How would you route/wire a 12 month cabin session?

And... this would be the one area where a purple site style "sell all that shit and do this instead" would actually be welcome. Since we're not doing our album in a studio this time, I do have some potential budget. Not much, but some. I'd rather spend it on promotion later down the line (as well as mastering and all that stuff) since I already own a ton of gear, but I'm open to anything that will make it easier to get where we want to go.

At the minimum. Although I don't want the Aurora's to be a weak point so if we're gonna go in for the RND Console, should probably not go cheap on converters. Gonna need 64 I/O of Prism Sound most likely. Just to capture the full depth of the cows mooing in the pasture next door.

i had a similar setup with a soundcraft ghost.

i ended up incorporating half normalled points via a patch on the output of all external preamps and inputs of converters so i could completley bypass the console as needed. which i ended up doing.

console gets used for monitor only, setting up mixes on the fly to test ideas, extra preamps and eq when needed, mix downs otb, stereo out to tape/dsd during full band recording.

i set things up like that because i noted engineers i admired would typically go direct to tape or adc when tracking if they were not using the preamps in the control room mixer. idea being less shit in the path.

Hmm... this is another argument in favor of the Presonus 32r. With my current set of gear, I don't think I could bypass the console with the MOTU AO/AI combo. The MOTU's would just be taking lines from the board and then sending them back into the board. Bypassing would require patching.

The 32R on the other hand can go straight to the DAW before hitting the board at all. It has 32 ins (plus an RCA in if you count that... 34) and 18 outs (two of which are Main Monitor out so for our purposes call it 16).

I could take 16 mic/line inputs straight into the 32R and then into the DAW. Then I can run 16 outs from the DAW into the board, process those and run them back into the remaining 16 ins on the 32R. The big question is if the 32R supports half-normal patching. I kinda doubt a unit that is $100/ch can do that but if it can I could listen to the "processed" tracks and still have 16 safety tracks getting tracked raw. This is appealing because I don't always trust every channel on this board (or really any board for that matter).

So the 32R also has the advantage of having Presonus' Capture software which align with Studio One for a simplified tracking experience. That's appealing. But what other devices could do what I'm looking for the 32R to do here? That can take the signal and send half to the DAW and half unconverted to the board?

(Also, thanks for helping crystalize my thoughts here guys!)

I actually love the GS3 plus Blackbox setup for my current uses (straight up recording rehearsals). The problem is that if I want to do any overdubs I have to dump it into my DAW and then use another interface to do all that. Which I can do I suppose, it's just a bit clunky to do kind of on a whim.

So what you gain in simplicity (and it IS dead simple) you lose in creativity. Can't do the... "wow, that was awesome... play it back I wanna try to put a guitar solo over that."

You could make the case that "so what?" Just let the live stuff be the live stuff and think about the overdubs separately. I guess this is what the Radar stuff is for?


But I love the direction you're taking this. Not mentioned is that I do have loads of gobos and blankets and panels and things I've been collecting from various studio closings [sniff] and other things. Same deal with mics and affordable and simple processing. 

And the thing I love about the GS3K is the usable EQ and effective filters. Isn't there an audio interface with an all analog passthrough? Seems like this would be a thing. Why can't I can't 16 channels and send an identical signal to the DAW and to the board? I can actually do that with the JoeCo Blackbox, I just can't overdub anything.

ericn do you know if the Bluebox has the all analog passthrough? Not clear from the website text.

So here's the first update.

I'm going to test out the StudioLive 32R in my current rehearsal space, it arrives on Friday.

It appears from what I can determine from various block diagrams that I can choose to route the signal either to USB or to Analog out. If that's the case, while not quite as good as being able to split the signal (analog out AND USB), it certainly helps. I think I can use the 32R as a combo of a stage box, USB interface, and digital patchbay.

Here's my thinking on routing for now.

- 16 inputs going into the console taking live sounds off of the floor. Tape Outs from the console into the first 16 inputs of the 32R. The 16 outputs of the 32R will go back into the Tape Ins on the console to make for a standard inline arrangement. The GS3000 is great for this. The Main Outs on the 32R will go to the Console so that I can take advantage of speaker switching between my PA mains and my near fields.

