Mixer channel INSERT to DAW - is half-plugging the only answer?

[tZer]

I am plugging an instrument into a channel on my mixing console then sending the INSERT to Sonar via Delta 1010LT H/W input.

Guitar => line in channel 1 on mixer
Channel 1 INSERT (half-plugged) with typical (mono or non-tsr, I guess) patch chord to an input on the Delta.

Plugging into the INSERT all the way removes the signal from the channel and I cannot monitor using the mixer since I am not returning it - hence half-plugging.

My question: Is there a patch chord wired in such a way that would permit me to plug it in all the way without removing the signal from the channel?

I was talking with a soundman last night over his mixer about this situation and he showed me a 1/4" patch cable that had ONE TSR 1/4" input jack on each end - but 2 wires between.

I may have misunderstood him - or he may have misunderstood me, but I think he was saying that this sort of chord would allow me to fully plug into the INSERT on the mixer and connect the other end to my Delta input - NOT provide any sort of return via another OUTPUT from the Delta and I would still get a returned signal to the INSERT.

In my limited experience, this seemed to make sense if that particular chord somehow makes the signal available to both the tip and the ring on the jack.

Is that right or did he and I have two totally different scenarios in mind?

Thanks!
--tz

[tZer]

I think I may have found my answer - a TRS to TS patch cord or a patchbay should solve my problem.

I just do not like the 'half-assed' nature of half-plugging my INSERTS. I am going to do some more research into TRS to TS and patchbays and see if I am on the right track.

[Baron]

Hey TZ

They say that necessity is the mother of invention but you might be doing things the hard way

Does your console have direct outs?

Does your console have group outs?

Does your console have Auxiliary outs?

Any of these could give you a line level signal, from your specified channel, without dropping the signal from the channel strip.

For instance: guitar into channel 1 and aux 1 output sent to your Delta 1010LT H/W input. Dial up aux 1, only on that channel, and you are now sending signal to Sonar but still have signal to your monitors.


Cheers

Baron

[tZer]

Baron, thanks for your reply. One of my biggest challenges is time. Our 'studio' is not in my basement so I only have about 2 hours a week to work with signal routing issues. This time fights hard with our playing time too, as you can imagine.

I understand that I have many output options from my consoles other than INSERTS. My biggest confusion comes when I begin to try to use them all. I am learning - and I think I have a good idea of what I need to do.

I will be using some channel INSERTS as sends to the DAW - mainly for my line-level instruments. As for the mics on the drums - I plan to send individual mic signals as well as mixed groups to the DAW and to the monitoring setup via busses.

With 4 separate mixing consoles available to me, each with it's own INSERT and busses options, if I can't get what I need into the DAW and our monitoring setup, I need to give up altogether!

Thanks!
--Tony

[mrabassist]

Don't worry about half plugging. It works fine. Any recording situation that you are in where its ok for you to be half plugging will not be advanced in anyway by doing more expensive cabling to plug in all the way. What board are you using though? In my early days I constnatly found myself using the most insane ways to route to my cards and it saved me a lot of hassle and rid me of "well damn i wish i had enough outputs for this" when i sat down, made a diagram of my console, located all the best outputs and routing sequences, bought my patchbay, and got me a permanent set. Rushed setup leads to rushed recordings which leads to rushed results. of course your situation may limit you to that..if so im certainly sorry, thats a hard way to work and somewhere all of us have been before. To answer your question in the beginning though...that ts-trs should do what you want. an engineer would kill me for using the "try it and see" idea, because in science it works but in practice sometimes it just doesnt. Will your results be better? not a bit. i dont know if thats even what you want. your cables will be locked in better...but this could all be avoided by instead of saying hey, plug to the insert saying hey, plus to bus 1

[brandondrury]

I think I may have found my answer - a TRS to TS patch cord or a patchbay should solve my problem.

You never said what your problem was? What's wrong with half-normaling?

I was talking with a soundman last night over his mixer about this situation and he showed me a 1/4" patch cable that had ONE TSR 1/4" input jack on each end - but 2 wires between.

