Advice on routing between analog mixer and audio interface

[James Lehmann]

I want to set up a 16 channel mixer with direct outs so that I can send the output from each channel into a separate channel on my 16 channel interface and then into my DAW.

I would also like to be able to then route the output from the daw back to the mixer and easily switch between using the original source or the source from the daw.

Is there any way I can do this without plugging and unplugging a cable every time I want to switch between sources?

As others have explained, the tried & trusted technology to make this happen is called an in-line console, and if – as you've just informed us – you haven't actually made your mixer purchase already then perhaps that's what you should be looking for?

You've given no indication of budget, but it so happens I recently compiled an undoubtedly incomplete list of inline consoles you might be able to score on the used market for €1,500 or less:

• Allen & Heath GS3
  Allen & Heath GS3000
  Mackie 8-bus
  Seck 1882
  Soundcraft Ghost
  Soundcraft Spirit Studio
  Soundtracs Topaz
  Tascam M2600 MkII

Folks might be able to add to that list here.

As far as I know there aren't any manufacturers making 'affordable' (let's say sub €10k) in-line desks anymore so all the usual caveats apply about purchasing used gear that's probably 30-50 years old.

[Rupert Bates]

I recently compiled an undoubtedly incomplete list of inline consoles you might be able to score on the used market for €1,500 or less:

That's really helpful thanks. I've got to say I'm wary of taking on anything too old but it gives me food for thought.

[Arpangel]

I want to set up a 16 channel mixer with direct outs so that I can send the output from each channel into a separate channel on my 16 channel interface and then into my DAW.

I would also like to be able to then route the output from the daw back to the mixer and easily switch between using the original source or the source from the daw.

Is there any way I can do this without plugging and unplugging a cable every time I want to switch between sources?

As others have explained, the tried & trusted technology to make this happen is called an in-line console, and if – as you've just informed us – you haven't actually made your mixer purchase already then perhaps that's what you should be looking for?

You've given no indication of budget, but it so happens I recently compiled an undoubtedly incomplete list of inline consoles you might be able to score on the used market for €1,500 or less:

• Allen & Heath GS3
  Allen & Heath GS3000
  Mackie 8-bus
  Seck 1882
  Soundcraft Ghost
  Soundcraft Spirit Studio
  Soundtracs Topaz
  Tascam M2600 MkII

Folks might be able to add to that list here.

As far as I know there aren't any manufacturers making 'affordable' (let's say sub €10k) in-line desks anymore so all the usual caveats apply about purchasing used gear that's probably 30-50 years old.

That’s a good list, but I’d question the Seck, it’s "OK" but it has one major downfall, it’s noisy, compared to all the others in that list, the noise can be irritating really quickly, even if the desk is being used conservatively, I’ve used a few of these, and I’m not fussy when it comes to noise performance, but these really are the budget desk of the time, and it shows sometimes.
Depends what music you’re doing, you can get away with it, but for anything where it’s going to be noticeable, not good.
I knew of someone that used a Seck on classical sessions, it "did not work" that’s all I can say.

[Arpangel]

Footnote.

Take a look at this,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP2Omm93z3g

It really highlights what it can be like to own a larger mixer, and it made me think if I do go that way, it’ll be a modular design with removable channel strips, simply because of easier servicing.

[James Perrett]

As soon as I saw the words Soundcraft Ghost in that video I knew what to expect. They're home/education studio desks built down to a price rather than built for a professional life. Like you, full modularity was one of the requirements when I bought my last mixer although the one I bought has actually been very reliable over the last 28 years.

[Rupert Bates]

the one I bought has actually been very reliable over the last 28 years.

And what was that?

[James Perrett]

the one I bought has actually been very reliable over the last 28 years.

And what was that?

That's the Allen and Heath Saber that you can see in my avatar.

[elvish_paisley]

First post to forum, hope not too late to add to this thread...

