Hi,

I have been told Real Band can read a BIAB file. As a result in the next few months I am thinking of using Real Band to record some live public jams to create demo recordings. During these jams A BIAB file would often be providing the bass and drum tracks while there could be 2 to 3 other instruments being played by people. So basically I want to have a P.A. mix feeding 2 or three amps out of a mixing board (amp for the audience, amp for the players, maybe an extra special amp for the drummer if a drummer needs to listen to BIAB playing bass). Years ago I knew a lot about multi-track tape recording but USB input to a recording program like real band is new to me and I have not even started real band yet. So I started thinking about the signal paths to get a Idea of what I need to do. I diagrammed two below. Doing this created some questions.
** Which setup below is the best or is there an even better way?
** Do I need to worry about lag time with the setups blow?
** What features do I need in a mixer? For example do I need USB and RCA output on all 4 output busses?

Any thoughts would be helpful for this this rusty tape recording guy new to the digital recording world :-)

Thanks,
John

Note: Where you see the ">>" symbols this is the beginning of the common output path to the two or three amplifiers for the P.A. Prior to the ">>" symbols this is where the signal is generated and where it goes for the purpose of recording the multi-tracks.

Option #1: (the best option I can think of)

BIAB drums, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer Output 2 to audience amp, mixer Output 3 to musician amp)

BIAB bass, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer Output 2 to audience amp, mixer Output 3 to musician amp)

Guitarist, mixer input 2, Mixer USB output 1 to recording with Real band, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer Output 2 to audience amp, mixer Output 3 to musician amp)

Pianist, mixer input 3, Mixer USB output 1 to recording with Real band, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer Output 2 to audience amp, mixer Output 3 to musician amp)

Sax mic, mixer input 4, Mixer USB output 1 to recording with Real band, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 2 to audience amp, mixer Output 3 to musician amp)

Option #2: (questionable because there are too many USB outputs feeding the computer)

BIAB drums, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 1 to audience amp, mixer output 2 to musician amp)

BIAB bass, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 1 to audience amp, mixer output 2 to musician amp)

Guitarist, mixer input 2, Mixer input 2 tap to usb out, Real band record, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 1 to audience amp, mixer output 2 to musician amp)

Pianist, mixer input 3, Mixer input 3 tap to usb out, Real band record, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 1 to audience amp, mixer output 2 to musician amp)

Sax mic, mixer input 4, Mixer input 4 tap to usb out, Real band record, >>computer headphone out, mixer input 1, (mixer output 1 to audience amp, mixer output 2 to musician amp)

"** What features do I need in a mixer? "

If this means you do not have a mixer yet, there will be better options than either setup you are considering based on the mixer you purchase and the budget you have for the mixer.

It appears you plan to use a 2X2 USB analog mixer. If you haven't purchased a mixer, consider an analog multitrack USB instead of the standard analog USB 2X2 mixer. Either an analog Multitrack USB mixer or a Digital Mixer with USB or Firewire is designed to do exactly what you are trying to do. A live demo should reflect the best of one of your live performances so I don't recommend you compromise on the equipment because it can definitely affect the quality of your recording, even when the performance shines.

You can completely eliminate the computer, RealBand and the stress of trying to learn and record a quality demo on the fly by using an analog mixer with either 8 direct outs or 8 aux sends and purchase a rock solid Tascam DP-24 and send the 8 direct outs to the 8 inputs of the DP-24. It records 8 channels of WAV files simultaneously in 24 bit onto an SD card. It operates as simply as a cassette recorder. Just set your input levels, hit record and come back at the end of the show, and when you get home, pull out the SD card and import it into your favorite DAW.

It has a setting designed for recording live shows/performances that quickly allows you to select the songs and separate them into individual songs. I recommend the DP-24 over similar dedicated multitrack recorders because other units like the Zoom R8,16, and 24 require you access multiple layers of menus to get to certain features. The DP-24 has knobs and buttons. The Zoom recorders and also the Behringer multitrack will record tracks to a thumb drive but the ease of use and reliability of the DP-24 give me cause to prefer the tascam over others.

It does not require any computer setup, no asio or mme, no software to open, no tracks to assign. The only other special equipment is an inexpensive 8 channel TRS 1/4" recording cable or 8 1/4" individual TRS cables.

