[Rwp] A soundcard accessible?

[Patrick Perdue]

USB is about twice as latent as firewire with the same audio interface, 
all the same block and buffer settings, etc. If you have firewire, use it.

On 2/10/2016 9:14 PM, Chris Belle wrote:
> hey Patrick?
> Maybe you missed my question.
> Was just curious if you have found any performance differences with the
> audio express using it firewire vs USB?
> I know you tend to favor fw like I do, but wondered if you had done any
> tests with it on the USB side, or had ocation to use it that way when fw
> wasn't available?
>
>
> On 2/4/2016 12:05 PM, Patrick Perdue wrote:
>> Yeah, the hardware is accessible, however, you still need the software
>> for a few things, like changing clock, sample rate, buffer size,
>> headphone routing, etc. The Audio Express is one of those interfaces
>> you can't override the asio block size with Reaper as you can with
>> most. Fortunately, these things are all accessible in the MOTU Audio
>> Console, the basic control panel for the device, though the MOTU
>> Cue-Mix FX software is not. With the Audio Express, the only things
>> I've not really been able to do are invert the phase of channels, and
>> making channel pairs link their volume controls, neither of which are
>> a big deal to me, personally.
>>
>> The MOTU MicroBook 2, which is a smaller interface based on the same
>> idea, however, is more of a challenge, as it has far less hardware
>> controls than the Audio Express. For example, the AE can be used as a
>> small 4x4 (technically 4x6, I suppose,) stand-alone mixer away from a
>> computer. Thus, you can route any input to any output all from the
>> front panel, as well as creating submixes for each output within the
>> hardware itself. The only two controls on the MicroBook 2 are input
>> gain (controls either mic or line input, depending on which is
>> selected, also toggles phantom power for the single XLR input,) and
>> another knob that controls either the main or headphone out, depending
>> on which has been toggled. If you want to do any routing, you have to
>> use the inaccessible Cue-Mix FX.
>>
>> I eventually resorted to having a sighted friend make some templates
>> for me, as one of the few accessible parts of the software is
>> switching presets.
>> The presets are all XML-based, so perhaps with a little time and
>> effort, I could figure out the tags and change what I want.
>>
>> For example, by default, with the MicroBook 2, the headphone out is
>> it's own mix and routable output, meaning if you route something to
>> main, it doesn't come across the headphone out. Maybe this is fine if
>> you want two discrete mixes, but in a simple situation where you just
>> want to plug in and go, it's annoying, since you have to change your
>> DAW's output routing. There is an easy (if you can see) way to route
>> things to the headphone mix, of course.
>> This is even possible accessibly with the same software and the AE
>> through a menu bar option, but, while the AE and MicroBook 2 use the
>> same software, those options are greyed out, and you have to go to
>> another part of the mixer to accomplish this. I'm not sure why they
>> didn't leave that well enough alone.
>>
>> There is also no accessible way to control the dynamics processing in
>> the MicroBook 2. Each channel and mix can have it's own dynamic
>> compressor and parametric EQ. I actually don't think the Audio Express
>> has this, but it's more flexible in every other respect.
>>
>> On 2/4/2016 11:43 AM, Chris Smart wrote:
>>> At 11:30 AM 2/4/2016, you wrote:
>>>> The mark of the unicorn audio express. The hardware is totally
>>>> accessible. Get that, and you won't go back.
>>>
>>> Great to know this!
>>>
>>> Chris
>>>
>>>
>>>
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