If i wanted to do this from a laptop...how do i connect the mixer? especially if it is as oldish one?
do i need an external interface?

What type of output does your mixer have?  RCA?  The way you connect the mixer to your computer depends on what type of output your mixer has.

Tascam US-122  = $75 (us being usb external, tough metal housing, both audio, midi, digital and line in/outs)
EM-u internal sound card = $120  (has 1/4" inputs/outputs & digital in/outs)
GrassValley usb midi interface = $45 (no frills midi in/out plus cubase le and gigastudio)
Audacity = FREE (really surprised me this week when none of the other programs I have
                           would handle the .wav's or aiff's from our adat. "NONE" being a key)

hmmm....  maybe a good start??? 

radio shack has both a decent little mixer for under a $100, as well as a couple of half way
decent microphones that rival the sm=48's and sm=57's..  cables, adapters ( for taking rca to
1/4", 1/8" 3.?mm, etc..  even xlr = microphone i/os) almost every town has it's own electronics
house as well..  Randolph & Williams or Randolph & Rice, Jones Electronics are just some of the
very small chains I can think of that still exist..  But Surprise, Dollar Mart and Dollar Tree even
Family Dollar and Dollar General has stereo cables, Y splitters and a couple of different adapters
when in a pinch and you know exactly what you need...  familiarize yourself with what each has...
when live gigging, you find this comes in handy more-so then in a studio setting though.. just a little fyi..
  But you know what? I've found some of the most awesome deals on craigslist and local papers
where folks have sold out dj rigs, so they have a few odds and ends left over... like cables, microphones,
even decent little dj mixers.... usually they've got a small box of these things with $30, $40 or $50 on them..
when I got there, they settled for $25 cash...  (a bird in the hand ya know)  just be careful, you do get what
you paid for!! cheap is still cheap...  J.P. Getty said, "Buy the Best, Buy Less Often"   so how many of us
have purchased anything used, for example a car, and found we had a continuous repair bill on our hands??
or something that only worked occasionally?? 

Dude, very awesome post there!! I am impressed!! Yes even I picked up a couple of things!!! 
My quote is "When you can't learn anything anymore, you might be at the least brain dead!"
that and " you can learn things from anyone, anything and anywhere at any time!!!  I have
learned things from places I never thought of until it hit me in the face... (sometimes I need
a good wallop across the back of the head!!) lol


peace and blessings,


Blueyes

If it has RCA output I'd go with a simple Behringer USB interface for around 25-30 Dollars (http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx).

Hey big guy!

thanks for the reply! ermmmm......i'm a bit of a mong at this tech stuff! im into playing rather than recording and havent had much experience with it but am wanting to "get" into it....so gotta start with the basics! the mixer im looking at is a STUDIOMASTER DIAMOND 16-2 MIXING DESK, second hand obviously.......so i assume it defo doesnt have a usb bit in it......so must be rca??? which stands for??? and looks like??? hahaha sorry mate, i really need speaking to like an idiot to start with!

cheers

you get what you pay for remember??  buy the best, buy less often...   I know this is almost double, but  stand on the behringer and then stand on this one...    plus I have an issue with behringer right now.. purchased a new bass amp from them two years ago with an extended warranty...   it the ultrabass.. has a bass octaver/doubler in it...  which they revamped due to blowing the stock speaker and issued a recall which I knew nothing about...  well needless to say,  I was using the doubler at almost 90% volume and it finally claimed it's bounty and blew my speaker... I could care less if they replaced all the earlier versions of this amp or not, I just wanted a replacement speaker of a higher watt value to handle it...  compared to the shipping charges they expected me to pay to send the whole thing back and then the 15% charge they wanted to replace it, then return shipping charges, I could have almost bought a newer model fender, peavey, genz-benz(awesome b.t.w.) and serveral others...  it would have been so much cheaper for them to send out a speaker and be done with it... even for me to send them the blown speaker back, added to the new speaker plus shipping, would have been less then $100...  the way they was talking would have in turn been over $350 cost to me...  when I only paid $410 for the amp new.... so I went to american - us speakers .com and looked at his least priced, no metalic cone, no frills and then saw a carvin add for one almost $20 less...  funny how it works out, I have been a true carvin fan for more years then behringer has been in the u.s., genz-benz and several of the other newer companies have been in business combined...  it worked out well!!!  new speaker rocks the house..  I still haven't turned it to capacity, but I never will as I don't turn amps full wide open... learned better as a kid when I blew a couple of kewl amps I would kill to have now, and speaker of amps I would kill to have in the original amps and have now... an ampeg b-12 flip top for one..  the year before I got my fender twin and a few years before I got my marshall jcm-800 combo, a friend had an original fender twin 1967 model.. he finally blew his speakers... both of them...  I think one had been blown, he just had disconnected them and not told anyone...  well this won't ever happen again because of "improvements within tandy electronics... but he and I rushed down to radioshack in a big hurry, and purchased two of the 12" instrument amp speakers they carried at the time, so he could play a gig with us that night... afterwards, we tried for a few years to blow those speakers where he could have an excuse for his father to replace them...  sure the speakers cost almost then as much as the ones that was in the twin to start with...  He still has his twin, and those speakers are still in it to this day... lol...   sears had some cheaper.. but another bud in muscle shoals that went to muscle shoals high with us, kept blowing the sears cheapies left and right.... yet their price wasn't but $15 - $20 less...   you get what you pay for!! lol...  


Bluey

Is there any chance you could take a picture for me? Just of the top of the mixing board.  Then I can tell you exactly what you need to get.

STUDIOMASTER DIAMOND 16-2 MIXING DESK


And RCA connectors , this one has one RCA jack at tother end !


There are all kinds of different cables and connections, plugs and jacks.....your laptop has firewire / usb / spdif / optical or at least a 3.5mm mic input.


"I'm a bit of a mong" LOL What ever you say can be used against you in a court of law!!!


I'm confused, how come you only have one post registered ?

Thanks for the pic there Kings, I couldn't find one.
It is wierd that only one of your posts has registered, mattymann.   Oh well.

Ok, what you need is to get one of these: http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx, which are really cheap, but great quality.

Hook it up to this part of your Mixing board (the four plugs):


Let me know if it works out!