Hello Brad,

I use both Vegas and the Alesis Studio 32 board in my project studio.
I hope that I can be of some assistance to you here. Let me start
off by saying that because I am unsure of your level of experience
this answer may be too basic and consequently annoying (!), but I
always feel it's better to explain too much as opposed to too little.
Ignore what you already know, no insult intended, and feel free to
email me if you have more specific questions.

Let me start off by saying that for best results you will want to do
all of your mixing in Vegas, only really using the board for routing
the audio into your soundcard for recording, and for monitoring your
mix while you're doing it in vegas. Going from analog (source) to
digital (wav files) then mixing back to analog (through the board) and
finally ending up on digital media (DAT or CD)involves more D/A and
A/D conversions than necessary, and you'll find that conversions
degrade the audio.

With the little I know about your set up I would say to run your
instruments into the line inputs 1-8 of the board. You can run the
outputs of your Delta into the line inputs 8-16 of the board, or if
you have too many instrument sources you could run them into the tape
inputs 8-16 . If you have more analog sources than eight then it
might make sense to get a patchbay, so you can route sources as needed
to the correct inputs on your board if you choose to use the "direct
out" method below. If you're going to use the "buss out" method below
then it doesn't matter as much where the inputs come in.

I use the tape inputs (I think this is what you mean by d/i) on my
board only for monitoring ADAT tracks when digitally transfering into
my computer, for quick ADAT mixes, or when I'm doing something really
weird and need more inputs than 16 at once. Basically the tape inputs
are just extra inputs, that's all, and can save you from having to buy
a patch bay and the extra cables you'd need for that at the expense
of a little more difficult mixer configurations.

"Direct out" hook up method -

Many pieces I've read suggest a situation like this... Say you want to
record a vocal part into your computer. You have previously connected
direct out channel one of your board into the delta converter channel
one (channel two into channel two etc...). You have previously also
hooked up your instruments and mics to channels one through eight
inputs of the Alesis. So you would just take the channel strip your
vocal mic is on, get the levels and eq set how you want them (though
it makes much more sense not to EQ when a signal is coming in, eq it
in vegas later if you need to), then just tell Vegas to record the
audio coming in on the soundcard channel that corresponds.

"Buss out" hook up method

I have quite a few analog sources, and I tend to like to do a little
pre-mixing before sending stuff into the computer as a stereo file
(like mixing several layered synth patches from different machines and
a stereo effect return or two - for example) so a lot of the time I
keep the buss outs of my mixer hooked up to my converter inputs,
though there are a lot of audio purists out there who will gasp at the
thought of running audio through busses before recording. Just so you
know, they are gasping right now. Sounds fine to me anyway. If I
want ultra clean tracks, like when I record vocals or acoustic
instruments, I go right from my outboard preamps into my converters
into the computer.

So you have a choice. Use the direct outs to go to your converters,
come out from the busses to your converter, or do a little of both.

Since I do all my mixing and editing in my computer I very seldom use
more than two of my soundcard outputs at one time. Just the two I
need to monitor the stereo mix. Something to consider when you're
mapping out how to hook stuff up.

I guess it would be possible that you would want to load tracks into
your computer and then send out several submixes (all on separate
busses in Vegas assigned to different soundcard outputs) and mix them
with your mixer down to a DAT or something. This would be the case if
you just had to use some outboard processing gear, as opposed to using
all plug in effects. In this case you WOULD need to use more than two
outputs on your soundcard. Doing this would be much better on your
audio if you had multi-channel digital outputs on your delta (I don't
know if it does) and a digital mixer. But anyway, I could see you
having to do something like this possibly.

Hope some of this is helpful. I remember when I got my first mixer
(back in the dark ages of the early eighties...) I was so frustrated
that there was no instruction book that said HOOK IT UP LIKE THIS.
But mixers just aren't like that, you gotta hook em up the way that
makes sense for your set up.

Enjoy!


brad hodgson wrote:
>>hey guys,
>>
>>I am jsut getting ready to pull an ALesis 32 board out of
>>layaway to use w my vegas pro. Anybody using the same
>>setup? the board has d/o and d/i on each channel; (thats
>>besides the inserts and the effects sends and returns) I am
>>also using the midiman delta 1010 8 in. 8 out I/O box. can
>>I send from the analog outs on the 1010 into the d/i on the
>>alesis for any kind of manual adjusing? volume, pan,
>>anything? if not, no big deal, jsut would be a nice
>>addition. any other pros or cons known about using this
>>board with the 1010 and the vegas pro? Ive got a pIII
>>667mhz with 2 drives, each 20 gig. 128 ram. Also, jsut for
>>asking sake, does anyone know if you can use the 1010 and
>>the alesis to multitrack in cool edit pro? I love Vegas,
>>but there are a few things I want to take care of in cool
>>edit pro first. Thanks for anyones quick response. Have a
>>great day!
>>
>>Brad Hodgson