audio buddy
I have an audiobuddy mic preamp and was reading that the Behringer would be a better setup. How would I benefit from this? I’ve never used a mixer before.
TIA
Meltinpix
Even the smallest Behri mixer (see here for one that is only $39US) gives you more options for signal routing which, I guarantee you, you will find uses for! There are lots of webpages with howtos for using a mixing board, and you can use any search engine you like to find them - or just guide yourself to audiominds.com…
'til later!
wynot
| Quote (Meltinpix @ July 03 2006,18:02) |
| I have an audiobuddy mic preamp and was reading that the Behringer would be a better setup. |
Not necessarily.
A mixer would give you more options for mixing audio before it gets to your PC, yes, which will be important if you are mixing multiple sources - like live band demos.
BUT the behringer sound quality would almost certainly be poorer than the mic preamp. Which is the most important to you?
I mic up classical guitar and sound quality is VERY important to me. When I started out I went straight into the mic input of my soundcard. Then I upgraded to a Behringer Eurorack mixer and used the mic preamp on that, going into the sounddcard . Much better quality....
Then I upgraded and bought a dedicated Mic preamp (another M Audio one - the DMP3) and sold the Behringer - again, MUCH better quality.
Thanks. So how do you have that setup?
Mike
| Quote (Meltinpix @ July 04 2006,07:19) |
| Thanks. So how do you have that setup? Mike |
mic(s)>DMP3 Preamp>soundcard
thanks. and Happy fourth.
| Quote (Meltinpix @ July 04 2006,09:09) |
| thanks. and Happy fourth. |
Your welcome, happy fourth what?
4th of july
| Quote (Meltinpix @ July 04 2006,10:28) |
| 4th of july |
Only kidding. At first I really didn't know what you were referring to, then I guessed you must be from the U.S.
lol
BTW, never recommend the cheapest Behringer mixer (UB502). Always recommend the UB802 ($49) because the UB502 doesn’t have phantom power. Silly to save $10 unless you know you’ll never get a condenser mic.
Mixers are handy but they aren’t necessarily better. The advantage of a mixer is that you can control your monitor with knobs on the mixer rather than using the software panel for your soundcard’s monitor. The disadvantage, other than quality differences, is that if you don’t have a real good handle on what you’re doing, you can easily make a direct feedback loop which sounds really nasty and even damage gear (though usually not, fortunately!) Or worse, ears.
I don’t think you can monitor with the 802. I’ve looked at the block diagram, and it’s kind of an either/or situation. You can’t route signal back into the mixer, and hear both incoming signal, and already-recorded signal.
I think you can hear both, but not record, or you can record and hear the playback, but not hear your incoming signal.
It’s somewhere in the ctr rm circuit, and the tape circuit. It doesn’t connect somewhere to make it happen.
Someone please correct me if i’m wrong.
pjk
You can record a singe mono track while monitoring that track and the stereo output of your soundcard with the UB802. To do this patch the soundcard output to one of the stereo inputs and the input you wish to record into one of the mono channels. Use the FX send to feed the mono signal to the FX output and connect that to one channel of the soundcard line input.
The gain for recording will be dependent on the input trims and the setting of the FX send for that channel. Set the other FX sends to -infinity to avoid noise and re-recording the stereo channels. EQ will also affect the recorded signal so you probably want to set that to flat on the mono input channel.
The normal stereo outputs are then available for monitoring. The level and balance controls can be used to set-up your monitor mix, only the trim, EQ and FX send for the mono channel affect the recording, all the other controls will just affect the monitor mix. You don’t need the control room stuff for this application.
This will give you a (mostly) latency-free way to monitor your mix which should give better results than trying to monitor using the “Live” feature in N-track. There will be some residual latency in the recording (due to the soundcard) that you can measure and compensate for (if you want) but there will be no latency in the monitor path (which makes it much easier to play along with the mix).
Jim
You can monitor and record Stereo with the UB802. Use the TAPE INPUTS and OUTPUTS. The output of your soundcard goes to the TAPE INPUT. The output (main outs) of the MIXER goes to the soundcard inputs. Then you are monitoring the playback from the computer and the input into the mixer (guitar, mic or whatever).
Dave T2
Yeah, I remember carefully investigating that myself (by looking at the signal diagram). There are various ways to do it, but none of them really very good, IMHO and IIRC. The Soundcraft “Compact” series mixers (starting at $100) looked much better in that respect: easy to set up for monitoring without worrying about direct feedback loops. Dave is right that the best bet is using the TAPE ins/outs, but be careful because you can still get that direct feedback by hitting the wrong button.
Still, a little mixer is handy, even if you only use it for the input side. But not necessary by any means.
Another advantage is that it’s nice to have more than one kind of preamp, especially for songs with lots of miked tracks. Every preamp has some artifacts to it, and if you have a lot of miked tracks using the same preamp, eventually those artifacts build up and color or muddy the mix a bit. This can be offset by having multiple kinds of preamps. And the Berries, while still just “mixer preamps”, are pretty good. A lot better than most affordable mixer preamps of only a decade or so ago.
Frankly, I should have mentioned the Soundcraft. IMHO, if you have the extra $50 to spend over the Berry, you won’t regret it.
On the other hand, the place to spend money, when starting out, is on your near field monitors. For nearly everything else, you can make great recordings and mixes using decent but very inexpensive gear. But you can’t mix what you can’t hear. And of course you need good instruments; hopefully that goes without saying.
Yeah you have to have the switch for monitor to ctrl room.
I like using a mixer because I can leave sources connected all of the time and just choose input. I use my computer for Video capture and I have an input on the mixer from my VCR. Saves from having to switch cables on the audio card.
Dave T2
Good deal, I’m glad someone figured it out, and makes it work.
Seemed to be a shame if people were picking them up and not getting them to work like they wanted.
I just checked the block diagram of the UB802 and that Tape to Ctrl Room is an either-or switch. In other words, you will hear either what you have hooked up to one of the mixer channels OR the Tape In. So if you are planning on monitoring what you have already recorded AND what you are planning to record - it won’t work.
I have the predecessor to this mixer (MX602) and it has the same problem. I ended up hooking the soundcard out to one of the stereo channels and using the Aux out hooked up to a Berry headphone amp in order to hear both the recorded tracks and the voice track we were laying down.
Paul
Vanclan, I think you are right and I was wrong in my description. Probably not the best way to do it, but I have the TAPE OUT feeding my Sound Card Input. This way you can hear the output of NTRACK (2tk to ctrl room) and what you are recording.
And actually, I just checked and I have the MX602A, but it is very similar to the UB802.
(IT looks identical except for some of the decals and the EFX are called AUX on the MX602A)
Dave T2