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I will be using an 1820m for a recording in the very near future and just stumbled on the fact that only the first two inputs have pre's built in... submixing a drumkit is not my personal idea of fun, so would it be ok to only use pre's for two of the mics? I'll be using four mics, two of which used for OH's, so I'm guessing that the snare and kick are the lucky winners in the Pre lottery... or do I have to suck it up and embrace the nightmare that is submixing? I hate not being able to turn up each component as I see fit...

or... I could submix the overheads since they are supposed to be about the same volume anyway and run them through the pre along with the kick, since the overheads will pick up a bit of snare and toms anyway, right? would that be better? that way a bit more of the kit gets some pre-love

am I just making a big deal about nothing? I haven't heard glowing reviews of the 1820m pre's anyway, so is it not gonna make that much of a difference afterall?

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KurtFoster Sun, 01/30/2005 - 03:48

The 1820 sports 2 mic pres and 6 line inputs ... so if possible, get a mixer like a Mackie 1604vlz and use 6 of the 8 direct sends into the E Mu ... or see if you can rent some really good pres for the session ...

If you can't do any of those, then use one channel for the kick drum and one for an overhead mic, placed in the middle of the kit, between the cymbals and over the rack toms ... A lot of the Beatles and Stones early recordings were done that way. I hope that is of some help.

anonymous Sun, 01/30/2005 - 04:08

I'm a bit sketchy on all this, but basically meaning its got two mic level in's with pre's and then the other 6 are line level, not mic level? meaning they are too high or low to mix well? I assume if the level is coming in too low (hence the need for a preAMP) then bring up the sound will also bring in too much noise? so we are limited to two mics again? we had to do this last time, and I was hoping we could improve a bit on the last time...

anonymous Mon, 01/31/2005 - 09:48

therecordingart wrote: Or you can trigger the kit with and run stereo out of the module if you don't feel comfortable with Kurt's suggestion. I would advise otherwise because I hate triggered drums for anything but metal/death metal...but to each his own right?.

Oh know.. I am having flashbacks of Def Leppards Hysteria and the band Dream Theater

anonymous Tue, 02/01/2005 - 11:11

I too have the EMU 1820M interface and I purchased a Behringer ADA8000 (GASP!) ADAT interface to add 8 more channels of audio via ADAT. Each of the 8 channels on the ADA8000 has a mic preamp, so getting the extra mic inputs was easy. It's not very expensive (~$230 @ zzounds.com) and works quite well for me. I purchased it mostly for the additional 8 inputs, but it's getting a lot of use right now while I save for some GOOD preamps. Later on, I plan to keep the unit and just use the ADA8000's line inputs with some better preamps on the front end.

I also use some board preamps like Kurt suggested for the direct analog line inputs to the 1820M. This works well too, for now (again, until the nice pre's come).

Just a suggestion; to be taken or left at no cost ;)