Hey all,


I've heard really good things about these soundcraft mixers the compact 4 and compact 10. I'm wondering if one of these has the alt 3-4 bus, or something similar, it appears to be similar, do they both have it? I've heard some people say the preamps in these are better than the mackie vlz. I want the alt 3-4 bus because I've read that's the best way to have your mixer hooked up to your pc. How would you recomend I hook it up?

http://www.soundcraft.com/product_sheet.asp?product_id=121

My set up right now is a studio projects b1 mic, krk 5's and an adequete pc. As far as soundcards go, from what I've read on here the m-audio 24/96 gets really good reviews, but how much noise will you pick up from the unbalanced connections? Am i better off going with an m-audio 192 or a delta 44 for more money?

As far as RCA cables go, do people use digiflex around here, and then get adapters to turn them into 1/4 unbalanced to go into the mixer? What length of cable will ensure me lowest noise if i do use the 24/96?

Basically I'm going to be doing 1-2 tracks at a time right now, in the future perhaps more. But the compact 4 looked appealing for it's apparantly good preamps, and built in DI's and if it has alt 3-4 bus that gives me lots of flexibility according to you guys. and it says lots about latency free headphone monitoring which is important to me! I'm just recording myself, very simple, just going to be recording into the pc, and doing all my mixing and effects in audacity ( free audio editing program) and I don;t have need to mix on the mixer, the only thing I'd consider in the future is a compressor and nicer preamps evenutally. Do you thinkt the compact 4 and an m-audio 24/96 is a good pair for me?

There are lots of routes to go.

The 2496 card will do you just fine. It's a very good starter sound card.

The mixer, though, may not be the best place to start. It IS inexpensive ($100 or so, right?), so maybe that's the route you want to take first, then later you can expand, but I think you ought to get better preamps (than the soundcraft mixer) and converters (than the 2496 card), and you can do this by going with the 2496 (which has digi in and out) and then going digi in through an ART DPSII (there's a blemished one on zZounds now for under $200).

The DPSII has good preamps and good conversion, and you can use the A/D conversion later on in your recording career, even if you've bought better (or just different) preamp.

That'd be my 2 cents.

Hey,

I'm a little confused on hooking this up through digital. How does the exact set up go? You still need to hook up the inputs and outputs via the rca connections on the 24 96, which I've heard ups the noise, especially when many tracks are layered on top of each other. How will the latency work with this set up digital too? and how do i monitor through headphones without a mixer? and how exactly do I active the a/d converters or take advantage of them, I'm really confused on the whole matter. i understand your sound quality comes from the performance, the room, the mic, mic pre, and a/d converter mostly, but how will this set up work??

Luke

Sorry, I wasn't really clear.

Yes, you are right to be concerned about noise going into the RCA (and thus unbalanced) inputs of the 2496, but you probably don't need to be too worried 'cause:
1.) Even if you use the RCA audio inputs, as long as you're not using long cable runs (of over 10 feet) the noise probably will be fine. Yes, maybe if you have the ears of a seasoned recording engineer, you wouldn't be pleased, you might notice a wee bit of accumulated noise, but I seriously doubt it, even after many layered tracks.
2.) But more importantly, if you go into the 2496 with a digital signal, then you do NOT go into the RCA audio inputs (unbalanced as they are), but you go into the 2496's S/PDIF digital inputs, and there is no worry about noise any more. That was solved by the Art DPSII, which took your mic (or line) in, and converted the signal from audio to digital.

Make sense?

Or still mud?

quote:

How will the latency work with this set up digital too?

The 2496 is very capable of achieving very low latency levels. You should be more than fine.

quote:

and how do i monitor through headphones without a mixer?

Oh sh#t! There you're screwed...wait, no you're not.

Now that I think of it, all you need is a cheap headphone amp. Use the RCA (unbalanced audio) outs of the 2496 to run a stereo signal to this headphone amp, and you're fine.

But you're now missing a key component: decent monitors. You need something to convert the 2496's digital out from digital to audio, so that you can run this to your monitors (if you have any...oh yea, your KRK's). I suggest you scrounge around for an ART DI/O on ebay (indeed, look for all this stuff on eBay, if you're up for it....cause in about 6-12 months, once you've figured this out, you'll be upgrading, and the quicker you learn to eBay, the happier you'll be

I'm being cheeky, but I hope you taking my advice with the appropriate appreciation for the need to balance this with advice from others! It is just my 2 cents.

How are you getting sound to your KRK's now?

And what soundcard are you using (an Audigy soundblaster)?

That mixer's starting to look like a simple quick solution. Might be worth the $100. Then you can upgrade around it. I presume it will send signal to your headphones and monitors. It won't provide a great signal to your monitors, but such is life. The 2496 and the mixer will do you good. $100 is nothing. When you're ready to upgrade, you still might want to keep the mixer around for those odd times you might need it.