Hi Charlie, thanks for your reply. I use to have a Tascam 16 input board when I had my little 4 track tape studio so I am a bit biased in favour of your recommendation already :-) Long live Tascam :-)

I had to do some basic reading to get up to speed on some of the terminology then I reread your post a few times and I was studying your mixer a this link http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DP24SD. Let me feed back my understanding of what you said. I could feed the two BIAB signals (drums and bass) out to this mixer along with the 3 live instruments signals as well (guitar, piano, sax) to create a P.A. mix to send to the amplifiers for musicians and audience while at the same time record all five of these input signals independently to the SD card for later input into Real band (or whatever) for mixing to create the demo recording.

John

I think you have the idea.

If you want to use the regenerating features of RB later, you can first open the BiaB file in RB, then import your (tascam) recorded tracks to other empty tracks in RB.
This way you'll have chords and tempo etc.

You are correct. I suggest you render the BIAB tracks (signals) to a cd or mp3 player and feed the output to the mixer rather than use a computer. More stable and less equipment to haul, hookup, disconnect and you don't lose time waiting on boot up.

Many keyboards now come equipped with mp3 play capability.

Treat each of your desired outputs as a separate section. A mixer has many routing options and you can use the various routing to create three distinct and separate mixes. One mixer effectively becomes three mixers.

Mix one will be your front of house mix to the audience through the PA system. BiAB tracks, instruments, vocals all go through the FOH.

Mix two will be your stage monitor mix for the musicians and vocalists. If you don't want to include the drum count in to be heard through the FOH mix, You can use two channels to receive the BIAB tracks, both on the same output - panned hard right and record a click track on the left channel and feed the left channel through the monitor mix to whoever is cueing the BIAB tracks.

Mix three will be the outputs from the mixer to the Tascam DP-24 or other multitrack recorder. The DP-24 can record up to 8 tracks simultaneously. If your mixer has only 4 aux outs or 4 direct outs, that affects the number of channels you can record at once. The more channels you can record, the more control you will have over your mix. You can use direct outs or aux outs. If both are available, I suggest using direct outs to the Tascam and use the aux outs for the monitor mix. The FOH mix should output from the main outs.

Your mixer choices can be a regular analog mixer, a multitrack analog USB mixer, A 2X2 USB analog mixer or a Digital Mixer.

Thanks guys, I just checked my local music store and found out they do have the Tascam DP-24SD.

https://www.long-mcquade.com/63885/Pro_Audio_Recording/Multi-track_Recorders/Tascam/DP-24SD_24-Track_Digital_Portastudio.htm

If the local branch of this store has one in stock for demo I could take your ideas and get them to show me how some of this would be done on the mixer.

For the jams I would be running it is better if I can feed out of the computer using either BIAB or Real Band because I have a need to make last minute changes to the number of repeats of the BIAB file and creating an mp3 would slow things down too much. I assume Real Band can change the repeats. What I don't know is how the two or more output tracks of the BIAB file get out of the computer to the mixer for separate recording on the SD-Card. Would it be via USB feeding from the computer to the mixer since USB can carry so many separate track signals? If it is I need to learn how to redirect the BIAB file output to the USB. I am just thinking if this is how it is done the Real Band manual should have this info.

To get the BIAB or RB tracks from the audio to the mixer would be determined by whether the mixer has USB capabilities or not. Not all mixers have USB. If the mixer does not have USB, it is better to use an audio interface than to use the poor quality of the computer sound card. There are many available for reasonable prices.
Focusrite Scarlett or Presonus Audiobox are two popular brands but there are many to choose from.

It is personal choice between the USB mixer or audio interface.

Regardless of how you choose to get the BIAB/RB audio from the computer to the mixer, the 8 available inputs to the DP-24 are analog and will come from the mixer outputs through cables that can be either XLR or 1/4" TRS cables.

Thanks for your help Charlie. I will check into it a bit more deeply in the fall when I get these jams set up. John.

