multitracking into board and then to PC?

[canadave]

Hi all,

Since this is my first post here, a quick word by way of intro. I'm the "tech guy" at the small community radio station in my small town. I'm more a computer guy than a radio guy, but I've learned a lot. I'm also an amateur musician, so I know about DAW's, audio interfaces, etc.

We often have a guest, or sometimes two guests, come in for an interview, which we record into Adobe Audition. The problem is, all the audio is on one track. Ideally, it would be better to record each person's mic into Audition separately, so that if someone's too loud or too soft or whatever, we can fix it.

The way things are currently set up is this: We use an old AudioArts R5 board. We have two SM58 mics, one for the host and one for the guest(s). Each mic goes into the R5 on a separate "track". Then we output the audio from the R5 via RCA cables, and from there the audio goes into our PC's sound card via the basic 3.5mm stereo jack.

Is the only way to accomplish multitracking to introduce an audio interface? If so, how/where would that hook up in our setup?

Thanks for any advice

 

[frankberry]

If one microphone is on the Left channel and the other microphone on the Right channel, you should be able to Normalize the microphone levels within Adobe Audition. You can then convert the audio to Mono, combining the two channels.

 

[canadave]

If one microphone is on the Left channel and the other microphone on the Right channel, you should be able to Normalize the microphone levels within Adobe Audition. You can then convert the audio to Mono, combining the two channels.

Hi, thanks for the reply. I'm not sure where you're referring to with the left and right channels. There are two channels on the R5 board, and as far as I know there's no left or right with those...just single inputs. There is a left and right output from the board to the PC, but I don't think the left and right channels carry discrete microphone signals. I think it's basically just all coming in to one track in Audition.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

look around your community at the mega-churches. Some of them are equipped to do multi-channel recording, others are dreaming of the day when their budget will allow them to "join the club". You may find a resource person in the "sound team" of a nearby church who understand what equipment you need (whether he/she actually has that equipment now) to do what you want.

There are some 8-channel devices that will give you a fire-wire output with each channel showing up separately.

Depending on your market, check around to see if there are some local recording studios that can demonstrate such a set-up. Your larger, substantial studios are probably using a larger sophisticated mixing board/DAW and may not be familiar with the little under $1,000 stand alone boxes that you will probably need to do what you have described.

 

[PirateJohnny]

What many people use is a firewire or USB I/O device to bring multiple audio sources into separate channels in recording software. There are many on the market. Here is one:

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire610.html

The mics connect directly to this bypassing the analog mixer completely.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

PirateJohnny is thinking the same direction I am. I think the device he linked may only handle two mic at a time. From the same manufacturer is another version that would allow you to have several people involved in an interview and give EACH of them a separate channel.

http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire2626.html

PreSonus makes a similar device. A call to a vendor like Sweetwater or Full Compass (there are others... these are two that I am familiar with) will put you in contact with some sales people/advisors who deal with this situation regularly.

From another manufacturer I just recently purchased a small device (limited to two mics) that does the same thing as the M-Audio.

You are not going to get the job done using your broadcast style console with two outputs. If you want 3, 4, maybe 5 mics going to that many different channels in your Audition software, you are going to have to have an external digitizer like these and an interface like Fire-wire to carry 3, 4, 5 or even 8 channels into your computer.

You can't take two outputs from a broadcast console, send them into a computer and expect it to sort the data out into 4 or 5 or more channels.

 

[canadave]

Right, thanks guys, I figured an audio interface would be part of this setup.

So how would that work though with the board? From the two mics (let's say three, since if we're doing this, we'll want to set up three mics), where do those go? At some point they have to reach the board (to go out over the air) and also at some point be able to go to the interface (for recording into the PC). I'm not sure how that routing would look/work.

 

[xmusicmatt]

Right, thanks guys, I figured an audio interface would be part of this setup.

So how would that work though with the board? From the two mics (let's say three, since if we're doing this, we'll want to set up three mics), where do those go? At some point they have to reach the board (to go out over the air) and also at some point be able to go to the interface (for recording into the PC). I'm not sure how that routing would look/work.

What your going to have to do is find some way to split the mic signal before it goes to the console.. That way you feed the Mic's to the multi track recording device.. and ALSO to your on air console. That way you can use the mics on air but also have the feed going into your multi track recorder so you can clean up the recording in post.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Right, thanks guys, I figured an audio interface would be part of this setup.

