[RWP] chuseing and audio interface for reaper

Thu Nov 1 23:36:31 EDT 2012

Yeh, I don't like to commit to compression on the way in either.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "TheOreoMonster" <monkeypusher69 at gmail.com>
To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 10:28 PM
Subject: Re: [RWP] chuseing and audio interface for reaper

>I went with the A&H as its the only one  that has control surface 
>functionality built in, and also it doesn't have soft knobs and buttons 
>outside of the ones  there for assigning as part of the control surface. 
>ALso i don't trust myself to compress on the way in so i figured i could 
>always  add a decent compressor later if i got comfortable and couldn't 
>find any i liked in software. it seems to be the most bang for your buck 
>providing you don't need a  whole lot of aux sends .
>
> On Nov 1, 2012, at 12:43 PM, Patrick Perdue <patrick at pdaudio.net> wrote:
>
>> Um, yeah. The Presonus software is completely useless on any platform. 
>> I've tried Mac, Windows and iPad. You can at least say that it is equally 
>> accessible on all platforms in it's lack of access.
>> That's where the Mackie stuff has an advantage, since you don't rely on 
>> it so much.
>>
>> If you just want a basic I/O configuration that works, you can just 
>> install the software and run away. If, however, you want to do some of 
>> the customization stuff that I wanted, I.E. routing the assignable 
>> virtual inputs to sends, buses and returns, making the WDM inputs default 
>> to something other than channels 1/2, or upgrade the firmware, then you 
>> need to play with the control panel. I think I also had to turn off it's 
>> insanely high safe mode buffer, though I don't remember if that's a 
>> default in recent firmwares or not. It did change at one point. I then 
>> adjusted the latency to where I wanted it to be in the DAW itself rather 
>> than the Presonus Universal Control, down to a more comfortable 64 or 96 
>> buffers. It used to default to 512, but I think it now defaults to 128 or 
>> 256. Can't remember which.
>>
>> As far as using the board itself, as I said earlier, it's not a true 
>> substitution for an analog experience. Everything is controlled by the 
>> phat channel strip. You select your channel, then do everything on the 
>> strip in the middle of the board. You're right in that the gate, 
>> compressor and all bands of the EQ have their own buttons. If you have no 
>> audio going through the channel strip, it might be hard to tell the 
>> status of things, although keeping a list of snapshots helps with that a 
>> lot. Set things up the way you like, save a snapshot of the board, then 
>> load it up again when you've screwed something up and want to start from 
>> "last known good configuration" as it were.
>> Fortunately though, the only thing I'm aware of that wraps around in the 
>> board's setup anywhere is editing effects, and the effects processors 
>> aren't all that interesting anyway. Changing pages always lands you on 
>> the first item, so it's easy to figure out where you are if you don't 
>> remember. If you're in system, page 2, and you don't remember that you're 
>> there, you can go to another mode, like effects edit, then back to 
>> system, which will land you on the first item of page 1, etc.
>>
>> Pressing system brings you to all the fun things like setting the 
>> internal sampling rate (not effective if it's linked to your DAW through 
>> firewire, as the DAW sets the sampling rate,) telling the SP/DIF output 
>> where to go, changing your individual channels from having downward 
>> expanders to gates (I prefer the default downward expander about 90% of 
>> the time,) pre/post send routing, not to be confused with assigning each 
>> aux send as pre/post, that's done somewhere else entirely, with dedicated 
>> buttons, etc. That's the biggest thing you'll need to memorize, and it 
>> isn't even all that deep. I've been using this board for almost three 
>> years, and it's served me well. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone 
>> though.
>>
>> On Nov 1, 2012, at 12:16 PM, "Colin McDonald" <blulemon at telus.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I've been drooling over the presonus studio live 24 board for a while.
>>> I obviously can't justify 3600 bucks at this point for a want, but it 
>>> sure does seem nice and reasonably accessible.
>>> I haven't gone through the web tutorials on youtube, but the few video's 
>>> I did check out on you tube made it seem as though pretty much 
>>> everything is right there at your finger tips.
>>> A small bit of memorization obviously, but nothing like some of these 
>>> really convoluted interfaces like the yamaha units or others.
>>> How is the supplied presonus software for accessibility with a screen 
>>> reader?
>>> I know you don't need to use that software specifically, but the 
>>> recording software and control software seem pretty cool.