- With the mixing software for the 32R I can create easy templates depending on what I want to send to those 16 outputs, this would be used for either mix downs or for playback with easy level adjustment via physical faders.

- The six auxes on the console will send to various FX and return to channels 17 - 22 on the 32R.

- Four channels of Trident S20 pres (drums) and two channels of Portico 5032 (vocals) will go into 23 - 28 of the 32R which bypasses pre-amp path entirely for true line input.

- Channels 29 - 32 on 32R will be left open for just random "hey let's try this" type miking.

So I will end up with 32 channels hitting the AD conversion at the same time that I can then digitally reroute, bus, or whatever either back out to the board via 16 analog outs or into the DAW depending on what I'm doing. The channels are individually switchable as either sending to USB or to Analog outs so I think this will allow this to function like a patchbay in some respects. For example I could send a recorded guitar part out to the console, sent to Studio Tall Bird, and then back into DAW with just a few clicks. If I need more sends I can use the Grouping system on the GS3000 instead.

But most of my patching needs will be surrounding trying out different mikes and things as opposed to effects (tracking only in this room, with the exception of "printing" Console EQ or rough mixes). And as long as I'm not trying to track more than 16 tracks at the same time I'll be covered there.

I know I was nervous before about sending too much through the console first just cuz of gremlins and whatever, but I think as long as I'm sending drums and vocals through ultra reliable signal paths, I can deal with the possibility of a live guitar part fritzing out. It's really only drums that I would be pissed to lose a live take of.

Overthinking is my favorite kind of thinking!

I don’t know, it feels kinda silly to have two mixers. I pulled the trigger on the 32R to just stop thinking and try something, but I’ll be fast on the return trigger finger.

The Presonus is just a rack mixer, so no faders and all that. Just 32 ins and 18 outs plus USB I/O. But the simplest thing of all would be to get two MOTU's, a 24AO and a 24AI and just wire up the whole board. The problem with that is that MOTU's digital mixer is just inscrutable to me so I'd be totally analog when it comes to recall on the live in the room sound, cue mixes, etc.

Although... I suppose I could accomplish a lot of those same things just through my DAW, StudioOne for this project. If I'm taking every channel in and out from the board and running zero plugins, I could do that with very low RTL and use the DAW to save mix snapshots and cues and the like.

I don't know, something about the 32R just seems easy and easy is what I want. 

I haven't read all the replies yet, but here's my initial thoughts.

Go with 24+ channels. You never know when you want to add a mic to something or keep something patched up for later use. There's been plenty of times in the studio where we've been tracking something that just isn't working at the moment and we've changed gears to something else for a short period and then jumping back to the original instrument once inspiration strikes. Leaving things patched up can facilitate that.

Motu 24AI is what I use and it's been rock solid and sounds great. Yeah the Motu "mixer" sucks, but at least once the routing is set, you can forget about it. For me, I usually name my streams so that I can easily pull up the stream in Reaper and then just use the mixer in Reaper to do all the work for setting monitoring sends, etc.

I'd also use a few snakes with XLR/TRS boxes on the ends if possible. It just makes things tidy to run a snake to the drums, a snake to the guitars, a snake to the vocals, etc, and then use regular XLRs from there to the mics. I do this and it really cuts down on the clutter. I suppose you could just bundle the regular XLR cables with velcro ties as well though.

I don't know about the location of the cabin.. If it's really far from civilization, you might think about extra mics, stands, cables (or a way to repair them: soldering gear, extra connectors, etc) and all sort of consumable/expendable stuff. Take 2x the amount of drum heads, sticks, strings and picks you might need since those things have a habit of breaking or getting lost at the worst times. It seems like the logistical stuff tends to cut sessions short more often than technical problems.

Also, since it's a "cabin" and I have no idea of the layout or interior decoration, you might take a bunch of acoustic panels. You never know when you'll run into an issue that a lowly panel can fix.