I keep seeing videos of great artists using big beautiful mixing desks in addition to a computer - I.e. Mathew Jonson, or Steffi. I’m wondering how the have everything routed. They seem to be able to multitrack, so they aren’t just recording the mix output of the desk. But equally, they talk about using the desk for mixing, not just processing sounds before they go into the computer. Can anyone shed some light on this for me?
Larger mixers usually have group outputs and you can assign the channels to those groups.
If you want do most of the mix with the desk, but still multitrack, you could assign your drums to a stereo group, leads on another, pads on another group etc.
The main out carries the return signal from send fx or you could route sends into a channel and use eqs etc. and go from there into your audio interface.
If the inserts are post eq, you could use those to multitrack all instruments, too.
There are ofc mixers with built in audio interface, like Soundcraft Signature MTK series, Behringer X32 and others.
2 Likes
Most mixers have direct out on each channel. That way you can record every track separately into your DAW. Some studio oriented mixers are so called “inline” mixers and has a Tape return input in addition to the regular mic/line input. That way you can send all tracks back from the DAW for an analog mixdown. Not shure if the people you mentioned do that.
I got an inline mixer last year and love the flexibility it gives me. I can easily change some tracks to playback from Cubase while the rest is directly from my synths. And i like mixing down using the mixer compared to faders in Cubase.
2 Likes
That sounds like a nice workflow. What mixer do you have?
I’m running a mixwizard for exactly this - each channel has a post fader output so I can send DAW signals out to the desk and back in again. The downsides are no panning from the desk and the need for lots of I/O (and cables). TBH I still find myself predominantly mixing ITB rather than sending everything out to the desk, mainly for the instant recall which you don’t get with an analog mixer.
I got a 32 channel Soundtrack Ghost. Really happy with the workflow now. And have 8 bus’es to send to my Force, Heat and Bus Comp.
2 Likes
Ah yeah, forgot direct outs and inline mixers.
If you monitor ‘inline mixer’ and similar search terms on Reverb and on other platforms, you might be able to score a good deal.
I am a huge Mick Harris fan. Everything he did and does is top notch and to me he is the most underrated musician ever. On his twitter profile you can see him in his studio rocking the mixing desk.
3 Likes
Basically there are two reasons for using a mixing desk in the studio. 1. to bring together all the hardware for recording. 2. route the sounds from the computer to the console to mix them dubwise. That’s what I do:
3 Likes
I’m with you on that. When I found out he was Monrella also, I was stunned for hours.
He’s genuinely super talented and amazingly down to earth, he’s quite happy chatting to punters before/after gigs
2 Likes
Was about to post similar - tracking to get into the box, then once you’re done doing that, mixing to get out of the box.
Amen. I feel like many of us owe him. He seriously pushed the envelope.
1 Like
But tracking first means you’re in a two-step process, which is not very lean. It would be awesome to track and mix at the same time, but that would require huge amounts of outputs next to the inputs ánd extra DA/AD conversion.
It’s quite a puzzle. I long for getting back to a mixer, but struggle with this.
Great topic!
I do this in the box, through a scope system:
Instruments > interfaces (Ferrofish A16)>Ableton live tracks (monitoring)>Scope mixer
After recording/tracking in Ableton, the monitoring of the track is turned off (playing WAV instead of listening to the input) and I can track into the same mixer.
But to do that OTB is quite a challenge… It would require a lot of extra outputs.
And to get everything plugged into a stereo sampler.
1 Like
I believe Mathew Jonson and Steffi both have the APB Dynasonics ProDesk 8. this is a 32 input mixer with significant space dedicated to sub-groups. see the second image below. the entire section with the white faders is the group routing matrix. neither of these desks is inline. APB Dynasonics has never made a recording specific desk (to my knowledge). I have no idea how they’re doing their mixing once it’s out of the DAW. if you watch Steffi’s against the clock though, she’s not doing anything terribly strange. each instrument seems to have its own mono channel and the effect returns are routed to the stereo channels. she’s clearly just recording the stereo mix to Logic, though.
my guess, though I’ve never tried it, is that one could do something like sending to the DAW and back via the insert point on each channel. so if you have an instrument assigned to each channel, and an audio interface input/output dedicated to that, the insert would send your live sound to the interface/DAW for recording, then back to the desk for monitoring. when it’s time to mix, you just don’t play the live stuff. the DAW will send its signal to the desk (via the insert return) and you mix this down and send the stereo mix (or sub-groups, etc) to the DAW for recording and further edits.
1 Like
The ABP has direct Outs on each channel. One way of working friends of mine use is to “jam” the track and record the direct outs. The DAW is used for final processing / balancing etc.
of course. I’m just theorizing on how they may be doing both live recording and mix-down via the desk, without recabling everything in-between. that’s how I read the original question.
another option, since these are all line level signals, is just to route each instrument direct to an interface input/output. the input goes direct to the DAW, output direct to the desk. then you always have control over the EQ and volume of the instrument, and any effect or group routing is done via the desk so the raw instrument sounds are captured to the DAW. you’d then need to use the desk to mix down, add effects, and capture stereo or group outputs to the DAW.
all this leads to one obvious conclusion though: these folks have enough cash to be able to purchase a very nice analog desk and then also enough interface I/O to mirror it to and from the DAW.
2 Likes
Yes, this seems like mostly just workflow niceties at that point. Maybe it’s worth it if you have the extra cash. I do find dealing with external FX in Live a bit of a pain, and mixing with knobs and faders is easier than clicking around for me. But it’s a lot of desk space and routing to manage for us lowly amateur producers.