Steve44 Posted February 25, 2001 Share Posted February 25, 2001 This morning I managed to get some awesome grungy distorted tones out of my K5000S and since I'm doing some electro-acoustic music, I figured I'd record some loops to use in Kyma and stuff in my school's lab. Unfortunately, my college setup didn't seem to work well for recording. Here's the problem: I run nearly everything through the not-so-flexible mixer on my Fender Passport 250. It's a 4mono/2stereo channel mixer with a tape out and only a mono aux send/stereo return. There are also preamp inserts that I'm not using. My normal setup has my keyboard going into channels one and two and my computer going into the stereo channel 5/6. I have the Tape Out patched to the computer's input. Unfortunately, I couldn't get decent levels out of the Tape out with out making absolutely nasty levels with the amp and waking up my suitemates. I was able to remedy this by turning the amp controls basically off since it doesn't affect the Tape Out level. However, then I have no monitoring because the amp is too loud and the headphone jack is even too loud. I guess I could've turned the synth down so that the headphone jack wasn't ear-splitting, but then I might have lost some headroom on the mixer section. I couldn't even monitor through my computer's aux out because it's an SBLive which is half-duplex. My eventual solution was to plug my little HK/Dell computer speakers into my synth's headphone jack, and then my headphones into the speaker, in order to attenuate the signal a bit. I also ended up going direct from my keyboard to the computer because I was tired of all the different controls on the mixer. However, I would really like to be able to make this work. I think the main problem is that the tape-out level is much lower than it could be.. mostly because my synth's level is so hot that the volume on the mixer is normally barely passed 1/4 up, or 9 o'clock. I had to crank it at least past 12 (1/2 way) to get a decent response in the computer, but that forced me to turn the amp almost off. Is there something I'm missing? I think it would've been much easier if my synth had a separate headphone volume control.. but what I really wanted was to monitor through the Passport and use its output into the soundcard, but as I mentioned there are major level problems. Should I have tried plugging the tape out into the Mic input? I didn't think of that until just now.. it would certainly boost up the level.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Bryce Posted February 25, 2001 Share Posted February 25, 2001 Here's the problem: I run nearly everything through the not-so-flexible mixer on my Fender Passport 250. Why not just plug the synth right into the computer? I don't know that particular mixer very well, but I believe that the Passport product line is intended for PA use - I don't believe Fender makes any recording products, do they? Consequently, it may not have the cleanest specs you ever wanna see... I have digital taps off of my QS stuff and Kurz stuff right into the 2408 (using the AI-1 as a switcher/router) specifically for that purpose - just seems to make more sense to me to bypass the mixer. Admittedly, I'm doing it in the dig domain, which is a touch different...but the principle remains the same, yes? The shortest signal path is usually the cleanest way to go, unless you need your mixer to add something (EQ, fx, whatever). dB ==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <== Professional Affiliations: Royer Labs • Music Player Network Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve44 Posted February 26, 2001 Author Share Posted February 26, 2001 Why not just plug the synth right into the computer? That's what I ended up doing, however the SBLive card doesn't monitor and also doesn't seem to have enough level at the record input. However I think that the program I was using to record had faulty meters because the audio ended up at a much higher level than it had said. Since I had to turn it up so much, though, the headphone jack was way too loud for me. Plus I need a new 1/4" - 1/8" adapter because mine is too fat to fit into the sound card and still use the jacks around it. I'm now running it into the mic-input to solve the level problems and allow me to monitor it all through the "mixer". It may not be the best quality, but I'll see later on if it adds any noise. -Steve p.s. I like your bold style of quoting without using the big "Quoted by" label.. it saves space. I think I'm gonna steal it http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/wink.gif Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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