How do I record my effects together with the synths?

[Bitexion]

Encountered a weird-ish issue just now.
When I record things from my mixer through the computer soundcard, I don't hear the outboard effects on the recording.

My setup is like this:

Outboard 12-channel mixer where synths go in (Phonic 1705a)
Mixer Main outs to speakers
Mixer Ctrl Room out to soundcard line in
Mixer EFX out to Outboard fx in (TCE M300)
Outboard EFX out to Mixer EFX return
EFX Return level is maxed out, and send level is maxed on the synth's channel strip.

I adjust the ctrl room volume with the Phones knob.
I get perfect recording in Ableton Live, but it's like the efx send/return loop doesn't get into the recording at all. I can clearly hear it when I raise the EFX out volume on the mixer. But when I listen to the recording it is totally dry. Why? How do I get my FX into the recording aswell? This puzzles me beyond belief..

[aeon]

Mixer Main should go to the soundcard and Ctrl Room to your speakers.

But this routing issue should be covered in the manual for the mixer. I do not know that model at all.


cheers,
Ian

[Bitexion]

Hm, I tried that just now. Routing ctrl room out to my speakers instead of main out. But it was hopeless, as I could only control the volume of any channel with the little Phones knob, and it would always make sound, no way to get the "boost" away..plus I didn't hear any effects at all when I turned the EFX out knob. Don't have the manual for the mixer anymore. Hmzzz.

When ctrl room was connected to the speakers, none of the other volume faders (or main volume) worked at all.

With my previous setup, I control the PC Line in level with the Phones knob, it's very easy to get too hot input on the computer. Or too low input. And no effects come into the recording even though I hear them live.

Here is a pic of the mixer

[konvert]

Interesting.

So plugging in Ctrl room effectively disables the main (and all others?) fader?
Shouldn't do that in my experience.

How about plugging your speakers into your soundcards output?
(And main out from the mixer to soundcard.)

Or do you want to / have to have your soundcard's output to mixer?

[Bitexion]

I want the soundcard output into the mixer, yes. I use the PC as a gaming machine and music player, so I need to control its volume easily.

Also, I don't want to run my huge analog synths through the c**p soundcard (just a soundblaster audigy zs). I want their raw sound straight to the speakers. But this has nothing to do with the soundcard, though. The efx loop just doesn't go into the recording from the mixer, even though I hear it live.

Odd thing about the ctrl room output. No faders work at all when sound goes from that to my speakers (not PC speakers, Alesis monitors). And no fx heard at all. Only the Phones output controls sound level for all the strips, and it is never "no sound", there's always a moderately high volume.

I'll try to track down the manual in PDF form somewhere online.

[cornutt]

Does the EFX return mix down to mono? There are some stereo effects, such as some choruses, which "disappear" when mixed to mono.

[Bitexion]

The EFX return is full stereo (2 inputs) but the EFX out is mono (one output). I've used a Y splitter on the M300 input. Stereo effects like Ping Pong delay works perfectly,bouncing from speaker to speaker.

The M300 is foremost a reverb and delay unit. It has 2 separate engines, one for all the reverbs and one for the multi-fx (different delays, phasers etc).

I just can't get the efx at all into my recordings..

[Solderman]

Until you get a mixer that allows you to have main mix switchable at control room outs, I'm thinking you will have to monitor through your soundcard, and only connect the soundcard-outs to the speakers.
Once you have the more capable mixer, you would route main outs to soundcard-in by cable, main outs to control room by a switch on the mixer, soundcard's output to mixer's Tape In, Tape In routed to control room by a switch on the mixer, and finally mute the soundcard's input in your output volume control panel. The latter being that it still records but doesn't send the audio to its outputs.
If you think about it, this is like putting a 4 channel mixer in front of your current one's main outs and soundcard outs. I've seen some desktop speakers that take two stereo pairs though. Might want to research that too.

