Advice needed on buying a few items. Head phone amp for live room Digital Snake and 8pres.

Hi all

I have just landed lucky and a friend of mine who has a rehersal studio up here in scotland has asked would I be interested in recording from there if he was to make up a control room in one of the rehersal room.

This is not 100% yet still in the decicion makeing part at his end but if he wants me to do it I need to be able to start right away.

The problems I have to deal with right now Is I need more gear to get my self started out before I move in.

I am useing a VS-700 SO I have 8 mic Pres on that but I will be needing another 8 Mic pres for drums or use the 8 on the vs For the Drums and 8 different pres for guitars etc ( you get the point ) Would the Behringer ADA800 be up to the job ? Or is it no use ? http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/ADA8000.aspx

What would you recomend to start me out ( I can upgrade to a really good set at a later date pro a few months down the line )

I would also need more headphone outs for in the live room whats the best way to go about this ? Would I use the ou puts from the VS700 and Run Headphone extesion cables ? ( ive only ever had to use the to head phone outs on the VS-700)
Could I buy a head phone amp with volume control for each memmber in the live room?
Whats the better option ? or can any one please think of another better one :)

The final thing is a digital snake to send in to the live room. I dont know what to go for.
I think its a digital snake its called ? maybe you just a snake ? To give my self the conections in the live room anyway and not just in the control room.

Apart form all that I am good to go

I am used to doing single track recording one person at a time all drums from my Roland TD-20 controling Superior Drummer or 8 mics from the VS-700 to mics on the drums.

I think I am going to be asked to do more live recording in this place though so this is why I will be needing the extra gear.

If you could please advice on what I would need ( links to Items etc ) I would really appreciate it its not something Ive looked in to before because I didnt think I would need it untill now ......

I dont have a lot of cash So I am hopeing to start as low as possible and then upgrade in the following months once money starts comeing in.

I just need to get started with whatever I can and thats going to end up being the lowest price gear but at the same time not so low that its going to do a horrible job and make people not want to come back. ( I cant risk that )

Thanks to everyone for all your help and I hope to hear from you all soon :)

I should mention I am in Scotland incase I get sent any american links and prices :)

Norrie

HumbleNoise


I've read that others are using the Octa=Pre to expand their VS 700 with 8 more pre's. Worth a look.

http://www.rolandus.com/p...ils.php?ProductId=1127

You meen the octo-capture ?I am 100% going to be buying an Octo-capture but I cant aford it right this momment in a few months I can upgrade to that though

At the momment I just need what I can to get me started

Thanks for the reply

Norrie

Norrie,

the behringer ought to work.  I haven't used it but have only heard good things about it.  It only works up to 48 khz, no SMUX.  It will sound good for the money and you can use it on less important aspects of the drums.

I've had good luck with the Art 4x headphone amp.  It was $100, and has a lot of gain.  You might need something more for the drummer.  but you would leave the VS headphone outs for the control room, and set up auxillary outs from the VS700r 1/4 inch outputs for the tracking room headphones.  The ARt and most other headphone amps accept 1/4 inch.

You need an analog snake, not digital to go from the tracking room to control room.  16 X 8 returns (for the tracking room monitors and headphones).  The real trick is to run it through walls.  Usually you use wall mounted ins/outs.

@

Those digital snake systems are very expensive! And then there are problems with word clock it would seem.
Yes get a analog snake, They make nice little 16x 4's and say 50 feet. You might want a longer one if you find your self thinking about doing live sound someday. Then I'd get a 24 channel.
I have a short one( 12 ch no returns)  and a long one 24 x 4 now.
XLR balanced lines can run along way with out picking up interferance or degrading your sound. The most important part is the quality of the jacks at either end. A friend bought a cheap snake from Musicians Friend and it broke the first time we used it! Plastic parts!
Another thing to consider when you shop for the snake is make the returns Tip Ring Sleave instead of XLR. Then you can use the returns for headphones. ( if it's a 50', not a good idea for 150')
The thing I found added up in the studio was buying a lot of headphones. Musicians will trash your headphones buy stepping on them or walking off with short cable which then pulls apart the guts etc.

I know your in UK but here's what I would buy over here.
http://accessories.musici...eturn-Snake?sku=331090

see above

I think the link you posted is pritty much the same as the one I was looking at over here at studio spares and its not a bad price eather :)

http://www.studiospares.c...-xlrjk-8m/invt/589010/

Awesome I will go for one of them then I will check the size and see if I need any extra length or not.

If the returns are good for headphones could I put a Y spliter on them and run 8 phones if I wanted ? Since they are all going to be the one mix ?

THe octocapture can let me make 4 seperate head phone mixes so thats a cool feature I am going to go ahead with buying one of them

I am hopeing to not have to do a lot of live recording I prefer tracking but gota give them what they want and i need to be prepared for it.

Yes, ditto. Headphones are speaker loads even though they don't neeed a lot of power you could fry something if you try and drive to many sets from to few sources. That is what headphone amps are for. In a pinch, I have uesd a bunch of old home stereo systems. Just daisy chain using the tape in/outs. Gives the musicians there own volume and tone control. Still only 1 mix. With your new snake you will have possibly 4 mixes. My Yamaha 01v has 4 aux ( monitor) busses and they are TRS. But I'm usually using them for sends to the recording gear.
This is just an example of how you can get by with a bunch of second hand junk and lots of wire.

Headphone out from recording gear= Band Mix full sound.

Drummer- Has own sub mixer that sends all but Kick and snare to recording. Send the band mix back to his sub mixer and using his monitor buss he can mix in his drums and the band. In one of his channels is a feed from the bass amp. Drummers like lots of bass in the mix. The mixer has to be capable of sending a sub mix to recording and a separate monitor mix to phone jack.

Bass player- Has DI box XLR goes to recording- output to amp, Amp has headphone jack that disables speaker in room, unplug for live jamming. Amp has 2 line outs- 1 to drummer- 1 to a small DJ mixer. Mixer has band mix and bass.

Singer/ Guitar player- Happy with Band Mix uses old stereo hi fi unit. Guitar cab in other room.
It's only a sketch vocal track anyhow.

Keyboard player/ singer - uses old stereo hi fi unit. Left channel keyboard from DI box/ right channel band mix. set on mono or ?  note- This trick can be duplicated over and over.  A home stereo becomes a 2 channel mixer.

A company named Rolls makes some excellent little 2 channel headphone boxes, but they are passive.