Quick question - how to get talkback mic

[bryan_kilco]

Scenario:

No real studio. Drums in 1 room, recording rig in other room.

Snake cable running from drum room to recording rig.

Only have 8 input interface which will all be used for drums.

Want to connect a single extra mic to be able to communicate with drummer so I don't have to walk in the other room constantly.

Any easy solution? Obviously I guess I can't run it thru my interface as all the inputs will be used for drums. We do have a PA amp laying around, maybe I could just run the mic to that. But how would I send that back to drummer? Send out of PA to an input on the snake, bring it into DAW, then back out?

The snake I have is 12 IN/4 return. Haven't used it at all yet. Sorry if this is a really stupid question.

 

[mickrich]

Seriously though, Use a cheap mic and run a cable plugged into a Ghetto Blaster with an aux in or a cheap set of PC speakers.
This is presuming you don't want to record the talkback.

Or tell the drummer to speak into the hi hat mic when he wants to talk to you and put a limiter plugin on the channel in your DAW in case you crank the channel to hear him and he then plays without telling you.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Well, yeah, I'm not worried about hearing him, I'm worried about him hearing me. I think I have an idea. Mic in "control room" feeds to PA head, PA head feeds to one of the snake inputs, which then goes to DAW and I can just bring that up on a track and it'd be audible for the drummer. I think. Pretty sure I end up getting excited about shit and start over-thinking things in order to "be prepared" so I'm not dicking around for 2 hours trying to sort something on the spot.

 

[mickrich]

Oh right.
You are over thinking this.
Does the PA head have a headphone out?
Run his mix to 1 channel and your TB mic to another, using it as a mixer, and plug his phones into the PA head or get a super cheapo mixer like a Behringer or something to do this job.
PA speakers may be noisy (hum) in the room.
You could also do a bob rock and run the whole drum mix back through the pa while recording

 

[bryan_kilco]

Well I was trying to get my talkback mic to send through the drummers headphones along with the click from DAW.

PA head has preamp out, maybe headphone, not sure. But I would use one of the Returns from the snake into the PA, right? Sorry, I'm a retahhd.

 

[mickrich]

Use 2 returns to the live room.
1 for your click and tracking mix (mono should be fine) and 1 for your TB mic into 2 channels on the pa then plug his headphones in.
You may want to use a mic with a switch or unplug the mic when you are not talking to him.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Ok, so I'd have to bypass my interfaces Headphone Out entirely then, send everything to the PA and use that as my mixer?

I'm sure I'll sort it when it's time, I just want a rough grasp on this before I waste time messing with it.

 

[mickrich]

Use your headphone out for drummers mix.
You can plug a headphone out into a channel in on a mixer no problem.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Use your headphone out for drummers mix.
You can plug a headphone out into a channel in on a mixer no problem.

Ok. My only problem I may have is - this snake I got only has XLR I/O.

The extension cable for my headphones is male to female 1/4", maybe 20 foot long.

So you're saying

headpnone out - mixer
TB mic - mixer

mixer out - headphones.

But I'd need to have the mixer somewhat close to the interface and I'm pretty sure the only outputs on the mixer are 1/4" so I'd need a 1/4" to XLR adapter in order to send the output of the mixer to the return of the snake.

*head pops*

Really apologize for how dumb this seems.