I'm in a similar situation as the OP, lots of great suggestions. I'm researching mixers and noticed this diagram in the user manual for the Mackie 1604VLZ4 user manual.
[img]https://flic.kr/p/2oJAsy7[/img
https://mackie.com/img/file_resources/1604VLZ4_OM.pdf
pp. 11

It seems the 16 channel VLZ4 is the only model with direct outs (the 22 and 30 don't have them...). I'm upgrading from a much smaller setup, so starting with an 8 input and 8 DAW return setup could be interesting. Also a smaller footprint than a 32 channel mixer (as cool as that would be). With the plugs on the back a patchbay might make sense anyway...

Thanks for the discussion and ideas!

[Wonks]

Hi and welcome.

Whilst the 1604VLZ4 has direct outs, it's not an inline console designed for use as a main desk in a recording studio, so it doesn't have dedicated return inputs for each channel, switchable with the preamps as an input source. And the direct outs are only on channels 1-8, so you are limited to an 8-track setup.

You could use the inserts as a way to get unbalanced signals from an interface back into the mixer, but you'd either need to plug in the cables each time you moved into playback mode, or make up your own external switching box that either fed the insert out signal straight back to the insert return, or fed in the signal from the interface.

[Alan Mc Lean]

Hi Rupert.
I also use the Soundcraft FX16II with my DAW and it is without a doubt the best 16 channel analogue mixer for use in a hybrid system.
I connect the direct outs to the 16 inputs on my audio interface.
My interface has 8 inputs and i use an 8 channel preamp to give me the extra ins and outs. You need to connect the ADAT inputs and outputs in order to have 16 inputs and 16 outputs.
I take the monitor out from my interface to one input on my Mackie Big Knob
and the monitor out from my FX16II to the second input on the Mackie Big Knob which means i can monitor from either the Audio interface or the FX16II.
I hope this is of some help to you.
Regards
Alan

[Rupert Bates]

That's interesting thanks. I ended up doing something very similar - I got a Soundcraft LX7 II with 24 channels, so I have the first 16 set up in the way you describe and then the last 8 as outputs from the soundcard so I can play back individual channels from the computer through the mixer. I also have a stereo master mix from the computer coming into the 2-track input on the mixer.
It works pretty well although it's taken quite a bit of trial and error to get used to it!

[ajay_m]

Well, this isn't quite your workflow but it does more or less offer the same flexibility.

I have recently moved to a Yamaha dm3s as the central studio mixer, audio interface and control surface.
I have one scene set up with mostly analogue ins routed to the channels (from various synths etc) and just the daw main outs (usb1 and 2) as two channels on the 16.
In this configuration each of the 18 available usb outs from the desk is available to the daw so each channel is always available as a direct usb in on the daw side.

Then I have a second scene which maps the first 16 usb outs from the daw back to all the channel ins and usb 17 and 18 as returns on playback l/r so now I can mix these on the desk OR by pressing the two buttons together which put it into control surface mode I can now control all the faders in the daw (with bank switching) and I will see metering on the desk from the daw as well.
There are I think a couple of hundred available scenes and so I could set up further permutations with just some daw channels coming back. Additionally for each scene I have 2 custom fader banks giving me custom control of 18 faders (because on the custom banks the 9th master fader can control anything not just the outs).
I can also route any six usb outs to the daw, via plugins and then bring the returns back via playback lr, fx1 and fx2 which allows me to patch a vst as a custom FX processor and then tweak the params on the daw and hear the result.
This has totally revolutionised my workflow. I don't know whether this would work for you but the ability to dynamically patch anything to anything, have proper scribble strips with custom colours and save every configuration as a unique scene is terrific.
It's also a rather nice desk with great preamps and the audio latency at 96khz in reaper at 64 buffer size is around 1ms in and 2ms out.

[jaminem]

Shame...I was just about to chime in and suggest a Toft ATB 16...