>>> Is there a tutorial for a blind user on the presonus studio live 
>>> somewhere?
>>> I know if I had one I could probably figure most of it out through trial 
>>> and error, but some quick tips and tricks might be nice as I can rent 
>>> one pretty cheap here to try out.
>>> from what I gathered from the video, each set of dynamics has it's own 
>>> button on each strip, and once you enable that particular item, you can 
>>> set parameters using the strip knobs...then go to the next item etc.
>>> Is it difficult to keep track of things like assigned graphic equalizers 
>>> and things like that since it's all controlled with soft buttons and not 
>>> manual buttons.
>>>
>>> regards
>>> Colin
>>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Patrick Perdue" 
>>> <patrick at pdaudio.net>
>>> To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
>>> Sent: Thursday, November 01, 2012 6:51 AM
>>> Subject: Re: [RWP] chuseing and audio interface for reaper
>>>
>>>
>>>> I have one of the Presonus StudioLive 16.4.2 units. Considering it's a 
>>>> digital console, it's not hard to run without seeing it. I've seen much 
>>>> worse. But yeah, any of those other options are, by their nature, 
>>>> easier to operate, regardless if you can see or not. Presonus did a 
>>>> pretty good job of not burying useful things in dumb places, though.
>>>> This having been said, either the Mackie Onyx or the A&H Zed stuff are 
>>>> probably better values if you want a solid, flexible audio 
>>>> interface/console combo. The SL gives you a lot of dynamics in the box, 
>>>> which you probably won't be tracking with anyway, but it's nice for 
>>>> other stuff when using it independent of a DAW. You could achieve 
>>>> similar things with the other two boards and a DAW with track templates 
>>>> everywhere, sending things to and from the DAW as individual channel 
>>>> inserts. I've done some of that with plugins that I think are more 
>>>> interesting than the board's on-board dynamics processing. Not that 
>>>> it's bad, but I wanted certain characteristics that I couldn't get with 
>>>> just the SL itself, and it really is nice to be able to just simply 
>>>> plug any virtual effect directly into a physical channel strip like 
>>>> that.
>>>>
>>>> The first analog/firewire combo boards I had, both from Phonic, had 18 
>>>> individual trackable inputs, one for each of the 16 mono channels, and 
>>>> a two track input which could be assigned to main, a pair of aux sends, 
>>>> or a pair of subgroups, but only a stereo return, like any of the Onyx 
>>>> series smaller than the 1640I, the number of channels and buses being 
>>>> the defining differences with those units. Those Phonic boards fell 
>>>> under the category of "looks nice, sounds good, but doesn't stay that 
>>>> way for long." One of them killed it's firewire controller, the other 
>>>> one had power supply issues. Oh well, that's what I get for buying 
>>>> something with so much I/O and so many features for under $1000, I 
>>>> guess. Had the Mackie Onyx 1640I existed at the time, I probably would 
>>>> have gone with that, but at the time, the Onyx boards required a $400 
>>>> upgrade to make them firewire capable, and the preamps weren't as nice 
>>>> as they are now.
>>>>
>>>> As it is, I kind of want one of the smaller Onyx boards, maybe the 
>>>> 1220I or something, for road operation when needed. I'd really like the 
>>>> 1640I, but can't really justify it given what I have, and what I'm 
>>>> doing, which all works at the moment.
>>>>
>>>> On Nov 1, 2012, at 8:30 AM, Monkey Pusher <monkeypusher69 at gmail.com> 
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Yes it's the $11200 to $2000 range but the other zed mixers only give
>>>>> you the stereo bus  over USB which is really limiting when trying to
>>>>> do multitracking of more than  two tracks at once, otherwise it
>>>>> probably wont be much of a bother for you. But there are other cool
>>>>> things like using the boards eq as an insert on any track so you have
>>>>> knobs instead of a plug in interface and being able to send the
>>>>> individual tracks back to teh board for mixdown.  The Mackie 1640i has
>>>>> alot of similar features for a bit less and the studio live from
>>>>> presounus is another worth while one in this category, but has screens
>>>>> and etc on the unit that requires  some memorization for a blind user
>>>>> to fully take advantage of.
>>>>>
>>>>> On 11/1/12, Kevin Brown <cursebuster at samobile.net> wrote:
>>>>>> It is a plug and play,...It has global phantom power,...You're right
>>>>>> though,...if you are in the top end of professional recording,...you
>>>>>> want to go with the more elaborate units,...then you're talking about 
>>>>>> $1200,
>>>>>> to
>>>>>> $200...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But I think those units give you the items you're talking about...
>>>>>>
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