Routing audio out of PT, back into PT??

[Obe1]

I've been planning some new buys lately and have a question about audio routing. I'm about to buy PT 9 and a Focusrite Saffite Pro 24 DSP interface for my Win 7 64bit i7 machine. I've done a lot of research about different mixing techniques and would like to try some of them with the new setup I'm going to have.

Basically I've done some reading about top mixing engineers and some of the techniques they use to get the sound they do, and many of them route programmed sounds through nice hardware preamps and compressors and EQ's to get the sound they want. I don't have the money for these nice pieces of gear, but from my reading, I see that the interface I'm going to buy has decent mic pre's for its class. I was wondering two things: 1, can I route an audio track, let's say programmed drums, out of PT (via one of the outputs of my interface) then directly back into the interface via one of the mic pres, back into PT? I hope that doesn't sound like too stupid of a question, but I am not very experienced with hardware signal routing. 2, assuming I could, would there be any benefit to that?

The engineers that route programmed drums through preamps, like an SSL or something nice like that, do it to get a certain "color" if you will. I was wondering if that would add any kind of "color" to my drums if I did that through the Focusrite. Now I know the Focusrite preamps are not even close to the quality of an SSL preamp or something of that quality, but would it be an option at all? I don't know if I know what I'm talking about, but I would assume the signal coming out of the focusrite's interface would be line level, but then going back into the interface mic pres would be less of a level right? The pre's are meant to bring the signal to line level, so it may, if anything, degrade the quality of the signal by doing all the routing?

I don't know, I didn't buy this interface just to do this, but I have been really anxious to be able to try running signals through preamps to see what it does to the sound, but I don't have the money to be able to do it correctly with traditional setups. Anyway, if you have any input regarding this question please, inform me. I'm going to buy the interface anyway, just wanted some feedback from people with experience. Thanks for your time.

Chris

[albee1952]

You have 2 options here. You can run the hardware as an insert(read the manual on hardware inserts) or you can feed the main outs(with your mix) to a pair of inputs, create a new stereo audio track, MUTE THE NEW TRACK!!!(so you don't create a feedback loop) and put the new track into record ready. Place the cursor to start at the beginning of the song and go into record. Your mix will pass out, thru the inputs(with whatever color they offer) and get recorded to your new stereo track. It will take some experimentation at first to get proper levels, but once you get that set, just record the mix to the new track. Then disable the record button, solo your new track and hear if it makes a difference. If you like it, just export the track by going to the regions bin, select the track and choose Export Regions as Files.

[Obe1]

Thanks for the info! I can't wait to try it out.