sending mixes to hardware and back

[clarkdean]

I have a 192 i/o and a control 24. I want to send my mixes to my neve preamp and then track the signal on a track in protools. i have tried sending the 2track mix through outputs 3/4 and back into the c24 on tracks 1/2. when I record enable the 1/2 track it gives me mad static and no warmed up signal whatsoever. any suggestions?

[GeneOuse]

Where does the incoming signal go? Back to the Neve pre? If yes you have a feedback loop right there.

[Scott Goldberg]

Do you have a patch bay? If so, then patch out the signal from the original tracks into your Neves. If you don't have one, maybe now is the time to get one, just for doing this type of thing. I don't know, I guess it's up to you, and how much you want it to happen. If I were you, I would do it! Especially if I wanted that "Neve" sound on my final tracks. I think ideally though, you'd want to have things set up with a physical patch bay for all your ins, outs and physical inserts when possible. Everything in my studio, is normalled through a TTY bay for just such reasons as yours. I can patch directly out from my 192 1-2 outputs, into any of my other microphone preamps in cases like yours. Only in mine, I'd patch them back into my Stereo Manley Microphone preamp. I don't have any Neves (you lucky dog) but I do like my Manley stuff, so in my case I'd use those. You've actually now given me some cool food for thought, as I was thinking of doing the same thing about trying to soup up some mixes of mine every once in a while.

Another thing you could probably do, is print the clean stereo tracks to disc or DAT without dithering them or doing any other procesing, and then, you could send them back in from a CD, DVD or DAT player, and run the ouputs of one of those (as long as they are balanced at +4 db) back into Pro Tools, and THEN assign them to your Neve inputs.

I just don't know of any other internal ways that would allow you to get back to the Neve's while still in your session, or by using the Control 24. Again, unless you either have a patch bay so you can bring it back in to other preamps without creating a ground loop or by taking the printed tracks and running them back into Pro Tools through another nalanced output device in your studio.. Check with tech support too, I could be missing something. It couldn't hoit!