix further if you feel the need or just mix the four buss's down the stereo out for 2 track a stereo mix. Sometimes if you may not even need to send stuff the the Buss and you can just mix stuff straight to a 2 track mixdown via the stereo out.

Not a silly question, nothing to worry about. Once you start experimenting with your mixer it will make total sense.

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Post by Tim A » Tue Jun 28, 2011 1:24 am

Ive been using a simular desk (soundcraft spirit 8 ) and thats a live desk (yours could be too). I've been using the Aux as my outs so I've got four, but I've been looking into making the inserts as the outs (so theyre post fader) and people have been telling me it sounded be too hard

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Post by Recycled_Brains » Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:09 am

This is something I've been wondering about lately....

I have a single channel of Daking EQ. I LOVE this EQ, and want to use it on everything, but as I said... just one channel, so stereo sources, mix buss, sub-mixes, etc. are not possible, right?

So I got to thinking... What if I were to take a stereo source (or group), split it into left and right channels, then run each side through the EQ separately, using identical settings (re-combining them once I get the 2 sides recorded back into PT)? Is that essentially the same as if I had 2 of the Dakings and processed the stereo material together? What about on mix buss, where I often find myself wanting to add a bit of top/bott to the whole thing?

Would there be any detrimental drawbacks to this? The only one that comes to mind, for me, would be that you can't listen in stereo while you're setting the EQ, so there'd inevitably be some trial and error.
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Post by vvv » Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:09 am

My guess, FWIW, is that other than the extra conversion steps, it should work fine.

My reasoning is that, it's unlike when using a compressor where you may want stereo channels linked to preserve the image, and the imaging can be changed by the different channels causing the compressor(s) to react differently.

The EQ, I don't think, would be interactive between the channels in that, or any other regard?
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Post by Recycled_Brains » Wed Jun 29, 2011 11:59 am

vvv wrote:My guess, FWIW, is that other than the extra conversion steps, it should work fine.

My reasoning is that, it's unlike when using a compressor where you may want stereo channels linked to preserve the image, and the imaging can be changed by the different channels causing the compressor(s) to react differently.

The EQ, I don't think, would be interactive between the channels in that, or any other regard?
That makes sense. Basically, it acts as a dual-mono EQ.
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Post by jgimbel » Wed Jun 29, 2011 12:04 pm

Yep, the EQ is a straight thing applied to the audio, not something reactive to it, so running each channel through separately should be exactly the same. Just have to line them back up perfectly!
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Re: Can we have a thread for embarassing noob questions?

Post by witchfeet » Mon Jul 04, 2011 10:31 am

vivalastblues wrote:For when you're too scared to make a whole thread for your silly question...

anyway something I always wondered but no one ever answered for me: if you have say a desk with 24 channels but only 4 outputs/busses, what's the point of having all those channels? 20 channels for overdubs? Seems a little bit much to stick that many channels on a board and not have as many outputs.

I'm asking this because I just picked up a Soundcraft 400 and it's in exactly that situation. I have outboard pres to use to use up the full 8 tracks on my tascam 38 simultaneously, but it's something I never understood.
I use a Soundcraft Spirit Studio and it has 24 channels and 8 busses. Because it's a recording console it has direct outs on every channel. But if I wanted to say take six drum mics and only send them to two channels on the tape machine I'd use two of the busses to the tape machine. The reason your Soundcraft doesn't have direct outs is because it was probably meant as a live board for small clubs. But, you do have the inserts which I believe will send a unbalanced -10 signal if you wanted to use them as outs. Does suck that they are pre EQ but at the same time from my limited experience I don't feel like EQ on the way in is always really the best choice anyways as you can always EQ in the mix and not be stuck with your decisions that you made when tracking.

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