I take it all back......Again!

S

stinkfish

New member
Ok ok. So Im a bit of a whiner. A fusspot, drama queen even. Im all those things and I was wrong too.

This board rocks! It wasnt easy to set up........no it wasnt. But now it works!!! If you are using Cubase or any other ASIO platform set up should be easier for you. Cakewalk can be set for either ASIO or WDM. The directions tell you set Cakewalk up WDM but dont. When I finally tried changing CAkewalk to ASIO everything clicked! No latency issues or driver issues or static! The thing works great!! The pre amps are great, the effects are great. This thing rocks!

Ok.....couple of tips here for set up.

1. Make sure ALL defensive softawre is off for the install. This includes spy ware stuff too, not just firewalls and anti virus.

2. Do not follow the power up procedure in the book. Let the computer boot all the way up, then turn the mixer on.(that came from alesis by the way.)

3. If using the Cubase that came with it you may not have the set up problems I did. If youre using Cakewalk, like me, Dont set it up WDM like it says to. Go with ASIO in both the mixers control panel and your software. The drivers for ASIO are much more stable.

4. Make sure the board is set the same as the softawre. Either 48 or 44. But make sure theyre the same.


I should apologize to Alesis for bashing them here in my last thread. This mixer is very cool and I would recomend it to anyone. Ive already recorded up to eight tracks at a time with this baby with no problems. I wonder if they spent a little more time with the asio drivers so people would try the Cubase. It only supports four tracks though so that wont be of much use to me.

At any rate, once again I feel like an ass for ranting like a spoiled kid. Dont let my past thread sway you away from this unit. Its money well spent, and I imagine by the time more hit the stores they will have cleared up some of the set up issues.

Kudos to Alesis for a really nice machine!!! :D
 
I feel relieved. After reading your other post i felt as if there was no god...

Okay , thats a bit dramatic but im really glad to hear its working good. I had high hopes for this mixer .. I wanna get one when i have the money. Maybe by the time i have the money it will be even cheaper! ...

wishful thinking never hurts...
 
Oh yea I almost forgot, before you do an install you must go to windows and do all your critical updates and download a couple things in the optional software section. The driver update available from Alesis will tell you which ones you need. I cant remember now, but its critical you do so.

Might be best to just get Robert Ray at Alesis on the phone to help you through it. Unless youre an expert.................which obviously I am not.

Now that its working as advertised, I cant say enough good things about it. :)
 
Don't take this the wrong way stinkfish, but how many different threads are you going to start on this product? ;)
 
Well so far its been one for everytime Ive changed my mind on this thing. There seemed to be a lot of interest in the product, and I seem to be among the first to have one. I was trying in part to inform people about the product and in part ranting cause I couldnt get it to work.

I think maybe your right and I should shut the hell up about it and go record something. ;)
 
4 track

when you say it only supports 4 tracks whed used with cubase, is that because of the software limitations (a bundled lighter edition) or will it only be 4 track with all the higher cubase versions as well?

also, do the 1/4" inputs accept unbalanced as well as balanced?

thanks for keeping up with your reviews...
 
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The four track limitation is in Cubase. Maybe they should have called it Cubase light. Thats why I struggled so hard to get it to work with Cakewalk. It supports all 32 tracks.
As for the balanced input question, Id have to consult the manual again but I believe it will do both.
 
stanjanssen said:
It's called Cubase LE right? (Light edition perhaps?)
Click to expand...

Yup..Light Edition. Thats why there is no support for it on the steinberg site.

Like giving you a bottle of beer when you need a 6 pack. Teaser.
 
Well, most people wont buy the board just for the software.......and thats good.
I however put this thing to the test saturday night! I recorded 13 seperate tracks at once and it worked like a charm!
I had way more problems with the drummer than the gear!!! The pre amps are sweet too man they really made the drums sound nice and big.

All in all it did everything I hoped it would do! NIce piece of gear man....nice.
 