What I don't get is why you want to record this way. You would need an interface that allows 16 or more tracks to multitrack record a live band. Plus you would have no way to know what tempo to set as the base for each song and your beats will not line up with the grid of the software. I don't know how much post editing you plan on doing. That will be key. If this is just to record a live band for their demo, you can do it any way you like as long as you have enough mics and don't do it on a little handheld device like one of those Tascam recorders that just sit on a mic stand in the middle of the room. At that point, a very valid option is to tap the mixer on an Aux bus and feed it to your interface. It is really huge to know if there is going to be post editing beyond using compression and such. With no timing grid it will be rough.

If he records along with a BiaB file, the only issue should be lining up the '1' of the first beat.
Otherwise the clock on the given machine will adjust both the new generations and the prerecorded audio equally.
If it didn't, the ACW could fix, but normally the above would be the only issue, really.

The purpose is pretty simple. If the playing is pretty good for a demo and the P.A. mix is off (generally on levels) I would like to fix up the levels so it can be a reasonable demo. I find that generally the BIAB mix itself is fine. So in other words the live instruments are too loud or too quiet relative to the BIAB mix. So if BIAB goes on track 1 mixed and the live instruments go on the other tracks it should fit the bill for the fix I have in mind. Regarding the P.A. mix everything will go through the P.A. (no individual guitar amps etc). I know some guys who play in a band regularly and who can never get the mix right because they don't do this. They also can't hear themselves. I did a little demo with my mickey mouse P.A. tap setup and it solved this problem. Once the mix is correct we all hear ourselves and everyone else as good as it needs to be for playing in time (but maybe not as it should be for a demo). However in the end maybe it does not matter. The demo is for restaurant/bar owners or coffee shop owners to hear so they can decide if they want our group of 20+ jazz jammers to jam at their location in a karaoke format where we rotate just like a normal Karaoke. So what I am saying is the demos should be a P.A. mix that could be a bit better and it may just be during the next performance (So why not emphasize the positive and make sure that great solo is a bit louder than what the audience heard when it was recorded).

I am lost Harv. If his grid is set for 120 and the song is played at 128, then droops to 126, then speeds up to 132, and so forth, are you saying that BIAB is going to adjust that roller coaster tempo to grid if he pulls that initial downbeat onto 1 of the first measure? Old School Eddie only knows one way to record, and that is with a click track. Even when I did a "demo" I recorded the band in our basement rehearsal studio with a click track, and then after post editing we went out with a crowd of 35 or so friends we invited (and bribed with hot dogs and beers) to sit packed in and be the crowd, and we lip synced to our recorded demo for the video. We asked people to bring sweaters and jackets and move around from song to song, and we did 6 songs, so it looked like a bigger crowd than it was. The logic was that if we tried to do the demo live in real time, and we screwed up the music, we had to do the whole song again. And again. And again. This way we could fix the music in post and then do the mime thing for the demo video. We finished the whole thing in an hour. Had it taken 3 hours because of mistakes and retakes, they would have eaten and drank more than the first gig's pay!!

Regarding BIAB versus RB;
I looked at Real Band and I don't think it will cut it for doing a live jam in a Karaoke rotational format where (unexpect people will want to join in adding extra repeats to the song or they want to change the BIAB style at the last minute) and where things still have to go fast and smooth. Real Band would probably be used for the later mixing of the demo.

Regarding staying in sync;
I would think (3 people playing live into the TASCAM DP-24) along with BIAB providing another input into the TASCAM DP-24 should already be in sync because BIAB keeps flawless time (as good as any metronome). These 4 inputs would be mixed inside the TASCAM DP-24 to a P.A. and also fed to the Tascam DP-24 SD-Card. The tracks should already be lined up properly on the SD-Card (should they not) such that importing the SD-Card data into Real Band for adjusting the mix later should be easy. I have a friend who does stuff like this all the time and he says the software automatically lines things up (he often uses Ableton Live but he has used Real Band).

Regarding the BIAB computer output;
I had trouble finding a USB audio device to feed the computer BIAB tracks out to the TASCAM DP-24 (they all seem to want to send the signal the other direction from the mixer to the computer). However I don't really think it matters since feeding the BIAB signal out the computer headset plug to the TASCAM DP-24 is good enough quality for a noisy bar or restaurant (it is amazing how good this signal sounds when you run it out to a good amp with good large speakers as opposed to the normally lousy computer speakers). If others have compared and disagree maybe I already have a good sound card on my computer. I will have to test this on my new MSI laptop (if they can resolve the battery charging issue it has).

