Setting up a Hardware Mixer

Hi guys, how would I go about setting a hardware mixer?  Its 16 Channels and has 4 Stereo Bus Channels, and has Direct Outs on each channel.  I have 8 in/out MOTU Interface, and a 8 TRS snake.  I want to mix through the 4 Stereo Bus Channels, assign groups of tracks to each Bus, so how would I setup the mixer in Project 5 so that the channels go out to the mixer? If you need more info just ask, thanks.

hard pan your tracks L,R,L,R,L,R,L,R, and then send tracks 1 and 2 to main out 1, tracks 3 and 4 to Main Out 2, etc. 1/4 balanced from each hardware out to each 1/4 line in on the mixer.

hard pan in project 5. That way each channel will have it's own mono out, send from the hardware outs of your interface to the channel line ins of the mixer. The direct outs would be if you were going the other way. (ie, recording through the mixer into the ins of your sound card)
 

You use P5 to control the automation levels - you'll probably want to keep the mixer levels at unity unless you want to mix the old fashioned way.  The old fashioned way you are using the P5/Moto as a tape deck and mixing by hand.  Either way, it is P5 to Moto line outs to line ins on mixer.

I got my first mixer about a year ago, what I've learned is that there are roughly two "big" ways of using a mixer.

One is using it for recording, so you plug your audio sources, mixers, synths, whatever, in each of the mixer's channel, this way you don't have to plug/unplug anything when you want to record something in P5. You just have to send the main outs on your mixer to the inputs of your soundcard,  or send some of the aux busses if you need more than one stereo pair of outputs (say, if you want to record a band through the mixer, but you want to record each track individually)

The other one is using the mixer for, well, mixing.  You do this if you want to mix your tracks with the mixer itself, controlling the volume, eq, of each track on the mixer itself. As agincourtdb said, this is useful mostly if you have a really good mixer, otherwise, you'd be better off just mixing in the PC.
all you'd have to do to achieve this is plug the outputs on your soundcard in the mixer's channels, and route each individual track in P5 to the physical outs on your soundcard. (note that this may require some setting up, in P5, and in your soundcard's control panel).

But actually, I'm curious, what did you get a mixer for? I mean, I bought a mixer because I needed more inputs, so I'm using it in the first setup I described, but maybe you had another idea in mind.

What is that mixer by the way, maybe giving the specs could help us find some tips for you.
I'd suggest looking at the website of your mixer's brand, they often have some pretty well done schematics, and templates of how to plug the mixer. You could check out Mackie, or Soundcraft's websites, they have comprehensive pictures of how to set up their mixers. You don't need to look at the big ones though, the 8 or 12 ins would be enough, after all, it's only a matter of adding more channels and more aux sends, but the "logic" would pretty much be the same.

Another thing to bear in mind is that there isn't one "good" way of plugging a mixer, you can get really creative with it, I spent a damn lot of time trying to figure out what was the best way to plug mind for my purposes, so it can be some trial and error, maybe a combination of the two ideas I gave you, along with some more original stuff, maybe you have an external effect, or a  synth with an audio in, you can plug that in one of the aux sends, and send what you want in it or whatever.

agincourtdb


I would say it's really only worth mixing and summing 'outside the box' if it's a really nice mixer. I have a 24-ch (not a nice one) and I only use it for the pre-amps when recording my band into Sonar, and I never use it w/ P5

If you really want to mix in the mixer, you do the hard panning in P5. The reason you do that is, since the main outs are stereo pairs, you want each track on it's own outs. So, two tracks to a stereo pair, one hard left and one hard right.

You plug 1/4 balanced cable from the sound card outs into the line ins of the mixer. They're line-level and that's how you get the audio from the sound card to the mixer.
 
The direct outs are outs, you would use them to send audio from the mixer to the sound card. So, don't do that in this situation. If you were recording, you would use those same cables to go from the mixer direct outs to the sound card ins.


thx will try to figure it out.

I'm getting signal, but how do I record from the Mixer back to the Hard Drive?  How do I get back into the DAW?  And previous question still stands in previous post.