Those have a seperate send and return on them. They are fully normaled. If you do it this way, you would have to send the audio from the mixer to the soundcard, through all of your computer stuff (and the latency that comes with it) and back to the mixer. Of course, you would be essentially monitoring within the software and defeating the purpose of monitoring with the mixer anyway.

I just do not like the 'half-assed' nature of half-plugging my INSERTS.

There is nothing half-assed about half-normaling. I've been doing it for years, when necessary. I've never had a cable ever pop out. It's always been very reliable.

In my opinion, you are completely wasting your time trying to invent a new knot for shoelaces while you are being chased by wolves. In other words, you are probably half assing about 20,000,000,000 things in the recording realm. (Everyone who hasn't dumped $4,000,000 into their studio is). So with that said, is your studio monitoring system accurate?

One of my biggest challenges is time. Our 'studio' is not in my basement so I only have about 2 hours a week to work with signal routing issues. This time fights hard with our playing time too, as you can imagine.

Join the crowd. We all have limited time. Because of this, we need to pick and chose our battles wisely.

That's my opinion.

Brandon

[tZer]

mrabassist,

All good points to be sure.

I am limited by my understanding of my gear. Time is an issue, but we are in no real hurry other than the hurry we create ourselves. We are not interested in public acclaim or fame and fortune - we want to make good music and record it ourselves up to a point where we feel our material is worth investing money in going to someone's pro studio.

Since our project is more about our own education in how to write, arrange, perform and record as a band, we are not pushed around by demands like, "we gotta get a demo done" or "we need a CD to sell" - all we need to do is increase our understanding of the process and continue to make progress. We are in it for the love of the process.

SO - We do have time to figure all of this stuff out. We DO NOT have $$, however, so if and when we do decide to reach into our own pockets and spend, we need to be fairly sure of what we are buying and why.

I have definitely come to the conclusion that a patch bay would be a very worth-while investment and would solve most, if not all of our signal routing needs. But at this time, there is no more money to be spent so we have to go to our next best solution and figure out how to properly utilize our existing gear.

We have four individual mixers available to us, so I am sure there is a clean routing solution at our disposal. My INSERT question has been more than answered here and in a number of other forums. Half-plug, schmaff-plug, that's just a 'feeling' thing and has little relevance to the bigger picture.

The mixers we have are:
1) Behringer UBB1002 (10 mono channels, L & R Main outs, L & R monitor outs, 2 INSERTS)
2) Phonic MM1002 (10 mono channels, L & R Main outs, L & R monitor outs, 1 aux. out)
3) Studiomaster 621 (6 mono channels, 6 inserts, L & R main outs, L & R monitor outs, SUM out, 2 effects sends)
4) Peavey RQ 2318 (18 mono channels, 16 Inserts, L & R main outs, 1 mono out, L & R monitor outs, 2 Effects Sends)

So CLEARLY, with all of those in our midst, we should be able to easily route signals to our DAW and be able to monitor (via hardware - we don't like ms latency with software monitoring).

I will be there tonight re-re-re-routing again, for the Nth time... But tonight will be the night I get it right-ish.

BTW...

Originally Posted by mrabassist

when i sat down, made a diagram of my console, located all the best outputs and routing sequences,

Oh, I know! I did that - again using my limited understanding of all this... Here, have a peek!

Google Docs - SignalChain_v2

This was BEFORE we acquired the Peavey RQ 2318. The addition of the RQ 2318 really streamlines our options and I will have to update my signal chain routing diagram.

Thanks again!
--tz

[tZer]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

You never said what your problem was? What's wrong with half-normaling?


Those have a seperate send and return on them. They are fully normaled. If you do it this way, you would have to send the audio from the mixer to the soundcard, through all of your computer stuff (and the latency that comes with it) and back to the mixer. Of course, you would be essentially monitoring within the software and defeating the purpose of monitoring with the mixer anyway.





There is nothing half-assed about half-normaling. I've been doing it for years, when necessary. I've never had a cable ever pop out. It's always been very reliable.