Regarding feeding 2 or 3 amps for live listening;
The TASCAM DP-24 seems to only have output for one amplifier. I am assuming I can buy a device to send this signal to more than one guitar amp or P.A. system.

Regarding tapping into the TASCAM DP-24 versus a mic out front;
I tried recording with a quality mic out front and the recording quality was terrible relative to taking a direct tap off the P.A. mix of my old Teac model-2. I think the room echos screw up the out front mic signal.

Regarding recording live shows generally;
I found this link very interesting.
http://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/recording-live-show
This article makes me want to keep it simple and stick with what I have in mind above allowing me to focus mostly on my guitar playing :-) Charlie's TASCAM DP-24 recommendation seems to have nailed it for me saving me a lot of time.

“I had trouble finding a USB audio device to feed the computer BIAB tracks out to the TASCAM DP-24...”


https://www.amazon.com/Peavey-3001370-USB-Audio-Interface/dp/B004A4PSEU


Professional grade/inexpensive. Gives you two balanced outputs for the Tascam. Also ideal for running backing tracks through a PA.

Regards,

Bob

Bowlesj did a fine jov in his response above.
If the drum/bass are coming from BiaB it is not going to wander .. the other live players might, but nothing you record with is going to fix that.
You said you use a metronome; a BiaB generated drum track is pretty much just that.
All you need to know is the original tempo, whcih os why I suggested opening the BiaB file in RB before importing. Then the tempo is set to match the tracks.

"Regarding feeding 2 or 3 amps for live listening;
The TASCAM DP-24 seems to only have output for one amplifier. I am assuming I can buy a device to send this signal to more than one guitar amp or P.A. system."

Actually, there are 5.

Stereo Out Jacks unbalanced RCA's

Monitor Out Jacks Balanced TRS with output selectable on the top panel.

Effects Sends (2) Unbalanced TS

Phone Jack Front Panel TRS output selectable on the top panel.

There are several ways you will be able to configure these outputs.

"I had trouble finding a USB audio device to feed the computer BIAB tracks out to the TASCAM DP-24 "

The DP-24 does not have USB recording capability.

For a click track you could also send a MIDI clock to a drum machine playing sidestick and push that drum machine into monitors, though you would also probably have to have in ear monitors or the click would bleed and end up bring on the recording. I am absolutely a tempo Nazi anyway. I HATE when bands can't stay in time.

Thanks Bob,
for pointing out the Peavey USB device. That's great.

Thanks rharv,
for pointing out that I should open the BIAB file in RB before importing the tracks from the Tascam DP-24 SD-Card. I hope I understand this correctly. If I do understand it correctly I am assuming Real Band can import the live (real person) tracks only from the SD-Card to line up with the BIAB tracks coming directly from the BIAB file and as a result I don't really need to record the BIAB file output during the live performance (just send the BIAB output to the P.A. mix).

Thanks Charlie,
for pointing out all the outputs that the Tascam DP-24 has. Am I correct in assuming Bob's suggested Peavey USB device can resolve this DP-24 shortcoming? (assuming BIAB can send its output to USB). If I understand Rharv's response correctly I would not need to actually record the BIAB output tracks but rather read them later with the Real Band software for merging with the live instrument tracks. In other words the Peavey device buys me a better sounding BIAB output at the P.A. amps.

Final notes:
I am keeping notes from your responses for when I start trying to record these jams. Right now I am writing web page based software to help run/organize the jams and touch wood trying to get some guitar practice in since I will be playing at these jams a lot (a sort of house guitarist with BIAB help). I probably should get this Tascam board and get my act together running it before I get a location for the jams and start them since my two 40 year old "Teac Tascam model-2" mixers have noisy pots. I may try pot cleaner but I am not too confident it can get in there and fix this. Besides learning the DP-24 sound like a lot more fun. I am itching to call the local store hoping to see this mixer but resisting since I need to get this web software done :-) Trying to work mainly on one thing at a time while looking ahead as well.

John

Thanks Eddie, I think I know what you mean. You are probably talking about if there is no need for BIAB when all the BIAB parts are replaced with live players. It sounds like a good idea. I don't like it when the players speed up or slow down either.

