John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hello, I am new into this. I am going to make a semi-profesional recording studio at my house. I have a dedicated room for all the studio. This room have 3 areas separately from each other. One of the rooms is the control room. The second of them is a drum room and the third is bigger room for two pianos, guitars vocals etc.
My main question is the gear I need to establish communication between me (in the control room) and the musicians ( in the other rooms). I am planning to install a talkback mic to communicate directly to the musician and the other, each musician are plan to have their own mic for communicating with me (minus the vocal that have already a mic). The thing is that I don't know how to set up and what gear I need. I supposed a need a mic preamp to get more outputs (for recording each instruments) and more inputs to get the talkback mic of each musician. I have the Apollo twin MkII as an audio interface.
My second question is how to set up a headphone mix for each musician and for me. How I run multiple headphones to each musician and how I do it to set it up and have different mixes for each musician. what type of gear do I need ? I supposed I need a headphone preamp but I don't know how to set it up, neither from the hardware and in the software ( that I use Ableton Live 10)
I know that maybe the solution is pretty simple but I can figure out how to set it up.
My main concern is the headphone mix (what I need and how to set it up) and how to add more outputs for more mics (with the mic preamp or with other gear. And most important how to set it up with Apollo Twin and Ableton)

Thank you so much !

My main question is the gear I need to establish communication between me (in the control room) and the musicians ( in the other rooms).

There are a few ways to do this. The cheapest way being to hard wire mic lines to each room (or through a snake providing you have enough channels free on your snake). The problem is, your interface only has 2 preamps. It does also have optical, and since you say you record drums, I assume you have another 8 channel ADAT pre? That's still a pretty small channel count to do what you want to. 2 channels will be eaten up for talk back mics. You can build or buy foot switches that require you to push the button down with your foot to talk. This is a necessity in my opinion.

How I run multiple headphones to each musician and how I do it to set it up and have different mixes for each musician.

The Apollo lineup allows you to make a few different mixes. The best, and cheapest solution is to use a set up with these:
http://www.musictri.be/Categories/Behri ... -I/p/P0420
feeding signal into one of these:
http://www.musictri.be/Categories/Behri ... -M/p/P0421

You'll need more outputs from your interface. Either analog, or ADAT (ADAT is easier and cheaper). With my RME UFX, I can send 16 mono sources via ADAT or analog into the unit, then countless musicians can create their own mixes (including eq's and panning).

I hope that answers your questions!

Greg

Hello Greg,

Thanks for the response.

Yes I have a 8 Channel ADAT pre, but as you said isn´t too many for my set up. What other posibilites I have to add more inputs ? Can I buy another ADAT pre and connect it to my audio interface ? The only thing that the interface only have one ADAT input, there is a way to add more ADAT input ? Mayby with a splitter or a hub ? I dont know if i am expressing myself.

For the headphones mixes thanks for the response, know i have it clear how to set it up, but now i run with the Problem as before with the ADAT connection.

Thanks

Your interface is limited to 8 ADAT in's and 2 local ins. You'll need to upgrade your interface if you want more ins and outs

Greg