#704

ugh so sorry to hear!! I absolutely love mine with Mac, so I agree that you should wait. but Windows audio drivers can be complete hell.

at work we are having an issue with an Audient iD4 which also mysteriously will stop being recognized at times. Again it works totally fine on my Mac, and likewise Audient support has been really helpful, but just when we think it’s fixed the problem will come back.

#705

I’m sure you’re both right. I can handle a few more weeks at this stage. The retailer issue is a huge shame because I shop with them loads and have done for years and years. I do really like the SSL when it’s working and I do suspect that Windows makes things far more disagreeable for audio interfaces in general, which may have had a hand in some of my issues!

Interesting that you mention the iD4 - that was essentially the other interface I was looking at when I got the 2+. Why is Windows such an issue sometimes?

#706

ours was even more mysterious in that Windows would recognize it as an input but not an output!! I was trying to remote troubleshoot a very non-technical person’s computer, and it persisted to both of their Windows machines, so ultimately we had to just stick with the thing that worked…I can’t recommend the Shure X2U sonically because the mic pre is so noisy I have to run a lot of RX on it, but for whatever reason it works totally fine and is stable.

1 Like
#707

Weird, can’t imagine the iD4 being that different from the iD14 and have never experienced any issues running it on Windows. Doesn’t mean they don’t exist of course, just saying it can go well, too. :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#708

Yes, it’s definitely a YMMV situation where Windows and audio interfaces are concerned, it seems!

#709

Those of you who have used MOTU’s cuemix oscilloscope, do you know of an equivalent for the new M2/M4? Seems that these new devices don’t have that available, despite all the great things about them. I’ve got a tuner, fft, and goniometer in Logic, so those aren’t a big deal to set up.

EDIT: Answered my own question: looks like the Pro Audio installer includes Audio Tools which works with M4 and you can monitor the Loopback channels.

1 Like
#710

Any one have thoughts about the Allen & Heath Mixwizard 3 20S as a used purchase? Do they tend to age okay?

My use case would be FX sends, mixing between Euro cases and some table top synths as well as some feedback routing with chained spring tanks. I haven’t decided whether I want to shift that mixing to a sound card or keep some pre-DAW (leaning towards a hybrid with the latter so I don’t always need to have the computer on). The 20s came up locally for a good price and the high number of stereo channels is appealing but I’d planned this purchased a little further down the line so I’m hesitant to jump in…

#711

I have a 14:4, I think it’s called, and previously had an older 16:2. They are very good mixers, high quality mechanical components and good, clean, open sound. I tried pushing the 16:2 into saturation for effect, which I find works really well on my Mackie 1202 VLZ, but I didn’t like the dirt much on the A&H. For clean mixing there is no contest, though. The MixWizard is much lower noise, better headroom, and is just a very nice sounding board, even before you get to the extra features and much superior feel.

As far as repairability, the channels are on separate boards, but you do need to desolder some wires to get the channel boards out, it’s not completely modular as some other, higher-end mixers are. But it’s easy enough to open and as far as I remember it’s only standard, through-hole components, so even if it should develop faults it should be possible to keep it going for a long time. Again, comparing to the Mackie, that has everything on one big board and is just a little cramped, the A&H would be much nicer to work on. The MixWizard also has the pots attached to the front panel, so they don’t wiggle around like on cheaper mixers (including Mackies), which will lead to problems eventually.

All in all, I’d definitely recommend a MixWizard. (I’m moving in a month and one of the things I’m most looking forward to is having the space to set mine up again, which I’ve been lacking since a few years ago when my son started walking.)

2 Likes
#712

Thanks I really appreciate this… especially the size factor, which is one reason for sticking with my 802VL2Z4 because I share my studio with our newborn daughter for the time being. But there’s always a rolling rack under the desk…

#713

Is the ES-6 + ES-7 combo still the easiest/best way to send stems from the modular environment to an Ultralite mk4? Over optical? I am over here with the world’s jankiest patch bay situation, suddenly realizing that there is a better way.