So how would that work though with the board? From the two mics (let's say three, since if we're doing this, we'll want to set up three mics), where do those go? At some point they have to reach the board (to go out over the air) and also at some point be able to go to the interface (for recording into the PC). I'm not sure how that routing would look/work.

Whoa. Back up. At first I thought you were wanting a way to RECORD and interview, clean it up in multi-track edit, and then mix it down for broadcast.

In following the conversation, I guess I now see that you plan to broadcast the interview LIVE, (warts and all) but capture it for later edit... to what... put on a website for people to download or listen on line?

 

[canadave]

Whoa. Back up. At first I thought you were wanting a way to RECORD and interview, clean it up in multi-track edit, and then mix it down for broadcast.

In following the conversation, I guess I now see that you plan to broadcast the interview LIVE, (warts and all) but capture it for later edit... to what... put on a website for people to download or listen on line?

LOL...no, no. xmusicmatt got what I was trying to say. Although at some point it'd be nice to be able to do this live, warts and all...for now, I just want to be able to use the same two/three mics to EITHER go live (as we do right now), through the AudioArts board.....OR, record into the audio interface and bypass the board.

 

[canadave]

What your going to have to do is find some way to split the mic signal before it goes to the console.. That way you feed the Mic's to the multi track recording device.. and ALSO to your on air console. That way you can use the mics on air but also have the feed going into your multi track recorder so you can clean up the recording in post.

That's exactly what I'm trying to do Would some sort of XLR splitter work, I wonder?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Although at some point it'd be nice to be able to do this live, warts and all...for now, I just want to be able to use the same two/three mics to EITHER go live (as we do right now), through the AudioArts board.....OR, record into the audio interface and bypass the board.

I'm sorry if I sound picky. smusicmatt may have guessed correctly what you are trying to say, and some of have guessed incorrectly.

After reading what I quoted above, I am still scratching my head and asking: Does he ever intent to broadcast live AND record to multi-track at the same time, or is he trying to create a set up where for some interviews he will broadcast live, and some other interviews he will record/edit/broadcast-delayed.

If the answer is either/or, then just plug and unplug. Broadcasting live? Plug mics into the AudioArts. Recording to multi-track for edit and broadcast later, then plug the mics into a audio-to-digital box from M-audio, PreSonus or other vendor of your choice.

If you want to do both live and record at the same time you probably have three options.
1. A splitter that uses resistors in a y-pad to send the mic output to both the board and the A/D device. The pad will minimize the chances of the two destination devices irritating each other.
2. A splitter that uses shielded transformers to do the splitting. This gives the best results, but good transformers are costly.
3. If the broadcast board or the A/D device you select has an INSERT jack that follows the analog preamp, plug into the insert back and do your splitting at line level rather than at mic level. Once again: take your choice between a y-pad built from resistors, or use high quality shielded transformers designed to do splitting AND isolation.

 

[xmusicmatt]

We often have a guest, or sometimes two guests, come in for an interview, which we record into Adobe Audition. The problem is, all the audio is on one track. Ideally, it would be better to record each person's mic into Audition separately, so that if someone's too loud or too soft or whatever, we can fix it.

I wasn't really guessing.. I looked at what canadave said originally... basically their using their "studio" to record interviews and they want to have each mic separate into a multi - track to edit post and since the mics go into the console they only get a single feed outwards.. however the catch is they want to keep the mics going into the console for "live on air use"


Something like this might do the trick? (you would need two of them one for each mic)... http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/547632-REG/ART_SPLITCOMPRO_SPLITCom_Pro_Microphone_Splitter_Combiner.html

 

[canadave]

I'm sorry if I sound picky. smusicmatt may have guessed correctly what you are trying to say, and some of have guessed incorrectly.

After reading what I quoted above, I am still scratching my head and asking: Does he ever intent to broadcast live AND record to multi-track at the same time, or is he trying to create a set up where for some interviews he will broadcast live, and some other interviews he will record/edit/broadcast-delayed.

If the answer is either/or, then just plug and unplug. Broadcasting live? Plug mics into the AudioArts. Recording to multi-track for edit and broadcast later, then plug the mics into a audio-to-digital box from M-audio, PreSonus or other vendor of your choice.

