Hello all,

I am building a hybrid Analog/Digital setup in my existing studio. I have recently made the leap in my mixing chain to the Dangerous 2 Bus, and am liking what I am hearing so far!

In addition, I just picked up a Fostex G-16, a 16 track 1/2" tape setup that I plan on using to record with from time to time, things like drums and bass, and then re-record these tracks into the computer.
 


I have 16 tracks of XLR into my 2 Saffire Pro 40's (well actually 14 because I am using two of the channels as my stereo return back into DAW so I can record my mixes in real time through the 2 bus); but anyway - I guess I would need some sort of interface to go from my channel inputs into both my Audio Interface and the Tape machine concurrently. I would rather have things hard wired permanently, so I don't have to move cables around all the time.

the Fostex has 16 channel I/O that are 1/4" inch unbalanced. I have XLR coming to my control room from my snake, that is currently plugged into my Pro 40's.

Obviously, an old school way would be to route everything through a mixer - but I would like to try and avoid something like that due to the size of it.

I am considering picking up 2 more Saffire Pro 40's, and just daisy-chaining them all together, and leaving the 16 new channels permanently hooked into the new units.  What I'm not getting my head around or am uncertain about is, whether I will have to move my XLR inputs (16 of them) around into the new units.  I just want to have everything hooked up and leave it that way.
 
Anyone else doing this sort of thing (besides Eric Valentine?) 

Thank you in advance. I hope that I have explained things clearly.

Because I think you are planning on recording directly to the Fostex before the tracks are transferred to the DAW,  you will need pre amps for each channel going in to the deck. 
The deck is only line input so is needing pre amps first. 
The Fostex is designed to be patched to an analog ( or digital) desk using either sub mix outs or direct outputs. 
So you will need a mixing desk with 16 channels that have either direct outs or channel inserts. 
Or a huge desk that has 16 sub buss outputs. 
To get good results with the Fostex you will need to build a good quality analog front end system using a mixer and outboard possessing gear. For drums and bass you will need a few analog compressors. This is not going to be cheap. I can see this costing about $3,000 by the time you purchase all the equipment needed, including a 16 line input interface. I'm sorry but going analog is expensive and the main reason most of us have left it in the dust. It wasn't because we thought digital sounded better or worse, it's all about track count per dollar. 
 
There's no point going through A/D convertors and back to an analog recorder, might as well use tape sims if that's the case. This is a well respected fact.  So you really need to stay analog all the way to the tape with good gear to get the benefits of it.  
 
You will need a 16 channel interface with 16 line level inputs to transfer the tape to the DAW without sync issues. I'm not even sure they make such an animal. 
In a pinch you can put a transient spike at the head end of each tape track and transfer them in smaller batches. You use the spike to line up the tracks in the DAW. 

I just re read you post and will add that the mixer will allow you to permanently plug your snake into it and use the mixer to direct your inputs to either your audio interface or the Fostex.
A patch bay would be the best way to rig this up. Otherwise you'll be swapping the direct out put cables.   

OK, Johnny thank you for your input. I have been doing a lot of thinking and researching since I posted this earlier, and I'm fairly confident that I've figured out a good plan.
 
I think using the Saffire's will be an excellent way to go for me.  If I use 2 units, that gives me 16 channels, each with a pre.  I have some hardware compression available to use if necessary going in.  Even now, when I record, I rarely do that even in digital, and I know that you can run hotter in analog - so erring a bit too hot in Analog is not a huge dealbreaker (of course I am always careful about my gain structure.)

The mixer is not necessary, that's what I'm using the DAW for.  I have line-level gain management going in with the Saffire Pro 40's.   I can plug the snake into IT, and then route my outputs back into my DAW for playback/recording.

You see, I am NOT using the analog tape machine as a mixing source, only as a recording source, and I'll be dumping (recording) the tracks into my DAW, after recording, for mixing later.
 
(PS, of course, now I am second guessing myself big time.  HAHAH!)

I can't understand how you are patching things.  You have 16 XLR signals coming to the Saffires.  You want to dump digital sound to the fostex 16 track - 16 channels at a time or what?  And then dump that analog signal back to digital?  I can only say why?  The fostex isn't (wasn't) known as a high quality tape recorder there is so little tape to lay sound to.  My old Tascam 38 at twice the width per track was usable but fostex was considered a step below.  I could see experimenting laying tracks down directly to tape and trying to get tape compression for that old time sound, but then you would have to get a mixer for preamps or use the saffire and conversion.  If you are planning on laying digital tracks to analog for tape compression, you are still going to need some kind of mixer to get the signals hot enough to saturate.  All in all it sounds like a long way 'round to a solution to a non-problem.  Tape sounds great, but there are a lot of problems associated with it - and expense.  Just keeping the gosh-darn things running and aligned and in decent shape is either time consuming or expensive, which is why my 38 and revox just sit there.  I may pick up a stereo otari to bounce to, but that is a 1/4 inch 1/2 track.
 
For a while it was tubes are the answer, now it is tape.  The easiest way is to put your money in the front end - mics for the job, transformer preamps and analog comps and EQs to get that analog goodness into the digital realm. 
 
It seems you have a good idea, but I don't see it panning out without a lot of work or some expense.  Perhaps if you gave us a better idea of exactly what you wanted to do.  
 
@
 
 

Noooooooo.

I am going to record onto the reel to reel and then record the analog recording back into the DAW.  Just for things like drums and bass mostly.  Producer, Mix Engineer extraordinaire Eric Valentine does the same thing.
 
I'll still record most of my tracks via digital, depending on how it comes out.  I'm not really worried about expense.

But how are you planning in getting the signal from the Saffire into the tape deck? I looked at the specs and it does not have inserts or direct outputs. So like I was saying, that will require your signal to pass through A/D then D/A conversion to get to the tape defeating the purpose of recording to analog tape.
In other words it does have pre amps, but once the signal passes through them it becomes digital. The only analog outputs are the headphone jacks. The Saffire is not the correct interface for this. I do believe there are interfaces with analog insert points. 
 
The point is, I believe there is some excellent attributes to recording all analog to achieve a desired sound. And using good quality analog gear is worth the effort if you can afford it. 
But the minute you plug a mike into a digital audio interface, you have lost that attribute completely. The sound you'll get will now be the sound of the audio interfaces pre amps and all processing done afterwards is really better done in the digital domain.  It is not the best idea to run audio back and forth through converters.  
 
 
 

OK Johnny, then what would you suggest?  Are there other options to using a mixing board?  I'm not against getting one, but I was looking for a smaller footprint as an option.
 
This is why I started this thread.  So I could get some creative, educated options and opinions.
 
 

Ha ha seems like we are all typing at the same time, I didn't see AT's post until I posted, And so I will add I agree with all he say's too. I didn't want to talk you out of analog tape as that's another topic. 
 

Well I would just start looking at interfaces and see if any have inserts. You can do your own footwork better than me. Trouble is everything new is all digital now. I'm not sure anybody makes an 8 channel mike pre amp as example.