The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

hello ,

it's been more than a year away from local iatse 114 stagehand work (my preferred occupation) and i have had the opportunity to dive pretty deep into the y56k for a better understanding of the options ... WOW

those who use the y56k card in the aw4416, what is your preferred signal path ?

i have been experimenting with different ways of using it and have discovered some unique options ...

wondering what others have encountered when using ? ... the card was always daunting and difficult to comprehend but now i have a greater understanding (?) of how it works .. ...

previously, i would use the card as a direct effect on a selected channel and run it back to the mix ... sounded good but always had to remember what was going on even after saving the scene ... ended up not using it as much as i should have ... >>>fast forward>>> to having time to spend with the adubya and revisiting some of the previous songs ... tweeking the settings and realizing the y56 is the bomb !

i am currently using the recorded tracks and sending them via aux 1 thru 6 to the y56 (via fader layers) and then back into channels 17 to 24 ... must remember to remove original recorded track from being sent to stereo out or a phase issue seems to arise ... it works great but pondering what others are doing and if there is something more ...

be well, stay safe, rock on

mark

Just wrote a long reply to you re how I use the (y96k in AW2400) card, and then I lost it as i was logged out before the send!!! Should have guessed that might happen and save it as a draft. Not the first time for this to happen. Comes from being long-winded!!!

So i won't redo it now.

I will just ask, what are you sending these tracks through as you bounce them? Just an L1 insert? I have found on the 2400 that the processing capacity of the card is depleted if there are multiple inserts in multiple chains.

I would be very interested in your approach to this card. If no one else jumps into this thread, we could perhaps do a discussion via PM, as this topic is not as useful to users not fortunate enough to have the card. They are hard to find and can be quite expensive. The machine is quite able to make a great product without the card, but it certainly is a very useful piece of kit for those of us that have it.

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Byron

hi byron,
my approach to the card ? ... try different chains and see what happened ..
there are a bunch of saved scenes in the library, as well as, some i created ... i use what is offered first and then start fiddling with settings
the one i go back to most often is the 8 mono chains (eq, limiter, compressor, deesser) ... i will adjust the settings as needed for the particular song ... sometimes i will use the fader banks and other times just send a track direct ... all returns come back into play on channels 17 to 24 ... must remember to mute stereo from original tracks (or not?) ... still on the learning curve but making headway
recently discovered (by mistake) that you must save frequently or previous settings may not remain (if you leave a page without saving, it may not carry over)
if you use stereo chains, only one fader bank applies (if using the fader banks, only 2,4,6 operate the stereo efx sends) ... i retain aux 7 /8 for the internal efx which i find quite useable ... i have not run out of processing capacity with the card as you mentioned in your post but i am using only 4 channels (mono) with the internal efx running in stereo for space ...
also been working with the A/B comparison so i can hear (?) slight efx differences ...
it has been an enlightening experience getting into the card and my hopes of getting better sounding final mixes should be in the near future ..
more to come in the next week or so ... maybe even post some new music
be well and stay safe,
mark

The L1+ limiter is a great tool. It is a solid brick wall Limiter. Rarely does anything sneak by, and if it does a hard look at the mix will reveal a reason usually, such as a panning issue.

Load up a few chains and see what happens. The verb and delay and the L1+ seem to be the resource hogs. On the 96k, As capacity is nearing, the dropdown selection menu for the individual slots starts to not display plugins for which their is not enough processing power. Load up 7/8 stereo chain with L1>EQ>deEss>truVerb>L1+. then do it again on 5/6 another and see if you can build two such chains.

Perhaps you know this, but if the 56k is like the 96k, there are two processors in the card. one handles 1-4 and the other 5-8. so you need, at least on the 96k to balance your demands to maximize.

I also use the card occasionally, via the ADAT light pipe, to bring in 8 more channels from an outboard bank of pre amps. But I have not done that since the start of Covid interrupted our lives. Only good for 16 bit though, as on the 2400 you are limited to 8 inputs for 24 bit recording. To get around that I have used my Zoom h6 to record ambient mics in the room, making a handclap before the count in to assist in lining up the tracks from the two machines later on.

