Portable recording rig -- complete!

[TwilightOdyssey]

I have been slowly building up a secondary recording rig over the past few months. The idea is that that I can easily fit everything into a single case for single instrument recording, writing drum parts, etc, as I track things in different places and do not own a car.

My 'big' setup is rack mounted and based around the Focusrite 18120; it has all my outboard gear, analogue desk, JBL 8" monitors, and everything is hardwired to a patch bay. I am using an iMac w Cubase.



The portable setup uses a Focusrite 2i2, 19" monitor and Mac Mini running Cubase. The entire setup breaks down in a minute and fits into a flight case.


I use an external hard drive to bring projects across from one setup to the other as needed.

So far it works a treat!

[Chris of Arabia]

Re: Portable recording rig -- complete!

I might have gone a model or two up on the Scarlett, but otherwise, that looks quite neat.

[ginormous]

Re: Portable recording rig -- complete!

What's your control surface for mixdowns?

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Portable recording rig -- complete!

I group tracks together into their own subgroup busses -- vocals, drums, synths, guitars, etc, and then assign those busses to hardware outputs on the 18i20, which has 10 analog outputs. Next year I would like to get an ADAT breakout box to get an additional 8 channels of output, but I can make due with 10.

Each output goes into my patch bay and from there I either run it directly out into a Mackie CR1604 or mult it to parallel effects, like compressors, which I then bring I to their own channels on the Mackie.

I use my DAW for basic overall level, EQ, and effects I do to have hardware for, and the aux sends on the Mackie for compression, delay, reverb, modulation, etc.

I then run the main outs of the Mackie back into the 18i20 and use the DAW to record the 2 channel mixdown.

All rides, panning, and effects sends are done as a mix performance through the Mackie.

The Mackie is calibrated so that -12dbu from Cubase is 0dBu on the outputs with the channel faders and main outputs at unity gain. This gives me the headroom I need to run an analogue mix at about +4db peaks on the Mackie and still have room before digital clipping.