Regarding a situation where a drummer shows up at the jam and a bass player does not I tried an experiment. I had BIAB feed out the bass only and I tried playing along. I had no trouble following it in time even though it does not play exactly on every beat. I also devised a special feed to the drummer using the teac tascam model-2 with the BIAB bass part output going to the left side of a stereo amp and the rest of the instruments going to the right side. The drummer could use the stereo balance to hear as much of the bass part as he wished too. He could feed this to one ear if he wanted.

If it was me, I'd still record the BiaB tracks. That way you have reference to the generated tracks used at the time. Remember, BiaB will not generate the same thing twice (in theory).

The main reason to open the file first is so you have the Tempo map and Chords all ready/waiting for you. If you don't plan to regenerate anything, you don't need to worry about it.

When you import the 'live' tracks, you will initially have to line up the start point to match the BiaB file, but they will all need the exact same adjustment so it won't be too difficult. Once lined up they'll play through fine.

Example; you hit record on the Tascam 2 seconds before starting the BiaB song .. you'll need to cut 2 seconds off of each live audio track so it lines up with the BiaB file.
You'd want to get rid of that anyways.

Again, if you don't plan to regenerate anything, you don't need to worry about it. That's just how I work when recording live, IF I can't record on the same machine that is doing the click/backing tracks.

Hi rharv, thanks for the tips. They are very helpful. I will definitely be coming back to this thread to reread things. I think I will have my jam organizing computer programming finished by Thursday and will start looking at this tascam Mixing board immediately after that. Even if the jams start and I am not up to speed on recording yet the new mixer will solve the dirty pots problems my old mixers have.

When you say "regenerate" I figure you mean "regenerate BIAB tracks maybe in a new style or just to have perfect freshly generated sound".


I was wondering how you line the tracks up. I assume from your comment above the answer is by cutting bits off the front of the track.

I asked my friend how I redirect the computer output to USB for the mixing board and he told me where to do it (what dialog box it shows on). I could not find it because I don't have any USB drivers on my BIAB. I am assuming that when I buy a USB audio device it installs the USB drivers on the computer and BIAB manages to automatically detect them and list them in its dialog box.

Yes, you should get a USB driver with the unit. You may want to check the manufacturers site for any new drivers for improvements/fixes.

Yes, I did meant to trim the front of the file to get them to line up.
It is easy to see in the audio editor. Since the generated song will start at 1-1-0 you would cut from 1-1-0 to the first note in your recorded tracks.
There is an undo feature, so I would experiment with the first one to get it right, then use the same setting for the rest (by highliting the desired tracks and cutting all at once), that way all imported tracks stay lined up together and it saves time in the long run.
The important part with using Cut (and really all of the Edit options) is paying attention to the check boxes that show up. In your case you would want to enable 'Close Gap' so it moves the tracks to close the resulting gap, and also disable the Chords box so you don't inadvertently cut your chords out.

As for generating; that is your call and can't be made until after the session is done.
Who knows? You may want to add a Brent Mason guitar solo, or some background sax licks .. whatever. In RB you can highlite any given section of a track and generate any RealTraack you want.
You can also use the Multiriff feature to generate multiple takes at the same time so you have some to pick through.
Lots of options.

One last tip; there is a setting in RB under Options menu at the top.
It defaults to 120 like BiaB uses.
I suggest setting this to 1920 or 3840 for audio editing. It allows much finer audio edits, meaner more accurate Cuts, etc.

Huh? 120 is bpm. What is 1920 or 3840? Pulses per quarter note?

Eddie. It's audio editing resolution for the audio editor. It's found in the 'Options' menu in the top toolbar.

Sorry, my bad.
The setting is Resolution, under Options menu.

This sets how many times each PPQ gets divided.
120 BPM with 120 Resolution is MUCH grainier than 120 BPM with 3840 Resolution.


At 120 BPM the 120 resolution equates to about 4 ms (if my math is correct)
At 120 BPM and 3840 resolution it equates to about 0.13 ms using the same math.

I'm tired so math be not be 100% but I think you get the idea.
Point is; even audio edits in PGMusic products are done using MIDI time slices, so using the highest resolution available enables more accuracy (over time).

