Advise on set-up

[A1A2]

hi,
I am going shopping for my recording equipments, and this is what I have come up with as a scratch for the setup. I was hoping to get some feeback from you people before I go out and start buying things.

This is my first time trying to setup a home recording studio, totally new to this, so, please give me some advise.

I don't completely understand the how mixer works. I have all my instruments plugged into audio-ins on my mixer, but, I am only gonna be playing 1 instrument at a time, how can I have all the tracks playing back while I mix them? Is this where my PC comes in place? If so, do I need a cable to connect from Audio out of my soundcard back to the mixer?
Any tips would be helpful, thank you
AL

[everett_chris]

Your on the right track. What soundcard and mixer do you have?

[A1A2]

i just bought a Behringer MX2004 (mixer), and I am still searching for a soundcard. So, far I the TerraTech EWx 24/96 or EWs 88D have caught my attention. But, with limited knowledge, I am still in the process of learning and researching for the best soundcard within my budget ($100-200).
My bigest concer is that I've heard that must of the soundcards won't be able to play my tracks back as seperate tracks except for the real expencive ones. So, my question is that, how do must of the people deal with this situation?
Do I only have the option to mix 2 tracks at a time, you know, have the 1st track playing back to my mixer while recording the next track? Or are there some other ways I can do about it?
Do you have any recommndation on soundcards?

Thanks

AL

[Foreverain4]

first off, there are two ways to mix a completed multitrack project. there is "realtime", which is simply playing back all the tracks simutaneously while recording them to another device such as a DAT deck, CDR deck, tape deck, computer, etc. the other way is to simply "render" the project as a stereo audio file such as a .wav, .mp3, .aiff, or whatever. with a sound card that only has two outputs you will most likely have to "render" your projects and use your software to mix and just use your mixer for monitoring. you can route multiple tracks from your software to your stereo outputs for monitoring. what software app are you using?
another thing to consider is, be sure your sound card supports full duplex operation. this means that it can record and playback at the same time.


lynn
www.therecordinghouse.com

[A1A2]

here is what the description of the TerraTec says:
-10 digital inputs and outputs in total

-Simultaneous recording and playback of up to 20 channels in 24-bit/96 kHz (i guess htis answers your question)

-8 digital input and output channels in ADAT™ format (optical TOS-Link) (no idea what this means)

-20-channel mixer with 36-bit internal resolution (not a clue what this is neither)

So, if I render, I will only be able to play around with 2 tracks on my mixer, is that correct? That will kinda suck if I sitll end up with mixing with a software cuz then i have bought a mixer for nothing...
Anyways, I use Sonar, SounicFoundry ACID and VEgas. Plus SoundForge as editing program.

I didn't quote understand what you mean by DAT and CDR??