About soundcards and mixers

[Cannibal Dub Squad]

Hola a todos!
It is my first post in an discussion group, so be comprehensible.

I've started my adventure in dub music production about a year ago.
I recorded (in a Boos BR 600) a reggae project with me playing bass, guitar, piano, melodica, percu... and a friend who has a great toaster voice.
I used reason 3 to mix it, with a midi md audio controller, but sooner i've realized that the approach was no very efficient, in terms of dub techniques.
I recently got an allen & heath 12 fx mixer and cubase. But as an ignorant in terms of new technologies, i've thought that was all i needed.

So, do i need and soundcard with many in\outs to send the signal from the computer to the mixer?
If so, once you do that, cubase faders, and knobs can be mapped to those in the mixer?
Then, how to record the mix? With cubase, or it will be more suitable to use the recorder (for example my boss 600).

Which soundcard (between 300 and 450) is recomended?

Thank you guys!

Greetings from France!

PD: sorry about my english, i hope i make myself clear

[Zutao]

You can do it that way but the way forward seems to be to use something like PureData (on my 'to learn' list) or Live as a multitracker, and dropping tracks in and out and adding effects using a MIDI controller. In effect, dubbing inside the software. It should reduce the overall hiss and noise, but is unfortunately less fun.

[JahNice]

Greetinx,

I know many great dub masters produce digital dub and they add extra
noise and hiss or vinyl crackles to their mixes as an effect... Besides that,
you wont have hardly any noise from the allen & heath zed 16 or from its
fx. If you start using older mixers or vintage outboard equipment or fx
like spring reverb, analog delay or tape echo, then you will get some real
noise, but then again that is not always a bad thing for my dubs.. From my
little experience, sometimes it seems that with the noise you get also
the warmth!

I can recommend the E-mu 1616m soundcard for about 445€. Its great
for the price, sound is really hi-end. You have 8 ins 8 outs, if you want
you can add another 8 outs later on, with an additional D/A adat converter.
You get a nice breakout-box which you can put on your desk or
workstation. On there you have headphone out with volume control, a
phono in(crucial for sampling from vinyl), midi in/out, two mic pre amps
and offcourse all other audio inputs and outputs. If you get the PCMCIA
card you can also use it with a laptop for live performances anywhere.


http://gadgets.softpedia.com/gadgets/Co ... -2109.html

We use E-mu's (1212m & 1820m)and we are satisfied with the Sound, its
good for this amount of cash. The Breakout box is not built very tuff, it
has lots of plastic parts that can break,so one should find a good place
for the breakout-box and be careful with the cables that you plug in it.

From what i know you cant control any software with that allen & heath,
but you can do it all on the board .

The Mixdown can be recorded back in cubase or on your recorder. It
would be best if you compare the two recordings and decide for yourself
what you prefer.

Peace Yiannis