Hello folks,

i'm very interested in this product and was wondering if the owners here could land a hand to my questions. I would need to know:

1 - Can it take line levels from external preamps without runing it into the built in preamps? In other words, are there TRS ins that don't have a gain knob? I think the stereo inputs can do this, but it's unclear for me.

2 - Do the stereo inputs reveal themselves as kind of limiting if you're going to playback a crowded mix?

3 - It's also unclear for me about how exactly these mixers work. I mean, you're sending tracks in right, like say 2, then you pile them up, and want to playback let's say 12...can the mixer take that info out of the computer, than into it at the same time? I see no other way to affect the sound inside the computer, unless the mixer would also work as a controller. This is an extremely confusing concept for me, so i apreciate the patience you folks may have.

4 - How's the quality of the fx? Better than plugins at least? Free ones? Also, general sound quality? Will this get in the way of a good recording?

5 - Are the aux sends balanced? That would be great to interface it with something like the TC M300 or something.

6 - Also and lastly, can the mixer feed itself without creating a feedback loop? I use an ART PRO VLA (sometimes going in) to handle and tickening up a final stereo master. My plan would be, have the stereo master running out of the mixer, affect it with the ART compressor, then into the mixer again and into the computer, but all of this at the same time of course. Will this be possible?

I apreciate any help, thank you.
 
Well I will try to answer your questiond best I can.....

1. Yes

2. No

3. Yes. The mixer takes all the live signal coming into it and sends it to the pc where its mixed with all the pre recorded signals. Then the whole stereo mix is sent back to the mixer and out to the control room for monitoring. All this is done via one firewire connection.

4. The effects sound very nice. You can combine up to two at a time but you cant tweak them at all. They are simple to use, and theres lots of presets. One hundred I believe.

5. Yes

6. I believe the answer to six is yes. You can send the stereo signal coming back from the pc to one of the buses, effect it and record that onto one stereo track in the software.

Hope that helps. :)
 
Stinkfish,

i apreciate the reply a great deal. It helped 100%. I'm probably not getting this because i'm afraid of the conversion quality not being the best (rumour out there is that it's the same as the HD24 right? but who knows for sure right?). But if i ever get into it, i surelly won't have any doubts anymore about what it can in fact do technically. Thank you very much!
 
I changed my mind...i'm gonna get it :D . I just need to ask you a few more questions if you don't mind Stinkfish.

1 - does your laptop fan interfere in any way with your recordings?
(I had 3 Korg siabs by now, that i love to death, and the fan was always pretty silent and never a problem. The Korg siabs are wonderful, but i'm tired of having a ton of things i will never need. The laptop fans can sometimes be problematic, that's what i'm fearing.)

2 - how would you rate the overal sound you're getting, what can you compare it to?

3 - i know this is stupid, but would you cut a record with it?

4 - is the mixer's firewire port one of those weird ones that you have to get an adapter for you laptop's own firewire port?

5 - i see that the last channels are stereo pairs right? So how do you go along and mix 12 mono signals (as more or less advertised)? I would really need that capability, at least.

6 - the 5th question leads me to this one: how did you record 13 tracks at once?? Very nice indeed... ;)

thanks again.
 
I dont mind at all actually. Ill do the best I can..................

1. No the fans on my pc havent caused a problem thusfar. I run three fans in the pc all on control switches. I usually run them on low of course if Im recording in the same room as the pc. I suppose it could be a problem sometimes because the pre amps are pretty sweet, so with the right mic in the right situation I suppose one could pick up some fan noise.

2. Im very pleased with the sound Im getting. Im not a pro so I dont hold myself to super high standards, but Im more than satisfied. All I have to compare it to really is the sound I was getting running direct into the soundcard(Audigy soundblaster2 ZS Platnium......(Yes I know its a gamer card but hey I like to play games sometimes too, the interface is sweet , it DOES sound good, and its all I could get that day in Squarebanks Alaska! :D )
I would say my sound has improved drastically since I got the board. Mainly due to the pre amps wich like I said a pretty sweet. "Sweet?".............
Man I got to learn some new slang!

