Hello everyone, was wondering whether I could pick some of your beautiful brains.
I have gotten hold a of a really smart late 70ies MIDAS mixer which I want to use for some recordings.
Now, the Desk is a 12/4 and also has 2 Foldback sends, which gives me 6 balanced outputs. In order to use some of the other Mic Preamps I thought I'd take the signal from the insert points (unbalenced). Theses will be interfaced with either the Line Ins on a Digi 001/002 or a Focusrite ISA428.
I was wondering which of the following wiring solutions would be preferable from a technical point of view:
A) take the unbalanced lines into the inputs (the 001/002 provides gain options to get decent levels. the ISA428 is a streight balanced line input) and put up with extra interference due to unbalenced lines (not that I expect that to be much of a problem since most stuff is louder Rock/Indie stuff.
B) Use a 4/6/8-way DI BOX to balance the signal and connect the units balanced. Though this seems like the better Idea and was my intitial idea I was now wondering whether the cheap Active DI-Box (mains powered) I could afford at the moment would actually harm the signal more than do it any good. Would the relatively high output from a Mic Preamp be alright inside a DI-Box designed for Instrument inputs?
Any thoughts other ideas how to go about this on a budget and without a decent workshop to make my own custom balancing unit (or is this quite streight forward? I was going to have a go at re-capping the desk myself so I am not sure if I want to plan more adventures in Electronics for now).
Hope all is well
Robert
Unbalenced Outputs into unbalenced-balenced Input
2I wouldn't worry about it. Keep the cable runs as short as you can and just go in unbalanced.
Unbalenced Outputs into unbalenced-balenced Input
3Robert,
why did you get that old piece of rubbish in the first place?
Unbalanced? You should really be ashamed of yourself!
why did you get that old piece of rubbish in the first place?
Unbalanced? You should really be ashamed of yourself!
Unbalenced Outputs into unbalenced-balenced Input
4max wrote:Robert,
why did you get that old piece of rubbish in the first place?
Unbalanced? You should really be ashamed of yourself!
Yeah, Yeah I know...should have gotten one of those fancy Mackie Mixers with the really transparent Mic Pres to balance my pathetic life a bit more. Perhaps I am getting a bit old for these games... but it can a be a bit hard sometimes when the big 3-0 is looming... old rubbish...head.