TC ELECTRONIC KONNEKT 24D (FireWire Audio Interface)

[Levitator]

Thanks very much for doing this review!

Questions:

1. Let’s say, If I want to use my outboard preamps feeding the line ins of 24D can I still use the 24D’s FX section with zero latency (in live shows)

2. How would you compare the AD/DA to some other high end audio cards such as LynxTWO (I have 5 of those cards)

3. How would you compare the reverb FX of 24d to CSR?

4. Are there any plans to include any delay plug ?

Also, while we are talking about TC product can somebody tell me the shipping date for the stereo to 5.1 up converter (power core)

Thanks again

[Mike Martin]

Originally posted by Levitator Thanks very much for doing this review! Questions: 1. Let’s say, If I want to use my outboard preamps feeding the line ins of 24D can I still use the 24D’s FX section with zero latency (in live shows)

Yes. there are independent send levels for each input (analog and digital) to the Fabrik R reverb. The Fabrik C (channel strip) can only be used on inputs 1 and 2 (mic, line or Hi-Z)

4. Are there any plans to include any delay plug ?

No, not at this time.

Also, while we are talking about TC product can somebody tell me the shipping date for the stereo to 5.1 up converter (power core)

Here in the US, we just got a few pieces of Unwrap for Powercore in last week and are expecting more in by the end of the month.

Mike Martin
TC|US

PS - Your other questions are asking for an opinion. I'll let Craig or someone else answer that.

[Fredsa]

since I only have one firewire port and the manual says the Konnekt should have its own firewire bus I wonder wether I still can "daisy" chain a firewire harddrive through the Konnekt's second firewire port.

[gmore]

I was able to daisy chain my Maxtor HD thru it, although I did have some lock-ups on certain back-up procedures. To be fair, I couldn't daisy the HD thru my Saffire without alot more issues, so I'm guessing it could have something to do with my Dell's firewire set-up - again the TC worked significantly better.

[Levitator]

quote:
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Originally posted by Levitator
Thanks very much for doing this review!

Questions:

1. Let’s say, If I want to use my outboard preamps feeding the line ins of 24D can I still use the 24D’s FX section with zero latency (in live shows)
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Yes. there are independent send levels for each input (analog and digital) to the Fabrik R reverb. The Fabrik C (channel strip) can only be used on inputs 1 and 2 (mic, line or Hi-Z)
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How easy is it to set this up in such a way that would allow me to monitor 24d inputs with FX and at the same time to record dry signal (assuming I’m using outboard pres)

Thanks

[Mike Martin]

Originally posted by Levitator How easy is it to set this up in such a way that would allow me to monitor 24d inputs with FX and at the same time to record dry signal (assuming I’m using outboard pres) Thanks

 

 

I'm sure Craig will be getting to this soon, but the flexibility of the effects is one of the things that makes Konnekt 24D so unique.

 

Each input has its own send level to the Fabrik R (reverb) which of course you can monitor in real time. In your DAW, you have the flexibility to choose to record the dry unprocessed signal or the processed signal.

 

Here is the list of inputs as they'll appear in your DAW:

 

1 Mic inst / line 1

2 Mic inst / line 2

3 Line 3

4 Line 4

5 Fabrik Channel L

6 Fabrik Channel R

7 Fabrik Reverb L

8 Fabrik Reverb R

9 ADAT 1 / optical L

10 ADAT 2 / optical R

11 ADAT 3

12 ADAT 4

13 ADAT 5

14 ADAT 6

15 ADAT 7 / Coaxial L

16 ADAT 8 / Coaxial R

 

So if you want to record dry, choose the mic/line input that you want. If you want to record the processed signal choose the Fabrik inputs 5-8.

 

Hope this helps,

 

-Mike Martin

TC|US

[Anderton]

>

Indeed, that's what's up next

But thanks for typing out the list so I don't have to!

[Fredsa]

Mike, I went to my local shop and they were saying that I could use the effects on the Konnekt as a normal VST, that is not what I have read.though..you need at some point to record the Reverb or the Fabrik's signal back into the DAW, am I right? I mean yoyu cannot automatize that inot a mix and bounce the whole thing?

[shawn fin]

Hey Craig. I've read your material for years and found it quite helpful.

First, I was wondering if the 24D DSP effects worked as bus sends in Acid 6. When I assign the reverb or channel strip to a bus in Acid 4, I hear a blip of noise and then it goes silent. Have you tried assigning the effects to busses in Acid 6?

Second, it seems pretty easy to overload the preamps when just connecting a cndsr mic. When using my Voicemaster Pro, I really have to crank the input to clip; whereas, I begin to overload the pres on the 24D when the gain is at much lower levels. Any thoughts?

