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[Keyplayer]

Sigh, so much for starting a thread to get some help with my problem.    

[JamSync]

pipelineaudio wrote on Thu, 30 September 2004 03:47

We need to encourage their implementation instead of making work arounds and excuses. Not all clients will put up with y cords

Let me put it this way: I have never worked in a professional situation where the assistant couldn't patch a mult with an FX box back into the headphone mixer in about one minute flat. It's no big deal.

Analog processing has delay also and at some point you have to accept the limits of Einsteinian physics (that is, the speed of light is assumed to be a constant). Now when they start making processors out of cesium vapor, that may be different...

As for accepting converter delay, well, one of the reasons I don't really love to play guitar through a POD is that I can sense the delay of the converter. I can switch into "deal with it mode", though, and cut a track. Just like I can decide to play slightly ahead or slightly behind the groove of a tune. That's part of the gig--you deal with the situation at hand.

I don't enjoy the stuttering effect of trimming the buffers for latency on a lot of computers. Remember, sw companies have to deal with legacy code, legacy computers, and rapidly changing SDKs for new hw and sw platforms. They are, in general addressing a *horizontal* instead of a *vertical* market in that respect. This means the sw is not customized for one rev of OS on one rev of hw on one platform, and that translates to code whose focus is on maintenance and development, rather than customization and optimization. These may sound like weak excuses to you because you want it all and you want it all now and you don't want any problems. I hear you, but I don't see that it's feasible in the near future given the speed of development in the computer industry and the relatively small cash base for development in the audio industry.

[JamSync]

Keyplayer wrote on Wed, 29 September 2004 13:39

Michael wrote on Tue, 28 September 2004 23:38 Not sure you want input from a little "home studio guy" when you have some of the top pros in the world on this forum, but here is my setup in a limited-space situation, just for another option. For my situation, it is great.   Keyplayer: Are you freakin' kidding me? Your "little home studio" list reads like a multi million dollar facility's audio closet! I guess your "ITB" projects do sound better.   For the price of your studio, I could easily afford a 36 fader ID Controller feeding 32 channels of API line mixer modules, a 5.1 ADAM S3 monitoring system, and still have enough left over for API & SSL Buss Compressors, A stereo Distressor, Z-16, Big Ben, and 8 channels of Prism converters. I can use your routing information, but only to dream about how cool it would be to be able to work that way. K.K, How much are we talking for 16 channels of Benchmark AD/DA conversion? I thought they were in the upper price range section. Also, do their converters go up to 192K?

I agree, sounds like a lotta nice stuff to me...

I reviewed the two-channel box several months ago and the company contact told me they were coming out with multichannnel. I haven't followed up on it, sorry.

The Apogee stuff is decent middle ground. I'd choose them over RME. If Universal Audio would come out with a multichannel version of their stereo converters, those would be great also. I wish I could give you better info for Nuendo, but for me, it's RME for lower end and Prism for high end.

[Bill Mueller]

Let me put it this way: I have never worked in a professional situation where the assistant couldn't patch a mult with an FX box back into the headphone mixer in about one minute flat. It's no big deal.

Dear KK,

You are very fortunate to have both an assistant and an intern. And I'm sure that you have worked extremely hard to become so fortunate. However, many of us, even those with nice studios and Grammy nominations cannot afford such a luxury. Twice you have made that statement that your assistant can do your patching for you.

My lowest paid employee costs $35K, with the average above $75K. Why I would want to pay an assistant $35K - $50K a year so that I would not have to buy a $20K console does not compute for me. Because I have a console, I can perform all of my engineering duties myself. I don't need an assistant. Come to think about it. Even when I have had an assistant, I have had them assisting the artist more than me.

I believe that most people here who are engineering without a console are doing so because they believe consoles are expensive and they can get away without one. You can obviously afford one if you wanted, but do not want one. I have to believe that if Digidesign were giving away Pro Controls, most here would gladly accept one.

Best Regards,

Bill

[JamSync]

Bill Mueller wrote on Fri, 01 October 2004 04:02

Dear KK, You are very fortunate to have both an assistant and an intern. And I'm sure that you have worked extremely hard to become so fortunate. However, many of us, even those with nice studios and Grammy nominations cannot afford such a luxury. Twice you have made that statement that your assistant can do your patching for you. My lowest paid employee costs $35K, with the average above $75K. Why I would want to pay an assistant $35K - $50K a year so that I would not have to buy a $20K console does not compute for me. Because I have a console, I can perform all of my engineering duties myself. I don't need an assistant. Come to think about it. Even when I have had an assistant, I have had them assisting the artist more than me. I believe that most people here who are engineering without a console are doing so because they believe consoles are expensive and they can get away without one. You can obviously afford one if you wanted, but do not want one. I have to believe that if Digidesign were giving away Pro Controls, most here would gladly accept one. Best Regards, Bill

OK, let me rephrase...I myself can patch a mult with FX to the headphone mixer in a minute flat without assistant or intern. My point was that the time involved is practically nil no matter who does it. I *do* have a console...it's on the screen where I can virtually modify it and tailor it to do what I want. A Pro Control is not a console; it's a controller with faders. When I had the Pro Control, I rarely used it for tweaking plugs and, frankly, the analog section is lacking. I bought the Command 8 because I might need a few faders, but I haven't used them yet. I'm fast at using smart tool and I generally know the ball park of how much I want to boost or cut signal by at certain points.

