Hello

I recently purchased a Mackie CFX16 Mkii for my son, for the live work he does it can be found here, http://www.mackie.com/products/cfx16mkii/ .

I was wondering if I were able to use this mixer as the recording desk for a studio, using a multi track recorder? as he also plays in a band, and how would I go about doing it, connecting it up ect, and what would I need to get? (apart from stuff like mics and monitors ect, he has those)

Thanks in advance.

Tim.

Yes, you could use it to record with, but it's not the most ideal of desks for the job at all.

You'll need to take feeds from each channel, and since this desk doesn't have direct outs, you'll need to take sniffs from the inserts (I think with Mackie desks, pushing a balanced 1/4" jack in only one notch/click makes it a send-only, rather than a full send and return insert).

For this, you'll need a 16-way 1/4" balanced loom; 12 to send the microphone inputs, and 4 spare to send stuff back to the line-level channels, if needs be (maybe for monitoring purposes in a live recording?).

Next, you'll need to get an audio interface / sound card to enable you to send between 4 and 6 outputs (2 for the main monitor outputs, and the other 2-4 for sending stuff back to the desk), and receive at least 12 inputs, preferably all balanced each way. If you're going to run this on a desktop computer, then you could use a PCI-based device. Alternatively, if you wanted to run this on a laptop (which would be handy for live-location recordings of your son's band/s), then an external FireWire (or USB2) based device would be necessary.

If you don't have long microphone cables to reach all the way from the band to the desk, then I would recommend getting a stage-box, also.

Good luck,
onlyone-jc.

Putting cables in halfway may work but is not especially robust - especially if you want to do this on location.

Perhaps a more elegant solution would be to get a couple of patchbays. Using insert cables (stereo -> 2x mono) conect the insert points to a normalised patchbay - this will allow the signal not to be broken and still flow back through the desk channel. The insert sends can then be taken from the patchbay to your multitrack recorder. Using the patchbay like this will also allow you to quickly and easily send different channels to different inputs of the recorder by simply repatching on the patch bay (not fiddling about behind the desk or recorder.)

You will need: 2 patchbays; 16 way insert loom (or 2x8); 16 way jack loom (or 2x8) and 16 patch cables.

Good luck