In my opinion, you are completely wasting your time trying to invent a new knot for shoelaces while you are being chased by wolves. In other words, you are probably half assing about 20,000,000,000 things in the recording realm. (Everyone who hasn't dumped $4,000,000 into their studio is). So with that said, is your studio monitoring system accurate?


Join the crowd. We all have limited time. Because of this, we need to pick and chose our battles wisely.

That's my opinion.

Brandon

Brandon - All good points and as I learn more about this world and all the options that can be pursued, the things you are saying start to make a lot of sense.

UPDATE: I am OVER my mission to eliminate half-normaling. I now understand it to be a very common practice from posts here AND from reading all the documentation for each of my mixers which specifically state that the INSERT can be used to send a signal without removing it from the channel by half-plugging - so my question here has been answered in spades.

As you all may recall from when you decided to move behind the mixing desk, all those faders, knobs, boxes, meters, and lights can be quite bewildering even after you begin to learn about what they all do. Sometimes it's hard to know that you are chasing rainbows until someone grabs you by your neck and tells you - which is why I am here.

Thanks for all the great advice! I really feel like I have a certain part of my many-faceted puzzle more clearly defined.

To recap:
1. Half-plugging/half-normaling is perfectly OK and I should not be worried about that per se.
2. Line-level vs. mic-level signals are very different creatures and need to be treated as such.
3. A patch bay would make my life much easier.
4. With 4 (admittedly entry-level) mixers at my disposal, if I cannot properly get each instrument's signal into my DAW and provide effective monitoring I need to abandon my mission and start saving to pay for pro-studio time - WHICH I AM NOT GOING TO DO!

I WILL solve my low-level, writing, arranging, pre-production studio needs. I will NOT pay for pro-studio time until our material and our personal understanding of what a studio can do is greatly improved. When we have fully explored our material's composition, arrangement and production options, THEN we will pay for the real thing.

Thanks!

[mrabassist]

Wow. I'll buy that peavey off you any day. In my current studio because my large console caught on fire, the asshole, i use an old mackie 1604 where all i have for outputs to my board is inserts. it works fine for me, i miss my 12 bus board where every channel had a direct output as well but hey, stuff happens.

i hate when people venture from the point of a thread so here it is....

studio workers, be it home or pro, sometimes tend to think hey, thatd be cool if we could replace what we are doing with what we arent doing and they go off and they do rediculous things like by a Nady Preamp with 8 channels to replace 2 Nady Preamps with 4 channels. An overstatement? Not so much. Half plugging is a hassle, probably, but so is putting out cash for cables that only go into a plug half an inch more.

My professional advice (hahah which accounts for nothing) is gonna tell you save the money ud spend on that snake and just half plug. Who knows what 45 dollars or however much ud spend on the snake will go to later on. I know for sure that if iput together the 100 dumb purchases i made i could probably buy a few thousand dollars worth of premium gear.

enjoy though, im interested to hear something you create

[tZer]

Originally Posted by mrabassist

Wow. I'll buy that peavey off you any day.

Hey now... I JUST bought that Saturday! I am not ready to sell it off yet. LOL

Originally Posted by mrabassist

enjoy though, im interested to hear something you create

I have been hesitant to post anything being that I am wrestling with so many complex issues. Since I am not only taking on the task of learning about engineering I am also the only one in the band who is currently taking on the role of arranger and producer. Admittedly, I have more experience with music than engineering, but producing is another wonderfully black art that I am still VERY new at. Hence my hesitation with sharing stuff. I know all too well how much work it all needs... but I'll share...

A prologue:
What I am posting represents tracks we laid down at the end of a night of signal chain wrestling. We all 'plowed through the song - one take - then called it a night. Our singer was not there until the end of the session, so our piano player filled in singing scratch vocals until he arrived - so his part is diluted by the fact that he had to sing the lead line (or a reasonable facsimile of it). Our singer arrived in time for us to track in his part just before we left - again - one take for him.

I then took the stuff home and did some basic mixing to begin to see where instruments could be placed and experimenting with some basic EQing...

Enough disclaimer... I am new and I now my product shows it... but without any further ado...

Nightingale

(Posted in Recording Reviews)