Pro Tools Mixing Console Setup

[jamesperrett]

(OK, the stuff I recorded on the 486 was stereo, and those 32 tracks are likely to be mono, so that backs it off more to 1.75Ghz - but that's still a smidge more than my P4M-740 laptop peaks at... make it 34tr for the stereo downmix and it's at 1.85 threatening my workplace economy desktop mule's CPU)

 

You're doing your 486 a disservice - my 33MHz 486 would play 3 stereo tracks at 44.1kHz 16 bits with no level changes using SAW while I could record 16 tracks simultaneously on my old 233MHz Pentium2 in Cool Edit Pro 2.1 - and apply basic level changes and eq when playing them back. I'm now using Reaper for multitrack stuff and it seems very happy doing 24 X 44.1kHz 24 bit tracks on my Acer laptop with an AMD Sempron 2800 processor.

 

Cheers

 

James.

[ainsley_clark]

I absolutely love pro tools. Its fantastic.

The thing is I will mainly be using this set up for mixing down., so im not to worried about preamps. So I wanna buy my converters that are pretty decent and then upgrade my desk later on. So would this work?

Profire Lightbridge connected to 3 Motu 828 mk2 interfaces. Essentially what I am asking is if I plug the out of the profire (adat) to the in of the motu. Will I have analog outputs?

Thanks for your advise people.

[Simon Lyall]

Surely if you are just going to mixdown, you need no inputs at all, and only a monitor/main output.

 

Something like one of the m-boxes, with midi (over usb?) to a control surface. There are absolutely loads of midi-fader arrays around. Digidesign do one themselves called command 8. I've used a yamaha 01V96 with it's 'remote' layer to connect to protools and use that as a control surface too.

 

And remember, to run pro-tools you need to have a bit of pro-tools hardware (or M-powered). Thats the way they make their money.

 

 

Simon

[ainsley_clark]

I know and its cheeky the way they do it.

I want to go down this route because I am not a big fan of digital or the mbox (my friend is currently on his third mbox due to them breaking). Plus I will still be using these ins just not as much as the outs.

So will the above question work?

[Simon Lyall]

To be honest, I still really don't think you're going about this the right way... then again I'm not sure what you want to this system to do.

 

Do you want a post production, mixdown system? Or a multitrack recording system? Or a multitrack playback system? Or a bit of all three?

 

Simon

 

PS: why use the motus, why not use a stand alone adat-->analogue system, like the digimax8 or other systems that are around.

[Bobbsy]

What Simon Lyall said. The Motu 828 is a USB 2 sound interface (that includes ADAT ins/outs) to connect to a computer; the Profire Lightbridge is an ADAT to Firewire computer interface. I doubt anyone has any empirical data as to whether using the two together will work because, frankly, it's a confused and silly idea. If you want to use the Lightbridge, there are standalone Analogue to ADAT interfaces that will do the job. The Behringer ADA8000 has been suggested (and rejected by you) but there are other alternatives such as the Digimax Simon suggested or the RME Octomic.

 

However, I'll go farther and say that, from the information provided this whole project sounds confused. You say you "love ProTools" then, in your next post, you say "I'm not a big fan of digital". You started off talking about using an obsolete Behringer mixing desk, then rejected Behringer ADAT boxes as not good enough even though they have far less influence on your sound.

 

For that matter, your profile indicates you're only 18 yet you say you "always have and always will use analogue". That's a bit of a sweeping statement, don't you think?

 

So, what exactly is this project you're asking for advice on? Is it even for real, or just some kind of dreamworld (or nightmare world with a Behringer mixer) academic exercise? Some more details...and some common sense in future....please.

 

Bob

[paulears]

As part of what I do, I travel to schools and colleges to carry out various duties, for an exam board. I was at a nice big college the other day where they have a well specified and equiped music technology department. They have a big Pro-Tools suite, plus Logic running on some machines and Cubase running on some PCs. The idea is that they can use 3 of the popular music production systems they will find in the real world, and they don't really guide the students along the "This one is best" route. When I was there, a bunch of 17-22 year olds were in the Pro-Tools studio and I asked them which they preferred. One said that he wants to go into the post production and video world, so he needs to learn Pro-Tools, but he finds it hard to do on it the things that Logic and Cubase make simple. Others were split between Logic and Cubase. What was clear was that it depends on the type of material they work with that really makes the choice. What everyone agreed was that if you need to have a fader on each finger for complex mixes - and they mentioned that sometime three people would be mixing on the Pro-Tools system at the same time - then mixing on a screen with a mouse doesn't cut it. They liked Pro-Tools simply because it had a big tactile control surface and was a kind of one-box system. Most thought that if you hung a modern digital mixer onto Cubase or Logic, and used that sync'ed properly, then it was as good.

 

Nobody at all mentioned the sonic differences between A/Ds, suggesting that we've reached the stage where significant differences in pre-amp quality are getting less and less. None of these students had any brand hang ups, and just wanted to use the piece of kit/software that did the job with as little pain as possible. In general, those interested in recording audio were happy with Logic. Those who needed well integrated midi had a leaning towards Cubase. Nobody said one or other was better - just that they liked it.

 

My experience of computer 'power' is very like Bobs. Recording and playback isn't an issue at all - but running plug-ins is where performance really matters. Software synths and samplers are the real killers, but clever reverbs and other complex processing gives you a big hit in the CPU power department. Mind you, many manufacturers now build in functions for allowing you to process a track, dump it to a file and then use that when mixing to free up processor power. Not a perfect solution, but it does work when you need lots of effects and treatment.