It's another thing RB has over BiaB. Resolution of 3840(option) vs 120 (no options).
It may be one of the things that makes BiaB faster for generating new stuff, but the option for the accuracy improvement should be noted. It has made a big difference here (eliminating pops/clicks in edits, etc)

Hi rhave, Thanks for the extra tips. John

Hi guys, I am looking at the pdf manual for the Tascam PD-24 to see if it has any mic attenuation to reduce the signal coming in. I searched the pdf for reduce and attenu with no luck finding anything. I am wondering if anyone knows if it does and how well it works. The reason is my old Teac Tascam Model-2 board has 10 db of mic attenuation and I use this on any instrument such as (guitar, piano, bass) coming directly into the 1/4 inch phono input (it has 6 inputs all with attenuation). Even with it turned on to reduce the signal I still have to turn the guitar down so it does not distort. Once turned down it works fine. The old Tascam Model 5A I owned actually had 10db and 20db of attenuation. It was even better.

Thanks,
John

The eighth input ( H ) is switched. It can be line in or DI for guitar or bass. I've never had any issue using it for guitar/bass input.

A regular DI box can be used on any input.

Thanks Charlie, so if I understand correctly it only has one input which is switched as opposed to my old boards which have/had every input switched for (mic, mic-atten, line). If that is correct I am surprised they took it out of every input. I will need it for 1 to 5 inputs (typically 3). Very rarely 6 but it could happen. Maybe I need to keep my old board because plugging extra stuff in does not appeal to me much.

On another thread of a totally different topic I mentioned what I was doing with BIAB and JazzMammal recommended I use real-band. At the same time he suggested this mixing board might be a good one (maybe since it seems to have the switching for all inputs as I just found out).
http://www.zzounds.com/item--SOUSIG12MTK?siid=174025&-YziFDS-0-L64hWw1FpnK-fV3ohla56OA3q8e40xoCtW7w_wcB=
Extracted from the ad:
The consoles offer XLR and switchable Hi-Z inputs that enable guitars, basses and other instruments to be directly connected.


John

John. I looked at the specs for that board and it has two Hi-z channels and you will also need to have a DAW to record into. It serves as a better mixer than the Tascam DP-24 because it is a true mixer whereas the Tascam is primarily a digital recorder with very limited features to use it in a live gig as a mixer.

A good compromise between the SoundCraft and Tascam are two multitrack models offered by Behringer.

The UGX1204 and the UFX1604.

The UFX1204 is priced the same as the SoundCraft and Tascam. The UFX1204 has 4 inputs which will work in most of your situations since you use three inputs. The UFX1604 has 8 inputs. Both units have 2 hi-z inputs. The UFX1204 will record 12 tracks to a USB Thumb drive and the UFX1604 will record 16 tracks to a USB thumb drive. Both of these units will also record through USB/Firewire to a DAW.

The UFX1604 prices at $599 USD but is a true mixer with built in effects and is probably all around more suited for your needs than the Tascam or Soundcraft in my opinion.

Behringer UFX1204


Behringer UFX1604

Thanks Charlie, pointing out those other boards is especially helpful.

I looked over the Behringer UFX1604 and it appears to be as close to what I am looking for as I will likely find. As far as only having two hi-z inputs goes I read that if we plug bass, guitar and keyboards into the regular 1/4 inch plugs which do not have hi-z we lose some highs. So I would plug the bass guitar into a regular input and the guitar and piano into the hi-z. If another guitar player plugged in he would have to use the regular input. However on the positive side, these are jazz jams so I probably won't find anyone complaining about it (jazz players usually trim off the highs anyway). It says it supports Windows XP and 7. I am running Win 10 but that probably does not matter since I would be recording to a USB stick then shipping it into Real Band. As far as attenuation goes if they advertize plugging guitars directly in I am sure they have that covered.

Sweetwater provides great pictures where you can zoom in to clearly see things. http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UFX1604

Some useful English videos on the Behringer UFX1604
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-B1VTMokcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw61qfKqsSo


For anyone reading this who still might be interested in the soundcraft signature MTK series.
I was curious about the Soundcraft so I went searching. With the great sweetwater pictures I can see that the 12MTK has the two hi-z inputs while the 22MTK does have four hi-z inputs.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Sig22MT
With the 22MTK there is DBX clipping on two of the four with hi-z and dbx clipping on 6 others which do not have hi-z.