If you want to do both live and record at the same time you probably have three options.
1. A splitter that uses resistors in a y-pad to send the mic output to both the board and the A/D device. The pad will minimize the chances of the two destination devices irritating each other.
2. A splitter that uses shielded transformers to do the splitting. This gives the best results, but good transformers are costly.
3. If the broadcast board or the A/D device you select has an INSERT jack that follows the analog preamp, plug into the insert back and do your splitting at line level rather than at mic level. Once again: take your choice between a y-pad built from resistors, or use high quality shielded transformers designed to do splitting AND isolation.

No worries, I wasn't implying that you should've guessed what I was trying to ask. I caution you again that I am very much a novice when it comes to radio hookups with this AudioArts board, and I may have asked incorrectly.

The plug/unplug solution would make sense, but isn't practical for a variety of reasons. The input XLR ports on the back of the board are hard to get to, and given that we'd be going back and forth a few times a day, I'd rather not be digging around back there with a million wires and plugging in and out all the time.

Would a basic Y-splitter (without the transformer/pad) suffice, since I would be using EITHER the board OR the USB audio interface, but never both at once? Either the mic input switches on the board would be turned off, or the audio interface would be turned off, so there wouldn't be much chance of interference, would there?

 

[canadave]

I wasn't really guessing.. I looked at what canadave said originally... basically their using their "studio" to record interviews and they want to have each mic separate into a multi - track to edit post and since the mics go into the console they only get a single feed outwards.. however the catch is they want to keep the mics going into the console for "live on air use".

Something like this might do the trick? (you would need two of them one for each mic)... http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/547632-REG/ART_SPLITCOMPRO_SPLITCom_Pro_Microphone_Splitter_Combiner.html

You understood me absolutely correctly That's precisely the dilemma.

As for your link...hmmm...not sure how that works. Looks like 2 mic inputs and 2 mic outputs...how does that split the signal, I wonder? Unless I bought two of them. THEN I can see easily how that would work...

 

[xmusicmatt]

As for your link...hmmm...not sure how that works. Looks like 2 mic inputs and 2 mic outputs...how does that split the signal, I wonder? Unless I bought two of them. THEN I can see easily how that would work...

The reason that device has "4" connection on it is because it can be used in two different ways (a Combiner that takes 2 mics in and gives you 1 output -- not what you want) or as a splitter you can take in 1 Mic and give two mic outputs (what you want).

and yes you would need two for your situation .. btw I don't recommend the "un-plug and re plug" that was mentioned earlier -- too many things can go wrong if you do that too often)

I will keep looking to see if there is (I am sure there are) other devices out there that does what you want.. basically you need a box that takes a mic input in and then splits it two ways.. so you can feed your Multi-Track recording and your console [ at the same time -- even if your not using both at the same time ]

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Would a basic Y-splitter (without the transformer/pad) suffice, since I would be using EITHER the board OR the USB audio interface, but never both at once? Either the mic input switches on the board would be turned off, or the audio interface would be turned off, so there wouldn't be much chance of interference, would there?

If the Y-splitter is in place, one device (the Station console) will not know if the other device (the USB A/D ) is working or not. Once in a while you can get some device into a scheme like this where the characteristics of the input will change when in use, but you have a high probability that will not happen.

You could acquire one copy of the little ARTccesories device and try it with one mic. If the Audio Arts console and the USB A/D are going to have any problems with each other, find that out before you invest in additional units. I think I read early on that some interviews may involve 3 mics, (maybe 4?) which means you might eventually need a third and a fourth ARTccessories box.

In things like this, life does not always work the way the text box tells you it will. Sometimes you can violate the instructions and still get a happy outcome. Sometimes you can follow the instructions perfectly and still get a failed outcome. I think your probabilities of this scheme working are quite good. Today's equipment tends to be pretty forgiving.

 

[TomT]

If I remember correctly from my last encounter with an R-60, there is an internal 2 channel mike preamp. The line-level outputs are connected to the required channel & muting is assigned.

If you have 2 spare channels, you just wire one for left only for the "left" mike, and the other right only for the "right" mike. Then the line level mike signals to the regular mike channels are wired as normal, jumpering mike one to L & R input on one channel and mike two to L & R on the other channel.

Then it is just a matter of staff training on how to record interviews as opposed to live broadcasts. That will be the most difficult task.