Bought a 2496, but don't know what next!

[Pal]

I decided to buy the 2496 because I got really fed up with the limitations of recording vocals with a C-Media onboard soundchip. I understand that the next step for better recording should be a mic pre-amp, but I have no clear idea about what decent and affordable type or brand to choose from.

Aside from mic pre-amping I naturally want to be able to use the 2496 for better sounding playback of my cd's. Is there perhaps a good pre-amp device which combines this and vocal recording or could I just as well plug in my headphone minijack plug into a "female to R L RCA male y adaptor" for listening and just focus on a good mic pre-amp?

[ecc83]

I have this setup! Well, with a few knobs on.

A decent pre amp (if all is to be believed!) will set you back 100's and still will only deal with the INPUT side of the card.

You need, at least to start with a wee mixer. One that is bespoke for the home pc recordist is the Soundcraft Compact 4. Others that may suite are by Behringer, Yamaha, Tapco and others.

A mixer will not only get mic signals in but can be used to organise inputs from synths, tape machines, cd players, guitar amps(if they have DI outs or Headphone outs) guitar pedals. Then you need something to control the signal from the 2496 to your monitors, all on a mixer.

All the best.
Dave.

[Pal]

A mixer, o.k., I have an old Behringer Eurorack MX 802A and by way of experiment I connected it to the 2496, just to see how it would work, because it's actually very unhandy to have such a big clumsy block lying next to the pc.
I plugged in my Sennheizer wireless headphone into the mixer but the result was FAR from great. I could clearly hear an increase of background hiss and of slight hum even. It was in no way an improvement compared to the onboard soundchip. That said, however, I believe that the old mixer could do the pre-amp mic job. So it's down to getting a proper playback sound over the headphones, I guess. Would a simple "female to R L RCA male y adaptor" do the trick, or would it not provide me of the true potential of the 2496 that I'm after?

[robertruetz]

You should instead focus on solving the hum problem. The Behringer unit should be good enough to do what you need it to do. You won't be able to just plug headphones into the 2496, that's not what it's designed for.

So, you're using Sennheiser wireless headphones? What is the exact model number, if you have it? And you've got it's plug going into the "PHONES" jack on the Behringer. Do you immediately get hum, or does it take something else happening to spark the noise? How do you have everything hooked up going in and out of the 2496?

Le_Singe
:cool:

[ecc83]

I agree with Rob,

The Berry should be fine for the task. BTW you don't HAVE to have the mixer jogging your elbow! Both the 2496 and the 802 have very low Z outputs and even tho' unbalanced should run 10-15feet no trouble at all if you keep away from power cables.

For a quick setup I suggest you run the card in and out of the "tape" RCA's. I do not know of the wireless headphones but I suspect you are overdriving the inputs. Hum troubles need a systematic approach.

If you don't still have the manual for the mx802 you can still dld it from Behringer even tho' that model is now discontinued. The signal flow block diagram will reward patient study.

Let me know if you need more help.

Dave.

[SilentBob]

This is what I do.

I have the M-audio 24/96 card in the pc and I run the output to the input of the 2track rca on the Eurodeck. Then I have the out of the 2track rca going to the input on the 2496.

There are two buttons above the headphone volume knob, 2trk to Controlroom/headphone and 2trk to main mix (or something like that).

When I want to record a track in cubase I press the 2trk to headphone button so the output of cubase goes to the headphones. I have a mic in channel 1 which goes to the track being recorded.

afterwards to listen back I switch it to 2trk to main mix. I have the main outs going to my monitor amp.

For one or two tracks at a time it works great for me.

I also have a on board sound on the motherboard and I send the output of that to channel 7/8 using the 1/4" inputs so when I'm using the computer (I have two boots, one for music and one for everything else) for non recording stuff, games, movies, listening to music, I can switch off both the 2trk switches and just listen to what's coming from the other sound card.