analogue mixer

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yentz
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analogue mixer

Post by yentz »

Hi,
I am still struggleing with using my hardware in a hybrid setup as latency compensation on the inputside of live doesnt seem to be constant and changing instead which is a nightmare as working realtime i have to adjust clock offset now and then.
Now I saw that analogue mixers go exceptionally cheap on ebay and was wondering whether getting one would make things better (i was hoping to be able to do at least a rough mix so I can arrange the track completely record the tracks and do the finetuning mixwise within the daw lateron.
My fear is that I might end up noticing that "just" having an EQ just isn't enough and having a decorative huge piece of equipment I am not using.
How is it with you guys? Do you use analogue mixing desks, if so how exactly do you use them? what kind of hardware (compressors, eq's, other processors) and what is done within the daw lateron. How do you do the cableing etc.
It is really frustrating to be limited so much when using hardware that I end up doing tracks completely itb as it is just way more comfortable whereas I think I can tell the difference in sound comparing my minitaur and some moog emulation of a decent softwarecompany without any problem - which is a pitty.

sonome
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by sonome »

I find that having a mixer is a great alternative to soundcard with the equivalent I/O. It's way cheaper and you get more hands on control for roughing out a mix, you just need to be patient when bouncing it all back in channel by channel - you could of course get both! But then I would suggest the X32 or something. Latency is always tricky, I try to have it all synced up roughly in a template before I start working as I hate it when it disrupts my creative flow.
But my workflow with a mixer is really just for live or jamming, at some point it will all end up in the DAW for further processing / mixdown

Happy Synthing!

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Re: analogue mixer

Post by kertikristof »

If you have a decent soundcard and machine which can record at low sample rate, then the recording monitored back, should be in "sync", without delay.
Also the midi sync within ableton for example, could be used in two different modes, pattern and song, what I usually use to keep two drum machines in sync is pattern mode. Don't remember the difference s, but it may cause problems if you use ableton like that.
I use my mixer as a large preamp section, and record through inserts.
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Dussle
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Dussle »

Hello. I sometimes plug all my kit into my Allen & heath Zed14 and use that straight to my Tascam recorder all in one take. It has sends so I can route stuff to a reverb and the Tascam has compressors on the incoming channels so I can do some meddling with the sound.

I have a Strymon Blue Sky as outboard but nothing else. It sounds proper classy.

Essentially, it's good to restrict yourself with only those tools occasionally (EQ, Reverb and Compression or even not reverb & compression) just so you train yourself to make the best you can with just volume and eq controls but if you have an artistic vision that requires many hours of creation and sculpting, I'd say use Mr DAW. DAW's have all the good tools and to not use them is silly. You can always send tracks out of your DAW through a mixer then back into your DAW if your mixer is giving your track magic sounds.

The_G
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by The_G »

Eventually, I'm going to get either a Soundcraft or A&H mixer. No room for more gear at present, but this is a long-term goal of mine. Would love to get a Blue Sky or Mercury 7 reverb to go with it.

yentz
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by yentz »

I am thinking back and forth but can't really make a decision. It would be awesome and they are cheap on ebay but then it is completely cluttering and takes a lot of space - which I am short of.

Southpaw
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Southpaw »

Dussle wrote:Hello. I sometimes plug all my kit into my Allen & heath Zed14 and use that straight to my Tascam recorder all in one take. It has sends so I can route stuff to a reverb and the Tascam has compressors on the incoming channels so I can do some meddling with the sound.

I have a Strymon Blue Sky as outboard but nothing else. It sounds proper classy.

Essentially, it's good to restrict yourself with only those tools occasionally (EQ, Reverb and Compression or even not reverb & compression) just so you train yourself to make the best you can with just volume and eq controls but if you have an artistic vision that requires many hours of creation and sculpting, I'd say use Mr DAW. DAW's have all the good tools and to not use them is silly. You can always send tracks out of your DAW through a mixer then back into your DAW if your mixer is giving your track magic sounds.
What type of recorder do you have? Is it digital or one of the older Tascam multitrack tape machines like the 424?
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Dussle
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Dussle »

Southpaw wrote:
Dussle wrote:Hello. I sometimes plug all my kit into my Allen & heath Zed14 and use that straight to my Tascam recorder all in one take. It has sends so I can route stuff to a reverb and the Tascam has compressors on the incoming channels so I can do some meddling with the sound.

