Really you don't want separate mixes for each musician?

Well, my A room is 75 ft away and I need to plug in some headphones there. If the musicians can control their individual volume level, that would be a bonus. I control the mix for the control room.

I am really liking not having to deal with the more me headphone mix game....

I send 8 channels out to each musician and let them mix it.

Last session I send the following channels:
CH1 + CH2 Drums L and R
Ch3 Bass
Ch4 Guitar1
Ch5 Guitar 2
Ch6 Keyboards mono
Ch7 Scratch Vocals
Ch8 Vocals Verb

The neat thing is walking around and seeing how different each musician mixes the those 8 stems. For so many years I used a single stereo out to feed the headphone amp and wasted a lot of time getting the musicians to reach common compromise.

Now no one complains and that are now able to focus more getting the perfect take.

I think we had a thread on HP distribution last winter. The Furman was mentioned but so was Aviom and Hear. I'm not sure I remember if consensus was reached. I think I'm a believer of letting the talent make their own 8 channel HP mix. In the Corps I could get it close and tell them that's what they got, but as a Civie it just saves time etc unless you have a monitor board set up in the control room too. Just my thoughts.

Ah, I think I remember it but never thought about the concept of going to that extent, but now it makes much better sense. I'll have to look for that thread. Link, is this what you built? Sounds expensive for both 8 runs of 75' cable and then a quality mixer that doesn' sound like trash, yes.

I have a never been used Yamaha 03D ( disliked the converters) that's been in a closet for 10 years. It has the Optional AES Digital Interface Card installed as well. I wonder if I could salvage this thing for something like this guys?

Welcome to MindFire Academy

You could certainly give it a try. I've used the Onyx 1640 that way before since it has six aux sends plus the 4 bus outs. I'd probably limit the channel count to six or eight since that fits most of the headphone systems I've read about. You could combine a couple thing into a bus if you had to.

Yes I am using my design. It uses a DB25 connector based cable, which has 8 shielded twisted pairs in it. You can daisy chain the units. My main branch run is 35' then it chains from there around the players. The longest run is about 100'. So far no issues. I sold a few of these boxes, so far no issues from other people that I know of. Anyway I am happy to have it now, it was long time coming.

Link, this is good time to talk more about it if you want, and would be so kind to do so. How much$ for something I need? I know you have a blog started but do drop some images in this thread for us too if you can? And any other cross references.

tell me more?

I am pretty bad with the pictures things....I just keep getting distracted ;) I have moved onto other projects at the moment, the last kit I had I built for my fifth controller and claimed it for me...

To answer your question for costs, check out page 10 of the following pdf:
http://steller-studios.com/PDF/HPA_R1/HPA_R1.pdf

Anyway here is what I have on this one:

http://recording.org/entries/29-Headphone-Amp-Distribution-System?bt=480#comment480

Any questions ask away.

Would the JamHub Greenroom be an option for you, set it up with a splitter before anything goes to the desk and let the musicians adjust thier own levels.

Thanks Tom for the idea: Welcome to MindFire Academy

That appears to be a cool rehearsal system but not quite what I need for the monitor feed(s) out of my DAW . I'm going the other direction. I need something simple like a two in/ 4 or 8 headphone out with separate volume controls for each musician during tracking.

or a more controllable system like Link555 suggests and built that will allow 4 to 8 sub groups the ability to mix the way they they like 100 ft away. Obviously the latter is the ideal but more costly for 100 ft snakes or some other system to route all those feeds. One Cat 6 cable sure would sure make this simple.

Presonus HP60

Something like the Presonus HP60 looks cool, anyone use this? I'm just reading this pdf, but... still need to long run to the acoustic room.

http://www.presonus.com/

Attached files

The Hear looks like what I need, missed the Cat 5 on that. Should have looked at this thread and researched. http://www.heartechnologies.com/hb/hearbacksystem.htm

Or the Aviom possibly? I think I've got what I need , thanks all.

I may be a tad late to the party, but I'm using the Furman HDS16/HRM16 system. It's truly a killa' system.

Granted, I have a buttload of conversion (24 channels dedicated to tracking/and 24 for mix), so I don't have any "major" issues with coming up with enough sends for the system... I send two stereo mixes and 8 mono mixes to the mini-mixers.

Here's what I've found so far... Most muso's, even those that have a studio, prefer to just have a two bus mix, and then a lil' bit of "more me". That being the case, I typically set up my HP mixes this way:
Stereo A - 2-Bus (dry)
Mix1 - Kik
Mix2 - Snare
Mix3 - Bass
Mix4 - Ryth Gat
Mix5 - Lead Gat
Mix6 - Keys
Mix7 - Scratch Vox
Mix8 - Click
Stereo B - Verb de Jour

The reasons I went with the HDS16 are numerous...
1)The whole system is analog. Digital glitches and clipping are non-existent.

2)Easily serviced in the shop. I can readily find any parts and fix anything that might go bad.

3)Solid build quality. The cases are all steel and if one should get pulled over and hit the floor, it's not gonna fall to pieces like the vast majority of the plastic cased units on the market.

4)Heavy duty cabling. Some might call this a detriment, but I've found that the heavy duty cabling is intimidating in a good way. Once a mini mixer gets put in place, it stays there.

4a)Heavy duty cabling also means that it stands up to the occasional getting stepped on without fear of a bad cable screwing up a session. On most systems that use Cat5, you really need to use a stranded, plenum Cat5. If your room has any size to it at all, putting 25 or 30 feet of Cat 5 on a unit ends up as a tangled PITA.

5)Unlimited connectivity/Daisy chaining. I can add just as many mini-mixer's as I want/need. A couple of times, I've had to block access to a couple of the wall panels. This is no problem. I just daisy chain the units and I'm good to go.

6)2 sets of cans/mixer. While each mixer has two 1/4" can connections per mixer, they actually have enough gas to push 4 sets of headphones with no problem... and probably could push 8. This is especially useful when doing OD's with "group" vocals. I set up a "final" 2-bus mix on "Stereo A", put the group vox on "Stereo B", hit the red button and I'm good to go.

Max