Recording with no direct outs

[Olliedem-c]

Hi again people,

 

Has anyone ever recorded a live set to, say 2 adats with no direct outs on the desk?

would using a mono jack into the insert of each channel to a phono into the adat actually work?

 

How about if I stereo out, to two phonos, and input and output the adat.

thanks folks

[Andrew C]

No, almost certainly not. An insert is designed to take a signal out to an effect/processor and then return it to the desk in the same place. Your setup won't return the signal. You might get your recording, but it's going to be damned quiet for the punters.

 

You'd be better off finding some transformer splitters and taking your feed before the desk.

[paulears]

ah, but not if you use a 3 circuit jack, wire tip and ring together, and then use this linked connection to go to the tape machine input. Works fine, and the PA still works as normal.

 

Downside - you lose the insert, and depending on your mixer path, you may find the insert is before or after the eq section - which may or may not matter.

 

My mixer has the first 24 channels wired to an external patch bay, remoting the inserts, and each insert pair is 'sniffed' to give me an input to each of the 24 ins on the multitrack - so I can record direct channels and still patch in effects/processing as required.

[Olliedem-c]

Great news cheers

[bruce]

ah, but not if you use a 3 circuit jack, wire tip and ring together, and then use this linked connection to go to the tape machine input. Works fine, and the PA still works as normal.

 

You can also usually (but perhaps not reliably!) do this by using a mono jack, inserted to "the first click", not fully. So the tip of the jack connects with the ring connector on the socket. The sleeve connectors connect as normal. But since you've not fully pushed the jack home, the internal circuit isn't broken, so you still get signal to the PA....

[Tomo]

In other words - if you've gotta do it, use a TRS (stereo) jack with TR shorted, and read the signal between TS

 

A Mono (TS) jack won't work - I know this from experience of being yelled at by the Cruise Director after the band were surprisingly quiet one day at poolside.

The morons had decided to repatch after our soundcheck - and plugged the main out into the main insert.

They never noticed, as the stage monitors were still in the proper aux.

 

After that, we taped over every single connector that wasn't in use.

[bruce]

As I said above, a mono jack, inserted to the first click, WILL often work.

 

From the Mackie FAQ:

The insert jack can also be used as two different types of direct outs.

 

If a tip-sleeve 1/4" cable is plugged all the way in to the second click, the signal is sent out from the tip (output) of the insert jack and does not return to the ring (input), which breaks the loop and does not allow signal to flow through the rest of the channel. This is referred to as a direct out with signal interruption. if a tip-sleeve 1/4" cable is plugged in only to the first click, the signal is sent out the cable and continues through the channel, since the insert loop has not been broken. This is referred to as a direct without signal interruption.

[foh_al]

I can't remember what I/O facilities the old tape-based ADATs had, but if you're using the HD24 hard disk version, you can just use regular insert cables. Set all the inputs on the ADAT to 'monitor,' and your signal will be returned back to the desk. The only downside is that if the recorder malfunctions, you'll lose all your signals; but having done this on almost every gig I've worked in the last 2 years, I can safely say that this has never happened to me.

 

Alex

[andy_s]

As I said above, a mono jack, inserted to the first click, WILL often work.

 

From the Mackie FAQ:

The insert jack can also be used as two different types of direct outs.

 

If a tip-sleeve 1/4" cable is plugged all the way in to the second click, the signal is sent out from the tip (output) of the insert jack and does not return to the ring (input), which breaks the loop and does not allow signal to flow through the rest of the channel. This is referred to as a direct out with signal interruption. if a tip-sleeve 1/4" cable is plugged in only to the first click, the signal is sent out the cable and continues through the channel, since the insert loop has not been broken. This is referred to as a direct without signal interruption.

 

 

this is from the TT24 manual - does it work on their analogue desks as well?

[paulears]

It works on most mixers, as the half in plug doesn't break the circuit until it's all the way in, and the tip of the jack just sits in the 'ring' position. The snag is that mechanically it's a bit loose and doesn't need much pressure to pop out wrecking the recording - if you have to source the bits to make up 24 cables, why not do it properly?

[andy_s]

A bit off topic, but still about half-in, half-out, I've discovered an interesting phenomenon with my sony discman - using various adapters from quarter-inch to mini jack to remote control in order to use the headphones of my choice, by a bit of judicious wiggling, pushing and pulling, I can get rid of the vocal track and just have the effects and instruments. Have to say it gets a bit boring after doing this to a couple of tracks, however...

[Rob_Beech]

Hi Andy, remaining OT which we shoudlnt'# do for too long. the vocal track will be panned dead centre. (as will other bits) some stuff will be slightly left or right in the stereo mix. If you have the left and right channels out of phase the stuff that is exactly the same (centre...vocals) will cancel out whilst the rest will remain unaffected... or. not affected much.

Wont work with every track. most will sound horrible.

 

 

Rob

[andy_s]

yup, I knew about the out-of-phase trick, but hadn't connected that with my wiggly jack plug - I thought you had to have a button marked "phase reverse" to do it. It all falls into place now - ta!