John, it's been some weeks now and I'm curious what you wound up with and how it's working out for you.

Bob

Hi Bob, sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I did not have my profile set up properly at the time you posted and I did not get an email notice of your post. I fixed that later.

To get to your question, I just last week (Nov 10th) got the Behringer UFX1604.
Earlier this week I learned to use it as a P.A. mixer and it works great. In preparation to learn to record the 16 tracks, last night I bought a Seagate 3 terabyte USB drive which has an external AC adapter. The manual for the mixing board recommended this over using both (a thumb drive) and (a usb drive powered by the USB port). I guess the idea is they want the USB port totally dedicated to recording so it can properly record all 16 tracks at the same time. The mixing board give you a disk drive error (wrong file format) because it wants you to format as FAT (File Allocation Table) rather than NFS (Network File System). Once you format the disk drive with the mixer to the new format it works fine. So with the mixer I just recorded part of a song to the new Seagate drive. It creates a new folder for each song. The first song would be given the name Rec_01 (that is the only folder I have now since it is my test song). Within that folder it has created wav files for each channel of the mixer. So I currently have (BIAB in the wav file called Chan_15.wav) and (my guitar in the wav file called Chan_13.wav). Now I am trying to figure out how to mix them with real band. Being an absolute beginner with Real Band I am totally lost. Currently I can open them up as separate files and get them to play and that is about it. I can see the signal of the file I just opened when I click the Tracks button in Real Band. I came to the forum hoping someone could direct me to a video or tutorial to get me started on the basics of pulling in these files side by side in the tracks view and mixing them.

UPDATE: Just did a google search "how to read multiple wav files into real band" and I found this thread.
http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=153266
So maybe (I need to do an import rather than an open) to get all my tracks in side by side for mixing??????
Something to try tomorrow with fresh energy :-)

Thanks,
John

P.S.
If anyone on this forum ever gets this Behringer UFX1602 mixer they will find the manual's chapter on recording with it is very sparse to say the least. The recording part of the manual is okay but it does not properly tell you how to play back what you just recorded using the mixer. I personally don't think it is worth bothering to even try since it can't really play back all the tracks anyway. Regardless this Behringer forum thread has some information on how to do a little bit of playback to check that it actually did some recording. I gave up on it and decided to jump directly to learning how to play it back in real band.

Try using Import Audio in RB to get each (previously saved) individual wave file to its own track.
Select a new track (highlight it) then Import each wave file to that track at (usually) 1-1-0 on the clock.

Highlight track, right-click on track info area and 'Import Wave File'
then make sure all imported tracks start at the same time (usually 1-1-0)

//I see you are on the path to success, cool ..

Hi rharv, thanks so much. With your help I got the files imported.

With this start to get me going I managed to figure out

• how to adjust the volumes,
• save the final mixed version as a .wav file,
• delete bars from all tracks at the beginning and
• clear out the unwanted BIAB count in.

I was pocking around looking at things, clicking buttons and reading. It looks like Real Band is all I will ever really need. My jams are scheduled to start December 4th. I will record every jam and will occasionally mix down a better song to put on soundcloud for a demo.

Thanks again for all your prior help to get me here with such a great mixing board. Thanks to Bob for pointing me in the direction of Real Band. It has been sitting on my computer with no use since 2012. It won't be lonely anymore :-)

John

P.S.
After doing some google searches, I was reading that you can drag and drop a .wav file from a windows folder into GarageBand so I tried it in Real band and it works. I first highlighted the track then I dragged with my mouse pointer over the description and it seems to have lined it up. I made sure the vertical line was at the start of the track too.

Glad to hear you've had success.
I have recorded a lot of multi-track sessions using RB/PT and enjoyed it a lot; hope you do too.
It's very capable when configured correctly.

Sounds good.

For some reasons I don't get notices in my email for this thread even though I changed my preferences such that I was getting them on another thread I created about 2 or 3 weeks ago (different forum in this site). It must pick up those preference settings when I first start the thread. I have this thread marked as on my watch list but it still does not send them. I checked my gmail spam folder, social folder and promotions folder (no where to be found). So after a while coming into the forum to check for responses and seeing there are no responses I assume it is finished.

