Patching and routing in the studio (banging head against wall)

[Labrynth]

I feel dumb. I just opened the box for my bays. They are balanced. Thank you very much for the clarification. So heres a scenario question. I change my snake to line inputs vs XLR, run snake into patch bay half normal so it can direct go into line inputs on DM and there patch in expensive pres? I feel like these are questions i should have thought to ask when i was an intern but i spent all my time learning gear and mic placement. The big guy did all routing

 

[Labrynth]

Nevermind. Just thought about phantom power. Im just seeing my inputs getting fried being fed phantom power

 

[TascMan]

Allow me to fully advise you to NOT send phantom power through your patch bay. Fried is right.

...I change my snake to line inputs vs XLR, run snake into patch bay half normal so it can direct go into line inputs on DM and there patch in expensive pres? I feel like these are questions i should have thought to ask when i was an intern but i spent all my time learning gear and mic placement. The big guy did all routing

I think you are making this much more difficult that it should be.

Your routing setup should be and can be safe, simple and reliable. Answer these questions...

1) Why are you trying to split the mic signal to go into your external pres and into the DM at the same time? That would be faulty routing. This signal should be serial only.
2) What are you trying to ultimately accomplish? Getting the sound of your external pres on the signal? Then plug your mics into them and come out of them via the line outs. If you need an XLR patch bay, then get one and use that.

I would suggest NOT messing with your snake.

Your routing should be MICROPHONE to XLR snake input, snake XLR fan-out to EITHER external preamp or DM preamp input (using +48V if necessary). External preamp (and any other analog device you would want on that signal) to any line level DM input, be it either the DM channel Line input or the Analog card line input.
That makes sense to me.

 

[Labrynth]

You're right. I'm way over complicating it. I'll just permanent wire the preamps. And create a new pro tools IO layout to include them. I'll never need more than the 32 tracks tracking at the same time. I'm only going to use them on vocals and drum over heads anyway. Anything else will be FX through inserts or on mix down. Thank you again. I'm getting so anxious to set this up. And the waiting to do so is giving me way too much time to doubt myself and think of new ways to spend money to completely change my original plan.

 

[TascMan]

Such dilemmas we all must face...

 

[Labrynth]

Here's a couple shots from the studio. Well just the live and control rooms. I'm gonna do a video walk through when it's all finished

 

[Drumstruck]

Original question...

This question intrigued me. Could you plug a mic into the DM's XLR input, then send that out via the insert SEND into your analog card? So I tried it and, of course, it works. I don't have any idea why you would do this, but yes, this will work.

I regularly do this (soft inserts to outboard) to utilise higher quality EQs or valve line amps or compressors or pres at line level - can add much beauty to the sound. This is for wet recording btw.

re the DM pres - I agree that they're clean and offer a good amount of gain and do sound quite nice, but imo there is a point of diminishing returns - at about 80% gain I find excessive noise starts to creep in. Also, when using a "sterile" mic into the DM the sound can be a little harsh. So, as above, a soft inserted outboard unit (whether pre or EQ or whatever) can colour the sound a little (or a lot). The same soft insert patching setup can also be used for buss insert mixdowns.

The DM routing can be ridiculously complex, but once on top of it the benefits are (hahahaha) beneficial.....

To add another item to the discussion, you are adding more AD -> DA converions to the mix for each soft insert using an analog card. I hear other engineers talk of digital artefacts, but I haven't found them detrimental as yet in the DM convertors.

 

[Labrynth]

Thanks for the reply. I still have soooo much to learn about the DMs routing capabilities. Especially with two cascaded. I wonder if I will run into a bottleneck with the 32 in/out channels on the firewire. My main concern is when it comes to mix down. In my particular studio setup I'm 99 percent sure I will not go above 24 let alone 32 simultaneous tracking tracking at once. But I've mixed sessions with 96 tracks. (Never again) but 48 is a possibility. I wish I could pull a Rick Rubin and say if you can't do it in 16-24 tracks you can't do it. But alas I have customers who will leave if I said that. Sorry for the long winded diatribe. I actually have two questions.
1. If I used two firewire cards(I have two already) can I do 64 channels?

