Back when all the action took place at the console, writing what
instrument was on each input channel on a piece of drafting tape was
all you needed to keep track of what was going on. If the bass guitar
needed less midrange, you found "bass" or "b-gtr" on the tape and
turned down the midrange EQ on that strip. If the vocal was too loud,
you found "voc" on the tape and pulled down the fader on that channel.
If the snare track "Peak LED" was flashing, you backed off on the
input gain on that channel. Simple, logical and all right in front of
you.

Now when something goes wrong, you first have to figure out where to
drag your ass before you can fix the problem. Do you need to run for
the preamps out by the mics, lean back and reach for something in the
outboard rack, grab the mouse and click till something happens or just
pretend you don't hear anything wrong? I work on location, but the
problem seems to be just as bad back in the studio. Guys who track
one thing at a time don't have this problem, but anyone recording live
bands has probably found himself wishing he still controlled
everything from a single (well labelled) console.

Even the 2-inch 24trk tape machine was indexed by that one piece of
tape, at least with in-line consoles. If you looked over at the tape
machine and the LED for ch17 just turned dark red and stayed that way,
a quick glance at ch17 on the console told you it was the tuba player
and you looked out into the room to see he had decided to stand up and
his mic was now halfway down the bell of his instrument.

But now we carry around a rack of preamps, maybe a rack of outboard
and a multi track recorder the size of a shoebox. You might be
recording 24 tracks but all of your mic preamps are numbered 1&2, 1&2,
L&R, 1, 1, 1, 1&2.... you get the idea. Same with all of your other
outboard. The conga player might be on ch3 of your 4ch API mic
preamp, ch1 of a 2ch compressor, connected to single channel EQ and
then recorded on ch17 of your HD recorder. Your listening to the band
run down a take and all of a sudden the saxophone disappears. Your
watching him blow like crazy through the window, but there's nothing
coming out of the monitors - where do you start? What's the smart-guy
solution to getting all of this back under control as well as it was
when a single piece of tape contained all the info you needed to run a
session?

(please no wise-ass replies from folks who do everything inside their
DAW where they have a virtual console labelled with a virtual piece of
tape. This is for those of us who are swimming in a sea of outboard
where everything is on ch1.)

In article writes:

(please no wise-ass replies from folks who do everything inside their
DAW where they have a virtual console labelled with a virtual piece of
tape. This is for those of us who are swimming in a sea of outboard
where everything is on ch1.)

How about those of us who still use an analog console? I still use
white tape. The only problem is that I no longer have tape boxes in
which to store the tape (my "mix automation data") so I have to stick
it on the hard drive.




--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

(hollywood_steve) wrote in message . com...
Back when all the action took place at the console, writing what
instrument was on each input channel on a piece of drafting tape was
all you needed to keep track of what was going on. If the bass guitar
needed less midrange, you found "bass" or "b-gtr" on the tape and
turned down the midrange EQ on that strip. If the vocal was too loud,
you found "voc" on the tape and pulled down the fader on that channel.
If the snare track "Peak LED" was flashing, you backed off on the
input gain on that channel. Simple, logical and all right in front of
you.

SNIP

The one thing that drives me buggy with PC DAW's is the fact that wave
drivers are assigned in pairs (unless I missed the secret handshake or
something).

So when you are tracking something mono, you can't playback something
on output "One", and record on input "Two" You have to switch your
input or output to a different pair of I/O on your hardware.

With an analog deck, or I assume with a hardware digital recorder, you
can track on track two while playing back on track one.

If there is a PC hardware/software combination that lets you split
wave drivers out from stereo pairs I'd love to hear about it.

Analogeezer

in all sincerity, how could you have a "sea" of outboard all on ch1?

to me the whole digital thing is a workflow blessing. i think
different people's brains are wired-up differently. i can rip apart,
troubleshoot, and build computers/daw's all day long. but when you
start talking about half-normalled analog patch-bays, my brain turns
to jello.



(please no wise-ass replies from folks who do everything inside their
DAW where they have a virtual console labelled with a virtual piece of
tape. This is for those of us who are swimming in a sea of outboard
where everything is on ch1.)

"xy" wrote in message
om...
in all sincerity, how could you have a "sea" of outboard all on ch1?


my point was that I have studio filled with mic preamps and they are all
labelled "ch1" except for a handful of ch2s and one each ch3 and ch4.
That's not quite as useful as a console with ch1, 2, 3, 4, ......etc.
Outboard gear all assumes that you have one unit; how do you relate your six
preamps labelled Ch1 to six channels on your recorder?

steve

"hurtin_for_certain" wrote in message . com...


my point was that I have studio filled with mic preamps and they are all
labelled "ch1" except for a handful of ch2s and one each ch3 and ch4.
That's not quite as useful as a console with ch1, 2, 3, 4, ......etc.
Outboard gear all assumes that you have one unit; how do you relate your six
preamps labelled Ch1 to six channels on your recorder?



Wait, you're complaining that all your mic pres being labeled "Ch 1"
or "Ch 2" is confusing (you can even read all those tiny front-panel
legends? Good eyes, Steve)...and you're longing for the good old days
when you ran a piece of white drafting tape across the fader strip &
wrote "clarinet", "tuba" "overhead L-R" etc?

Drafting tape is still your friend: My outboard pres & processors
*always* have a tab of white tape with the name of the source
instrument written on them.

Back in the 2" days (must confess it's been a few years) I'd throw 3
strips of white tape under the multitrack's meters and label *that* w/
instrument names too. Who cares if it's Channel 17 or Channel 18
that's making funny noises, when everything's labeled "tuba" you know
who the culprit is regardless of which direction you're looking.

In article writes:

i can rip apart,
troubleshoot, and build computers/daw's all day long. but when you
start talking about half-normalled analog patch-bays, my brain turns
to jello.

I'm exactly the opposite. Furthermore, I have no interest in learning
how to build computers and DAWs. Got any job openings? Want a job?


--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

my point was that I have studio filled with mic preamps and they are all
labelled "ch1" except for a handful of ch2s and one each ch3 and ch4.
That's not quite as useful as a console with ch1, 2, 3, 4, ......etc.
Outboard gear all assumes that you have one unit; how do you relate your six
preamps labelled Ch1 to six channels on your recorder?

Documentation. You document that Track 1 is the kick drum going from
an RE20 (insert the serial number if you're thorough) through Ch1 on
Great River #1 to 1176#1. Where do you put all of that? Why, on a
sheet of paper of course. And you buy some empty 10-1/2" tape reel
boxes to store the hard drive, backup disks, and paper documentation.

The other thing you can do us stick Post-It labels on each preamp and
processor with a note as to what it's presently doing. Or just
remember what you've set up long enough to make the basic adjustments,
and then don't screw with it once you start tracking.






--
I'm really Mike Rivers - )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo