Studio Setup Help

[bionary]

I've collected a bunch of gear over the years (synths, samplers, drum machines, effects) with the intention of putting it all together one day. I kept putting off assembling a real studio environment for whatever reason. I now have come to the conclusion that I just don't know what to do.

What I want to do is have all my gear hooked up and ready to go at all time. I think I need a mixer that would be the central hub for my studio. I have a few line mixers and an audio interface with four ins and outs.

I haven't really recorded much because I used to sequence all my stuff and I was happy with that. I then got in Reason and ignored my hardware. I love the instant recall with Reason and that helped me complete more songs.
I'm half way decent using Sonar and Acid. What I would like to do is a hybrid of ITB and OTB recording. I'd like to work out arrangements and such using MIDI and then record to the computer.

Any suggestions would be helpful.

[nogginj]

The quickest / dirtiest would be to simply run all your gear into your mixer (how many inputs is it, is it enough?), then take the output of your mixer into two stereo ins on your interface. You could record full tracks this way, but of course you couldn't do any remixing later because they'd already be all mixed. Most people generally want each track separate, but like I said, this is the quickest / dirtiest way.

The next step up would be to use any alternate outs / aux sends on your mixer, and send those to the 2 free inputs on your interface. So you'd have 2 ins dedicated to a full stereo mix, and 2 inputs to use however you want ... maybe two sub mixes or just particular instruments you might want to separate out later.

Also depending on how many inputs your using / how many direct outs the mixer has, you could run 4 channels of the mixer into the interface and then mix those 4 signals later.

Finally, the more ITB solution might be to plug four instruments directly into the interface, and then mix ITB or use the interface outs to go back to the mixer. More complicated setup, but more flexibility later. Latency might become an issue at this point as you would have to monitor post-computer processing.

All of this really depends on your mixer and interface. If you let us know the model number we might have more specific advice. But honestly, the best thing you can do right now is take this little bit of info and run with it how you feel ... get in there and just set it up, dont worry so much about making sure its 'perfect'. If you just get it set up and commit yourself to dealing with it as is, you'll be fine.
I've generally found the biggest step is to quit thinking about it and just do it. Then I basically let the setup 'evolve' til I realise I'm not messing with it anymore.

[silikon]

What I want to do is have all my gear hooked up and ready to go at all time.

This may or may not be an attainable goal -- at least within financial reason.

Reason is effects, processing -- you're going to want to use those effects and processors on various instruments, in various ways, right? Are they all rack mount effects? if not, that's going to be a little more difficult (think stomp boxes and the like) to achieve realistically.

My environment is setup sorta like this:

All my synths, samplers, and drum machines are connected to a patch panel of 1/4" TS connections. All of my racked effects (or desktop effects that are larger) are plugged into the patch panel. All my stomp boxes and more 'mobile' effects are not. The mixer's channels and send/return are connected to another patch panel.

When you want to run a synth through certain effects or preamps, or whatever, you can route the signals at the patch panel accordingly, and then route that out to one of the inputs of the patch panel connected to the ins of the mixer.

Note that this works to a certain degree; and usually only works well where you have stationary hardware and rack mounted devices. it starts to get tedious and redundant for stomp boxes and things of that nature that are just as easy to connect to the ins/outs of the instrument and then route that signal out to the mix.

There are plenty of options to do A/D conversion to bring those signals into the DAW, and also options to handle MIDI as well. Having A/D converters with enough inputs so you can route multiple instruments into the DAW and mix them as separate channels are most desirable.

Being that I can't afford a ton of A/D in to the DAW, I have the patch panel setup in my studio so that I can route a subset of the machines (which really is all I need anyhow) as separate tracks into the DAW. When I use different machines, I simply do the patchwork at the panel and set levels accordingly.

And depending on what you're wanting to do, sending audio signals is just a part ; there's the MIDI or CV signals to allow you to control the machines to varying degrees from the DAW, as well. If you're running audio to stationary devices you won't be moving you might consider control signals as well.

[samuraipizzacat29]

the quickest and cheapest way I know of to do this is something with a high sample rate and optical i/o. best thing that comes to mind is e-mu 1616. you'll get two optical i/o's so that's 32 channels (with two adat expanders). that would cost $5-800.

don't overlook the importance of power control. I'd hate to have all that stuff turn on/off at the same time and fry something because of a spike. lots of GOOD power strips and unplug them while you're away. I'm dreading the day lightning strikes when I'm away.....

[Denms20]

I'm using multiple mixers with multiple soundcards. I literally come down, push the buttons on the mixer for the keys I want to send to the soundcards, and away I go. I also have templates made up in sonar where everything's set up at approximate levels, with what effects I would normally use so I can literally be running by the time the computer boots up. I have a fully miced drum set in another room, and a live room with two already miced amps, and a direct box for bass ready to go.
A word of warning though, I can't count how many times the setup has changed to get all this right, so don't expect your first attempt to be the last. And it does take a ton of gear and cables. To me it's worth it though to be able to go when the inspiration hits.