Seasounds went under

Boogieman: I just got the Expander today, so I can't comment yet on how it works (haven't hooked it up yet), but just looking at it, man this is nice stuff! I am really bummed SeaSound went under.

The blue anodized aluminum faceplates are really gorgeous, and the knobs and switchgear feel like top-shelf stuff. And, of course, what really matters is the guts, and if this Expander is at all like the SoloEX I've been using for several weeks now, it's got the quality where it counts too.

On one hand I wish they were still in business, but on the other hand I got a killer deal on this discontinued Solo Expander! :)

I'll let you know how it goes when I hook it up. I'm sure it will kick ass. All I have to do is plug outboard mic pres into the Expander and I'll have 8 channels available. Awesome.

Trumpetman.
 
You may wish to check the downloads section of the SeaSound site as they recently added drivers for use with the expander as well as .PDFs of more extensive documentation on setting them up.
 
Thanks Bongo, I did get the latest drivers and pdfs from the web site. The pdf manual on the Solo and Expander was particularly useful. The Expander itself came with no manual... and my Solo manual was for that unit only. The downloadable double manual gave some good info on running the two units together.

The Expander is great, guys. I am very happy with it. I have increased the capabilities of my recording rig tenfold with this thing. The Solo itself is awesome, but 2 channels only is a bit restrictive. The Exapnder gives me more than I need for now, not just in number of channels but also in general flexibility to hook to all my other gear.

And just in case someone whould run into a similar problem: When I first patched the Expander to the Solo, I chose to do it from Expander's Monitor Outs to Solos Aux Ins, so I could monitor all tracks through the Solo. Until I bought some good balanced patch cables for this, I was getting all kinds of hums and other noisy shit. Don't skimp on your wires!

Trumpetman.
 
Trumpetman,

I, too, learned that lesson the hard way...Anyway, I've been looking for an Expander on the cheap. I've found a couple of sites with them for about $340, but I'm to chintzy for even that. Anyone else find the killer deal?

Another thing...The new manual (just like the old one) doesn't mention anything about any of the Solo's or Expander's i/o being balanced 1/4" TRS, even though levels are supposed to be -10/+4. Any info I'm missing here? I've used both TS and TRS with success, but I was just wondering if the i/o was balanced.

Peace,
BM
 
Sorry I can't help wih this. I'm still trying to get mine set up. Actual use is far in the future, it looks like.

Anyone actually get Cubase 5 to work with a SeaSound?
 
Bongo-

You're killin' me. Let's get that rig of yours working, so you can spend some time making music! I use VST 5 with the Solo often, even on my antiquated POS, and get good results. The ASIO driver works well even at 128 samples. I've done some killer acoustic and electric guitar w/ VST, so I know it works. Post again with specific questions, and maybe the rest of us can get you off the ground....
Peace,
BM
 
the boogieman said:
Bongo-

You're killin' me. Let's get that rig of yours working, so you can spend some time making music!
Click to expand...
I could live with that!

I've had the SeaSound for a month and a day and haven't been able to use it yet, except to test.

I use VST 5 with the Solo often, even on my antiquated POS, and get good results. The ASIO driver works well even at 128 samples. I've done some killer acoustic and electric guitar w/ VST, so I know it works.
Click to expand...

I've also seen posts elsewhere from people who have the SeaSound working on Cubase 5, so it should be possible.

3.7 seems to work just fine, so I may have to stick with that.

Post again with specific questions, and maybe the rest of us can get you off the ground.
Click to expand...
I'm sure it has something to do with the initial setup it autoruns on first load.

I'm guessing that if I ran the ASIO and other setup programs from the Cubase folder individually without invoking the main program, I might have a chance of getting it working. Is this reasonable?

I think that these are corrupting the registry, so I have backed up the registry for future problems so I don't have to reinstall the OS. Previously, it messed things up so badly that I had to do this to make any version of Cubasis or Cubase work.
 
OK...the latest:

Got up in the middle of the night and bravely tried installing v5 with v3.7 in place (per the earlier suggestion) and this time v5 installed and ran!

Deleted v3.7 and reinstalled v5 to clear up some confusions, now v5 seems to work without a hitch. It was indeed the ASIO setup, but why it had to have v3.7 in place, I can't imagine...dang weird, if you axe me.

Everything _seems_ OK. Wonder if I should risk running the R6 update...hmm....

Lets see what happens now.
 
Boogieman,

You might be able to find a demo Exapander for less than $340. I personally avoid demo stuff if I can, but in this case it may be unavoidable. Check Ebay for people dumping their SeaSound stuff due to the company's meltdown. Or stay in touch with the folks selling them for $340 and make sure you grab one if they get desperate to move them and drop the price way down.