I have a Strymon Blue Sky as outboard but nothing else. It sounds proper classy.

Essentially, it's good to restrict yourself with only those tools occasionally (EQ, Reverb and Compression or even not reverb & compression) just so you train yourself to make the best you can with just volume and eq controls but if you have an artistic vision that requires many hours of creation and sculpting, I'd say use Mr DAW. DAW's have all the good tools and to not use them is silly. You can always send tracks out of your DAW through a mixer then back into your DAW if your mixer is giving your track magic sounds.
What type of recorder do you have? Is it digital or one of the older Tascam multitrack tape machines like the 424?
Bonjour

It is a Tascam DP24, which is a digital portastudio that records to SD cards, but only about 16gb, I tried to feed it a 64Gb card and it told me trop boucoup, so about 30-40 songs per card with an average of 8-10 tracks per song.

It has 8 inputs which I quite like and crucially a midi out that sends clock. All my synths and kit like the clock with the most current update, except my xoxbox which likes to be about a quarter quaver out when I use Tascam midi clock.

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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Andre_Crom »

I had (and sometimes still have) similar issues with Ableton and outboard synths / my TR8 (which i don't use anymore because it sounds shit in comparison to a decent sample pack, btw).

Called Ableton about it and they recommended to use external instuments via the "external instrument" plugin inside ableton, that helped me a lot already.

What also helps, is to always work with the same buffer size; even if it is as high as 256 (which i still find kind of okay to play with), which helped me to work with constant offsets; instead of raising and lowering the buffer size (resulting in the need to change the offsets each time).

Btw, when speaking of Offsets, you mean the "midi clock sync delay", which is accessed via "preferences / link/midi" yes? As for some reason the track delay seems not to work for channels with external gear.

I was struggling a lot with all these quirky things, but now after figuring the above out, can now use my external equipment without too much hassle, and enjoy doing so.

Southpaw
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Southpaw »

Dussle wrote:
Southpaw wrote:
Dussle wrote:Hello. I sometimes plug all my kit into my Allen & heath Zed14 and use that straight to my Tascam recorder all in one take. It has sends so I can route stuff to a reverb and the Tascam has compressors on the incoming channels so I can do some meddling with the sound.

I have a Strymon Blue Sky as outboard but nothing else. It sounds proper classy.

Essentially, it's good to restrict yourself with only those tools occasionally (EQ, Reverb and Compression or even not reverb & compression) just so you train yourself to make the best you can with just volume and eq controls but if you have an artistic vision that requires many hours of creation and sculpting, I'd say use Mr DAW. DAW's have all the good tools and to not use them is silly. You can always send tracks out of your DAW through a mixer then back into your DAW if your mixer is giving your track magic sounds.
What type of recorder do you have? Is it digital or one of the older Tascam multitrack tape machines like the 424?
Bonjour

It is a Tascam DP24, which is a digital portastudio that records to SD cards, but only about 16gb, I tried to feed it a 64Gb card and it told me trop boucoup, so about 30-40 songs per card with an average of 8-10 tracks per song.

It has 8 inputs which I quite like and crucially a midi out that sends clock. All my synths and kit like the clock with the most current update, except my xoxbox which likes to be about a quarter quaver out when I use Tascam midi clock.
Ok thanks. I'm after a cassette multitrack for certain aesthetic purposes but I've never used one so I'm just looking things up on them at this point. It's a bit of a niche thing so when I saw your post about a Tascam multitrack I wondered what you were using. Cheers man. :)
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Hades
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by Hades »