[ajay_m]

Watching the soundcraft ghost video it looks like potentially the console will always be repairable. No surface mount parts and I think the channel boards are single sided. And there's a service manual it seems. That's gotta be worth £420 for somebody with the room for it and the willingness to do the odd bit of maintenance. I hope it goes to a good home. We only have the one planet and a lot of older gear is still perfectly useable.

[Jackie The Shepherd]

...Is there any way I can do this without plugging and unplugging a cable every time I want to switch between sources?

Sure. You just need an in-line console...

...or, second best, a split console with 16 tape returns.

...or, third best, you could use the channel insert point to provide the direct out and DAW return.

But if the insert point is a standard unbalanced type you might have connection issues.

As we have no idea what console you have, or what budget you have for a suitable console, it's impossible to offer more practical advice.

Hugh and Dave and all others, a very good morning from India. I am spending more time on SOS forum nowadays!

I take a cue from this old post of 2023 and while I am sure the OP must have already resolved his issue, I have one of my own, almost similar to his, except that I want to know how to deal with MIDI tracks rendered to audio inside a DAW and then return them to the console to mix them outside the computer.

I read up relevant parts of the manuals of the two DAWs that I have - Studio One and Reaper - and it appears that the rendering is done inside the DAW (I guess they call it In the Box ITB these days!). So far so good. Now that I have the audio tracks containing all the parameters that were assigned during MIDI recording, and I want to tweak these manually on my mixer, I would then have to route those tracks back to the inputs on my console, do whatever I want to do including applying effects and dynamics and finally mixdown to two track for mastering.

A few questions that come to mind are:
1. Would this not create double the number of tracks for each audio track that's routed back to the console? How to deal with resource hogging issues if at all?

2. Is there any way to directly record audio from the external synths (and may be software synths too) to record the MIDI tracks to audio, routed through the console?

3. If so, how do I replicate the MIDI parameters that were painfully programmed while originally sequencing the tracks, while recording audio this way? Am I missing any technical point here?

4. How do folks who use external mixers, do this thing so easily? I have seen tons of videos but no one speaks about recording MIDI to audio using external mixers.

Regards
Sumit

[James Perrett]

4. How do folks who use external mixers, do this thing so easily? I have seen tons of videos but no one speaks about recording MIDI to audio using external mixers.

It actually isn't that easy - you have lots of wiring and messing around. You only see the end result on the videos - not all the faffing around involved in setting things up. That's why most of us stay in the box these days unless we have something permanently setup (my lad has my old hardware set up in the studio and he spends hours tinkering in there but all my work is done in the box).

To be honest - I would stop watching videos. Most of them are made by people with no clue so it ends up as the blind leading the blind. There is no advantage to using an analogue mixer unless you are doing something like dub reggae in real time where you want immediate access to the controls. If I was to do a dub reggae track these days (and it is very likely I'll be doing one in the next few days) I would do it all in the box.

[Jackie The Shepherd]

and what would your answer be to my first three questions?

[ajay_m]

I believe my current setup can do all of these things, though I may have misunderstood something here in which case I apologise.

I also have an ensoniq kmx8 8x8 din midi switch so I can route any of several keyboard controllers to any destination synth. Then all of the analogue outs are routes to channels on the mixer.

These then appear to the DAW as usb inputs 1 through 18. With the new 2.0 firmware I now have inserts on every channel and bus, so if I want I can route audio through a plugin on the daw and back out to the mixer.

At present I only have 14 analogue inputs connected to the mixer and so I can put the daw l&r outs back to the remaining two channels by simply patching their inputs to usb1 and 2.

But if I needed all 16 analogue ins I could route the daw back to playback l+r although to control its level I would then need to go to one of the custom fader views, and in each view I can control 8 faders, but because if you stereo link channels you only need to assign one fader in the custom view, that puts 16 of my 18 input channels on a single view.

Then, as I said in my previous post, I have a separate daw scene which routes usb 1 to 16 back to the input channels on the desk and 17 and 18 to playback l and r. This lets me mix the daw externally. But if I switch to daw controller mode, then the desk faders can control all the daw faders in full duplex ie if I move the faders on screen, the desk will mirror this, along with mute, solo and record arm.