2. When in mix down is it better to route all the DAW tracks into DM tracks and apply compressors/EQ/FX through the insert point(the way I currently do) or through the AUX which I do not know how to do?

 

[Drumstruck]

I've come across the 32 channel bottleneck - atm I just submix parts of the mix (through the DM) and back onto to new tracks in the DAW - then slip the tracks a little to get them aligned or apply DM channel delay to the other tracks during final mix.

re 1/ To use 2 firewire cards I think you'd need 2 PCs sync-locked together - each would need to be running it's own instance of PT (or whatever DAW s/w)

re 2/ There are so many ways to do this we could write a book about it As above, I don't think the physical insert points will work for your DAW inputs. I use two different methodologies as my primaries - one is a buss based mix with buss soft inserts and the other is a DAW track to DM channel mix with soft inserts. Auxilliary send/returns apply to either option, but I normally use the auxes for 'verbs and other FX that are common to many tracks.

 

[TascMan]

Hi Drumstruck..,

I regularly do this (soft inserts to outboard) to utilise higher quality EQs or valve line amps or compressors or pres at line level - can add much beauty to the sound. This is for wet recording btw.

Yes, with soft inserts, it makes sense. By SOFT inserts I believe you are referring to ALT/ROUTING/Insert Tab and routing your effects that way correct? I thought the OP was referring to the physical insert jack on the back of the board. I couldn't think of a reason why someone would plug in a mic into a DM channel, then go out the physical insert SEND to the SLOT 2 analog card in. Typically, if you wanted to add outboard comps, eq, etc, you would (could) go out the physical send and return the effected signal back into the physical return within that channel. Or use the soft insert funtions.

Hi Labrynth...,

I actually have two questions.
1. If I used two firewire cards(I have two already) can I do 64 channels?

2. When in mix down is it better to route all the DAW tracks into DM tracks and apply compressors/EQ/FX through the insert point(the way I currently do) or through the AUX which I do not know how to do?

1. The answer is no, at least not at the same time. This came up a long time ago and I believe the reason was because the ASIO drivers will only see one device at a time. Even if it is the same two devices, it would see FW 1 and FW 2. You would be able to record from either one, but not both at the same time. Verify RedBus?

2. This is really a matter of personal choice. The way you do it now makes perfect sense. Routing for the AUX busses, in my mind anyway, works best for parallel effects. IE...reverbs, Delays, chorusing, or anything where you want to add varying amounts of effect to the dry signal. EQs or Compressors can, but don't normally work here. ***Now don't hurt me...I have heard of parallel comping for a number of things. But that's parallel comping. Typically, you wouldn't parallel comp or EQ an instrument. But it is commonly done for a different effect.

 

[TascMan]

Sorry Drumstruck, I posted at the same time you did.

 

[Drumstruck]

NP Mr TascMan - especially since we said much the same thing

 

[TascMan]

I like the pictures BTW Labrynth. Coming along nicely! Must be exciting. Is that you with the pneumatic nailer?

 

[TascMan]

Just had a thought about your large mix down dilemmas. You could mix multiple tracks on one DM (cascade slave) and send a stereo mix out via two channels over the Assign sends (or ADAT to stay digital) into two channels on the Master board with the FW card. Then you would have 30 individual instruments/vox and 2 channels of premixed stuff from board two.

 

[Labrynth]

That was a lot to take in. The two firewire cards question comes from a pro tools direction. Not sure how many people use it but I used to run a focusrite liquid 56, focusrite saffire pro 40 and two presonus fire studios all were firewire the two focusrites firewire linked and two presonus firewire linked then run into different firewire cards and use them to work separate in what pro tools calls pro tools aggregate. It gave me 32 channels of input. I was live tracking a schools big band concert before I had the tascam and minus some clock issues it worked at 44.1.

