Hey Colin -

"but what is the advantage of assigning separate auxiliary tracks versus just using the mixer and placing everything on one track?"

I am a mixer & engineer for a living, but I am also a musician first, so I am always looking for the delicate balance between the two.

If you are doing a quick demo, chances are the single track will be fine. But if you are going for a real mix, then separate tracks become more important. Your mixer will thank you.

I have done many hundreds of live drum tracking dates. This gives me a good perspective when I need to program. For virtual drums, I use Superior Drummer and I have found that if I record the separate outputs on separate tracks (including room tracks) and I adjust the leakage to what I expect from a live date, I can create a multi-track drum kit that is hard to distinguish from a live session. It takes a fair amount of finessing (which may be more trouble than just hiring a real drummer), but the end results can be pretty impressive.

Jes' my 2 cents!

Tom

Tom McCauley - Mixer.Engineer.Musician