But even this isn't beginning to scratch the surface of what I can do. Firstly I have two sets of monitors on separate busses and I can send a mix to either of these and a third mix to headphones, giving me control of volume and EQ for each of these separately.

I have proper metering on all channels and in daw controller mode it's showing me the daw meters.

I can record the stereo outs , or anything, to a plugged in usb drive as a stereo wav or MP3 to capture ideas quickly or render a mix without faffing around in the daw.

Finally again with the latest drivers, I can either see the mixer as a single 18:18 usb audio device or I can split into four devices, three of which are 2:2 stereo devices and one is 12:12. This lets me run multiple apps on the PC eg reaper and obs studio and they can use different usb devices without conflict, then have all the audio come back to the mixer.

I have to say this setup has been a game changer. I never have to recable anything and I can route pretty much anything to anything. As I said, there may be a scenario you want to do that all this can't handle but it sure works great for me.

[James Perrett]

and what would your answer be to my first three questions?

I think there is lots of confused thinking there - I can't quite understand how you imagine these things work but I don't think it bears much relationship with reality.

All you need to do is send Midi to a synth (whether virtual or real) and record the audio output from the synth. If you want to use a console for some reason, you plug the output of the synth into an input on the console and then record the output of the console into your computer.

In answer to question 1 - yes you would double the audio tracks if you send each synth output via the console individually.

And for question 2 - if you want to convert Midi to audio you use a synth. I don't really understand the point of the question which is why I think there is quite a bit of muddled thinking, too much video watching and not enough actual hands-on experience.

[Eddy Deegan]

I want to know how to deal with MIDI tracks rendered to audio inside a DAW and then return them to the console to mix them outside the computer.

You'd deal with them in exactly the same was any other audio tracks. Route them to outputs on your interface that connect to inputs on your console, then record the outouts from your console onto new tracks in the DAW. However this is an over-complicated way of doing things.

If you're determined to use the console then don't bother rendering the MIDI synths as audio. Just route their outputs to inputs on the console and record the outputs from the console as audio tracks.

... I have the audio tracks containing all the parameters that were assigned during MIDI recording

I know that in Studio One (and I'm sure other DAWs) you can convert MIDI tracks that use softsynths to audio, preserving the configuration of the original MIDI track. This is so you can convert the audio back into the MIDI track it was rendered from in case you want to make changes. However once you send that audio out to an external destination it's just audio; there is no MIDI information of any kind in it.

Can you clarify what you mean by "containing all the parameters that were assigned during the MIDI recording"?

, and I want to tweak these manually on my mixer ...

All you need to do is send Midi to a synth (whether virtual or real) and record the audio output from the synth. If you want to use a console for some reason, you plug the output of the synth into an input on the console and then record the output of the console into your computer.

James' suggestion is exactly the way I'd do it if I wanted to do it at all (which I wouldn't!). Adding an audio render of the MIDI tracks in the middle is pointless unless your computer hasn't got the CPU power to play them all together in realtime.

If you want to mix on the console (I assume recording the stereo output back to the DAW?) you're going to have to set up quite a lot of custom routing in the DAW as you'll need to send the tracks from the DAW to different outputs on your interface, each feeding a different input on the console but it's a mashup of two different workflows really.

If you just want to mix using faders then a DAW controller with physical faders is a far better solution. Apart from anything else it's massively easier to adjust the mix later, especially if you record your manual fader adjustments as automation data. Then your DAW project will contain not only the MIDI and audio but also the fader performance for later recall/adjustment.

[Drew Stephenson]

I think one thing that's confusing me is it sounds like you're trying to route the actual midi signal through the console.

