PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand And here we go again....

OK, I peeked at the thread again - dang!

Look, I'm used to mixing live sound with channel counts between 12 and 48 channels, but never simultaneously all at once. Because I only have 10 fingers, I use the mixer's subgroups for different commonly grouped items like vocals from 4-8 singers, drums into another subgroup, etc. But by so doing, I pre-mixed several of the channels into single faders.

I'm an engineer and a hacker. Engineers solve problems using available technology. Your engineer friend can't truly mix 24 channels down into 2 in one sitting for one song. There has to be some pre-mixing going on, subgrouping, channel bouncing, etc.

All of this can be done inside of the computer. That's why people do it that way. That's why nobody has found this more than 8 channel output issue up until now - including the PG überusers like rharv.

You keep talking about your mortgage and so forth and how you can't afford to spend major coin. One thing I bet you have a hard time beating me at is being a cheapskate.

Don't you remember I'm the guy who showed you where to buy the studio foam for about 1/2 of what Auralex charges?

IMO, mixing inside the box would have been way cheaper than your purchase of the 2 MOTU units, all of the audio and firewire cabling necessary, a second computer for the 'tape deck', the interface for that 2nd computer, license for the recording software in the 2nd computer etc. etc. etc. Your DAW has unlimited tracks. Two that you can use for the destination right there.

The control surface approach lets you do the thing you were used to 40 years ago, avoid any noise stackup that will get introduced by going back out to analog to the mixer then back to digital with the 2nd computer, and saves a pile of money in the mean time. Did you see the price of the 8 slider 8 knob Behringer control surface? $209. One cable needed; a USB cable to get from it to the PC. I bet you've got one of those lying around.

But, please verbally abuse me if I post in this thread again. You are permitted to send me a PM or do it publicly in the thread. This goes for anyone still reading.

Scott, NOBODY is cheaper than me. NOBODY!!!

I knew where EVERY food freebie in town was for years. Monday was hot dog night, Tuesday was pizza, Wednesday was sub sandwich night, Thursday was Taco Night.... buy one draft beer for $1 and nurse it until you are full from the buffet. I still have pants and shirts that I bought when I went to work at a law firm IT dept in 2000!!! My thermostat is at 64 and it will be at 58 soon. That's not the point. The point now is not even the music. The point now is making this work.

I can see yer point FWIW.
I can record 16 in's but can only play 8 outs .. doesn't make sense. I hope they fix it. I don't mix like Eddie, but I do understand the expectation, regardless of the actual use.

For those interested.
I got an email from Rob.Build 6 will address this issue.

Eddie, I totally get it now. This is not just about getting your music project done, it's also about digging in and getting RB specifically to do it. That's part of your hobby and I'm all over that idea because I'm the same way. There's other solutions but you simply want to get it working your way if possible.

When I posted the link to the Tascam recorder you commented you didn't know what you're looking at. This is a bit off topic, it falls into the "other solution" camp and may be something you want to look at later. First I was assuming (there's that word again!) you were doing live tracking as well as creating tracks using Biab styles. The last I heard you were putting together your horn band project to go after a house band gig but it looks like that died. The beauty of a stand alone recorder is you use it for live remote stuff. Right now anything that needs to be recorded has to be done at your house. Many times it's better to take a recorder to someone else's place to lay down some tracks.

How this unit can help you with your immediate problem is it has USB import. At first I thought you had to play your 8 outputs in real time from RB patched directly to the 8 in's on the Tascam but I just pulled up the owners manual and no, its much better than that. Your PC sees the Tascam hard drive as simply another external drive and you drag the wav files directly to the Tascam HD and from there to each individual track. If you have 19 tracks in RB you can highlight all 19 and simply drag them all to the Tascam in one swell foop for mixing. It has 20 physical mixing faders and can also act as a 36 track digital mixer. So problem solved, you not only can do all your direct live recording with that unit but with the computer connection move the entire project back and forth from the PC to the Tascam depending on what you need at the time. This unit is so cool I'm likely to buy one myself. This thing is way more advanced than my Akai for less money. Ah yes, the beauty of technology.

Being cheap and all you can probably sell those MOTU's for enough to pay for the Tascam once the thrill of solving this problem wears off. I think the Tascam is a better over all solution for you but that's just me. No PC's to crash, no messing around with software glitches, MME/ASIO, none of that. Of course for you this is part of the fun...It has a complete suite of effects and mixing/mastering tools right on board and I already know the quality of those things is first class because everybody pretty much uses the same components and software for that now. Even my old Akai uses the same chip in their preamps that ProTools does, the analog/digital converters are first class too and I'm sure it's the same with this Tascam.

Again I completely understand you're not focused on alternatives right now, you're focused on solving this problem with RB and it looks like PG is going to release a patch to do just that. After that's done and solved you may turn your focus to efficiency and what's the best way to do this. At that point I would take another look at that Tascam or something similar.

Bob

Got ya Ed, I moved from the Chapel Hill area about 3 years ago for safety reasons...

I want to go on record tonight and say that I will NOT say..........


I TOLD YOU SO!!!!

to everybody who said my stuff was set up wrong.

And a PS to Jazzmammal Bob, I AM going to consider that Tascam. I have an older 8 track version but you could only record 2 tracks at a time. Has to be 15-20 years old. I would indeed get a lot of use out of it. And the price is "pretty right".

Has anybody heard anything more about the update that will address this? I got to figure that if they are saying they can fix it, then logic says they know what is wrong. So eager to see all my lights flashing!!!

Per Rob there are more fish in that pan as well. They are also being cautious with this fix to ensure that they don't mess up something else.

so... any word on build 6?

Most of the time when Peter says something is being looked at, it winds up getting fixed but not always. The VST tempo lock problem is the biggest glaring example of this. He said maybe three years ago they were trying to fix it but nothing has been heard since. I'm assuming it can't be fixed, it's possible this is the same but it's still pretty early to make that assumption just yet. Btw, nobody in my experience ever gives updates on when a fix might be ready. It's ready when it shows up as a build number at the top of the forum.

Bob

So Eddie doesn't have a stroke, I was told that they have the fix. Just waiting to push it out with Build 6.