gibbie Posted November 11, 2001 Share Posted November 11, 2001 I'm pretty new to recording and I barely understand the basics, so any help would be appreciated. I just got my MDR about a week ago, and I could only afford 4 out of 6 D-sub cables which I hooked up with some difficulty (screws were too long). So I have 24 tape returns and only 8 going into the recorder. I thought I would be able to assign any input to any track on the recorder, ie, be able to record on all 24 tracks with only one cable (max 8 at once). Initially I had the recorder fed from the mixer's channel direct outs (on top) but now I am trying the submaster/tape outs on the back. I guess this is a seperate question: which should I use? I'm so tired I can barely read my own post, hope it makes sense. Thanks! Chris. :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hippie Posted November 11, 2001 Share Posted November 11, 2001 [quote]Originally posted by gibbie: [b]I'm pretty new to recording and I barely understand the basics, so any help would be appreciated. I just got my MDR about a week ago, and I could only afford 4 out of 6 D-sub cables which I hooked up with some difficulty (screws were too long). So I have 24 tape returns and only 8 going into the recorder. I thought I would be able to assign any input to any track on the recorder, ie, be able to record on all 24 tracks with only one cable (max 8 at once). Initially I had the recorder fed from the mixer's channel direct outs (on top) but now I am trying the submaster/tape outs on the back. I guess this is a seperate question: which should I use? I'm so tired I can barely read my own post, hope it makes sense. Thanks! Chris. :confused: [/b][/quote] Hey gibbie, I have a Mackie 24-8 with 3 ADAT's, which is similar as far as I/O's, I would imagine. I think you are going to have to use the channel direct outs from the board to the recorder. The buss outs on the Mackie are set up as channels 1,9,17 to buss channel 1, and then channels 2,10,18 to buss channel 2 and on and on it goes up to buss channel 8. This is all fine and good if you only use a maximum of 8 channels at a time while recording (almost impossible for a live band recording), but the work-around for this is to just use the direct outs from the board straight into the recorder. I was sorta bummed out when I discovered the Mackie was limited to this routing method via the busses, when my older board (Tascam M-2600) was able to do all 24 channels straight to the recorder(s) either direct or bussed, with the flip of a switch. Another thing you may want to consider, the direct outs on the Mackie board are balanced (+4); it will work going into an unbalanced line in (-10) on the recorder, (with the correct cable) but you will be recording quite a bit below the "unity gain" markings on the faders. I suppose you could have the board re-calibrated to allow for this mis-match, but it is not necessary, just watch the levels going to the recorder, or use the balanced line ins on the recorder if available. Hippie In two days, it won't matter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
S_Gould Posted November 11, 2001 Share Posted November 11, 2001 There's really no way to access all 24 channels on the MDR without D sub cables connected to all the cards. Each in/out is physically linked to its own track - no internal routing or re-configuration. This is just like an analog tape machine. Until you can afford the rest of the cables, your only option is to swap cables around to where you need them at the time. Sorry there's no better way. Scott P.S. It occurs to me you may be able to shift tracks by using copy/paste, but I haven't tried this. (i.e. copy tracks 1-8 to tracks 17-24, then continue recording on 1-8) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibbie Posted November 12, 2001 Author Share Posted November 12, 2001 Hey, thanks for the replies! I was up untill 7am last night editing a piece together. Kinda difficult, but I would just set the locates, loop them, and reset the locates accordingly until what I heard sounded right, then I would copy and paste/insert. It worked surprisingly well, but I could see a little more accuracy being helpful. Originally, I did have the direct outs set up, and I guess I will just repatch the board that way. The only thing I noticed was that on monitoring the recorded track, the signal would be weaker until I physically removed the direct out patch cord, and then it would play back at the recorded level. Somehow, I guess the direct outs tap into the signal? The inputs on the recorder seem to be +4 balanced, so there is no mismatch here, so I haven't found a problem getting a hot enough signal. I think cutting and pasting tracks 1-8 to 9-16 is the way to go for now. Soon I'll just get a couple more cables. I just fully extended myself financially for the recorder, and could literally only afford 4 cables last week. Thanks again. Chris. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gibbie Posted November 12, 2001 Author Share Posted November 12, 2001 One more thing for anyone who might still read this post: (this just might reveal my ignorance a little) Sometimes when I put a track into record, say, to cut and paste, one or more tracks will squeal (the metre jumps full on in the red, terrible ear and monitor damaging noise) and, uh ... what is the general rule to make sure this doesn't happen? I assumed that if a channel on the board was connected to a track on the recorder, and that track was armed, and the channel strip had nothing connected to the inputs, then it would happen. But I couldn't quite figure it out. Cheers, Chris. :confused: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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