Improve flawed home studio design (Components)

[Ash Telecaster]

Hello,

First let me say "thank you" in advance to anybody who takes the time to look at this!

I hope I picked the correct forum for this topic.

I have put together a small home studio. Like all home studios the budget is pretty tight. I have a problem with monitoring. I have a Tascam us-1800 as an audio interface and mistakenly believed it's mix function would be adequate for sending to a headphone amplifier for monitoring. One major issue is I have no control over the mix as the gain controls on the us-1800 affect the gain seen by the DAW. I can't even pull the drums down in the mix.

Heres what I have...

A small-ish room, roughly 14' x 16', drop ceiling, carpet, no acoustic treaments.
A small acoustic Jazz drum kit with 2 overheads, kick mic, snare/high hat mic (4 mics total)
Korg TR61 keyboard line direct
Hartke HA5500 bass amp used line direct
Eleven Rack used exclusively as a guitar processor, line direct
A Rode nt-1 / T.C. Voiceworks in an adjoining room
A Yamaha EMX 5014c analog powered mixer mostly used for rehearsing with vocals
A Tascam us-1800 USB audio interface
A Samson S-que8 headphone amp
Audio Technica ATH-M50 and Sony MDR-7506 headphones
A home built PC running Reaper DAW - PC in a seperate room connected by a long USB run

Only the drums, and the vocals in the next room, have open mics.

The us-1800 has 8 xlr inputs + 6 1/4" inputs, digital and MIDI I/O as well.

I think what I need to do is put a mixer in front of the us-1800 that has 16 individual channel sends. Then use an adapter to convert 1/4" plugs to xlr for the eight xlr inputs on the us-1800. Trouble is I can't seem to find any with that capability. At least not anything in my price range. I might be on the wrong track.

I will probalby want to upgrade the headphone amp as well.

I don't want to spend more than I need but can probably stretch to $1g if I need too.

I appreciate any suggestions on how to improve what I have and how I'm using it.

Thank you

[PeterDohnt]

This is my first post to the forum so take this as you will.

As I read the Tascam unit the XLR inputs have microphone preamps built in so these can be direct connected to your mics.

The other input channels are line level and therefore would need mic preamps if you were proposing to use mics for these inputs as well.
Most mixers come with insert jacks on their channels - some come with direct outs - each of these options would allow you to use 6 mixer channels to boost a mic to a line level for the remaining inputs on the Tascam.
You would need to make cables to suit the purpose - each is different IE from insert or direct out jack.

I am actually considering this unit as an option for my own use.

Peter

[Ash Telecaster]

Hi Peter,

The us-1800 actually makes a pretty nice interface. I have no issue with it's quality of recorded sound.

And the monitoring works great for a single instrument over dubbing tracks. It works for recording multiple instruments as well but you have no real ability to control the monitor mix.

I have a friend who just gave me a Mackie CR1604 mixer. It has 8 mic inputs each with an insert. It also has 4 aux sends. The combination will give me 12 lines out of the mixer to the us-1800. That will be enough for my purpose.

The plan is to run all instruments into the Mackie. The 12 lines out sent to the Tascam returning the stereo monitor sends to the Mackie. The stereo main out will then be output to a Furman HA6-AB 20 watt headphone amp I just bought. The Furman will drive three headphone stations each with two headphone outs and individual volume controls.

I think this will give me what I believe is my best possible headphone monitor mix. I won't be able to do custom mixes but it will be good enough.

The next idea I'm tossing around is possibly making a couple temporary baffle walls for the drums. Maybe with plaxiglass windows.

[PeterDohnt]

Hey Ash - sounds like you are getting it sorted.

Since my last post I have bought a US-1800 - installed fine and worked straight up with Pro-Tools but needs to be on one of the two lowest latency settings.

I scored an Alesis X2 24 channel control room mixer for next to nothing - took a week to strip down to clean and needed a few minor repairs - AND THE MUTE CONTROLLER WAS JAMMED ON - meant no signal passed anywhere - all fixed

So I will be using that as you are suggesting of the Mackie with analogue mixing of the headphone sends and the direct outs driving the interface - now I need to make some room for these things to go

[Ash Telecaster]

Hi Peter,

It turns out the Mackie mixer didn't work oout as all it's outputs were post fader. This made it impossible to alter the headphone mix without altering the input levels to the PC. SO I bucked up and bought a Mackie vlz-1604. This model has inserts that can be used as dedicated pre fader outputs to the DAW. This has worked very well. I keep learning as I go!

[PeterDohnt]

We are all learning as we go

[johson]

I have put together a small home studio. Like all home studios the budget is pretty tight. I have a problem with monitoring. I have a Tascam us-1800 as an audio interface and mistakenly believed it's mix function would be adequate for sending to a headphone amplifier for monitoring. One maj

[Ash Telecaster]

Thought I would post an update.

I got a newer Mackie mixer that has per channel prefader outs. It has worked perfectly. I now have two monitor mixes, one fo the drummer and one for everybody else, and can adjust that mix on the fly without messing up my recording. In addition there is zero latency.

Now I am spending my time on the art of recording instead of shaking my fists and cursing at the hardware.

It's not pro studio grade but I'm pretty pleased with the result. I've found that the biggest challenge so far is getting a good drum sound. I've managed to get a pretty big drum sound from the small jazz kit but I need to get a mic on the toms.

[maddison2]

what I'm saying is that I don't have a distinct Ground Buss Bar that connects Ground directly to the Earth Ground over the Sub and Main panels. However, I don't hear any hums in the studio.

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