Mixers! unneeded in modern home studios

[xirosx]

I'd read and article in this site about the use of a mixer in the recording home studio, and is says clearly that do not buy one and spend the $$$ in a good soundcard or mic preamp, good...but now...what about if I have to record drums??? i mean...I know that I will rather record all others instruments on individual takes but drums takes about (normally) 8-9 mics to be recorded, so I ask now...its necessary to hava a mixer in this case??? i hope you give some advise...

[kyle barton]

i think you've answered your own question. if your recording drums as an example (and maybe a bass line and rhythm gtr line as well) your talking anywhere from 5 - 10 tracks and up right. that means 5-10ish mic pres and ad/da converters.

usually that means theres a mixer of some kind attached.

with ITB processing getting better and better, the choice of using a hardware mixer is getting to be more of a preference thing, and a matter of productivity. some guys (like me) just like pushing knobs.

[brandondrury]

I'd read and article in this site about the use of a mixer in the recording home studio, and is says clearly that do not buy one and spend the $$$ in a good soundcard or mic preamp

Well, that isn't exactly accurate. As the title says you don't NEED a mixer like you did before. There are other ways around it entirely.

As for drums, I can record up to 18 tracks simultaneously with my Presonus Firepod and M-Audio Octane ADAT rig without ever touching a mixer because the Firepod has 8 built in pres and the Octane has another 8 pres. (The other 2 inputs are via S/PDIF digital inputs which I use outboard pres and my Mytek converters).

i think you've answered your own question. if your recording drums as an example (and maybe a bass line and rhythm gtr line as well) your talking anywhere from 5 - 10 tracks and up right. that means 5-10ish mic pres and ad/da converters.

usually that means theres a mixer of some kind attached.

This is 2003 thinking. That's all changed. There are tons of audio interfaces on the market now with built in pres and built in routing matrix thingies (for headphone mixes, etc) that pretty much replace the mixer entirely.

My Mackie 1604, which was required when using my M-Audio Delta 1010 audio interfaces is collecting dust these days.

with ITB processing getting better and better, the choice of using a hardware mixer is getting to be more of a preference thing, and a matter of productivity. some guys (like me) just like pushing knobs.

I think it's an issue of price. If I had to buy 20 channels of outboard compression, it would kill me! A mixer with good, flexible parametric eq would cost a fortune. On top of that, the effects and stuff would be cost prohibitive as well. People keep telling me that I need to try to mix on a console. That sounds great and all, but realistically it's not friendly to the wallet.


Brandon

[kyle barton]

Originally Posted by brandondrury

This is 2003 thinking. That's all changed.

thats why i said "usually"

[brandondrury]

Yeah, but "usually" isn't accurate. In 2008, I'm sure that there usually isn't a mixer involved. Most people who buy a Presonus Firepod or whatever aren't going to bother with a mixer too. In fact, from what I've gathered, the people using the mixers are the ones trying to record multi-channels of drums into a 2 channel audio interface.

Of course, the mixers with Firewire or USB outputs are popular now as well, so that can complicate things a tad, but still I'd bet that most people aren't using a mixer.

Brandon