[Zamise]

Should always record from the main outs, well usually always. I'll usually monitor from the phones jack on my mixers, but not all mixers are alike, so if you can't get a decent way to monitor, then a second mixer might have to be the trick, and if its good enough and works like you'd want it to then you won't need the first mixer anymore anyway.

Using FX & Aux loops can be a little tricky, so good luck with that, always fun stuff with mixers, not

P.S. The Yamaha MW10s are pretty cool little mixers, I'd bet it would be perfect for your situation because the usb will record and send and playback from the computer like a sound card except better because its a mixer too, or you can use it like a regular mixer and forget about the USB like all the rest without USB. The USB works like a charm though, the dang little thing rocks. Its like my 4th or 5th mixer.

[Bitexion]

Um....rright..hm. So how do bands record their guitar effects and whatnot onto records? Sounds like you have to do lots of "get-arounds" just to record the FX into the track. Why? I thought it was "what you hear is what you get". I'm no recording tech, I just want it done easily

Sure, I could add reverb or delay in ableton live post-recording, but that kind of beats the point of outboard effects.

Honestly, I don't even know what "monitoring" means. I thought the ctrl room output was just an extra output you could run to speakers elsewhere in the studio. Obviously it's not. I guess I need to be spoon-fed, here

I mean, I've recorded music with bands in big studios, but we, the musicians never had to bother with things like this. We'd just plug in gear and effects and start playing.

[aeon]

Um....rright..hm. So how do bands record their guitar effects and whatnot onto records? Sounds like you have to do lots of "get-arounds" just to record the FX into the track. Why? I thought it was "what you hear is what you get". I'm no recording tech, I just want it done easily

Sure, I could add reverb or delay in ableton live post-recording, but that kind of beats the point of outboard effects.

In studio production, a usual approach is you record everything dry, and then add processing during mixdown.

In the case of (electric) guitars, dry to me means recording two things at the same time: the direct DI signal as well as the sound of any pedals-into-amplifier(s) themselves. As it concerns those pedal effects, I prefer only those that provide dynamic, spectral, and timbral effects, e.g., comp, wah, eq, "dirt," and sometimes phase. I tend to prefer temporal effects, e.g., delay and reverb, to be used after the mic'd speaker cab itself, as it allows for greater flexibility, the ability to re-amp, if necessary, as well as avoiding the sound of intermodulation distortion when you send delay/verb into a valve amp that is overdriven. Of course, the sound of certain delays, like an Echoplex, are part of the "sound," so they would come before the amp if necessary.

Synths are much the same way: recorded dry, which is to say the synth as DI plus the synth and any dynamic, spectral, and timbral effects needed to achieve the "sound" to the exclusion of any temporal effects.

And then the whole mess gets mixed and processed/effected at mixdown.


cheers,
Ian

[Bitexion]

Hehe you should come to my place and show me how to do all that..I don't know much about pro recording. I just wanna record some snips from my synths now and then. Preferably with delay.

Reverb can be added afterwards. I've heard the rule about recording dry so reverb can be added instead of muddying up the raw sound. But the delay is dependant on you playing while recording it of course. What about vocals?
Vocalists always ask for a bit of reverb so their voice sounds more spacey.
And what do you need an expensive reverb processor for if you just wanna add the reverb in software anyways afterwards?

The only real recordings I've done were in other people's studios where everything was just play and record. Or more like this: "Hit spacebar on the computer when you wanna record". All the tracks were mic'ed and set up for us in advance. And he showed us how to do punch-ins etc and left us to it, and we recorded a demo record during a weekend. I've done session jobs for other people too, same thing basically. Didn't have to worry about how everything was done behind the scenes, so I thought it would be as easy at home.

[aeon]

Hehe you should come to my place and show me how to do all that.

Sounds like a nice holiday!

Reverb can be added afterwards. I've heard the rule about recording dry so reverb can be added instead of muddying up the raw sound.

Exactly.

But the delay is dependant on you playing while recording it of course.

Nope. It gets added after, just as the reverb would be added.

What about vocals? Vocalists always ask for a bit of reverb so their voice sounds more spacey.