[adrian_k]

Hi Jackie, I've read your other posts and I think one of the reasons we are struggling to help you here is that you seem to have made some important technical design decisions (e.g. multiple PCs running soft synths, possibly using external hardware synths, using two DAWs, connecting the direct outs of your Behringer mixer to your audio interface), but we (or I should say I, at least) don't really understand the context of what you are trying to achieve. I can't imagine your proposed workflow so there are often a number of possible answers to your detailed technical questions.

For example - what is the function of the Behringer mixer? If for final mixdown because you like its EQ, the analogue-ness of it, prefer to move faders when you mix, or have some nifty effects on the auxes, then you really only need the main outs of the mixer returned to the main DAW - effectively using it as a tape machine.

If you want to apply your analogue processes and record them on a per track basis then either use the direct outs and record them simultaneously in the DAW (and do what with them, I'm not sure - mix again in the box?) or record the synth parts one at a time for mixing later (this is what I have done in the past).

How you are planning to use the mixer determines how it will be connected up (what are the inputs - the output of the main DAW? Or the synths running on the other PCs?)

Your questions about midi are difficult to answer because I can't imagine where the midi programming is taking place (main DAW, slave PCs, hardware sequencer?), and where you are routing the midi to (within the box?, separate PCs and/or hardware synths). I don't understand why it's a concern that all of your careful midi programming would somehow disappear and need replicating once you have recorded a track - it would still be where you left it and could be used to re-record the track if needed.

The best system design is one that is driven by the user requirement, and caters for 80% of the workflow in the simplest way possible. It feels like you have decided on an architecture, want to use the kit you already have, don't really have a clear workflow in mind, and are focussed on getting answers to technical questions that may or may not be relevant to that workflow.

I really think you should start with something simple and try a few things out - it will help clarify how you want to use this system and hopefully save a lot of time later. Best of luck in your journey!

[Jackie The Shepherd]

and what would your answer be to my first three questions?

I think there is lots of confused thinking there - I can't quite understand how you imagine these things work but I don't think it bears much relationship with reality.

All you need to do is send Midi to a synth (whether virtual or real) and record the audio output from the synth. If you want to use a console for some reason, you plug the output of the synth into an input on the console and then record the output of the console into your computer.

In answer to question 1 - yes you would double the audio tracks if you send each synth output via the console individually.

And for question 2 - if you want to convert Midi to audio you use a synth. I don't really understand the point of the question which is why I think there is quite a bit of muddled thinking, too much video watching and not enough actual hands-on experience.

Thanks James for your helpful advice and for the wonderful words used in your first and last paragraphs. They do help, especially when someone like me is really a beginner in these matters.

[Jackie The Shepherd]

Eddy and Adrian: Many thanks for your patient response. I agree 100% about my muddled thinking in this matter, which is why I am here asking for help. I'm no recording engineer or even close to that. I am a plain musician but wanted to explore the field of recording years ago, hence landed up with lots of equipment that were in storage for over a decade and a half.

I shall go through the points you and James have mentioned in your responses and do some introspection. Perhaps I should be able to make some sensible changes in my thinking to achieve an efficient system.

Thanks again.

Sumit

[Forum Admin]

Can I throw into the mix [sorry about the pun] the oft-overlooked SERIES III digital mixers from PreSonus?

https://www.presonus.com/en-US/mixers/d ... eries-iii/

They work like analogue desks and are superbly flexible, offer built-in 32-channel audio interface, tons of I/O in the form of Jack and XLR and AVB connection to their stageboxes, which are terrific too and work great in a studio context. Do some Googling and you'll find lots of YT videos extolling their virtues - a fabulous playlist from an end-studio-user in the UK. Here are some links I bookmarked:

6 videos: https://youtu.be/v0KzThwc6SU

https://youtu.be/sVC5iZb3BZA

Both cover studio usage of these consoles. Series III can be bought 2nd hand and little goes wrong with them and PreSonus offer repair/fix local service contacts too.

And if you can stand this guy's presentation manner (sorry), his video content on PreSonus Series III is useful to watch: https://youtu.be/LdJUucSq09s

Check 'em out.