Sh&t, now I'm confused!

Hey,

Thanks I appreciate your feedback. Right now I have nothing going, i just have my onboard soundcard for scetching down song ideas. I did have an presonus inspire 1394, but had problems with noise coming from the rca outs, and the software mixer was glitchy. So yeah now I have the krks, and studio projects b1 collecting dust. I was going to opt for a behringer 1204 because it has the alt 3-4 bus for directing to your soundcard and the ability to control my volume through the mixer, and not have to rely on controling the volume of my monitors and in the pc. Some people told me the soundcraft compact 4 is really worth it, better preamps than the behringer, and some people compare them to the mackie vlz pro series. Here in Canada they're $249, damn exchange rate! the behringer ub1204 is $160.

My idea before was to pick up a m-audio delta 44. which has 4 balanced ins and outs. I would connect the ins to a high quality preamps, (not sure what to opt for)and then for the headphones, I would connect a cable that goes from two 1/4 outs to one stereo 1/4. Kind of like a y cable and then hook the headphones into that and route it in the software. but then again you were talking about a digital connection, something I know nothing about. Hmmm Not sure what my best option is, I'll only be doing a few tracks at a time, so I thought before I'd rather spend a bit of money on a preamp with two inputs, hi-z inputs, etc, but then there is the monitoring solution?

quote:

Thanks I appreciate your feedback. Right now I have nothing going, i just have my onboard soundcard for scetching down song ideas. I did have an presonus inspire 1394, but had problems with noise coming from the rca outs, and the software mixer was glitchy.

I have heard someone else comment about a noisy 1394, or perhaps that was you too.

quote:

So yeah now I have the krks, and studio projects b1 collecting dust. I was going to opt for a behringer 1204 because it has the alt 3-4 bus for directing to your soundcard and the ability to control my volume through the mixer, and not have to rely on controling the volume of my monitors and in the pc. Some people told me the soundcraft compact 4 is really worth it, better preamps than the behringer, and some people compare them to the mackie vlz pro series. Here in Canada they're $249, damn exchange rate! the behringer ub1204 is $160.

That's $160 Canadian for the behringer, right? I think the Soundcraft would be the best choice, both for quality and for company ethics (behringer pretty much steals its designs from others, which is why they are so cheap).

quote:

My idea before was to pick up a m-audio delta 44. which has 4 balanced ins and outs. I would connect the ins to a high quality preamps, (not sure what to opt for)...

Well, "high quality" is a pretty big word. The soundcraft's preamps will be OK I'm sure, and a bump up would be the ART DPSII (with A/D conversion) or the Studio Projects VTB-1 or the Rane MS 1B. But these are not usually considered "top end" though they might be considered "high quality," depending on whose ears were judging them.

quote:

...and then for the headphones, I would connect a cable that goes from two 1/4 outs to one stereo 1/4. Kind of like a y cable and then hook the headphones into that and route it in the software.

Not gonna work. At least, I don't think it will. You need a headphone amp between the computer card and your headphones.

quote:

...but then again you were talking about a digital connection, something I know nothing about. Hmmm Not sure what my best option is, I'll only be doing a few tracks at a time, so I thought before I'd rather spend a bit of money on a preamp with two inputs, hi-z inputs, etc, but then there is the monitoring solution?

Well let me back up then, and let's look at what you need at a minimum. Then, you can make sure you buy components that don't lock you in to a dead end. That would be the primary weakness of the Delta 44, it locks you in to the dead in of only having audio ins and outs. The 2496 (or 192, or Emu 1212m) all give you digital ins and outs (along with the audio) and this is very handy down the line when you're ready to upgrade. Why, well you can skip the usually inferior A/D and D/A conversion in soundcards (inferior because soundcards are compromised by the electronic environment they are housed in).

So you need:

1.) A soundcard of some kind (with digital ins and outs, so you can upgrade the signal going in and coming out when you're ready to, without replacing your card)
2.) Something to give your headphones a signal (doesn't need to be high quality, just needs to allow you to track vocals and whatever)
3.) something to give your KRK's a signal (you do want this to be quality now, and upgradeable to better quality later)
4.) 2 micpreamps.

Given these givens, now you can examine possible solutions against your needs and desires.

