I've been trying to figure out a way to deal with those artists who constantly want "MORE ME" in the headphones during tracking.
My setup is currently a Focusrite Saffire Pro 26 i/o with an ADA8000 putting out ADAT and a headphone amp with direct inputs which can be mixed between the main mix and direct in. 8 mics into the Focusrite, all drums, the scratch tracks into the ADA8000.
Since the ADA8000 doesn't have analog outs from the mic inputs (and the Focusrite doesn't output seperate ADAT channels via it's outputs) I can't get an output for each player's headphone mix.
Here's what I came up with, unless anyone can suggest something else before my head pops
-Line6 POD. This has been my current solution, which I dig because it's simple and effective. I have 3 of these lying around and just send one output to the ADA8000 and the other to the headphone amp direct in. The problem is I get a lot of people who insist on using their own rigs even for scratch tracks, to make life difficult.
-I have a couple of AudioBuddy Mic Preamps that were bundled with some MXL mics I bought a while ago. I can mic up guitars and split the line out of the AudioBuddy, possibly sacrificing the audio quality of the already crappy sounding preamps.
-Get a few compact mixers, like the Behringer 3 channel guys. These might be cool because I can just show them how adjust their own mix and worry about other things while they setup. Mic into mixer, monitor output from Focusrite (click, drums) into the tape input (does not get sent to the mixer out) and mixer out into the ADA8000. They have built-in headphone outs so that means less cables too.
-Tell them all to stop crying and deal with the POD's.
As most of the bands that come in are hardcore, metal, pop-punk, rock etc, I don't like tracking live for isolation and sound quality reasons (smallish room and seperation in the mix), plus most of the local bands aren't guitar heroes so I focus on getting the bass and drums to lock in during tracking. Guitar/vocal overdubs come later.
I'm sure people have been running into issues like this with all-in-one interfaces as people move away from big boards with tons of AUX sends and such. What do you guys think/do?
Nick
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