I should also ask, when doing dubs, how would I route INTO the computer? Where do I plug in the mic, the keyboard..... Does this type of control surface ELIMINATE the M-Audio Fast Trak Pro or work WITH it, M-audio for in, Tascam for out?

And I need to also ask how do I plug INTO RB? Would the Tascam control surface REPLACE the M-Audio or work WITH it, the M-Audio for input and the Tascam for output?

Double post. Sorry.

First, changing the major part of your gear is never going to be a "smooth transition".

Time out: what exactly is the Tascam gear Scott recommended?

Yes, on my FW-1884 I can plug in microphones (up to 8) and MIDI (up to 4).

In your example, if I had to try to control the levels on tracks 2, 7 and 11, I would move the tracks around in the DAW so all three fall in the same bank. In this example, swapping tracks 1 and 11 would do it and put all the needed tracks on bank one. For convenience, I might also then swap 3 and 7, so new tracks 1, 2 and 3 that need adjustment are all together on the board.

EDIT: you have one more question. You would connect a TASCAM control surface unit such as the FW-1884 as both input and output in your DAW. You want the fader movement in the DAW to affect the Tascam, and vice versa. This is done in SONAR as a separate menu item for Control Surface, and I would guess other DAWs would have something comparable.

All this is great, and if you have unlimited money fun to have, but just mixing on the screen, and sending the signal in thru your mackie is fine. that is how all of us do it one way or the other. Just make music man.

I spend 10 years in constant search for the perfect DAW, now i just use RB, and a stereo card fronted with a Yamaha mixer board. I often wonder how many songs i could have written and recorded, had i just dove in and not worried about the tools so much.

Scott did not recommend Tascam as I stated. It was a Behringer B-Control Fader BCF2000. Sweetwater has it (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/BCF2000) and it looks beautful. Difference is that Scott knows a LOT more about this stuff and actually, how should I word this, knows what he's doing..... LOL!!

If you look at that unit you won't see "inputs" like I know "inputs" to mean.

I'm so confused.....

To all who have posted thus far - In a private message to Eddie regarding his MOTU technical challenge and win, I had mentioned that I thought Eddie could accomplish his goal of live 'fingers on faders' mixing, with a much simpler setup than the dual computer, dual MOTU, analog mixer setup - by mixing inside the box with a control surface.

I am not a gear lover, nor am I a guy who has to have the latest software. In fact, I would guess that most people in this thread have spent way more on their software and hardware than I have - if they have made regular updates to their PG products over the years.

Eddie had some goals in the other mega thread which I was pointing out alternative ways of accomplishing the same goals, but perhaps with a technically simpler solution.

One of the goals: 'Live' mixing using fingers on faders.

This can be achieved destructively; that is, permanent changes, by the dual MOTU, dual computer, analog mixer in the signal chain method. Send out signal, mix live in the analog board, print it to new tracks in the second MOTU/Computer.

However, it can also be achieved non-destructively in the box, one computer, with a control surface. This all assumed pre-recorded material is on-hand. Remember, the goal that I understood was live mixing, not necessarily live multi-channel recording, nor live multi-channel outs to 'tape', since the tape is 'in the box'.

Eddie, you are not confused. Try watching this video of a guy simply setting the BCF2000 channels to tracks in Reaper. He is not recording any audio - he is simply recording the fader moves - which is the whole purpose of a control surface - controlling volumes, fades, effect parameters, etc. with knobs and sliders instead of mouse movements or off-line processing. What this video demonstrates is simply recording of fader automation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzjntcBx7wQ&feature=related

There are some audio/midi I/O boxes that have a control surface built in. Many of the Tascam recorders, from what I understand, can function this way as well. I think that's probably what Matt has access to.

Think of control surfaces as just another way to manipulate what is going on inside of the computer - in our case it's mimicing operations that you are doing on audio signals OUTSIDE the computer with the mixer.

Whether or not this is right for you is a different matter altogether. You can make use of one of these BCF2000 units in the MOTU setup you have right now, as long as PG software can record automation.

As far as I understand it as well, you can assign tracks that are non-adjacent in your DAW software, to adjacent faders on the BCF2000. So you might have 26 tracks in the DAW software, and you did a bad job of grouping channels and have the kick drum on track 1, snare on 5, hihat on 16, 3 rack toms on 21, 22 and 23, and a pair of overheads on 25 and 26. I believe (though unconfirmed), you could assign these DAW tracks to the 8 faders on the BCF2000 for one 'mix-down' session - except you aren't doing anything to the audio, just the playback volume of the audio, for those 8 channels.