#714

Good morning everyone

@rklem stated it: this thread is long and overwhelming - especially for someone with little experience like me …

Need support and suggestions:

I have a live rig until now and I want to bring together a setup for mainly studio/recording and occasional live situations - I am always oriented towards live playing and improvising though. Since I am using a couple of analog instruments and mics and want to loop and play and sometimes record multiple instruments at the same time, I do need a mixer. I was thinking „dawless“ until not so long ago, but a side glance to Ableton and Bink looping features plus MIDI fighter tells me, that I might bite it and use DAW.

It is tempting to check a Tascam 12 or something like that, that has all whistles and multitrack and MIDI and everything in one single piece of gear. And it is cheap compared to interface/preamp/patchbay etc. possibilities. But I need more channels anyways.

@equipoise puts his opinion down clearly:

So there are things that I didn’t understand. It seems to me, that with buying separate interface, mixing console with direct outputs (like @wheelersounds suggested) and multitrack recording devices you kann keep up way better sound quality of course, but isn’t it way more expensive? And what practicality reasons?

Also, my current setup features midi sync between an MPC One, a H9 and a Hardware looper. Hooking everything up to Ableton I would need a mixer - or an interface - equipped with MIDI … I’d have to find a solution for this, when chosen mixer does not have MIDI.

I’m asking for opinions and suggestions. I am aware that my questions might sound unclear to y’all. I learned a lot from this thread and it confused me too, because I am lacking basic understanding in some points … :laughing::laughing:… so please bear with me.

2 Likes
#715

Launchcontrol XL provides a pretty nice MIDI interface for mixing at low cost.

While I took @equipoise’s advice and bought an RME interface (after having had issues with an M-Audio interface, and then further issues with a Focusrite interface) and that has been rock solid for me, MOTU is a bit more affordable and I’ve not heard about issues with their interfaces.

My one gripe about this approach if you want a mobile setup is that the number of things you have to carry and hook up are multiplying. Some mixers are also audio interfaces, so that solves a couple problems at once, but also introduces the kinds of compromises that @equipoise is talking about.

There are always trade-offs. You just have to figure out what makes sense for you. Probably you aren’t going to nail it the first time around, but you want to get some good playing time out of whatever you choose so you aren’t immediately going down a buy and sell rabbit hole. So it’s good you’re asking questions.

2 Likes
#716

I don’t share the view that this thread is too long, because this is a massively complex, workflow-dependent, ergonomy-specific, issue/question, and solutions end up being personalised and actually quite many. To my awareness, no easy answers exist.

To your question, I offer two datapoints:

  • I track about 12-14 channels directly, without EQ or automation - just the source sounds as they come into the audio interface. My analog mixer takes a copy of the input sounds - some from the direct outs of 8-channel ADAT front I have, some directly split in the patchbay and going to mixer and my main RME audio interface at the same time (fear emoji). I also record the mixer’s Aux returns, but more importantly I record the mix output as a guide track and to use for quick demo masters. The idea is that I can reproduce the mixer settings later (i.e. EQ and mix levels), and can replace the aux tracks with in-the-box plugins for the same. Most of the time, except when I use edit-unfriendly timing, I’m able to make substantial arrangement changes later, and the mix hasn’t been a problem so far. Inefficient on disk space, but easier to reason about.
  • My monitors get signal from the main audio interface’s “Output 1-2”. I can play my Logic arrangements and record to new tracks, the only issue being sync/clock. I’ve resolved sync by sending MIDI clock from my DAW to the “DAWless” part of my setup. I don’t bother adjusting project tempo until I’ve had to - it’s relatively easy to do it later.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

1 Like
#717

There’s a lot to unpack in your post, as @eesn has said this is a massively complex topic and i’d agree with him about the length of the thread.
Im finding it hard to not get overtly complicated with my reply!

Tascam Model 12 is a 10 channel mixer, how many channels do you need and do you 100% need the functionality of a full mixer like the Tascam ? A standalone interface with something like the Novation Launchcontrol XL mentioned by @jasonw22 would work, but with caveats, like non-motorized faders, so switching between channels 1-8 / 9-16 might be difficult, but again this depends on what you actually need it to do.