yentz wrote:Hi,
I am still struggleing with using my hardware in a hybrid setup as latency compensation on the inputside of live doesnt seem to be constant and changing instead which is a nightmare as working realtime i have to adjust clock offset now and then.
Now I saw that analogue mixers go exceptionally cheap on ebay and was wondering whether getting one would make things better (i was hoping to be able to do at least a rough mix so I can arrange the track completely record the tracks and do the finetuning mixwise within the daw lateron.
My fear is that I might end up noticing that "just" having an EQ just isn't enough and having a decorative huge piece of equipment I am not using.
How is it with you guys? Do you use analogue mixing desks, if so how exactly do you use them? what kind of hardware (compressors, eq's, other processors) and what is done within the daw lateron. How do you do the cableing etc.
It is really frustrating to be limited so much when using hardware that I end up doing tracks completely itb as it is just way more comfortable whereas I think I can tell the difference in sound comparing my minitaur and some moog emulation of a decent softwarecompany without any problem - which is a pitty.

I have quite a bit of HW, probably because I started in a time when HW was pretty much the only option,
and because I bought a few vintage pieces in the days when they were still more affordable.
Anyway, started with a small mixer, and upgraded to a Midas Venice F32 5+ years ago.
I could have probably settled with the 24 version looking back, but yeah.
I don't use the internal sound card of the mixer, I prefer to use a separate sound card.
All my HW is routed to 3 patch bays, who then go to my mixer, so I can route anything to anything within seconds.
There's 14 HW synths and 5 FX units here, so yeah, the whole thing costed me a lot for all the cables, but it's definitely worth it now.

I always tend to record my HW into my DAW asap.
I just record clips that are long enough and then start using the parts that I like.
It's always gone in flows, and there were times where I would use say 70% HW and 30% SW,
but now, for quite some time, it's like 70% SW and 30% HW (which is a bit of a shame if you would see my setup here).
I just find SW a lot more convenient to work with.
But it also happens enough times that I run SW through my mixer for the EQ, or through my Eventide, and then rerecord the clip.

I don't really get the difficulties people seem to have with the whole latency thing, tbh.
I just record my clips, and then I watch the audio clip and zoom in enough to set it right if needed,
or I just use the track delay and be done with it.
But I use track delay a LOT. I use it all the time to create different grooves with my rhythmic parts.
It's one of these things that take a while to get used to, and if you're not careful, you can keep on changing it,
but once you get the hang of it, you'll do fine.
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by toob »

I have a partial solution to this issue that may or may not be helpful depending on what audio interface you use.

I have a Focusrite Saffire interface that has horribly counterintuitive software called Mix Control (which is essentially a software mixer for the interface). Once I got used to Mix Control I learned that if you set up the routing correctly you can directly monitor the audio interface's inputs before they go through the DAW.

So... if I set monitoring to the channel I am recording in Ableton to off, but monitor that instrument through mix control instead, then I can monitor my external gear and the track I am working on without latency.

The downside of this method is that If I won't be able to hear any software effects I am putting the hardware instrument through. After I record I can add them to the channel no problem as usual.

It would be cool to hear what some live acts do. I bet people have figured out solutions to this mess.

yentz
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Re: analogue mixer

Post by yentz »

I am generatin a clock signal with a clock generator. the clock is spot on and 100% in sync with ableton. I can route all signals (abletons master out as well as the signals of the hardware synths - which use their own sequencer or get sequenced by the octatrack) in a behringer xr18 and everything is super tight. The problem occurs when routing the hardware synths into live. Obviously there is a delay between the signals generated within live and the signals fed into it from outside. No problem this is why there is an offset parameter on the clock generator.
So far so good.
Now the problem is that the delay between the signals fed into live and the signals generated within live is not constant. Everything is working nicely and 100% tight and after like 45 minutes the signals are off sync. sometimes stopping and starting helps sometimes i have to readjust the clock offset. And this is the problem.
This just occurs when monitoring the external signal within ableton with monitor set to in. I can record in sync this is no problem but I want to be able to have live monitoring in sync because it allows me to have all those nice plugins on my hardware signals and still be able to tweak my synths.
It works ok to record and then work with audio but then I find myself way too often not using the hardware at all and going back to software which I wanted to avoid for several reasons.
I suppose I might have to go for a better audiointerface and hope the problem will be solved then. Using a behringer xr18 at the moment but I am a bit "scared" to buy a rme just to find out that i am having the same problems.


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