Input Needed on Low Budget Summing Solution

[Mark Gifford]

Due to some recent stellar fleamarket finds, I'm in possession of the following two items, for hardly any cash outlay:

Gaines Audio 16 point TRS normalled patchbay

Gaines Audio SM-8 Stereo Line/Mic Mixer, w/8 inputs, level/pan on each, individually selectable for mic/line level, master and headphone out. All balanced, on XLR, except phones.

The plan:

Convert the patchbay to use as a passive summing box, feeding the output of that into two channels of the mixer, set to "Mic" for makeup gain, and panned hard L/R. Each output from the HD would show up on its' own patch point, for inserting stuff. I'm thinking five pairs.

Use the other six channels of the mixer as intended, feeding the inputs at line level, direct from the HD outputs, for the "special channels" such as Lead Vox, Drums, and a few others. These would also show up on the patchbay, so I could insert outboard on them.

That would eat up sixteen outputs, which is what we currently have.

The big question, is this going to provide better sonics than what we do now, which is:

5 pairs, L/R into MCI 636, plus 2 more for Ld Vox and Solos, panned center, so we can insert outboard (MC77, API 550, Distressor, etc.) on them. Levels are preset on the MCI, using "Line" bypassing the VCAs. Except for the Ld. Vocal/Solo individual outs, all processing, panning and level setting is done ITB, as is Verb and Delay FX on the Ld Vocal.

The Gaines is a pretty straight forward mixer. I've plugged a few mics into it and they sound very nice, and it's built like a tank. The MCI is getting a bit crotchety, some failing pots, noise issues, etc.

Let me know if you feel this would be worth the time (mainly cabling issues) or if I should just stick it in my live rig and gt back to making records... <g>

Thanks in advance,

Mark Gifford