Well, lunch hour is over and I must get back to work. Hopefully that clarifies some things a bit.

Using the control surface can eliminate all the work of sending out multiple audio channels to an analog mixer (which will introduce some noise - guaranteed), and then re-recording the live-mixed audio to new audio tracks either in the same machine or in a different machine.

-Scott

I may be missing something here but Real Band does not support control surfaces correct? That means another mega thread from Eddie in the Sonar, Cubase, Reaper (or whatever forum) figuring it out. The problem with that is those guys in the other forums won't put up with the 20 questions thing like we do. You get one or two basic answers and then like Arnold said in his Teutonic accent in Predator I think, "You on yu own!".

Bob

Hi Eddie,

I use a BCF2000 with reaper for all my mixing. its great for what I want. The Reaper forum is also very friendly and helpful. There's even a "Noobie Forum" just for beginners.

Its real easy to change faders from 1-8 to 9-16 with just a button press. You can see all of them onscreen so you don't need to wonder where they're set to. I use a "Klinke setup" which is downloadable from the reaper website. You can use more than one BCF2000 at the same time if you want to. It does take a little bit of time setting it up at first, and its helpful to print out templates, to tell you what all the buttons do.

It is so nice to have real faders and pan controls, as well as mute and solo buttons. Play, stop, rewind, fast forward. you can also arm tracks. play looping.

I'd like to see Real band and Biab, both accept control surface data. perhaps in the future.

Right now, I just drag my tracks over to Reaper, and after setting up tempo, and placing some Markers at verses and choruses, I can do just about anything I want with the tracks.

Andrew

That's not a big thing for me. I can compose in RB and move them to Sonar and mix to print from there. I agree though, that it would be nice if RB wwas 1000% full featured, and they are getting there. Every new version and patch between versions adds something new and positive.

Okay after watching and translating screen images and narration to mental notes, it appears that my one question is answered. I need both units, the M-Audio to get the sound from the software to the speakers, and the Behringer to sends digital control information to the software.

If for no other reason, I need to buy one because they look cool....

I'm not familiar with the Behringer unit (never had good luck with Behringer products) so my answer was based on the Tascam line. To my knowledge, all the Tascam units that are control surfaces also are audio/MIDI interfaces. If you have just a control surface though, you would indeed need the other device for audio & MIDI connections. The control surface, probably using USB, is still both input and output, or at least it should be. You want to see faders moving on the device and the screen, whichever you adjust.

By the way, BIAB does come with built-in support for one control surface of sorts, the Frontier Design Transport. Although it's discontinued, I can vouch for it working great with BIAB.

The future is probably in iPad software. We already have a very nice BIAB Remote app that shows a lot of promise. I have most recently been experimenting with Splashtop Streamer to control the whole PC remotely.

I use the BCF2000 with Sonar. Works well. You can program the sucker to control just about any parameter. However, I still find myself drawing envelopes.

Behringer earned a bad rep early on due to high-end boards failing and, in my case, effects units not being static resistant. IMO they have long since overcome the quality issues. I have owned and/or gifted nearly a dozen pieces of their equipment and plan to buy more. I am considering their control surfaces for use with Propellerhead Reason.

One of the tests of product quality, in my opinion, has been whether or not Sweetwater music would carry a product line. They have carried Behringer for the past year to two years. They were long on signing up. I don't know whether or not they felt pressured into it, or if they felt product quality has risen to their level of acceptance, or both or neither of these.

Those are good points, and I'll have to ask my Sweetwater contact about Behringer next time I need gear.

The main problem I had wasn't exactly 'product quality' - it was a high background noise level in a mixer and also in a headphone splitter/amp. They just couldn't compare to Mackie or Alesis or even Sampson at the time (about eight years ago).

Matt,

I had the same problem with an old (mid 1990s) Behringer. compressor. I think you'll find that they have improved greatly, even from 8 years ago.

I DID make the leap and am getting one of these from someone reselling one he bought and never used. So not only do I get a bargain, I get one for a price point that I can always resell and break even. And if this works out better than the MOTU stuff I bought, I know I can get out what I put in for those. As difficult as it was to find them, they must be becoming scarce. Particularly the PCI card....

