Recording - Mackie SR24•4 Owner's Manual

RECORDING

The SR 24•4 (and SR 32•4) is a great
recording and mixing console for a four- or
eight-track project studio.
Below you'll find the basic plan for con-
necting the SR 24•4 for recording and some
specific ideas for multitrack sessions in Track-
ing on an Eight-Track. (Please refer to the
graphic on page 11.)
In general, recording connections follow
this pattern:
• Microphones, electronic instruments, four-
or eight-track tape playback tracks and
other sources are connected to the MIC or
LINE inputs on the SR 24•4 rear panel.
• Four- or eight-track recorder inputs are
connected to the SUB OUT 1–8 jacks.
• Two-track mixdown recorder inputs are
connected to the LEFT and RIGHT
MASTER jacks.
• Two-track recorder outputs are connected
to the TAPE IN L and R jacks.
• Control room monitor speaker amplifiers
are connected to the CONTROL ROOM
OUT L and R jacks.
• Musician headphone cue amplifier inputs
are connected to AUX SENDS 1, 2, 3 or 4.
• Reverb and delay device inputs are
connected to AUX SENDS 3, 4, 5 or 6.
• Reverb and delay device outputs are
connected to STEREO AUX RETURNS 1, 2,
3 or 4, or to spare line inputs.
As mentioned in the sound reinforcement
section, take a little time to set everything up
sensibly. It's good to group your inputs and
submix buses by instruments, stereo mix posi-
tion or whatever else suits you. Try to keep
the drum mics next to each other, the vocals
together and so on. Label your cables, number
your auxiliary devices right on the front pan-
els, lay tape (to write on) across the bottom of
the faders, make a track log, give yourself a
break. It can be confusing enough mixing a
complicated song without wondering which
channel is which.
TRACKING ON AN EIGHT-TRACK
Here's the situation: we'll imagine you've
got a multitrack recorder. For basic tracks you
will have a three-piece band with drums, bass,
and guitar. The lead singer will put down a
scratch vocal, and later all three of the band
members will overdub vocals. They want two
different headphone mixes during basics, and
a rough mix on DAT to take home right after
the overdub session. You will eventually fill
the eight tracks with stereo drums, guitar, and
bass plus 4 tracks of vocals. You will use the
recorder's time code to drive a MIDI sequencer
program which will play another 2 MIDI
voices in the final mixdown. This is how we'll
set it up:
The drums will be miked with seven mics,
and recorded in stereo.
We will bring the bass in on two lines: one
will be a mic on the bass amp, the other direct
injection from a direct box.
The guitar will also have two feeds: one a
mic close to the amp, the second mic a few
feet further away.
The guitarist will sing into one microphone
for the scratch track.
SR 24•4 channel strips 13–20 will be used
to provide a monitor mix of your eight multi-
track channels.
The MIDI voices will come in on stereo line
inputs 21–22 and 23–24.
Although the SR 24•4 has only four submix
buses, for convenience each bus has two out-
puts: Bus 1 feeds SUB OUT 1 and 5, Bus 2
feeds SUB OUT 2 and 6 and so on. This allows
you to feed any track on an eight-track
recorder, selecting the track by submix assign-
ment and by the record assignment on the
recorder. If you need to record 5 or more
tracks at once, you will need to temporarily
re-patch a recorder input or two, using a spare
AUX SEND output or a channel strip insert as
a direct out.
Your output connections can be seen on
the table on the next page.
For the basic tracks, you will be recording
on five tracks at once, but the SR 24•4 has
only four submix buses. One easy solution is to
route the scratch vocal mic through Aux Send
6, which in our setup is unused. Don't assign
the scratch vocal to any of the main or submix
Applications
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