I would totally agree with @equipoise about the “all-in-one” / split functionality solutions anyway.

Yes it’s more expensive, depending on the type of setup you want / need. My setup wasn’t that expensive at-all, i think, around €1k for the bones to record. My mixing desk is a digital one within my interface (TotalMix in RME) and the DAW records up to 18 channels for separate mixing/editing afterwards.

Yes you would if you want Abelton to be the “hub” of the operation, controlling tempo, start, stop etc. If this is definitely what you want you could also just get a standalone USB-MIDI Hub like a MOTU Midi express or similar. Unless the MPC ONE has USB-MIDI functionality ? Then you could just use this as your midi hub…

I think you need to simplify everything down and ask yourself what do you actually want to be able to do?
Do you want 10+ multitrack recordings for separate mixing afterwards by a mixing engineer or do you want to mix yourself “Live” on a mixing desk and just record the output of that? (2 channels)

I could keep going with questions, but that may just muddy the waters even more! :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
#718

Thanks for your support - I really appreciate it. And I do welcome the challenges to rethink everything from zero. But I’m struggling to describe things. I hope that the following makes sense somehow.

I was reluctant to go DAW first because of instability and crash fears - but it seems that there is no gear that would let me do more complex song structures - simple loopers are too basic.

I am trying to understand your ideas. Mind if I sort it out?

I am not a mixing guy. I think live, and I want to have performance gear, even though there is prerecorded and preorganised material to trigger. I am trying to merge jazz with electronica. The idea of MTR was related to some sort of editing/mastering - I see of course that DAW can do that.

Here’s the line of main instruments:

  • electric bass guitar and/or double bass
  • stage piano or rather a midi keyboard
  • MPC One (has midi)
  • synth tbd
  • 2 mics for noises
  • Additionally 2 Eventide H9 and 2 Hardware loopers

At first glance it seems that 8 channels would do, but I’m not sure. Like to have it stereo - and I need a click in the ear :sweat_smile:

I’m glad that you call that into question. Ableton can do it all, multitrack recording included, and something like launch control xl would do on stage. So maybe no need for a mixer.

Thus simplifying everything down into pieces of expandable gear with reasonable quality would mean:

  • 8 ch mic and line preamp (with direct outs?)
  • audio/midi interface with midi thru

… or a combination of the two

Would you agree on this? What am I missing?

2 Likes
#719

Just to give two alternate viewpoints (I don’t know if these thoughts just complicate things unnecessarily, so feel free to skip):

  1. DAW vs. hardware device stability: I’ve had my current hardware sequencer suddenly crash / freeze on me many times, and there’s nothing I can do to it except to file bug reports or avoid whatever I was doing. As a contrast, eg. Live and Logic have been super stable for me before, and practically every (rare) time a crash has happened it’s been down to eg. an obviously bad plugin messing things up and easy to isolate once you notice that every time you add some device to a track things start going unstable.

  2. The point about having a separate high quality audio interface, a mixer (if required) etc. components is a very good one if you’re “serious” what you’re doing / a working professional, and/or get frustrated when things get in the way. I used to run my home studio setups with RME / Metric Halo interfaces etc. for a long time, and they were super trouble free, low latency and flexible. Then again: now that I really consider what I’m doing as a casual hobby, I’ve been using eg. a Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK combined mixer / audio interface with a separate small MIDI interface, and now a simple cheap 2 channel interface with a compact mixer. And guess what? All the setups have been great for me - the previous ones more complex and flexible, the last two ones simple to set up and use. As for sound quality, no perceivable differences as long one doesn’t need mic pres with ample gain or eg. outboard equalization - for roughly line or instrument level sources I’ve gotten good results with low noise out of practically everything.

In a way the kinds of “it both prints and scans AND makes coffee” inexpensive multi-feature devices do often sacrifice on something, and once something in it breaks down the whole device might be unusable. However, whether the added convenience is worth it to oneself is entirely another matter - for someone running a professional project studio setup the balance may be different than for a home hobbyist user, for someone who uses computer as a live FX rack different than for someone who builds tracks with a DAW and a MIDI keyboard plus some recordings, et cetera.