3. I am cutting a record with it. Well a demo anyway. Maybe I should post some drums we did the other night on my soundclick page so you all can hear.
When I get around to it Ill post a link here.

4. No. If I remember right, its a standard 6 pin firewire port and cable. Its is highly recomended you have a Firewire expansion card however. I youre going to use a laptop make sure the port is a reliable one.

5. This is a good question.Im not one hundred percent on the answer, but I believe you can achieve this by how you assign inputs in your software. Wether or not you have seperate bus and level controls is doubtful though Im still learning about it too.

6. Ok....let me trey to remember what we did.

Tracks, 1- hi hat mic, 2- snare mic, 3-4-5- Overheads(cymbols) , 9/10-11/12-13/14 were stereo ins from the rest of his kit. The kicks and toms were midi.

Tracks 6-7-8 were scratch guitar, vocals, and bass. And I had myself a mic to talk to the drummer in the next room. I guess I only recorded 12 tracks at once. I could have easliy recorded me too but .......uh.....Im not in the band! :D
 
creatureofhabit said:
5 - i see that the last channels are stereo pairs right? So how do you go along and mix 12 mono signals (as more or less advertised)? I would really need that capability, at least.
Click to expand...

Although it is shown as STEREO, it is still 2 seperate tracks

For example, inputs 9/10--In your software just assign input 9 to track nine and 10 to 10. Or wherever youd like. I think they label these inputs as stereo inputs so that they dont have to answer this question..

"How do I record in Stereo?"..lol..

Hope this helps.
 
Stinkfish, thank you again.

You're giving great info and it's helping me put up a mental picture of this, potentially a fine product according to the info i was given from Alesis's support, and wether or not it checks out - the converters are indeed the same as used on the HD24 (plain version, not XD). Sweeet! I'm with you on the 70's surf slang bandwagon. The more the better i say. Tubular.. :rolleyes:

If you could post some clips of a finished song or something, again, it would be Sweet. :D

I'm using a Toshiba Laptop, it's one week old, but i don't think it has the 6 port firewire thing, only the 4. Wich expansion card (PCMCIA right?) do you recomend btw - there's so many brands and i'm not really computer savy.

Separate bus and level control would be cool, and pretty essential, unless i bounce some stuff, wich i frankly am not too inclined. Even the 16 channel one doesnt really have many mono strips, 10 i think.

Bair Ohio, thanks. Yes i understand it's two mono channels, but it's highly doubtful as Stinkfish is saying that we can actually monitor the signal and go back and forth from one channel into another...that's a downside right there. A considerable one too, at least for me, cause i can use lots of channels, but i dont need the 8 preamps that the bigger one offers. I don't even need the 4 that the 12 channel one offers, all outboard. So it would be a waste.

ok, here's what Alesis said about the questions i had, i emailed at the same time i posted the first set of questions here, but they only got back to me today, so here it is:

1 - Can it take line levels from external preamps without runing it into the built in preamps? In other words, are there TRS ins that don't have a gain knob? I think the stereo inputs can do this, but it's unclear for me.
>>>

Yes…the stereo inputs have no gain stage at the input.



>>>

2 - It's also unclear for me about how exactly these mixers work. I mean, you're sending tracks in right, like say 2, then you pile them up, and want to playback let's say 12...can the mixer take that info out of the computer, than into it at the same time? I see no other way to affect the sound inside the computer, unless the mixer would also work as a controller. This is an extremely confusing concept for me, so i apreciate the patience you folks may have.

>>>

The way you use this mixer would be as a Multitrack input to your computer, and a Stereo Monitor of the tracks already recorded in the computer (ie: use the computer to mix down the tracks, sending only a stereo output to the MultiMix). Lets say you had 50 tracks recorded…you would mix all of the tracks within the audio program you are using (say Cubase) and the only thing coming out of the computer back to the MultiMix is the Stereo Output of the mixed tracks.



