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

[mikemorgan]

So, Stinkfish, still enamored with your Alesis Multimix? I just pulled the trigger on the Multimix 8 myself and can't wait to unwrap it on Christmas morning.

 

[stinkfish]

Hey the board is great! Set up was a pain though! Get the new drivers first thing and contact Robert Ray at Alesis if youre having trouble. He know this board well and can be of great assistance. Good luck and hope you enjoy!

 

[gusfmm]

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.

Could anybody comment a bit more on this? This is really a key point with this unit. If one wanted to use this as the central point of an audio recording setup, you'd expect it to be able to playback previously recorded tracks as you record more into your project, right? If the unit is unable to do this then, what good is it? Full-duplex sound cards erradicated from earth non-duplex ones as this is a very common functionality people want/need to have. I still have an old computer with a Roland RAP-10 card which has got great GM sounds but half-duplex audio. Audio quality (noise floor, etc) is actually way better than any of the later sound cards I tried. But because of it being half-duplex, is basically useless.

So any comments or experience? Is this the case? I've read the Multimix's manual a couple of times and I don't think that's mentioned in there, which is very concerning and disappointing, especially since I was almost sold on the idea of the Multimix FW16. But this is definitely a deal breaker, at least in my case.

 

[stinkfish]

Im not educated enough to know if the board is full duplex or not but it does feed the computer with all of the live signals coming in while playing back to you all previously recorded tracks. If you monitor through the board then you should be able to hear everything while recording more tracks.
Hope this helps!

 

[gusfmm]

Im not educated enough to know if the board is full duplex or not but it does feed the computer with all of the live signals coming in while playing back to you all previously recorded tracks. If you monitor through the board then you should be able to hear everything while recording more tracks.
Hope this helps!

Then I've got hope again! Thanks for your confirmation Stinky, then it is full-duplex, as one would have expected. Awesome!
Cheers!
Gus.

 

[chris-from-ky]

Im not educated enough to know if the board is full duplex or not ...

"full dulpex" means that you can record and playback AT THE SAME TIME. "half duplex" means you can only do one or the other at a time. So, you basically said that it's full duplex when you said you can record while playing back.

 

[Crash ©]

Yeah, you can monitor back out through either the headphones or the control room out..

Just make sure you have turned off the RECORD function from tracks you've already laid down or they'll overwrite themselves into oblivion.

--
Rob

 

[slang97]

fire wire port

so can you use the 6 pin fire wire port on a laptop, or do the suggest an alesis fire port??
Thanks
Scott

 

[Crash ©]

Run the firewire cable from Alesis Firewire port on the back of the MultiMix to the 6 pin Firewire port on your laptop, desktop, PCMCIA Card or PCI Card...

--
Rob

 

[phyllbee]

What size of laptop can you use for recording say 12 tracks at a time ?
Would I be able to buy one of the cheap laptops that Walmart is selling to record with ? Has anyone had good results using 5400 rpm hard drives which I beleave most laptops have ?

 

[bair_ohio]

I believe you could do just that. Ive yet to push the full 16 tracks on mine but had no problem doing 8 at once(and my laptop harddrive is a 4200rpm or something along those lines.)1 gig of memory which is unfortunately shared by my vid card. Unless you need amazing mobility with your setup. I would just go with a desktop. You could build your own amazing recording pc at a fraction of what a laptop runs. Plus you have way more flexiblity when it comes to upgrading. Besides adding memory, theres not a whole lot of upgrading goin on with a laptop.IMO.