hooking up a multi-output drum machine to your DAW?

[SoundGoddess]

I am thinking about getting the Arturia Drumbrute and was wondering what I might need to be able to capture the 12 mini jack outputs individually into my DAW to use that for FX and panning? I googled around but didn't see any easy/affordable way to do this.

[BertKoor]

Cheap solution: Design the track notes. When finished, record it in 6 takes on 6 stereo channels. Then apply effects. You can correct the note design, just rerecord a section.

Expensive you found.
I have a ESI soundcard with 8 inputs, costed abt $350. They don't make stuff like that anymore.

[AnX]

Buy a mixer that has sufficient inputs.

[DJ Warmonger]

There is no home-grade interface with 12 simultaneous inputs, you need to get mixer. These are relatively cheap, though.

[SoundGoddess]

Hmm would something like this work?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ammoon-120S-USB ... 0005.m1851

[Redmerkurii]

If you have S/PDIF optical on your existing interface maybe an 8 input pre with ADAT S/PDIF optical can boost your I/O. (Windows ASIO option)

Or as BertKoor suggested (Mac option) just add another 8 input interface. The ESI unit he suggested is listed here in Australia for peanuts. It's older runout stock but ESI is reputable enough.

12 channel analogue mixers are cheap enough though as Warmonger suggests.

Budget permitting get all of the above and you'll never look back.

Cheapest option though is probably Behringer XR12. This will give you all the fun you want for 250 bucks.

The Behringer unit will only give you a stereo mixdown to your DAW but will handle all FX processing, Panning and EQ in a multitrack environment before it hits your DAW.
Essentially it will behave as a 12 channel mixer plus 4 onboard Send FX Busses coupled with Dynamics and EQ on all 12 inputs

The ridiculously affordable item you found is very much an unknown brand. I would personally steer clear. It will not give you 12 channel multitracking.

[tehlord]

There are very few mixers that will allow you to send all 12 channels over USB/FW meaning you'll need a mixer with direct outs and an interface with enough inputs anyway.

The Behringer XR12 (for example) will only send and receive a stereo audio signal to/from your computer.

I would imagine the cheapest way to do it would be to find an old Mackie Onyx 1640i (16 channels over FW) or find a 4 input audio interface with ADAT and then buy a Behringer ADA8000/8200 to add another 8 channels.

[whyterabbyt]

Just so its absolutely clear - if you do go the mixer route, then while you'll be able to pan individual channels from the 'Brute at the point of the mixer, what you'll be getting out of the mixer will not allow you to apply separate effects to each channel within your DAW as you wanted. A mixer still wont let you have any more separate channels than your audio interfaces can support, and at 'consumer' level even those with built-in audio interfaces dont usually just much more than two channels to your computer.

I'd suggest the best option would be a 6- or 8-input audio interface; that way you can do the 'multiple takes' thing BertKoor suggested in just two passes. Get one with ADAT and you could even expand that to 16 channels further down the line.

[SoundGoddess]

Any reason why MacGyvering a solution -- like a 7-port USB hub and six of these -- wouldn't get the job done? Not looking to break the bank here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

[whyterabbyt]

Any reason why MacGyvering a solution -- like a 7-port USB hub and six of these -- wouldn't get the job done? Not looking to break the bank here.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Not sure I'd want a $2 audio card responsible for the recording quality I get out of a boutique analog drum machine, but beyond that point, I'd have no faith whatsoever that the drivers were up to the job of allowing you to use 6 such devices at once, let alone usably within a DAW (cf low-latency driver types).
I'd also be wary of what any of the pseudo7.1 stuff does to audio.
That page doesnt even mention drivers for any modern OS, by the way. No OSX, Vista at best.

(If you were to go such a route, aggregating the devices with ASIO4all may be the best way to go in terms of having a single device the DAW sees.)

My opinion; clumsy, clunky, crappy and compromised at best.

[tehlord]

You can only use one audio interface at a time on PC anyway (drivers), and while you can aggregate devices on OSX, I've never had much luck getting two good interfaces running nicely with any sort of meaningful latency (even more relevant for drums) let alone 7 shitty ones.

[whyterabbyt]

You can only use one audio interface at a time on PC anyway (drivers)

That's not quite true. You can only use one audio interface at a time on a PC when using ASIO drivers, but other Windows-native driver types will happily let you use multiple interfaces, and ASIO4all will even let you aggregate them into a single device. On my system I have an EMU1820M, an MAudio ProjectMix and an MAudio Profire 2626 (which is ADAT'd to the EMU and a Behringer 8200) and, if I wanted to, I could use all of them simultaneously giving me 32 inputs.

However, as I say, I'd have zero faith that $2 USB cards would be capable of it.

[SoundGoddess]

Well, I feel satisfied enough with my tests to be willing to gamble on the USB solution.

Plugged this in and it worked well enough to get the job done in Win10:

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00 ... UTF8&psc=1

USB protocol lets you daisy chain up to 127 devices so 6 devices shouldn't be an issue with a powered hub.

In Windows, you don't need drivers; ASIO4ALL doesn't care about them.

I am a musician, not an audiophile or sound engineer. I spent a decade not pursuing music because I thought I had to save up and spend all this money up front to make any progress with it...that was a huge mistake and I have learned from that experience that perfectionism is a killer and "good enough, for the time being" is preferable to analysis of paralysis. Going to go with the flow on this one rather than obsess about the ideal setup. I feel like the opportunity cost is worth the risk that it could be an inadequate solution.

Anyway, I appreciate everyone's feedback. Thank you

[whyterabbyt]

USB protocol lets you daisy chain up to 127 devices so 6 devices shouldn't be an issue with a powered hub.

Its not a question of power. Some drivers cannot cope with multiple instances of the same device. This is not unknown with audio devices.

In Windows, you don't need drivers; ASIO4ALL doesn't care about them.

Yes, you do need drivers, otherwise even Windows wouldnt be able to use the device. However, Windows drivers are often far more transparent to install (ie it may happen automatically). ASIO4ALL sits on top of the regular Windows drivers; if they're not there, ASIO4ALL doesnt see the device.

[tehlord]

Ah yes I forgot about ASIO4all

Probably because of the reason the last time I used it, it was not good. I recall the lowest latency I could get was about 18-20ms compared to 2-3ms for my RME