The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

I'm working on a mix of a 20 piece swing dance band, using my two machines in 24 bit. I am new at this configuration. I have the 1600 as the master, the 2400 as the slave. I recorded the main tracks on the 1600 (ie. a mid side in the auditorium, an xy pair elevated on stage , vocals and two spot mics) the 2400 got amped cabinets from piano, bass and guitar and the drum kit. I have transfered the spot mics and the xy pair to the 2400. I also have put a noise reduced version of the spots on the 2400. all this to take advantage of the flying faders. the only thing left on the master machine (1600) is the mid side matrix and the vocals. I am mixing down to the 1600.

My question(s) - remember I am a midi philistine -

1) I have been building the settings and saving them as scenes on both machines, with matching names, for identification - but it is a bit of a leapfrog process. I just noticed this morning though that as I call up a scene on the master machine all the settings change on the slave - including flying fader positions, dynamic, EQ. I have deduced that this occurs because I played with some settings late last night and have set the prg chg setting at TX-RX. should I continue this way and save the scenes only on the master machine? or am i missing something that will come back to haunt me?

2) I am using the digital out-in to send the 2400's (slave) signal to the master (1600), using standard RCA cable, as recommended by Geno. No probs I thought. but later in the session I thought I notice a slight change in pitch of a spoken voice doing some patter between numbers. turned off the slave and the voice settled into its regular timbre. so I assume there is some kind of a latency issue. ???? I had not noticed this before, and I am not really hearing it this morning either. was it my ears playing tricks, or would it have to do with one of the machine's internal heat level, as I had been working for some time? Or is it because I changed that PRG CHG setting as i mentioned before?

insight appreciated

regards

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Byron

You don't have pitch shift in a scene do you by accident being triggered by a prg.chg. message ?

I'll go deeper if we need to.

msg

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THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Don't really know how I'd have done that. But, I haven't percieved a tempo/pitch change while working today, but it sure sounded real last night. I'll keep my ears open for it again. If it occurs I'll ask for suggestions. I've read how you (geno) send the signal from your first 4416 to the second via the input, rather than digital in out. what is the down side of this method over the digital transfer, assuming latency was/is not an issue?

In the meantime since I asked all thse questions in my post this morning, I've gone out for my second turkey dinner of this festive season, battled the weather home (It's become a major blizzard up here this afternoon) and read my manual. seems a lot of those questions could be answered in there - amazing after all the bad press the manual gets. certainly is easier to read now. as teaching tool for a newbie it sucks, but it kind of makes sense now - asking inspired me to solve my own problem, which is good. I even learned how to set it up so a physical fader on the 1600 will move the corresponding motorized fader on the 2400. Not sure when i'd use this, but now I can do it. geno, do I recall you saying you had given up using your G as a control surface? More trouble than it was worth?

this has all been a good intro into the world of midi . I sense there is new gear - somewhere in my not to distant future maybe I'll be using patches for something more than an eye covering. .....

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Byron

Byron , I still use my 4416's connected but do not use the digital outs because of latency problems that seem to be inherent in the word clock sync. The advantage of using the digital outs is that it frees up the two slave input channels used for transfering audio from the master.

As far as a control surface goes , although the 16G made a great control surface , it used too much valuable desk space. As Sonar is almost totally automated , once the channel levels are roughed in , there is little need for a control surface to make the automation adjustments.

However I bought all three of THESE to make recrding on the go very possible if not handy in the process. All three devices fit neatly in my laptop's briefcase as well and take up little space on the desk and only need a USB cable for operation. Latency is near zero !

msg

_________________
THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
____________________________________________________

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Those look just dandy. I am no where near needing them yet, but once on the curve - who knows where it leads. My issue is I am more of a technician than an accomplished musician - I know my way around a keyboard, can use it to problem solve re; harmonies, melodies, tempo etc, but don't play keys at all. I have used keys to lay in some strings or a sax sound in the early days of experimenting with my 1600, so maybe I should try again.

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Byron

Stay with the midi , my friend. It's daunting at times but the rewards of this tool are wonderful.

I remember my first midi connection. A workstation synth midi connected to a rack synth with one midi cord. I felt like a genious when it actually worked. Now my studio has almost 100 midi cables here and there.

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THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
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Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Will do - I've got two midi cables. I owned them for almost a year before i found out what they could do for me. Maybe i should rent a synth or something for a month, just to play around a little, before I invest - what would be a suggestion as to a versitile, user friendly machine for such experimentation?

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Byron

If you already have a midi keyboard controller , the choices are almost limitless what you can do. The most inexpensive way to play is if you can run a VST soft synth from your computer. I still go back to hardware as they just sound better to me. And I love twistin real knobs while I play.

Arturia makes a software / hardware hybrid that sells for around $275 US. It comes with a nice 2 1/2 octave keyboard controller and 3000 software patches. But..........only maybe 25% are usable decent patches. It allows limited tweaking the oscillators and filters , pitch and mod wheel , and ADSR but those are the main things that dramtically affect the sound. It is nice for a beginner because you can't tweak it into silence and not remember how you got there. I have the software version without the controller.

There's tons of other stuff out there too. Really depends on how deep you wanna get. A good beginners hardware synth should have both wheels , at least 2 oscillators ,filters , a LFO , full ADSR control.

As a beginner one might stay away from FM (yamaha DX series) , granular , and romplers at first . If you really wanna learn synths you need to learn how the basic waveforms sound and what happens to them when filters are applied. Then move on. Programming FM hardware synths is very difficult unless you have a software editor and know how operators work.

Something like an Alisis Ion is a very cool beginners hardware synth. It has 3 osc. and is wonderfully easy to program. I use one to quickly program a patch idea to see if it's possible and then transfer what I learned to a better sounding synth. It's GUI is just so much easier to grasp than most of the tiny screened rack synths and none of the menus are more than 2 pages deep.

happy patching

msg

_________________
THE MUSIC IS DOWN IN HERE
____________________________________________________

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

Thanks geno. I'll reread this post before I make any moves in this regard. Thought I heard that tempo modulation thing again last night. It was right after the machines had been sitting idle for a few hours, but powered up. After a couple of starts-stops it went away. I will switch from the digital to the analogue in for the slave to master transfer and check that out. thanks for all the help you offer. Much appreciated.

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Byron