Solution 1:
Delta 44 soundcard
Soundcraft mixer

Not a bad way to go. My concerns would be 1) this possible showstopper: can the soundcraft mix two separate signals at once, so you could hear the music on your computer (piped to your headphones from the 'puter) and also the vocals you are signing (piped both to your headphones and into the computer). Maybe it can. I don't know. [Okay, just looked this up, and it looks to me like it does this fine. In fact, it was built to do this. Still, I'd check with friends who are using it, if you have any.]
And concern 2) the Delta 44 has no digital. Maybe not a big deal, as your PC isn't very powerful, and if you really get into recording, you may junk it in a year an upgrade to a new PC (and at this time you can buy a new soundcard too). Though if you got a 2496, you can take it out of your old PC and put it in your new one. It would follow you as you upgraded your equipment.

Solution 2:
2496 soundcard
Soundcraft mixer

This still has my question about the soundcraft, but the 2496 has digital. Cool! You have concerns about the noise, but I don't think you'll have problems with noise. I think that was really a problem with the Inspire 1394, beyond its unbalanced ins. (But I'm only guessing educatedly.)

Solution 3:
192 soundcard (or at this prise, why not the Emu 1212m, which has better A/D and D/A conversion than the 192)
Soundcraft mixer

Solutions 4 and beyond:
These will all replace your Soundcraft with preamps of various sorts (say the Art DPSII I was mentioning, or the Rane MS-1B), but then you have the headache of getting your signal out of your computer and splitting it to your headphones and to your monitors. This would require you to still have the soundcraft or something like it (say, the Presonus Central Station, or the Mackie Big Knob....at least US$300 solutions!).

So it seems to me the best starter solution is 2 or 3 above; and I'd say, why not start with 3 as it only runs you a US$100 more, and give you superior components. You can then add to this latter. Say, pick up the Art DPSII if you want better preamps and A/D conversion. Or a Tampa which has 1 preamp, compression, and A/D conversion.

Wow...my brain is tired!

P.S. A brief comment about the Emu1212m as opposed to the M-Audio cards. The Emu 1212m is supposedly superior in its digital converters and in its ins/outs (in terms of signal to noise ratio), but that said, I think I've heard somewhere that the Emu's are more touchy about the computers they will work in. The M-Audio cards, from what I've heard, are very slutty in this regard, meaning they have the run great in most everything. Of course, there are always exceptions. If it were me, I'd circumvent these concerns by buying my soundcard used, so if it didn't work for my 'puter, I could easily sale it again and buy another one.

Lukeo,

I should probably share what I am using and have used.

I started off with a 2496. Had no problem with noise. Used mic preamps (which I still own...VTB-1 and Rane MS-1B) to go into an Art DI/O and then into the 2496's digital ins.

Now I have an Emu 1212m. This soundcard was installed into a computer built by a pro who tweaked the puter to work (which is why I hesitate about recommending this card as it may be more finicky than the 2496 or 192...but then again, it may not, I just don't know). I use the same mic pre-amps but no longer need the Art DI/O, as I've been told (but I haven't teseted this) that the Emu's converters should be better than the Art's. Who knows.

Peace,
Fox

I'm in the process (slow as hell) of upgrading or adding to an E-MU 1820M. I will actually be keeping this 1820M setup for a few quality and convenience reasons. The thing is really like a Swiss Army Knife, I think even as I outgrow it, I will always find a use for it.

Essentially I need more I/O and unfortunately the E-MU hot docks won't firewire together for this purpose (you can firewire to external drives however). I'm looking at MOTU as a next step up for more I/O and some sort of console with decent pres to do the rest. The mixer/console is where I get stuck... ugh!

But... For what it is the E-MU, in my less-than-professional opinion is a great way to go if you're a songwriter doing your own thing. The Pre-amps in the dock are TF Pro pres -- not bad quality from everything I've read on Ted Fletcher, aside from the very public and nasty fight with new owners of Joe Meek -- which by the way is coming almost exclusively from the Joe Meek guy. I personally won't do business with anyone who bashes his/her competition in that way, very poor business practice, regardless of the claim he has against Fletcher (there are better ways of handling this). Fletcher Pre-amps I believe are still built in England, as opposed to the Chinese Meek stuff, which is a nice plus, even though Chinese quality control with reagrd to manufacturing is constantly improving and won't be an issue much longer. This I know because I work with Chinese manufacturers on a consistent basis - things in China are improving. Sorry, that's a tangent.

The A/D D/A converters in the 1820M and the 1212M are the same used in the Digi 002, so that's a plus. There are Pro Tools guys that will swear on a stack of bibles that this is NOT the case, they are wrong. The converters are the same.

There are advantages to the E-MU 1820M and probably the 1212M as well, in my opinion that outstrip most of the other smaller setups:

1) You're not locked into using Pro Tools, you can use anything you're used to using that supports ASIO: Cubase, Sonar, Ableton, etc. Most of the DAWS do similar things now and all are pretty efficient, it's just a matter of which flavor you prefer.

