Call to all audio engineers, need your help!!!

[fiatcoupe432]

So guys a bit of luck finally got my way! To cut story short...

A friend of mine moved from his home studio into a professional studio

He upgraded all his gear and has gave me as a present few outboard gear

Klark Teknik 76 compressor

Klark Teknik 3rd dimension

And warm audio mic pre

Now.... I want to expand my studio and at the moment I have a babyface pro (which I love and wanna keep).

What is the best option for me to connect all this outboard gear?

Should I expand the babyface pro via adat? Shall I get a mixer?

All advice on how to do so are welcome

Thank you in advance

[BigRedX]

Do you already have any other outboard recording equipment or have you been doing everything "in the box" so far?

While some outboard equipment can add to your recordings if most of your processing is done using plug-ins, you may find that the expense and hassle of getting your outboard equipment to interface properly with your computer and DAW is probably going to be too much. Remember that unless you are mixing down to an external device (does anyone do this nowadays?) any externally processed audio is going to have to go through two stages of analogue/digital conversion which is going add latency to just those signals.

IMO: The mic pre-amp is worth keeping. You can use this as a front-end to your audio interface. The compressor isn't really going to be much use, it's not a particularly esoteric model and you should already have far better compressor plug-ins. If you find you are having problems controlling input levels from your microphone it might be worth having daisy-chained between the mic pre-amp and the interface. It's only single channel so it won't be much use for post processing.

That leaves the 3rd Dimension. This is an interesting one, being pretty much an exact clone of the classic Roland Dimension D processor. If you like the sound you may find it indispensable, and despite what you might read none of the plug-in versions really come close to the hardware. Which leaves you with a conundrum; how best to use it? Once again you only have the single device. This is a problem people thinking about going back to using hardware don't always realise straight away - when you buy a plug-in you can use as many instances as you like, but with hardware you need another device every time you need to simultaneously process another signal unless you are happy to process everything on one setting via a bus. What you have ask yourself is this: Is the sound so good that it is worth the hassle of sorting out input/output routing and the latency and hassle that goes with it. You'll need to try it and see, as only you can answer that question.

[fiatcoupe432]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

Do you already have any other outboard recording equipment or have you been doing everything "in the box" so far?

While some outboard equipment can add to your recordings if most of your processing is done using plug-ins, you may find that the expense and hassle of getting your outboard equipment to interface properly with your computer and DAW is probably going to be too much. Remember that unless you are mixing down to an external device (does anyone do this nowadays?) any externally processed audio is going to have to go through two stages of analogue/digital conversion which is going add latency to just those signals.

IMO: The mic pre-amp is worth keeping. You can use this as a front-end to your audio interface. The compressor isn't really going to be much use, it's not a particularly esoteric model and you should already have far better compressor plug-ins. If you find you are having problems controlling input levels from your microphone it might be worth having daisy-chained between the mic pre-amp and the interface. It's only single channel so it won't be much use for post processing.

That leaves the 3rd Dimension. This is an interesting one, being pretty much an exact clone of the classic Roland Dimension D processor. If you like the sound you may find it indispensable, and despite what you might read none of the plug-in versions really come close to the hardware. Which leaves you with a conundrum; how best to use it? Once again you only have the single device. This is a problem people thinking about going back to using hardware don't always realise straight away - when you buy a plug-in you can use as many instances as you like, but with hardware you need another device every time you need to simultaneously process another signal unless you are happy to process everything on one setting via a bus. What you have ask yourself is this: Is the sound so good that it is worth the hassle of sorting out input/output routing and the latency and hassle that goes with it. You'll need to try it and see, as only you can answer that question.

Hi mate, thank you for your help.

I ve always done everything in the box and never used hardware

However as I have it I would love to have the option and incorporate it in my set up. My question is how do I connect all those into my audio interface. I agree regarding the comp but as it was given to me I feel bad about given it away 

[fiatcoupe432]

Is it as simple as connecting my mic 8nto the Input othe warm audio then output of the warm audio into input or the compressor then out again from the compressor into the input of  3rd dimension then out again into the input of my babyface pro?

[BigRedX]

What you have to decide is how/when in the recording process you want to use this hardware.

The mic pre-amp is simple it's used with a mic when recording, so it goes between the mic and one of the inputs of your interface.

The compressor if you decide to use it is also best used as a recording (because it is only one channel) rather than mix-down tool, so that would go between the mic pre-amp and the input of your interface.

The 3rd Dimension is more tricky because it could be used while recording or while mixing. So you could put it last in the recording chain just before your interface. However, remember that this is very much a stereo effect (IMO there's not much point using it in mono) so you need to connect the output to 2 inputs on your interface. 

If I'm looking at the right interface, your's only has main stereo outputs, so you can't use this for mixing with external effects, as you need channel outputs for the routing. So will need to either add this via the ADAT sockets or with an external mixer. Unless you are going to use all this extra I/O connectivity for other things it seems like a lot of expense and hassle just to get one effect working while mixing. Have you tried the effect yet? Do you like what it does to the sounds?

[Dad3353]

3 hours ago, fiatcoupe432 said:

...All advice on how to do so are welcome...

Not much to add or contradict what BRX has clearly written; the mic connected to the Warm Pre-amp, into the Compressor, into the Interface, will work. For the 3rd Dimension, you can connect the o/p from the compressor, but will need either an interface with two i/p's, or a mini-mixer, equally with at least two i/p's. There are small mixers for this, with stereo USB o/p, at around £70 or so, so might be worth a shot...

Xenyx Q1202USB, Amazon UK ...

Hope this helps.