Not happy With Mackie/Loud Tech

[Old School]

Hi Guys.
THAT is a lot of gear. I wish I had some expertise with midi. Please post some of your work, would love to hear it!

Have a blessed day,
Mike

[Y-my-R]

Beautiful room with a really comfortable vibe, RJH_MUSIC!

I think now I understand better, why you want so many mixer channels!

Just curious... did you leave a space behind the shelf (between shelf and wall), to get access to the mixers from the back? I was just imagining wiring all that up from the front, and that seems like A LOT of work! Doable, but if you did that... I can still feel the pain you must have felt, haha

Also curious how you're handling MIDI for all those synths. I mean, there's 25 MIDI ports on my system as well, but that's just a single 8-port USB MIDI interface (an old Emagic Unitor 8) and the rest are MIDI ports that "came with" other gear that is connected (but I use them all).
I imagine that you'd be using even more MIDI ports, for all those synths AND the MIDI for various accessories, etc.?

...and I assume you're mainly using Pro Tools? Those Avid/Euphonix controllers don't work with other DAWs as far as I recall, right? Are you happy with the MIDI implementation and controlling all those synths via Pro Tools? (I always struggled with that in PT, but haven't really used it with external gear since around PT8).

Anyway - awesome setup! I must say, I underestimated what kinds of rigs everyone on here is running. Amazing stuff!!

[captainamerica]

RJH...is Logic your main DAW?...and agree with Y-my-R, nice to see everyone's workflow

[RJH_MUSIC]

Thanks much for the great comments. I hate to see wires, and love ambience, so I built all of the units to house everything. I had to use separate electrical circuits in the room to isolate the studio gear from all of the low voltage lights in the room. Behind the main wall is roughly 2 feet of room and 3" C channel on the wall to run all the cabling. The only problem with this setup is that every time you need to do serious work on cables, you do have to pull it all forward by another 2 feet to get behind it. The units that hold the mixers are 4 feet wide and the computer desk is 5 feet wide. each are 16" Depth. Also, under the mixers are additional racks for more gear. Under the desk of each 4 foot unit are 2 6 space racks side by side with 5" spacer. I would be happy to post the plans for building them if anyone is interested. Older units I had built up years ago had wheels so you could roll them forward, but after sitting stationary for so long they created divets in the floor. I will be happy to post some mp3 of one of my songs.

Yes, lots of pain. When I was wiring it all up after I built the wall units, there were audio cables laying on the floor and I dropped an AC line that I thought was dead because I thought had turned the circuit off. To my surprise, the AC line was live and when the wire hit the floor it touched the 1/4" output to my VSynth XT. Shot 110 through the audio circuit and fried everything in the VSynth. I cried that day. The beauty of it is I can manage MIDI and Audio for everything without touching a cable.

Cubase is my main DAW and the Avid controllers work quite well. I love to work in the list editor in CUBASE and I automated all of the key commands frequently used to buttons on the Knob and the Artist Transport. I also configured the wheel to scroll forward and reverse locked to the quantize value in CUBASE. Really slick.

Yes, tons of MIDI. I have 5 MOTU MTAV USB units that provide 8 a piece In/Out. Unit 1 and Unit 2 are networked together and Unit 4 and Unit 5 are networked together so I only need three USB slots on computer. I have a 15 port powered USB hub to handle all of the USB communication to the master iMAC. Also needed extra USB ports for the NI Kontrol surfaces and the Roland Boutique series synths.

The second iMAC runs Vienna Ensemble pro and VSTi's and is connected through CAT 5. that way I reduce the RAM load on the master computer. Each has 32 GIG ram in each.

[RJH_MUSIC]

For the second d8b that handles vocal, live instrument and VSTi putput channels, I did a really cool thing. Vocal mics are connected to Avalon 337 Processor and then to inputs 1-4 of the d8b. From there they are fed through the master outs of the d8b which are routed to the main inputs of the Apollo audio interface and into the computer. CUBASE then routes the vocals back out though Apollo to input channels 15-16 of the d8b. Then routed to BUS outputs 1 and 2. The great thing about this setup is that performers can here the mix with their vocal live as it is recorded, with effects and can adjust the volume related to the rest of the mix.

[RJH_MUSIC]

Here is a schematic for one of the d8b desks.

[captainamerica]

a lot of cablement and workflows were worked out....well done

[Bruce Graham]

Hey all;

Just have to say what a creative, talanted collection of people here at this forum. I'm proud to be part of it!

Collectively we have breathed new life in to our d8b's and HDR's and created some excellent music.

I think it's great the way we share our solutions, our idea's and our creations! Blows me away!

Cheers
Bruce

[RJH_MUSIC]

There is actually 19, and I forgot to add the Integra 7 which I bought a couple of months ago. The Integra 7 is the first piece of Roland gear I purchased in 33 years that was not worth the money. Same way I feel about the MacBook Pro 16". I am still mad at Apple for discontinuing the MacBook Pro 17". I guess they are too much like Mackie.... LOL

[csp]

Guys,

I am not around here all that much these days, but when I do sign in I find that most of the posts are way beyond my technical/computer programming knowledge.

In reference to a possible new version of the d8b, about a month ago I had reason to contact Mackie Support in reference to the long since discontinued Mackie TT24 desk --- in my opinion the FOH desk that is/was as good as the d8b in that it was virtually an analogue desk that was digital, just as the d8b in my opinion and from reading this post was virtually the digital version of an analogue recording desk.

In the price range (again in my opinion) the only digital desk that comes any where near the d8b and/or TT24, is the Behringer X32 desk and I stated this in my communication to Mackie Support.

Anyway, in the reply that I got from one of the Mackie sales guys, although he didn't say it outright, his reply really sounded as if Mackie are seriously looking into designing/releasing a new large format digital desk, such as the d8b or TT24.

I have no idea if/when this could happen, but the reply sounded that it was not going to be too far into the future.

One can only hope and in the meantime, I will continue to drag out of its box, the trusty d8b if and when I need it, which is not all that often these days as I have virtually retired from the business --- almost 60 years sitting behind a desk is really quite long enough. !!!!!!!

Now for something almost completely off topic !!!!!

I just one comment that was made in this topic about the distance between the record head and playback head being about 1". The 8-track recorder that I used to use (still have it locked away as it is in my will to be donated to the Australian Film and Sound Archive) actually had the playback head exactly 15" from the record head. This distance along with the recorder's 12 speeds, allowed us to have the most amazing echo and panning effects, all of which were recorded while the actual individual track was being recorded. Required damn good musios and a lot of hard work on my part.

Just think of the number of notes (say) a good guitarist could play if doing an over-dub of a guitar track that was recorded at the standard 15ips, if the tape machine was switched to (say) 3 3/4" per sec for the overdub recording. Also think of the sound when it was played back at the standard 15ips speed, as it would be 3 octaves higher than normal. Just think of a Bass guitar if over dubbed at (say) 60ips then played back at 15ips --- could almost blow any speaker !!!!!

By the way, did I mention that this recorder was the only one in the world, I know because I built it !!!

If you would like to hear what it could do, you might like to do a web search for John j Francis and his recording of Steel Man --- consists only of Piano, 12 string acoustic, 6 string electric and voice and all 12 speeds with all that you hear being recorded while playing --- no post recording effects, the only thing that was done in the mixing process was the instrument panning. Also anything on his "Breaks, Works & Thoughts" recording, as it used all that the recorder could do.

David