You record them dry, or depending on the singer, with a touch of light compression going in, and then for their headphones you send them a feed of their voice with an added aux of their fave reverb sound, but this feed is not recorded.

And what do you need an expensive reverb processor for if you just wanna add the reverb in software anyways afterwards?

It depends on what you want. I prefer the sound of algorithmic reverb, and the particular sound of various algorithms from certain companies, so I own those hardware reverbs. I have not yet heard the quality of a high-end Lexicon, t.c. electronic, Eventide, Kurzweil, etc. reverb from a software plug-in. Hardware allows me to send real-time aux send verb to vocalist headphones. Also, hardware reverb does not tax my CPU.

For someone who prefers convolution reverbs, they can make use of reverb in their DAW.

I have enjoyed tracking reverberators to achieve decorrelated stacked sounds that are ultra-dense. Also, by tracking them they can be sent to other devices for post-processing.

The only real recordings I've done were in other people's studios where everything was just play and record. Or more like this: "Hit spacebar on the computer when you wanna record". All the tracks were mic'ed and set up for us in advance. And he showed us how to do punch-ins etc and left us to it, and we recorded a demo record during a weekend. I've done session jobs for other people too, same thing basically. Didn't have to worry about how everything was done behind the scenes, so I thought it would be as easy at home.

I think it is relatively easy to do at home - it just requires a few of pieces of gear to make it possible to interface everything and route signals where you want. The cost of that can range quite a bit depending on how many channels you want to process at once.


cheers,
Ian

[Zamise]

Yeah I'm thinking the control room is for all dry levels with all channels too so they can hear it premixed, like a DJ does so they can do beat matching before they send it out to the main mix. Phones shouldn't do that on a studio mixer, but maybe sometimes they can... Have you tried the phones instead?

Auxilary and Send Effects are kind of wierd, if you tried to do the same thing without it you'll get the worst feedback loop ever, I don't know how it prevents that, but it takes a bit of getting use to when using them. You'll have to experiment with turning the levels up and down to get the idea. If your finding that delays and echos seem to only be working well with it, then try turning the level being sent to the main mix for that channel down and keep the one being sent to the Aux or FX up. Otherwise the regular level will just be sitting on top of the effected sound which don't work well with imediate or non-delayed effects.

I'm telling ya Bite, the MW10 or something like it with USb sound card built in would be perfect for what your trying to do.

Pro Studios don't use regular sound cards with one line in and out, they should have multiple ins sort of like a mixer in its self except each channel has its own track that can be recorded seperately at the same time, or they just use a DAT Recorder and skip the computer. They want to record each instrament as a seperate track with its own channel all at the same time, but we have to do it a little difrently since we are cheap and can't afford an expensive sound card like that by either doing multiple takes, or just have it all premixed the way we want on to one track and sending it to the computer with its one line input. Fine enough usually for most of us synthheads that have a mixer and our c**p is sequenced and all synced up already.

Anyway, I'd think the properist bestest way for what you've got would be to have your speakers hooked to the outs of your soundcard, that will always give you playback of what you've recorded from the main outs from your mixer into the computer. Monitor ("Monitoring" if thats right? Just means observing/listening to the output or a result), if you can by having your computer route the sound cards line in through the line out which is not always possible, if its not, then you'll want to unplug your monitors/speakers from the computers line out and put it on the phones, will hopefully work fine enough for monitoring while recording or just wanting to listen to all your gear, if not then stick it in main outs which can suck because you'll prob need L&R to stereo adapters, then just put it back in the computer for playback. Aux & FX send loops leave the way they are so you can send whichever channel with its piece of gear through it, that sounded like you've probably got set up right since you say you can hear it fine out the main outs.

I'm probably utterly wrong, but thats how I use to do it until I got an MW10. I use headphones instead tho.

Some mixers will come with 2 main outs, 1/4" and XLRs, that could be usefull too, but not usually unless you've got the jacks and adapters and extra bullcrap.

Your probably 500x confused now, so good luck, I shut up now.

Zam