>>>

3 - How's the quality of the fx? Better than plugins at least? Free ones?

>>>

The FX are decent. Obviously you could invest thousands of dollars and purchase much better plug-ins, but for onboard FX…they are not bad.



>>>

4 - Are the aux sends balanced? That would be great to interface it with something like the TC M300 or something.

>>>

The AUX send/returns are unbalanced.



>>>

5 - there's a rumour on the net, i don't know if you folks are aware of it or not, but ppl are saying that it uses the same converters as your HD24 recorder. Is this true at all??

>>>

The converters in the MultiMix FireWire series mixers are the same as the ones in the HD24 (base version…not the HD24XR).



>>>

6 - Also and lastly, can the mixer feed itself without creating a feedback loop? I use an ART PRO VLA (sometimes going in) to handle and tickening up a final stereo master. My plan would be, have the stereo master running out of the mixer, affect it with the ART compressor, then into the mixer again and into the computer, but all of this at the same time of course. Will this be possible?

>>>

This is not possible…you will generate a feedback loop.
 
Stinkfish,

please notice what the Alesis guy said:

Lets say you had 50 tracks recorded…you would mix all of the tracks within the audio program you are using (say Cubase) and the only thing coming out of the computer back to the MultiMix is the Stereo Output of the mixed tracks.

Now, i really need to know wether or not i will be able to mix on the way in. I know i've asked you this before, so i apologize, but maybe i didn't phrase it well, and this matter, if it doesnt turn out the way i need it, might be a deal breaker. It's still a good product though, as far as i can tell.

Here's the deal, i really need to know if, once the tracking is finished, wether or not you can pass, for example, 8 mono channels, into the mixer, monitor, affect the signal with external fx (plugged into the mixer), eq, panning, etc, and record that signal in the form of (again) 8 mono tracks, or a final mixdown, i don't care..I just really need to know if, once all is set and done on the computer's disk, if the signal can be fed to the mixer, then affected by the mixer, all this at the same time as the mixer feeds the computer with a final mixdown or another 8 tracks.

Please let me know if i'm being clear about this, wich i doubt lol. Again, thank you for the help and patience.
 
Hello again folks,

i got another reply from Alesis. I dont think the guy clearly understood what i was asking, but anyway, according to him, the alesis mixer is not a full duplex device, so it cant feed the computer while being fed at the same time. I'll have to go with something else. Here's what he said:

really need to know if, once the tracking is finished, wether or not you can pass, for example, 8 mono channels, into the mixer, monitor, affect the signal with external fx (plugged into the mixer), eq, panning, etc, and record that signal in the form of (again) 8 mono tracks, or a final mixdown, i don't care..I just really need to know if, once all is set and done on the computer's disk, if the signal can be fed to the mixer, then affected by the mixer, all this at the same time as the mixer feeds the computer with a final mixdown or another 8 tracks..



this, for me, is the point of a mixer, and the reason i would be getting this one.

>>>

Unfortunately this is not possible. You would need to apply all “external” effects prior to recording the track, or just use the FX on the MultiMix as a stereo Master effect prior to burning to say an external CD burner (like our MasterLink).



>>>

One last thing, the stereo channels will obviously work as mono as well (right?). Once you're playing back the mono tracks, of say an 16 track mix, how do you choose if you want to monitor track 9 or 10 (imagining that 9/10 is a stereo pair). Would i have to choose if i would want to monitor track 9 or 10? Monitoring both would not be possible i assume, so is this a matter of choice?

>>>

Again…you are not literally monitoring the tracks on the MultiMix. You can only monitor the Stereo Mix of the tracks you recorded. If you do not want to listen to a track…mute it in the mix environment (on the computer).



Hope that this clears things up a bit.




it's really too bad, cause this is a great concept. But it would've been a tad too good to be true.

Anyway enjoy yours!
 
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