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

[brandondrury]

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

A patch bay is useful for a person who has about 300 pieces of outboard gear. I still can't understand why a person with minimal gear and a tight budget would dump cash into a patchbay. I have 20 simultaneous inputs. I've recorded over a hundred bands. I don't use a patchbay.

I looked at the Google drawing. It made the rig look MORE complicated than it did just reading your text. From my understanding, you are running eveything into a mixer but a few mics need to go to outboard preamps. In that situation, I can't think of a need for a patchbay. In fact, the patchbay could actually make the rig more complicated.

The outboard pres really don't complicate anything. If you need a patchbay because you have a few outboard pres, it's not much different than a guitar player needing a patchbay because he has a few pedals. Maybe I'm missing something here.

UPDATE: I am OVER my mission to eliminate half-normaling.

smart move!

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.

Agreed, but it's only as complicated as you make it. Even super high end consoles aren't complicated once you break it down to a single channel. You just have to take your time, understand each component, and remember where everything goes.

[mrabassist]

what was your basic drum and guitar mic setup, just out of curiosity. You seemed to overcome a few room problems that I would expect in a basement setting.

[tZer]

Brandon, you are correct. I think my biggest issue is that I keep thinking I am doing things in such a make-shift fashion. As simple as our needs are, this is how it goes. Fortunately, due to limited funds, getting more gear is really not an option and I went into this mission with the idea that we would make it work with what we have.

Originally Posted by mrabassist

what was your basic drum and guitar mic setup, just out of curiosity. You seemed to overcome a few room problems that I would expect in a basement setting.

I spent the last year thinking critically about how we could achieve a 'studio' like recording setup without changing the way we play together. I considered some methods that would simply accept a lot of bleed, others where we'd do all our own tracks independently, and various configurations in between.

We finally settled on our current configuration that includes one critical component - a headphone amp. Once I solved the signal chain issues (learned how to send a line or mic signal into a mixer and to the DAW) I just routed a monitor send from the mixer to the headphone amp and handed out headphones.

So the guitar goes direct thru a POD as does the bass. The keys go direct and the vocals do too (since they are going down for reference only). The only instrument that is miked is the drum kit. So my room is a drum room with a bunch of dudes in headphones. Our studio plan is centered around song development. If they happen to sound close to what we could get out of a real studio, great, but the focus for having everyone tracked individually is so we can easily experiment with arrangements, sounds, and other things that are more easily handled when you can individually manipulate each instrument.

In short - the only instrument using mics is the drum kit - everyone else, DI.

Oh yeah - we also 'phase' our tracking. So when we are all playing together and recording, we are laying down rhythm tracks. The only instrument that we are mostly concerned with at that time is the kit. Everyone else can easily go back and re-track their parts until the cows come home. So if we decide we really want to put a mic on my SVT rig, we can. Same with Jim's Fender amp. So we are not sacrificing that 'pure' thing you can get with mics.

[brandondrury]

due to limited funds, getting more gear is really not an option and I went into this mission with the idea that we would make it work with what we have.

This is why I don't see the logic in buying a patchbay.

I think the "usual basement recording problems" are poor room acoustics which result in boxy sounding drums. The drums in the mp3 you posted were not boxy at all. I would say your use of headphones is very typical, but the results of your drums are not.

You got lucky on your room acoustics and the drummer knows what he is doing. This is why the drums do not sound like a typical basement recording. Bleed doesn't necessarily lower fidelty. In can often improve it.

Brandon

[Baron]

Originally Posted by tZer

Oh yeah - we also 'phase' our tracking. So when we are all playing together and recording, we are laying down rhythm tracks. The only instrument that we are mostly concerned with at that time is the kit. Everyone else can easily go back and re-track their parts until the cows come home.

It would be nice if you could get the bass track down at the same time as the drums. I have found that you tend to get better groove when the bass player is receiving visual cues as well as audio. I'm not saying you shouldn't dub the bass, just that I have had more success recording the whole rhythm section together. It's just about the feel

[tZer]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

This is why I don't see the logic in buying a patchbay.

I think the "usual basement recording problems" are poor room acoustics which result in boxy sounding drums. The drums in the mp3 you posted were not boxy at all. I would say your use of headphones is very typical, but the results of your drums are not.

You got lucky on your room acoustics and the drummer knows what he is doing. This is why the drums do not sound like a typical basement recording. Bleed doesn't necessarily lower fidelty. In can often improve it.

Brandon

I won't be getting a patch bay at this point. If I bought anything (which I can't) it would be a good large diaphragm microphone. Or maybe some preamps... I have a lot more research to do before I spend any more $$, though.

I didn't mix with headphones on this one - but I also didn't mix on good reference monitors either. Since my good monitors are at the space, I used my home stereo, bookshelf-type stereo as my monitoring setup. All "EQ" set flat (no "bass boost" or "rock, classic, pop" eq settings active). I then boil down the mix and pop it in my truck stereo for another perspective.

I did that because mixing in headphones is really deceptive and never results in a worthwhile mix, in my experience.

The original drums were not bad - our drummer knows how to tune and care for his kit and I pulled most of the curtains down from around him to let some hard surfaces show near the kit.

Thanks again for your comments! They help in many ways.

[tZer]

Originally Posted by Baron

It would be nice if you could get the bass track down at the same time as the drums. I have found that you tend to get better groove when the bass player is receiving visual cues as well as audio. I'm not saying you shouldn't dub the bass, just that I have had more success recording the whole rhythm section together. It's just about the feel

Agreed. That is specifically why we all track together. To get the continuity that comes from playing live. The thing is, if the drummer has a bad run, we scrap it... if the guitar is not up to snuff, but the drummer nailed it, it's a keeper and the guitar player can revisit his part as punch-in or overdub. Same with me (bass) - if for some reason I flub here and there and don't get my best run at it, but the drummer does, I will re-track.

So when we are laying the 'bed tracks' the most important thing is the drums are solid. Everything else is gravy. As for the other players - we certainly don't want to miss any moments of brilliance even if the rest of someones part falls apart.

--tz