Can a FX send on a mixer be used as an extra buss for multi-track recording

Question

I am working on a podcast with 3 other people and I was looking into multi-track recording to make editing easier. I was looking for a cheap mixer that would be able to be hooked up to a recorder and give each person their own track. I was reading up on the manual for the Behringer Q802 mixer

https://smile.amazon.com/Behringer-802-Premium-8-Input-Preamps/dp/B000J5XS3C/ref=sr_1_2?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1507835369&sr=1-2&keywords=Q802

and I noticed that it mentions the FX send has its own buss. It got me wondering if I could use that to send the signals from 2 of the microphones to the 2nd input on a digital record and effectively get 4 tracks.

The setup I have in mind would be the Bheringer mixer and a portable digital recorder such as this one

https://smile.amazon.com/Tascam-DP-006-Portastudio-Multitrack-Recorder/dp/B00BEGS5NI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1507836643&sr=8-4&keywords=multitrack+digital+recorder

I would have the first 2 microphones hooked up to Ch1 and Ch2 on the mixer and pan Ch1 to the left and Ch2 to the right. I would then do the same thing to Ch3/4 and Ch5/6 but I would then turn up the volume on the FX Send knob and turn down on the main out knob for those channels. Then connect everything to the recorder. Then connect the Left and Right outs with a Y cable to the first input on the record. Then use the FX send as the second input for the recorder.

Honestly I am very new to this so I have no idea if it would work. The only other thing I know that may cause a problem is the fx send on the Q802 is mono only so i don't know if panning one microphone to the left and another to the right would work. Is this a good idea or am I completely wrong. Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Yes, you can use the FX send to send the 3rd channel to the recorder as you said. Just keep in mind that it's a mono bus on the out.

But the recorder seems to only have 2 inputs and you will have to mix (any) two mics on one channel which counters the whole point of using the FX bus to get an extra out.

You either need a recording device (or audio interface) with at least 3 inputs, or you just need to mix everything to stereo (on the mixer) and record that stereo mix.

The advantage of recording 3 tracks is that you can process them separately and mix them later but this makes more work needed.

If you can keep you eye on the levels while recording, or even better, get the levels right from the beginning, then you save your self the post-processing.