I also couldn't find anything in the documentation that says whether or not the 1/4" jacks on the Solo (and Expander) are balanced or not.

All I know is that I am using balanced cables and it works, and it cleared up some noise and hum I was getting... of course, the cables are better quality too, so perhaps the real improvement was simply the cable quality and not the fact that they were balanced, I don't know.

Is there any reason not to use balanced cables all the time? An unbalanced cable in a balanced jack makes no difference, right? What about vice-versa? If it doesn't matter, why would you ever use unbalanced cables at all?

The Solo Expander's inputs do have a sensitivity switch for +4 or -10, but does that have anything to do with this? The manual says to use -10 for inputs such as CD or DAT, and use +4 for "professional audio" sources... why?

P.S. What do you mean, TS/TRS?

Thanks
Trumpetman
 
Hey guys,

I have a problem with my system that may involve the Solo Expander I just installed...

However, it isn't really on topic for this thread, so I posted it in this forum ("Computer Recording and Soundcards") under the subject "Random Noise on Playback."

Please check it out and let me know if you have any ideas! If the problem/solution is Solo-specific, I hope to get your insight.

Thanks
Trumpetman.
 
# I have a problem with my system that may involve the Solo
# Expander I just installed...

Check the site for recent drivers and docs for the Expander.

Lucky you...GC just told me that there isn't one left in the entire GC chain.
 
Trumpetman,

TS tip/sleeve 1/4" plug (used for unbalanced connections)
TRS tip/ring/sleeve (" " balanced " )

The reason for not using balanced cables (with unbalanced gear) is $. Neutrik TS are considerably cheaper than TRS. However, I do agree that using balanced whenever possible is DEFINITLEY better.

Bongolation,

Better still is NUENDO w/ the Solo. Nuendo isn't as feature-rich for MIDI, but I like the way it does audio - big time! ASIO driver rock-solid so far, too. It's killing me to have to stay in Win98, but the pain sure feels good....

Peace,
BM
 
the boogieman said:
Bongolation,

Better still is NUENDO w/ the Solo. Nuendo isn't as feature-rich for MIDI, but I like the way it does audio - big time! ASIO driver rock-solid so far, too.
Click to expand...
That's OK, I have Cubase v5 apparently installed and happy after invoking that v3.7 weirdness.

Man, this looks so complicated to use!

I have a million questions...

Hey, I'm curious: Does the SPDIF input on the SeaSound card add another stereo input _in addition_ to the two digital outpus from the box itself? My J-Station seems to work OK in this SPDIF connect and it would be nice if that could be an additional I/O.
 
bongolation said:

I have a million questions...

Hey, I'm curious: Does the SPDIF input on the SeaSound card add another stereo input _in addition_ to the two digital outpus from the box itself? My J-Station seems to work OK in this SPDIF connect and it would be nice if that could be an additional I/O.
Click to expand...

The S/PDIF is available as an additional I/O when configured in the SoloMeter as 4x4. This allows for the A/D from the Solo and S/PDIF from the card to be used independently. Unfortunately, the rate is fixed at 48kHz (at least the manual sayas so), so if you have a device (J Station) that does not do 48kHz, then you're out of luck...Bit depth can be 16 or 24 bits, though.

Yeah, I don't use VST much anymore. The interface is distractively and unnecessarily flashy. The program itself could be a little more utilitarian, IMO. I use CW Pro 9 for MIDI (which is great), and now Nuendo for audio because of the ASIO compatiblity.

1 down, 999,999 to go. Fire away!

Peace,
BM
 
the boogieman said:
The S/PDIF is available as an additional I/O when configured in the SoloMeter as 4x4. This allows for the A/D from the Solo and S/PDIF from the card to be used independently. Unfortunately, the rate is fixed at 48kHz (at least the manual says so), so if you have a device (J Station) that does not do 48kHz, then you're out of luck...Bit depth can be 16 or 24 bits, though.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I was wondering about this! The J-Station is 44.1kHz, but it seems to work fine through the SeaSound S/PDIF, at least it processes it back out through the monitor, for what that's worth. I was thinking that these two values were referring to different situations. I can't figure out how to record anything with this input, so I can't really test it, but as far as I can tell, it looks like it works. In "4x4 and S/PDIF" the sound's going out the J-Station, into the card's S/PDIF I/O jack, around the computer and coming out the SeaSound monitor/headphone output.

According to the J-Station manual, S/PDIF is always 44.1 as the accepted S/PDIF standard. I'm lost... Maybe the SeaSound will not go _more_ than 48kHz when using this input, I dunno.

Don't quite know how to test this, either...not yet.

Not being able to use the J-Station's digital out with SeaSound would be a cruel blow, so I'd like to get to the bottom of this question if I can.

