Recording drums to one track. Help.

[i.do.not.exist]

This is my first post. I have recently begun the great plunge into the world of audio recording. This site has already helped me so much and i'm glad to finally become a member.

My band is currently preparing to record our first EP. With what money we could scrounge up we managed to get mics in order to mic everything. We were also given an Alesis Multimix 8 USB mixer as a gift to use as our input into our computer (recording into Adobe Audtion). With this setup, we can only record the drums as one whole track do to the USB input (technically 2 as it is stereo to allow panning and such).
I have read many articles about equalizing, compressing, etc each seperate drum and I was curious as to how i should go about compressing, equalizing, etc the track as a whole. I realize this doesn't give me as much room to work, but there has to be some sort of approach.
Each channel on the mixer has a 3-band equalizer which will allow for some minor tweaking before it is mixed through the USB. Should there be a certain way I should Equalize eah channel as it will be done through hardware?

I only wish to capture the best sound I can with this setup.
Thanks a ton!

[.tom]

since you're new to it, just run it in and you can EQ and compress post recording.

you might try cutting 500hz -3db, Q = 2, but it really depends on the room sound and what type of program material. boost 5kc a bit, Q = .7. Certainly, you can do this post recording.


Compression is tuff to give out in terms of starter settings, but try:

attack = 30ms
release = 120ms
ratio = 3
make-up gain = 3db

and start lowering your threshold until you hear the cmp working. from there you can fiddle with all parameters to get what you want.

[fishbulb]

Are you sure you don't have the ability to do more than a stereo mixdown? Most USB mixers have this capability.

[i.do.not.exist]

I do not believe so as it is not USB 2.0 but rather USB 1.1. If this feature is still available , I would like to know how it can be accessed . Thank you for your replies.