2) The converters will support clock of 192k if you ever need that - I find 96k/32-bit just fine for me. Now, the caveat here is that I'm not really sure how "good" good is with these PT/E-MU converters. I don't have much to compare them to, however a lot of guys I've talked to that run the HD rigs bypass these converters in favor of Apogee, Grace, Lavry, etc. One guy I talked to is using a RADAR II, I believe it was, just for the converters and going straight to DAW after that, bypassing RADAR's recording software.

3) 4 I/O at 96k. I think most of the smaller boxes do this now, so this may not be a huge deal. I generally use two for acoustic guitar and then maybe a room mic in that as well -- however, my "studio" space is very inadequate and is another thing being remedied soon. I believe you can do 8 I/O at 48k on the 1820M as well, I don't like recording at the lower sampling rates though.

4) the onboard DSP effects are not bad either on that. Keeps your CPU humming right along. The caveat here is that DSP is disabled at higher clock speeds (above 96k) which kinda bites, but I don't use much of that anyway - I'm very much into this Indie/Garage thing going on right now with much dryer tracks. An ambient room can take care of a lot of that for you anyway.

5) The Neutrik connecters are a nice plus. Everythihng is ballanced in this thing, so you can DI a bass if need be, etc.

6) The D/A to monitor outs are all ballanced as well - either XLR or 1/4-inch. I happen to use a fairly inexpensive set of powered Behringer Truth monitors that several people recommended and that we A/B-ed against a set of high-end Mackies of all things, and they sound great through this little box. Now I'm told by my LA buddies that JBL is the only way to go with regard to monitors -- they're never happy!! Back to the old Chevy vs. Ford argument. Ugh!

7) Tons of connectors to an outboard clock, ADAT, Cat 5 for card connection, etc. If you have outboard gear galore, this thing will hook up to it via the virtual mixer -- although there is a learning curve involved with that thing. Also it includes midi I/O, which some do not. Nice if you have keyboards/controllers/guitar gear that requires midi to update its internal software, etc.

What I always try to do -- well, actually I research everything to death, as witnessed by several dumb questions on this and other boards -- is to get the most bang for the buck, like everyone else here I suppose. I can't compare the E-MU stuff head-to-head with other systems really, although I believe maybe GearSlutz has done that -- don't recall now.

I've seen a few other small setups in action that I didn't care for, or read specs that sacrificed one thing for something else, etc., but this setup seemed to me to be perfect for my intermediate, "for-the-time-being" setup. A decent price vs. quality balance.

As your needs grow, like needing to mic drums or have a little more quality in the component parts, you will want to upgrade probably. But, to essentially have all of this, which is the same pretty much as the Pro Tools Digi 002 minus the preamps I think. Avid uses some propietary thing I believe in the M-Box, Factory and Rack, the higher-end stuff is when you get into the Focusrite stuff, I believe, but I don't remember now. Anyway the point is you can spend $2,100 on the Digi002 setup which gets you pretty much the same thing, minus some flexibility in my opinion on both hardware- and software-wise (sorry guys I'm not on the Pro Tools bandwagon) as the E-MU 1820M at around $500.

The rest is good performing, decent gear, mic placement and acoustics, in my opinion. Which again is not a "Pro Recordist" opinion, I'm a recording musician... so, take it for what it's worth

Oh yeah BTW, the 1820M hot dock has a headphone amp and jack built in, works fine, but if you need more you can pick up one of the small 4-out boxes or a rackable headphone amp if you have a couple of people recording/mixing with you.

Cheers!

-A

Hey A,

Yup, I dug around over on Gearslutz to see what people had to say about the Emu cards. Frankly, it just confused me. Mine is fine for me, for now. I imagine when I get the dough, I might upgrade it. I should run a test of its converters vs. the Art DI/O sometime.

I can understand why people freak out about PatchMix. I like it myself, but I was willing to look at the manual before the card ever arrived, so I was ready for it. It's a very handy tool if you're willing to learn it.

Peace,

Fox

I think I only freak out a little about Patchmix now :P In the beginning it was kind of frustrating. But... I can see the power of the application, if used. I really don't use it for anything other than routing simple I/O. I don't side chain with it or anything.

I would actually love to use the onboard DSP effects, but I don't like recording at 44.1 - guess I could try clocking at 48, see how that goes.

I've been going back and reading my binder on this lately. Had to print out the PDF docs -- I hate that, most companies are doing these damned PDFs now as opposed to springing for the cost of hard copies -- ugh.

Anyway, the long and short of it... My personal experiences with the E-MU setup have been pretty good. Like I say, it's a Swiss Army knife, tons of I/O in all different flavors. It's not the "perfect" solution, although for a musician on a budget, I appreciated what it brought to the table.