@shovelhead I’m about to go down a similar path and see how I like it. I just ordered 4 Neumann KH120s, their MA-1 Calibration system, an Audiofuse 16Rig, an arturia 8-in ADAT expander and something recommended to me but I might return—a Mackie “Big Knob.” I have not yet been able to conceptualize how to combine a calibrated quad monitor system with the Audiofuse. The guy at Sweetwater said he uses the Mackie Big Knob in his studio and the studios where he used to teach music production.
By the way, whether I keep or return the Big Knob, I got a really nice deal at Sweetwater with Garrhett Kidd. He’s helped me get good prices on stuff before. His offer beat Guitar Center and Perfect Circuit who had a 10% sale going on and then for good measure he threw in all the new cables I’ll need for free.
Sounds like you’ll have a great setup with those Neumanns! I haven’t tried any immersive monitor setups myself so I’ll be interested in hearing your opinions once you’ve had some time with it.
that is what I run on one studio room an RME Babyface with SSL Alpha 8 ADAT and other studio room I use an SSL Big Six. For travel I use my Teenage Engineering TX-6 and 1010 Bluebox. Not cheap gear but my recordings need to come out best as possible.
I found the audient id48 very helpful.
It has not just 8 ins and outs but also 8 inserts.
(I have it connected to a patchbay, but also without one) you can for example:
record signals DRY
or
record up signals though connected analog processors like compressors, eqs etc
or
route &process signals out of the daw though analog processors and record it back to the daw
everything in really great audio quality
I did not replace the mixer (i got old reverbs etc hooked to channel inserts and the auxes) but added the id48. All in all a very flexible system. But i could also do without the mixer, just with the id48 and the patchbay.
I recently transitioned to a Zoom L6Max (4 stereo ins, 4 mono TRS/XLR) and a patchbay that allows me to route with any of the sources I have (turntables, hydra, elektrons, pedalboard, mic) to the mixer for monitoring, then capture that in ableton whenever I feel like it.
The patchbay also makes it easy to send any of the machines into the other machines that have inputs (in my case, syntakt, digitakt 2, octa) and also can send the mixer aux, sub to these inputs. It’s also normalled to my most common routing setup so if I remove all the cables, it is ready to go in a configuration that is familiar.
A bonus is you can hook the L6 usb into an iPhone and record the jam with synced audio/video.
Honestly I wish I’d set it up like this sooner, as it’s not very expensive (had the patchbay laying around, bought the mixer) and is miles better than any setup I’ve tried, in terms of just making shit happen without fussing about w cables. Note that you still have to deal with the midi repatching if you need to change that (there are midi patch bays but that is a level of madness to which I’ve not yet descended)
Zoom and Tascam make affordable combo mixers and audio interfaces if you don’t have the budget or want to spend a lot on something like the SSL Big Six. I did have a lot of issues with my Zoom L16 so personally would avoid them.
I recently did this, I when RME HDSPe MADI FX, RME m1620 pro and a Redco patch bay.
The m1620 Pro handles all the IO, 16/20 analog I/O and an insane amount of digital I/O. All my gear is plugged in. Between the Redco and Totalmix FX I have pretty multi unlimited routing options. I can create custom signal chains in the analog domain via the patch bay whilst TotalMix allows me to create almost - latency chains you can’t do outside of digital.
I mean, I can take a stereo out from my A4 its normalled directly to 2 inputs on the m1620 pro via the patch bay, the in totalmix I can sum that stereo into mono and route it back out to gear that only takes mono.
Prophet 10 split via total mix to multiple different effects, some chained in the analog domain, then the wet signal gets summed in totalmix and sent out to my cosmos to let it just do its thing.
The point is using a multi channel AD/DA converter which flexible routing software unlocks a lot of creative options whilst letting you solve really simple ones at the same time.
I’m probably wrong here, but I’ve toyed with using a patchbay for all my synths and effects for years (so much less expensive than buying a bunch of analog I/O on an ADAT digital interface), but always shrunk away from it because, while I want the flexibility, I absolutely don’t want to increase complexity to get there–this is why I’d previously opted for two analog mixers with a total of 24 analog inputs (but only 6 total outs).
I may be disappointed with the added complexity of my new setup (see above), but my hope is to get things plugged into my audio interface and mostly routed how I want them, labeled in the control software, saved as a template for standalone mode, and then the only thing I need to do when walking into my studio is flip it on and go, or maybe tweak the gain of each source and use the computer to access the routing matrix for sending sources to effects and inputs on some of the other synths. Conceptually, this seems easy, but this will be my first time using a digital mixer with multiple I/O. I have a Push 3, but never used its ADAT port.
I see it as taking on the one-time complexity of wiring up the patchbay, in exchange for the simplicity of having everything ready to go when I start a jam. Note that I have a lot of send-destinations in my system (octa in, dt2 in, pedal board, syntakt in) where the patchbay routing is helpful in order to process or sample these signals. If you are mostly just dealing with a bunch of sources that you want to plug in, get a monitor mix, and record, you might not get the same value from a patchbay.
Also I don’t touch the computer at all unless I am recording into ableton – if you already have a workflow that is computer-centric, it could make a lot of sense to go with one of the interfaces that can basically be a patchbay as well.
I can’t overstated how powerful just having a normalled patch bay is, everything just goes where want it, however if I want to split something or redirct a signal, just plug in a cable and boom, to can send it anywhere.
In my setup the m1620 Pro only has 16 analog I/O’s but the redco got 48, I can easily plug any out that isn’t normalled and plug it into one of those in puts, this is what I do with my Rytms individual outs, Compose in stereo and then break out the individual tracks and route them through more hardware for sound design.
I would love to get a wolf audio patchbay, digitally controlled analog patching