I don't hjave deadlines so I can play with this as I see fit. I am in the process of perceiving at the moment, envisioning the rewire where I bring the audio back out of my M-Audio interface and mix digitally on the Behringer instead of the Mackie. It's all good though as I do consider myself a gatherer of knowledge, and more learning is never a bad thing.

Once I climbed MOTU Mountain and got it to work as desired, that challenge was behind me. Now on to learning this century's techniques.

I think you will enjoy the BCF2000 once you get all of the setup kinks ironed out. I was able to get mine up and running in Sonar with the help of their forum members.

I also opted to get the BCF's bother (or sister), the BCR2000 which is a 32 rotary/30 button control surface. It is another cool little device in theory but has been a little more difficult to get set up to my needs.

As others have stated, don't let technology get in the way of making music. Honestly, I rarely even turn the units on anymore except towards the very end of a project. And still I find myself adjusting by mouse out of habit.

***** luck.

*EDIT*

Looks like I misspelled "Good" :-)

Good luck.

Okay, had the Behringer (and the M-Audio Fast Trak) installed in about 20 minutes after downloading fresh drivers for both. Some minor configuration, that was little more than holding down button 4 while powering up. Opened Sonar. Set the MIDI device and control surface ports to the proper places, loaded a song that was already dumped to WAV files and saved that way, turned on automation, and watched as the volume sliders on the tracks went up and down while I played. One little thing I need to figure out yet is how to renumber the tracks. I have 9 tracks on this song. 1-8 and on slider 1 thru 8. Then I go to the next back of 8 and for some reason track 9 on the song is on slider 6 of the second bank. I THINK it's because I was bouncing them around while they were in Real Band and deleted a bunch of tracks and moved that vocal track 9 up to the 9 slot. I will play with it more over the weekend but if nothing else this has the cool factor as I watch the sliders move slowly and subtly showing the automation changes.

Scott, you were right. This is better.

But Eddie - you conquered the dual MOTU Throwdown! I have to tip my hat to you for trying the Behringer. You are gonna get hooked on automation. Once you get used to using it, there's no going back - just a warning. You'll be the next voice on the PG boards begging for it across the board.

Here's some things that you can do with automation that are just plain fun:

1. Automate your reverb and other bus effect levels for added drama. I do this with reverb on fadeouts sometimes - increasingly dial up the reverb send while simultaneously pulling the track volume down. Wave bye-bye to the music as it slips over the horizon.
2. Non-destructive gain changes. Fade in and outs can be reversed, multipe edits of a project saved, etc.
3. Automate individual parameters on VST and VSTi. I use this quite a bit with filter cutoff frequencies for old/new school filter sweeps on synths and 'ambient' guitar tracks. The row of knobs along the top of the Behringer will work well for that. For a cool filter to mess with, get Frohmage free from Ohmforce.
4. You can quickly comp a single track by automating gain changes on a bank of tracks. I think Mac uses this quite a bit.

Now, let's hear some music!

-Scott

Yes sir, Scott, automation will take over my music life!!! I got my first taste of it last night and I am going to enjoy it.

Now on to learning more about VST and VSTi. I know a little, but need to grow. My first exposure was soft synths, and I had a Prophet 5, a B3 and a Roland Jupiter as well as the standard Cakewalk TSS set, so I have SOME knowledge but need to gather more plug-ins AND more knowledge about using them.

As I said since I started (whining) on the forums, I am a hacker first. I want to push things to their limit and then break the rules. Make things work in a way outside of how they were intended. (I still remember how many people told me my Texas Instruments computer would never work with hard drives. Until the day I walked into a monthly grop meeting with a 40 mb hard drive attached and running.) That is what got more people trying multiple outputs. seeing the crashes, and realizing "Hey, there's a bug", which PG Music promptly fixed! That put the MOTU thing to rest. It's still there is I want it, but now I start to gather knowledge in another area, digital mixing and production.

After all of that, THEN comes the musician who wishes he could sing better.....

And once again, I sing the praises of this company. Above and beyond. Sonar typically tells you to read the manual....

Yeah, Scott, I don't use a lot of "synthy" sounds. Growing up on the music I grew up with, my sound palette is pretty basic, like the huge Hammond organ sounds in Pink Floyd kind of music and the natural pianos, with the occasional Rhodes and Werlizter thrown in, all things I have owned in my life.

Mainly my music will continue to come from RB anyway, and the stuff I get from there is really strong.