 

[Labrynth]

Mind you it was a I/O setup nightmare. And no Tascman, that's the contractor.
Who is awesome by the way.

Window layout:
4 panes of 8x3 glass with 3 air gaps.
Floor layout:
Bamboo flooring decoupled and floating
Wall layout:
Sheetrock,-decouple-quiet rock-4 inch air gap-quiet rock-decouple-Sheetrock.
Ceiling layout:
16 foot ceiling dropped tiles at 8 feet and LED lighting.

 

[JHTorch]

I just re read your post Tascman. Sorry it's early for me. If the digitizing happens after the insert return will my preamp function(color,eq,compression) if I just patch it through the insert point on the channel. If that works, awesome! My concern being that at some point or several the connection stops being balanced. Even with balanced patch cables the patch bay itself is not balanced being that it travels two directions. I just don't want to waste 8 slots on my board and snake for preamps then more when I get them and definitely do not want to crawl behind the desk. I'm not opposed to double gain staging and the DM preamps are very transparent . Sorry I'm coming from all analogue and bantam in prewired and set up studios to starting my first commercial studio from ground Zero

Hi Labrynth:

I'm in a somewhat similar boat as you (did you finish your assembly of the Argosy yet? -- What a pain in the tuchus). But we're working only with a single DM-3200.

Anyway, sounds like you're planning on doing a lot of multi-channel live recording. Do you have any external high quality converters? If so, you may want to consider patching your outboard mic pres to your external converters directly or through your patchbay. In my studio, we track through a Lynx Aurora 8 to our DAW. We normally do not track more than 4 sources at a time, so a single Aurora 8 is fine for us. Our vocal chain is Mic -> Avalon 737 -> Lynx -> DAW and use the DM only for monitoring. Instruments are tracked the same way. I use another facility for live drums.

Good luck

 

[Labrynth]

Yes JH, the argosy is a beast. I'm actually putting it together right now. I have two focusrite liquid 56s. I could go that option. They also can route into the tascam through ADAT(3 of them to full circle it) I think I'm just gonna say screw it and go back to the analog world way and use session sheets and hardwire my preamps to the desk and if I need them or want to use them I'll just use the snake inputs I run directly into them. Thanks for the idea I might go that route. Here's my work in progress.

 

[JHTorch]

Yes JH, the argosy is a beast. I'm actually putting it together right now. I have two focusrite liquid 56s. I could go that option. They also can route into the tascam through ADAT(3 of them to full circle it) I think I'm just gonna say screw it and go back to the analog world way and use session sheets and hardwire my preamps to the desk and if I need them or want to use them I'll just use the snake inputs I run directly into them. Thanks for the idea I might go that route. Here's my work in progress.

Oy Vie...you still have some work but trust me, once you've got it together and wired up, you'll be pretty happy.

Until getting the DM-3200 I was working ITB and using the Mackie MCU and extender. I put my analog board into storage years ago and only worked with a couple of choice hardware pieces. Doing the digital/analog hybrid thing I think can be wonderful but it takes a lot of planning, research and redrafting. There's a great article in the May 2010 issue of Sound On Sound about the analog/digital combination. I recommend it.

I think you should probably get up and running the best way you can first and then experiment with your work flow as time permits. I'm sure that as you work with the DM's, you will find yourself modifying your setup accordingly. I'm still new to the board and using it primarily as a control surface. We just installed the Firewire Card. My only disappointment is that it has to be the timecode master with the DAW but it does seem to increase the routing options in the board with the DAW tremendously.

Good luck and go for a massage once your Argosy is fully assembled.

 

[Labrynth]

Thanks, I think I just might get the massage. I have about 8 hours in so far. I probably have another hour or so. When you say time code master are you referring to the transport time code or clock? I used my focusrite as the clock for a long time. Just takes two ADAT cables.