Eg. for me, having a hardware mixer is must at this point so that I don’t have to touch the computer or navigate front panel just to set levels and FX via aux and have a little jam, practise bass, whatever. AND it’s also plus if the same desk acts as USB recording interface as my setup isn’t very DAW centric now. For me 5 years ago, the idea of a mixing desk cluttering my table / rack would have been unpleasant, and anything other than RME level of driver stability, low latencies and built-in matrix routing seemed like a huge step down as I ran everything into computer which was always on anyway. People and needs change.

5 Likes
#720

@kbra makes good points.

A DAW would certainly be the most powerful for song complexity. Of course there is hardware that can do what a DAW does, but I personally find the learning curves to be too steep and I end up back in the DAW.

Well for a click in your ear that would be the headphone output on whatever hardware you get. You’d just route the click of the DAW to the headphone outputs with whatever else you would need. If you do end up looking at an all-in-one mixer/interface just make sure it has internal mixing software.

So that would be most likely a 16input 16ouput setup if im interpreting it correctly?
That’s assuming the audio/midi interface has 8in and 8out channels.
In terms of an interface having MIDI THRU honestly i’ve never seen that as the interface is the source of send/return there is nothing to pass thru. MIDI THRU is typically found on hardware where you want to chain the original copy of the MIDI IN to another piece of hardware.

To clear things up, what I would suggest is the following for a DAW / Interface setup using something like the Novation Launchcontrol for controlling abelton easier :

Audio/Midi Interface:
MOTU 8 Pre USB
8 Mic/DI/Line channels IN // 1 Headphone OUT // 2 Main OUT channels; for speakers OR Live desk** (explanation below)
Expandable for 8 additional audio inputs and outputs via ADAT - Suggesting Behringer ADA8200 Ultragain as it’s super cheap and you can upgrade at a later point if you really need to.
Midi IN/OUT x1

RME UC
8 IN (2 MIC/DI and 6 Line) // 6 Line OUT / 1 Headphone OUT
Expandable for 8 additional audio inputs and outputs via ADAT - again suggesting Behringer ADA8200
Further expansion for 2 audio in and out via S/PDIF
Midi IN/OUT x2

I’d definitley suggest trying to pick something like this up 2nd hand and just having a go really, you wont truly know until you just start doing it!

Hopefully this clears things up a bit for you!

** Main outputs if your playing a live show straight to the live desk of the venue which I personally wouldn’t do, I’d let the live engineer take your channels to the live desk and not run them through the interface, then the interface would just handle MIDI, your click, prerecorded material throught the main outputs to the live desk.

#721

Hi
I have an ES-9 to record my modular into Ableton. In between my output (monitor) I have a norns with BLNDR app (delay/reverb). When I’m recording in live (multi track to keep each euro module sep.), I can’t record the BLNDR effect. Do you know how I can insert the effect so it will be recorded digitaly (USB-C)? Guess something is wrong in my way of working with this hybrid system :wink:

#722

If you have a really unstable computer or pick up a really cheap interface this is a possibility or a concern. But, just food for thought- a piece of stand alone hardware isn’t necessarily guaranteed to be more reliable just because its hardware. I recorded hours of short sketches direct into my Tascam field recorder last summer, and despite using name brand SD cards, somehow the card got corrupted and I lost everything I hadn’t transferred over yet, which was quite a lot.

1 Like
#723

I don’t believe that you can record the output of Norns via USB.

In your setup, you would need to send the audio from your modular to Norns, and then from Norns to your computer.

To retain the multi-track modular, you essentially need to create an aux send for your effects and record them on their own track.

I don’t have an ES-9, but since I understand it is essentially a matrix mixer, using the ES-9 config tool you should be able to:

  1. Route the inputs you are using for your modular tracks to one (or two for stereo) of the ES-9’s outputs
  2. Connect those outputs to Norns
  3. Connect Norn’s outputs to a remaining one or two input jacks on the ES-9

The important thing to get right here is ensure that you are not sending the Norn’s outputs back into its inputs (unless you want to play with feedback).