20/09/2023
Definitely one of the most common questions I get asked by artists about the console is “how the heck do you know what every k**b and button does??” There’s a secret to every desk. It’s the same thing over and over for 95% of most consoles, so you really only need to learn how one channel works and then you know them all! The other 5% covers stuff like the master, submaster and bus assign sections.
My desk is dead simple, I have it currently set up so each channel sends to a corresponding input to pro tools and the return from pro tools monitors off the “2 track return” on the desk. All I have to do for tracking is plug the mics in, bring the mic gain up, adjust the EQ, add any outboard I want, bring up the fader and boom. It’s in the computer. The channels’ signals all go in order from top to bottom so you can follow the path visually really easily. There are desks out there that are a lot more complicated (in-line consoles for example, but that’s another post) but this one is great.
As a true relic of the tape era, the outputs are “normalled” (automatically patched) to the buss assignments, this particular desk has 16 assignments, it was originally meant to pair with a 16 track tape machine, but thankfully with the advent of digital recording and the removal of track count limitations, the normals can be bypassed and you can use the direct output from each channel for every channel you want to record in pro tools, I currently have my rig setup for 24 channels and will be expanding to the full 28 sometime in the near future.
