Audio Engineering

Recording Consoles 775

route signals to the tracks of the multitrack tape machine. From an electronic point of
view, the essential difference here is that, in a recording situation, the group outputs are
utilized directly as signals and a recording mixer must provide access to these signals.
Usually a multitrack machine is wired so that each group output feeds a separate track of
the multitrack tape recorder. Often there are not enough groups to do this, in which case,
each group feeds a number of tape machine inputs, usually either adjacent tracks or in
“ groups of groups ” so that, for instance, groups 1 to 8 will feed inputs 1 to 8 and 9 to 16
and so on.

27.5.7 The Recording Console

So far, this is relatively straightforward. But a major complication arises during the
tracking of multitrack recordings because not only must signals be routed to the tape
recorder via the groups, tape returns must be routed back to the mixer to guide the
musicians as to what to play next. And this must happen at the same time! In fact, it is
just possible for a good sound engineer, using “ crafty ” routing, to cope with this using
a straightforward live mixing desk. But it is very diffi cult. What is really required is
a separate mixer to deal with the gradually increasing numbers of tape replay returns,
thereby keeping the main mixer free for recording duties. Various mixer designers have
solved this problem in different ways. Older consoles (particularly of English origin) have

Input strip

Switching

Groups

Masters

Outputs

Eq

Main faders

Inputs Pan pots

Figure 27.8 : Schematic of a live-music console.