That Behringer UFX1604 is a good deal most of the one's I've seen around that price are just stereo out USB.
The direct to disk is a God sent.
I might look into that rather than going into a laptop and Reaper for live gigs, the only thing would of been good if it recorded midi direct to disk also, as I do midi drums and keys as well sometimes.

I would backup your files on the 3T FAT drive as the FAT is error prone.
I would of used a smaller hard drive to record to from the Behringer and then later transfer to the 3T as a NTFS drive.
Is it still showing size as 3T when you do a properties on it ?

You can highlight all the wav files in a folder and just drag straight into a RealBand track and it will load them all in separate tracks.

Thanks Pipeline for the tip on dragging more than one file into Real Band for importing. I will give that a try. In my case I will be highlighting select wav files using the Ctrl key.

There is something to do with midi in the manual in the recording section but I don't think it will record to midi. I will go back and reread that page and update this post with the info or create a new one. I will also get back to you on the disk size showing in the properties.

The UFX1604 manual over all is pretty good for the simple stuff. It gets a bit confusing in the areas of special routing. For example I finally figured out that FW means fire wire and more specifically FW means the input from the computer or the disk drive but that also means USB input since the disk drive is USB. I suspect there is lots of YouTube help out there for it but in German. It never occurred to me to search for German forums and use a translator program (I am thinking you may be able to find these free on the web where you just highlight the text and it translates). However for my needs I don't see any need for any special routing.

I did a few more test recording to the disk yesterday. I left the first song on after moving the disk drive to the computer for Real Band testing and when I put the disk drive back in the mixing board the mixer was smart enough to create a second folder for a 2nd song. So Next I removed the songs from the drive with my desk top computer and the mixer this time was smart enough to create a new song starting as song number 1. It displays the song number on the little display. I am using Win 7 on my desktop. So for my use all I really needed to do was format to FAT then press record and when it is finished press stop. I see no need to test playback and I won't have time to do that anyway (I just trust it to work).

The other thing is channels 9 through 16 are actually pairs of stereo line level channels. So I have BIAB coming into channel 15 as mono and it gets duplicated on channel 16 on the disk drive. I will be feeding Keyboard into channel 9 as balanced and it too will get duplicated on channel 10 on the disk drive wav file.

If you you need any more than 8 Pre Amps you can use a SM Pro Audio PR-8 8-Channel Mic Preamp or Nady PRA-8 Mic Preamp on the other 8 line inputs, the SM Pro has the multi input sockets XLR/Guitar/Mic.

Yes, the midi was for control to from the DAW - Mixer.
XENYX- How Do I Set Up The MIDI Transport Controls On My UFX1204 Or UFX1604?

I might be able to get a hardware midi recorder to use alongside it ?

Thanks for the info, I will check it out more tomorrow.

Thanks for the info on the extra inputs.

I didn't realize they have a knowledge base on the Behringer site that has info on the UFX1604. I have not read any complaints about this mixer yet. Just the manual and just the recording part. Maybe they created some knowledge base entries to help with the complaints.

I checked the drive size. It is 2 Terabytes under the Fat rather than the 3 terabytes. Still a lot. Most of my recording will be compressed to mp3 and put on soundcloud. I don't think I will keep that many on the drive.

When you first plug your drive into the mixer it checks the speed. It tells you if it is high(24 bit) or slow(16 bit). If it says "SLO" it means it is too slow. My drive registers as "Hi". I get a very brief error on the mixer display when I first plug the drive in probably because the drive itself is doing some stuff and is not fully ready for the mixer testing. Then it shows "Hi" for a little while then it switches to showing the number of the next song you will be recording.

If your drive is still formatted NFS (I think it is when you try to record) it will give you an error "FSE" and that means you need to format the drive with the mixer.

They do not have a case. I am not going to bother getting one for my use.
Here are some useful links if you want a case.

Case Premade for the UFX1604
https://www.thomann.de/gb/thon_mixercase_behringer_ufx_1604.htm

How to build a case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1v6cPptzSI

Case Hardware
http://www.tchweb.com/tchstore/home.do;jsessionid=0C5CBFD90D38C7BB6376E3DAD16B3045.worker1
The above place is located in Canada not too far away from where I live.