I don't find either Cakewalk or Cubase particularly intuitive, and as far as I can tell, Reason doesn't support plug-ins so I may examine more recording software yet...we'll see.:confused:
 
the boogieman said:


The S/PDIF is available as an additional I/O when configured in the SoloMeter as 4x4. This allows for the A/D from the Solo and S/PDIF from the card to be used independently. Unfortunately, the rate is fixed at 48kHz (at least the manual sayas so), so if you have a device (J Station) that does not do 48kHz, then you're out of luck.
Click to expand...
OK, I'm really confused here.

If the SeaSound can't work with the J-Station, I'm dumping the SeaSound as it's _worthless_ to me. Naturally, none of this 48KHz-only business is in the manual I got with the unit, which only says in a general way that S/PDIF is good for 96KHz. A 48KHz-only limitation sounds insane to me, but I need to get to the bottom of this now so I can move on one way or the other, with or without the SeaSound. I saw that 48KHz business in the .PDF file, too, but then in the next sentence, they say the DEFAULT is 44.1KHz! WTF???

I'm wasting too much energy and time on this thing.

As I said in the last message, it looks to me like it _does_ work with the J-Station though, as it's showing up fine on the headphones and out-VU but I can't get the S/PDIF output to show up in Cubase -- but then I don't know how S/PDIF output is supposed to record anyway. I can record an input from the 1/4" instrument input, but that's it.

I need a go/no-go test for configuring and recording the S/PDIF signal. If that doesn't work, the SeaSound goes.
 
Here it is.

1. Make sure the SoloMeter is set to "Slave". At this point the Solo should lock to the incoming J-Station's sample rate. Set the SoloMeter to "4x4".

2. In Cubase, go to "Options -> Audio Setup -> System.." and set the audio clock source to S/pdif.

3. Set the VST Inputs (Panels menu) active for both the analog and digital inputs of the Solo.

4. Activate a track for recording (select mono or stereo S/pdif input). You can monitor the output by assigning the Master OUtput in Cubase to SS1 (Solo analog out). This negates the need for the "4x4 + s/pdif" option in the SoloMeter. There will be a slight delay because of the conversion process.

5. Play something. Record it. Play it back. You should hear it through the phones or monitor out of the Solo.

6. If you want to sell it, I'll buy it cheap :;-)

Peace,
BM
 
[sigh!] At this point, _nothing_ records from _any_ source any more.

Cubase apparently got something corrupted. Will reformat and do a clean install of everything tomorrow.

This is murder, it really is...
 
Assuming this doesn't work out, someone suggested to me that I consider either (1) putting in a secondary cheap soundcard (is that even practical?) with a more flexible S/PDIF input or (2) recording the guitar J-Station tracks on my other computer fitted with an inexpensive S/PDIF device as in (1), above.

Curiously, I see on my old office motherboard that there are S/PDIF connections on the board _itself_, making me wonder if it wouldn't be possible to just fit some RCA jacks to appropriate connectors at the other end of some co-ax and have the RCA S/PDIF jacks hanging out the side hillbilly-style, connected to the J-Station. Then I could load up some software and record that track on the office box and transfer it back to the studio to integrate it to the main recording.

There's also the option (3) of putting the J-Station's audio outs into the SeaSound's line in ports and do the dread multiple A/D/A/D reconversion which everyone says to avoid, or (4) chuck the J-Station and do the guitar tracks straight and treat them with amp-modeling plugins. Though (4) would have been almost automatic for me a couple of weeks ago, since integrating the J-Station to the J-Edit program through the SeaSound's MIDI, I have found that the J-Station works really great if you dump their presets and go into the very easy deep edit mode with the software. I get beautiful guitar sounds that way now and it would be hard to part with that, especially after developing patches specifically for the music I intend to record with this thing, assuming I live long enough.

These other options may not be of any value, but they at least prove I'm putting some Rube Goldberg thought into this and am not intellectually lazy.:)
 
SeaSound Solo PCI Card and Ubuntu 10.10

I have had the SeaSound Solo and Solo PCI sound card since the second year it was out in the market place. Now I would love to use it as a sound card with Ubuntu 10.10 "Linux" when I use any tool that will scan the hard ware in my computer it ses that it sees Audio Adapter ICE1712 - ICEnsemble ICE1712. I know that the card dose get power because when I plug the Out to my Yamaha RX-V992 AV Receiver it displays pcm-Digital

What would like to know is if any one has gotten it to work in the Linux family of OS's I am useing a Via Motherboard with AMD Athlon(tm) XP 3000+ and 1 GB of ram. Are there any drivers for it or am I going to have to install 98 "Yuk":confused:


I could and can use all the help I can get. aim me @ macibookg3
 
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