#450

I tried out that lifestyle, but I gave up and am going to add one of those small Rolls stereo submixers between the OT and my Radial stereo DI. It would be:
-OT
-stereo Magneto FX return which is currently eating up half the OT’s inputs, freeing up an OT input for a mic
-simple playback device (thinking iPad w/ Samplr), so I can have ~30-sec interludes playing while I change project & BPM on the OT, tweak instrument settings for the next song, and maybe talk a little.

Using the OT as the only mixing hub quickly went from “creative limitation” to “limitation that unnecessarily hampers my creativity to try and prove a point”.

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#451

Yeah. Not sure if it was the pres or what, but the FX basically can’t handle synths. Distorted.

I’m hearing good things about the Allen and Heath. May have to check one out. But first I need to grab another Qsc K10.2 to accommodate these new Make Noise stereo modules I’ve been getting into. A lot of fun. Double the $$$. Haha.

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#452

This sounds like people plugging line level in to the mic pres, not the line ins. It would be a stupendous fail from Mackie if this was the case!

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#453

Def wasn’t plugged into the pres. The issue seemed to be in the output stage. Tracks by themselves weren’t distorted. Only when you had them summed. Never had the same problem with my old Mackie.

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#454

I have a Mackie Mix8, close to brand new, that just lost one of the channels in the stereo output. No sound at all from the left channel. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot?

#455

Curious about people’s perspective about running/mixing hardware gear (guitar processors, vocal processors, synths, etc) through a mixer, particularly a non-high-end mixer, before recording to an interface. I’m of two minds.

Part of me thinks to just get the cleanest signal possible and run things straight to interface inputs, unplugging and replugging as necessary - you can always dirty things up in the box and process them later, but you know you’ll have the cleanest signal possible if that’s what works for a piece. You don’t want all of your preprocessed tracks colored and covered in a thin layer of unpredictable shittiness.

Another part of me (probably a bigger part) thinks that in recording/production today, ultraclean sounds are ubiquitous and a tiny bit of dirt/warmth/hiss/analog-ness while tracking is often a good thing and subtle enough in a mix as to never really detract from the final product. Plus the improvement of workflow from not having to plug things in and out and creative hands-on routing/EQing possibilities will lead to more interesting output overall.

My goal is not to do ultra hi-fi pop production, but i also don’t want to worry that weak links in the signal chain are sucking all the life out of things. It reminds me of the day in high school when i realized how different and full of life my guitar amp sounded when plugging straight in vs through my (all bypassed) pedal board. And years later realizing that my naive snobby building of only “true bypass“ pedals likely contributed to the problem!

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#456

I have a lovely Neutrik patchbay handling my routing issues with zero risk to injecting unwanted noise or filtration. If you’re at the point where plugging stuff in and out is a noticable hassle, a patchbay will be very useful. Then you can choose whether to go direct or through a mixer or not, as you see fit. And inserting outboard like stompboxes or whatnot becomes super easy too. Use the normals to send your default sources (mixer direct outs or synths or whatever) to your inputs, and then patch in any temporary alternate routings as needed.

5 Likes
#457

that’s an interesting line of questioning with many corollary[^1] threads.
My take on it is that most of the time i want my signal path as direct and clean as possible; and when i want a deliberately dirty sound i still insert the “tainting” gear (or chain of gear) in the cleanest path possible.

It has happened to me a few times, that i really wanted to have a certain piece of gear in a signal path[^2], but that actually removing it just sounded better.
I would certainly not have one of those ~100-400€ many-channel-and-a-generic-digital-FX-chip mixers in my path. Also i hate the general feel of them, having 10dB of gain in 1cm of a tiny “fader”, a handful of ultra-cheap pots in the signal path, horrible EQs, etc. (also their “preamps”, errr.)
(I have had to cope with enough items from this category of mixers to want to minimize my interactions with them). For no-input they rock though!

My eurorack system is recorded digitally in itself as i use the ER-301 as the endpoint of it. Apart from that, i work mostly in the box and the few outboard gear (some old very dirty broadcast compressors and half-working open reel machines) i use are semi-permanently plugged on my USB interface, so it’s mostly a matter of routing things in software.

I just use the interface as a mixer/patchbay. It is sometimes not very immediate, but i take the time to set up the outboard chain to think about what i want to achieve with it.
Imho the antidote to overproduction is not sub-par gear, it is in having a certain attitude towards sound. (I tend to dislike stuff that sounds like big-budget movie sound design if it’s not in a movie.)

[^1]: does that word work as an adjective?
[^2]: that’s a problem of mine, i should find a thread about it, i develop a kind of affective implication with the symbols attached (sometimes very indirectly) to pieces of gear which makes not using them result in a cognitive dissonance. Anyways.

1 Like
#458

I want to chime in and sing a bit of praise and bit of criticism of the Motu Ultralite AVB.