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Byron

hi guys,

ive been back at the y56 card and just noticed something weird ... in the LOAD dialog box, all the factory settings (the "from the factory starting points") are missing ? .. i am referring to the y56 manual page 14, which shows an alphabetical listing of factory presets ... i do not recall ever seeing the list on the aw console display but this is the first time i caught it in the manual ... my y56 card lists: mono chain (empty) and stereo chain (empty) in the factory preset box

all of my "user settings" have been saved but not the "alphabetical factory settings" shown in the manual ...

the y56 card came with a console i purchased ... i got the manual but no reload(?) cd software

how do i recall this "factory preset" list ? ... is it worth it ?

if i recall the "alphabetical factory list" will it wipeout the current saved "user presets" ? ...

treading cautiously ...

mark

ps ... how does one insert a picture onto text message here ?

I do have factory presets on my 96k card. But they are somewhat perplexing to me. Compared to many other other software plugins, the compressor facilities available on the Wavs card have very few controls to tweak. In fact there are very few tweaking opportunities, for e.g there is no way to adjust the knee on compressors, but of course there are some things needing to be set. It is rather much more like a/b comparisons sometimes. (ie. you can toggle between Digital or Analog, not literally, but these words describe a "colour" of the output). One or the other. Sure makes it simple!!

But back to the presets -- I do not find that the compressor presets that I have "colour" the music too much when switched on. That is because the threshold is, on many presets, set to 0.00 and needs to be moved down to the actual level of the track. So many presets don't give you that instant zap when loaded, as do presets with the threshold set as a "suggestion". That said, there seems little difference between presets in an A/B, once you set the threshold, as you might expect if for e.g. the knee were being adjusted significantly between presets. ???

On the other hand a few compressor presets do make suggestions, with levels set. One example is a preset call Track Smasher. The threshold can be set, as can a brickwall on the output. So you can squish the track in between with no worry of the output going over and the makeup gain is handled behind the scene, so no control there ... It took a while to get used to how the card's compressors handles many items that you might have had previous opportunity to tweak. So it was a bit disconcerting at first learning to trust, but I must say, what ever is happening behind the scenes within the processor consistently does the job very nicely. The metering is basic but quick and very adequate, especially when you keep an eye on the numbers as well as the visual meter. And reset the gain reduction meter often, to get a sense of when the compressor is actually kicking in. Especially useful technique when using the L1+ Maximizer in a mastering chain.

I have not found much info or chatter on the web about these cards over the years, and Wavs is not really forthcoming with any support. Not surprising as they are now legacy gear, but they seemed to abandon the card suddenly back in the day. My manual is a rewrite of the 56k manual, admitted in the acknowledgements, and obviously too, as the instruction section on patching and routing it is all about the 4416, with no mention of the 2400. The 96 and 56 are not interchangeable between the machines, so this aspect of the 96 manual is useless to me. The 96 manual does suggest there would be software updates forth coming. but i never saw any and the Wavs site did not even mention any reference to the card. I got mine in 2009, but it was on the way out by then I think, and had a hard time finding it, eventually drastically reduced on Full Compass, with the Can.$ at par then. still it was $900 and i had to find a US address for delivery, which a friend in Seattle helped me with.

So you might have trouble tracking down the presets. ??? I took a bunch of pictures of the preset screens a number of years ago and sent them to a member. was that you? Maybe i never sent them ?? I think I saw them in my pictures file. I will look and send you an example if I find them.

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Byron

I did find those images. They are of the verb settings and would be good guidance on the 56 I am guessing, even though they are from the 96.

despite my opining on the lack of tweak opportunities on the compressors, the Truverb has plenty of tweaking to do. and it can be is quite perilous if you get into random "experiments". so the presets are great starting points. And they do colour drastically from one to the other.

Send me a PM with an email address and i will send them via a zip folder in a regular message. If that would work for you I will send the pictures as jpegs.

The Private Message option is available below each forum message, if you have not used it before.

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Byron