RE: overdriving inputs

One thing I’ve noticed in my own setup is that I tend to not have the Master fader level up enough. If I bring down the Channel fader a bit and bring up the Master, the overdriving is mitigated to some degree.

I guess one needs to keep all the faders down a bit more than we’d usually do on other mixers. I.e. keep channels at -12Db so you have some headroom for unexpected peaks and raises in volume. But yeah, it’s not a perfect solution.

I find unlike other analog mixers the visual display of the kmix faders is more accurate. When you head into the red, you are in the red. Probably obvious, but also make sure your trim is down on all channels. I find I need to trim up channels for the Norns, and then sometimes I move things around and forget and plug modular into said channels and blow the roof off the place.

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Yeah it can make it pretty difficult to find the right level without pushing the fader down entirely though because the margin between “the right spot” and “almost nothing” is very small (for some synth sounds I can only manage it with the computer editor or I’m forced to adjust the volume fader of the incoming signal if there’s one)

NB for all those worrying about what we’re talking about : because of how easy it is to create presets, once you’re ok with your settings it’s super easy to find them back depending on the different setup you’re using the KMix for.

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You can…but it’s kind of weird. In the kmix editor you can set USB input on channels to “POST” which sends it to the computer after it runs through the faders and effects.

I’ve been having issues with it on Windows…I installed VoiceMeeter to route audio between applications. It mostly works, except I can’t get any sound from KMix unless I set all the usb inputs to “POST” which then mixes everything down to stereo. That’s not necessarily terrible…I can work with it, but I’m a little surprised. It may actually be an issue with VoiceMeeter…as it looks like it assumes all hardware inputs are stereo instead of multi-channel. It also doesn’t give me an option to choose ASIO as the driver for a hardware input.

Anyway…my issue here isn’t actually with kmix as I write this out, it’s about Voicemeeter and audio routing in windows. Possibly. Any chance you’ve messed around with Voicemeeter & Kmix?

I’m trying to find the best solution of using external FX unit as the aux send (OTO BAM) with Ableton Live. If anybody has any suggestions that would be very helpful!

Thanks!

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For a basic setup:

  1. Create a new Return track in Live
  2. Insert the External Audio Effect device (Audio Effects -> External Audio Effect)
  3. Connect the BAM to your interface and set the corresponding channels in the External Audio Effect Device
  4. Typically for the send you would wand the External Audio Effect Dry/Wet to completely Wet, and the BAM completely wet as well. If you want to adjust the dry / wet I would do it on the BAM rather than the External Audio Effect, as slight latency differences can create phase issues.
  5. You may need to play with the Hardware Latency slider in the External Audio Effect a bit after everything is setup to perfect the timing.
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That’s great, thanks so much for the tip!

It’s definitely working now - the only problem is that the effect is pretty subtle and I’m getting a bit of noise when adjusting the level. I’m using Channel 1 & 2 paired together as Audio From and Aux 3 & 4 as Audio To. External Audio Effect - 100% wet and all gain on 0dB. Is there anything I need to set on the K-Mix editor, what might be the best Input Trim level for the 1 & 2 channels? Thanks again for help!

I know, but it’s not that easy. See what I’ve writen above about it: KMI k-mix mixer/audio interface

Funnily enough I’ve actually never used a k-mix, I was just suggesting the approach for audio interfaces in general. Is the noise you’re getting when adjusting the level white / noise hiss when the channel is amplified? It sounds like you may just need to increase the gain on the input and / or output channels of the interface. I would start with slowly altering the trim while monitoring in Live.

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Ahhh ok but you are right with a little bit of fiddling around with dials on K-Mix this works much better now. Thanks!

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Wow. I have had the k-mix since release and didn’t know about pass-through mode. That is pretty awesome. I use the k-mix as my main interface and mixer, and use the MIDI expander with it. Having presets is a major deal and totally streamlines the workflow.

I have a couple of tips myself. I’m sure most know this but worth mentioning:

  1. One maddening thing is that when you assign two channels to a stereo pair, they are still panned to the center instead of left/right. So you have to go to the PAN page and move them over.
  2. When you are using it as an interface with a daw, you have to turn all of the channel faders to mute, otherwise you will be hearing 2 copies of everything, once from the k-mix itself and once from the daw, both into the main mix. I have preset 1 in standalone mode with the faders up, and preset 2 in interface mode with all the faders down.
  3. The really odd thing about this (at least the only way I have gotten this to work) is that although the input faders should be zero’d for interface mode, the output faders should not. If you are using an aux output as an fx send, it still has to be turned up in both places, the unit itself and the daw.
  4. The deal with USB POST setting is that it automatically routes that channel into the main mix. If you set all inputs to post and didn’t do the procedure that @papernoise specified, you would have all sound on outputs 1&2.

So the reason I was searching and reading this thread is to see if anyone has used the k-mix as an aggregate device in windows10 w/ ASIO4ALL? I have a couple of Roland Boutiques that I would like to use with the k-mix, but I’m not sure how to do it. Any pointers?

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I’m glad you had a question, and revived this thread. I’ve been looking at mixer / interface upgrade options recently, and the K-Mix keeps popping up. On paper, it definitely seems to check a lot of the boxes I need, but I get hung up on the funky looks of the thing. However, after reading this thread, it sounds like it’s a really well made device that is very flexible. That plus presets are starting to tip me toward getting this. The only other contender I was considering was the MOTU Ultralite mk4, but in some ways, that one seems like overkill for me.

#1 it took me so long to realize this myself!

Yes, this past weekend I set it up. The only way I know how to get to the ASIO4ALL config screen is through Live. When you configure it, there’s a “configure input” “configure output” and “configure hardware” buttons. The configure hardware button takes you to a ASIO4ALL screen. In there, you click on the little button next to the interfaces you want to be part of the aggregate device. You can only set up one afaik. I added Kmix and an old Mackie Blackjack as one device and it worked great.

I have been doing most of my work on iOS and AUM using an iconnectivity iconnectaudio4+, with occasional forays to Logic and Reaper on a mac. But now I am wanting more inputs that than the ica4+ gives me (plus I am having some issues since iOS 12.4).

So I Am looking at the K-mix, as well as the Scarlet18i20G3.

Any experience with either of these and ipadOS 13.x ?

I have been very happy with the functionality of the ica4+ but it seems to need a firmware update for ipados (or my configuration is problematic).

I am having major digital noise problems with the mic inputs. I am using a very good condenser mic and it starts with the noise even if the trim is on +10 db.
Is there any switch for the inputs to set them to mic or instrument? Could that be the problem?

Anybody know if the Kmix software will work on Catalina? I’ve yet to upgrade and honestly I’m still a bit unclear on how to determine which programs will be broken if I do upgrade.

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I’ve used it without issues.

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This thread has some great info, Ive just picked up a k-mix and trying to work it out.

One thing that I have down in my head to do, is to set it up with the 3 stereo aux outs running into my mix8 along with the main stereo out, meaning I should be able to use all 4 stereo inputs for my 4 sound generating devices and have my 3 stereo pedals setup on on the Aux outs.

The main outs then from the Mix8 will go into my Heat. I’m sure ill run into some challenges /oversights when I set this up…