Your suggestion was that it takes a lot of cables plus an assistant to handle a patch bay. My reply is that it doesn't take much time to patch a mult, no matter who does it.  Generally, for sessions with artists, the patches in the control room should be ready to go before the artist or instrumentalist sets up. This takes time up front to interview whoever is coordinating the session, but it's time well spent.

It is true that JamSync has been blessed with some amazing interns, though, and they've often enabled me to forge ahead and learn new techniques while I'm teaching them the old ones...

[pipelineaudio]

The point is though, not the patching:

If we have engineers or artists who perfer to work with auto input, the way they have for a gajillion years, they should have that *option* when the box says "professional multitrack recorder"

These companies, who I mostly hold blameless, have a limited amount of time to spend on features. I believe they should have covered the basics of a multitrack/ mixer first, or within two or three generations.

I could be wrong but I believe the basics are

1. Proper Metering
2. Auto Input, all input, regular monitoring modes
3. Direct outs
4. Aux sends that can route series or parallel to any of the I/O in the system
5. Ability to interface with real world gear

Of course, some of us enter the PC world for other reasons, me for the incredible editing power of my software of choice, but those should be frills on top of the basics.

My problem is when people who should know better, or claim they should know better, who in many instances turn out to be instead film makers or car stereo installers, vehemently insist that the basics are not necessary. I got unglued because I see someone who I KNOW does know better making excuses and suggesting workarounds.

YOUR software, KK, has a pretty well working auto input...mine does not, and my company takes cues from people like you. Please be careful on what you might dismiss.

The technology is out and has been for a workaround solution. ASIO DM seems to me to be pretty capable. I dont see it implemented as well as it could be in Nuendo or Samplitude, but I believe the building blocks are there.

[JamSync]

pipelineaudio wrote on Fri, 01 October 2004 10:01

YOUR software, KK, has a pretty well working auto input...mine does not, and my company takes cues from people like you. Please be careful on what you might dismiss. The technology is out and has been for a workaround solution. ASIO DM seems to me to be pretty capable. I dont see it implemented as well as it could be in Nuendo or Samplitude, but I believe the building blocks are there.

You give my influence far too much credit. I know for a *fact* that Steinberg beta testers AND company honchos listen to the Nuendo forum. If you want stuff to change, become a very squeaky wheel.

Our studio uses both Nuendo and PT regularly. If you're not happy with the way a company's sw works, you need to make it known, sometimes over and over.


I think it took me three years of reporting on forums on the 'net that PT manuals used to recommend calibrating with a "1000 kHz tone" before they finally fixed it to say "1 kHZ".

It took six months of sending back my early MPU-401 back and forth to Roland before they finally admitted that their cards didn't work with the IBM PC-AT when the interrupts changed from 2 to 9. The last time, the card came back with 12 jumpers! Jim Mothersbaugh literally crawled under the table at AES when I thanked him in public for taking my weekly phone calls...

Big companies don't mean to be slugs. They are just that way by nature. I agree it's very frustrating. When I see debug code spill out of a major release, I get extremely irritated, but I just fire off an email or report it and go on. The more it happens, the more stuff I send them. Doesn't always work, but sometimes they finally fix stuff.

[pipelineaudio]

well well well

what a difference a year makes.

I have caught the ear of a developer, at the precise moment where we vegas guys were to be let down by the new acid offering of sony's

Justin Frankel, no slouch of a coder, has been more than willing to listen to what actual engineers might want in an app and has built accordingly.

In this less than 2 meg download, ALL relevant routing is possible as outlined so many posts ago here. Monitoring is taken care of. Editing is not only as strong as vegas' but enhanced a few exponents worth

Use any hardware you want, PC and now some early MAC builds

I realize this is my bed, this is EXACTLY what I asked for, and contrary to the smugness, I am HAPPY to lay in it! so neener neener to claims of software companies wanting to do right, claims of helpful influence phooey

this app works

this app is just what an audio engineer would code if could code

http://reaper.fm/

give it the 45 seconds or so itll take to download and install

or dont

but let me savor my victory either way

[compasspnt]

Let us all know when there's a real Mac version ready.

[pipelineaudio]

ready for testing now if you are on osx

http://reaper.fm/files/reaperosx-0.15U.dmg

Lots of stuff missing yet on the mac version, but it needs tsting regardless