At first: There’s someone who began the work for a fader control of the internal Motu Mixer: https://github.com/Silhm/motu-mcu-control , but I haven’t really tried it.

In general I’m quite happy with the Ultralite AVB, the sound is very fine. I actually prefer it over the RME sound, it’s a bit more musical, yet precise, but I’d take this with a grain of salt, comparisons of sound without ABX-blind testing are quite subjective and error-prone.

The big advantage of the AVB models over let’s say the Ultralite Mk4 is the ethernet port so that you can connect an iPad (via a small router/access point) for controlling the mixer directly without any host-computer. You don’t need a special and expensive AVB-switch as long as you don’t want to use other AVB equipment.

The Touch Console is really nice to use, I’m looking forward to use it in connection with a Behringer ADA8200 for more inputs via ADAT in a live context, standalone.
Also the Ultralite AVB works fine via a Camera Connection Kit with an iPhone and I’m planning to use it with a powerbank for field-work.

The negative points are in my experience:
It doesn’t really work nicely with Linux, I always got crackling or it took ages to connect, depending on the firmware version, some worked better, some were unusable, but none worked really good.
And the internal reverb FX doesn’t sound really good to me, but a good workaround for standalone mode together with an iPad would be to use a good reverb plugin on the tablet, maybe with AUM.
The drivers and therefore the latency and stability of RME are still unparalleled in my opinion. The Ultralite AVB works fine and totally usable with my Windows 10 computer, but my RME Digiface achieves better latency. But i heard, that the Motus shine more on Macs, but haven’t tried it personally.

Having said that, and in recursing to the thread starters original question:
I still use an analog mixer (Soundcraft FX16 II) in front of the interface as a kind of patchbay in my small studio.
Soundwise, using the internal Motu mixer is even better and one can work more precisely with fully parametric EQs and Gates/Comps on every channel, but I find it more convenient and first of all more inspiring to use the analog mixer.
For example: I want to just play/rehearse on my Rhodes, I just turn on the Mixer, dial in some bump in the upper mids and a bit of reverb and start to play without having to wait for boot times or worrying about certain settings or even recording at all.
I’m also fond of dub-like production, using the whole studio as an instrument, and there it’s good to have everything laid out nicely in front of you.

I also totally can recommend a mixer with a sub group: I got my interface hooked up on the subgroup, so with a physical switch of a button I can route something to be recorded to the DAW, where a new track is by default getting the input from the Group/ Channel 1/2 of the Interface.

Regarding Modular-levels: Both the Soundcraft FX16 and the Motu happily take a direct output from the Modular, without a dedicated output-module.

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#459

I am looking for recommendations for ways to connect my modular to a pair of monitors.

Currently my setup is modular > zoom h4n > headphones.
I want to change headphones for a pair of monitors. I need some kind of mixer or audio interface for that. My requirement is the mixer has to be able to be usb connected or interface should work without pc being turned on.
Any advice regarding straight to stereo recording workflow and routings is welcome.

#460

Bought a MOTU M2 recently for live use. Liking it a lot so far: solid, light, small, class-compliant on Mac (I’m running Sierra). For the price, I can’t think of anything better.

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#461

Can it work without a computer?

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#462

Anyone got an SSL six yet?

#463

I actually power my Motu M4 with an 18w usb-c power adapter instead of my computer most of the time. Works great.

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#464

I haven’t tried, I use it with a small eurorack and Max. It can bus-power from USB so I guess it would run from some kind of USB PSU.

#465

Any chance you could try that?

#466

Yep, I use the M4 connected to a USB wall charger when I don’t feel like turning on my computer and opening a DAW.

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#467

Any recommendations how H4n(recorder) should be connected in such setup?

#468

I have been eyeing the Sound Devices MixPre II series. It is a recorder, multitracker, and audio interface. also when its just the recorder and or interface with the proper daw it records in 32 flow bit so if you clip your levels you can bring it back down. not that it is not 32 foot bit in multi tracking mode tho. only when recording strait to the sd card or with a 32 bit daw like reaper. I believe this could replace the zoom and give you both a minimal mixer and headphone out and monitor output. a bigger investment then the M4/M2 motu’s but also more stand alone then they are…and also battery powered if need be.

2 Likes
#469

If you like the portable recorder format, upgrading to an H6 will allow you to go standalone without a computer or with a computer (use line out for monitors and headphone out for headphones). MOTU ultralite mk3 or mk4 (and some of their other interfaces) can be configured ahead of time to work well with or without a computer, though if your rig isn’t very complicated (e.g. stereo outs from the modular) it’s probably not worth the more complicated setup process and expense. Also a dedicated Interface like the motu can’t record without a computer. Another option is a mixer with usb audio in/out, which may be bulkier but gives you hands on control and some have sd recorders built into them.