Confused about firewire

Patricide

Ok basicly, for ages ive been recording my drums through a mixer and adjusting all the levels painstakingly before i record and basicly im sick of it(its a pain in the arse). So as far as i know i need a firewire mixer to record all the toms snare cymbols etc. into different tracks on my daw.

I was looking at this
http://www.thomann.de/ie/alesis_multimix_16_firewire.htm

And was wondering would it do the trick(basicly get all the individual drums into different tracks).Was also wondering how would you go about setting this up to work and also could it be used as a control interface (as oposed to me sorting out the levels with my mouse on the daw could i use the sliders etc.)

eddyc

Yeah I think you would be fine as far as recording just using that as an audio interface, you would prolly only use the mixing functionality of the alesis to get basic levels and eq before the signal is fed into your DAW, for proper mixing you would prolly still have to use your mouse as it doesnt say anything about it being used as a midi control surface or
that it has any midi capability.

Patricide

yea well i doubted that anyway it woulda just been a nice bonus, o well at least itl do the jobbie for recording drums into different tracks.

frobisher

Patricide wrote:

yea well i doubted that anyway it woulda just been a nice bonus, o well at least itl do the jobbie for recording drums into different tracks.

Ahh! Text speak alert!

That Alesis looks like it could be perfect for what you need although as eddyc says it doesn't appear to handle any midi info over firewire so you will be still using your mouse. Shop around though, despite their reputation, I often find Thomann aren't the cheapest. Try here too: http://www.dv247.com/search/0/0/ProductName/Ascending/alesis%20firewire/1/

TelePaul

would you be competely against a presonus firepod? I hear excellent things about the pre's on that.

Patricide

TelePaul wrote:

would you be competely against a presonus firepod? I hear excellent things about the pre's on that.

nice one, never even heard about that site before now, it works out a good 80 euro cheaper too.

Also just after checking out the firepod there, i cant see any xlr ins and on the website i just checked out it is 799$ which is a tad steep, im not looking for unbelieveable quality here just enough to do decent enough demos with. Also the alesis can be used in a live situation aswell which is always a plus.

TelePaul

Patricide wrote:

nice one, never even heard about that site before now, it works out a good 80 euro cheaper too.

Also just after checking out the firepod there, i cant see any xlr ins and on the website i just checked out it is 799$ which is a tad steep, im not looking for unbelieveable quality here just enough to do decent enough demos with. Also the alesis can be used in a live situation aswell which is always a plus.

I can't rob the credit for Frobisher's advice!

But the firepod has 8 excellent pre amps that can be used for line level or xlr input.

restin84

I bought my firepod for 500$(are we talking american money). shop around maybe.

TelePaul

restin84 wrote:

I bought my firepod for 500$(are we talking american money). shop around maybe.

Yup you can get some awesome deals. Hows it working for ya?

Simon201

I don't think that Alesis unit will do what I think you require. That unit seems to be what would be described as a '18x2' meaning it has 18 inputs in total but each of those 18 can be routed to one of 2 outputs (busses) or both for stereo. What I think you're gonna need will cost a bit more, and you probably won't get a mixer with it.
Something like this
http://www.audiomidi.com/Saffire-LE-P8115.aspx
appears to be able to do 6 channel simultaneous recording, then, moving up there is all the MOTU stuff which probably seems to be the best in its range like the 828mkII which would be at least something like 8x8. But also what you would really need to do live multi-channel recording would be an 8 bus mixing desk, that is, a desk that you can route any one of the inputs to any one of eight outputs, although with stuff like the 828mkII they have balanced mic inputs so it would completely possible to do what you want to do without a desk by connecting up all your mics, recording and then making any eq adjustments once you've made your recordings. Or of course depending on your DAW it may be able to make tonal adjustments to the signal before it gets recorded. Of course it doesn't have to be firewire, there are usb2 units that have the same functions as well.