Lastly, can I safely connect outboard preamps to the rear line inputs on channels one and two so that I can use the compression while recording? I notice the preamps light up on the front and I wondered if I was coloring the signal or at risk of damaging something.

[Anderton]

Let’s look at the Fabrik R reverb. We’ll get to the interface and sound, but first, we'll talk about connections as there are quite a few options.

The most basic connection uses the Fabrik R internally within the K24D, where any input can send some signal to it via a send control in the mixer applet; that’s straightforward enough, as long as you remember that in the Setup menu, Fabrik R routing has to be set to Internal Mode.

Click on the attachment to see the applet in action. A mic is sending a vocal into input 1; its send control (circled in red) is sending some of this signal to the Fabrik reverb input bus. The part that’s circled in green is the “Fabrik” section of the mixer. The top rectangle shows metering – handy for knowing if there’s actually signal get into and out of the processor – while the knob below it is currently set to reverb output level (it can also be set to decay time). Note the light ring knob toward the bottom; this means the parameter level/decay parameter can be controlled from the front panel.

And while we’re on the subject of sends, they can actually be routed to any available output, not just the Fabrik R. This allows setting up something like a separate monitor mix, or going through an external effects box (digital via S/PDIF, or analog via outs/ins 3+4).

One point that’s very important to remember about the routing is that the input of a track can monitor (and therefore record) the raw input, even while you’re monitoring through reverb. So vocalists, for example, can hear themselves with plenty of reverb but you’re not committed to recording the reverberated sound. This is true of the Fabrik C channel strip as well: You can EQ and compress until the vocalist hears exactly what they want, but record dry so you can add whatever EQ and compression you want during the mixdown process (or for that matter, record with compression and EQ if you like).

It probably goes without saying that for a solo performer situation, where you might have mic, guitar, and backup, you can have different amounts of reverb for each signal source…very convenient.

[Anderton]

I’m not embarrassed to admit that it took me a while to figure this all out. That’s because there are few “gotchas” you have to be careful to remember.

The first one is that in the applet Setup page, Fabrik R routing must be set to Computer S/R stereo if you want to do the send/receive thing. Fortunately, there’s some helpful visual feedback: The rectangle on the mixer that shows Fabrik R metering becomes a solid gray rectangle, so you know that the Fabrik R is busy elsewhere.

The second involves the applet Fabrik R page, where you will most likely want to enable the "Kill Dry" button so that you hear only the wet, reverberated sound. This is particularly important because of latency issues, which we'll touch on later.

The third centers around the host application. We’re used to doing send reverb effects where send some signal from the channel you want processed to an aux bus, then the aux bus dumps into the master. You adjust the aux bus output level to determine the level of the reverb.

The K24D does things differently. In this case, you still send some signal from the channel you want processed to an aux bus. But the aux bus then dumps not into the master, but into the input of the Fabrik R (if you remember from Mike Martin’s list of K24D inputs, the Fabrik R input is available the same way that any of the channel ins are available). Then, you need to set up a separate audio channel that listens to the output of the Fabrik R, as if you were monitoring any input channel (vocal, guitar, etc.) in real time. In other words, you need to enabel the "return" track's real-time monitoring option if you expect to hear the reverberated signal.

Let’s trace this through using Acid 6.0, as the question was raised on how to get Fabrik R to work with it as a send/receive effect. Click on the attachment to see what we’ll be describing; bear in mind that the same general principles apply to any host.

We’ll assume track 1 has a drum loop, and you want some of its signal to go to a send bus with the Fabrik R, and bring some of the processed output into Acid. Here’s the step-by-step.

1. Insert a bus in Acid; we’ll call it Bus A. Assign its output to the Konnekt Fabrik Reverb input.
2. Turn up the Bus A control in Track 1 to send some signal to the bus.
3. Insert an Audio track. We’ll call this Track 2.
4. Arm Track 2 for record.
5. Click on the monitor indicator to the immediate left of the Arm Record button, and go Input Monitor > On.
6. Click again on the monitor indicator to the immediate left of the Arm Record button, and select Input 4 (the Fabrik Reverb output). This is shown in detail in the screen shot.
7. Turn up Track 2’s volume for the desired amount of reverb signal.

If you’re really adventurous (and have your monitor speakers turned down!), you can turn up Track 2’s bus A control and get a little reverberation feedback action. Dangerous…but fun.

[ayc6]

Hi Craig, since I read in a previous thread that you are familiar with the E-mu 1616m, how do the 24D preamps and convertors' sound quality compare to the E-mu? I'd expect the TC effects to be better even if there aren't as many...

[Anderton]

I tested the Fabrik R and Fabrik C as send/receive effects in Sonar, Cubase, and Acid; they worked perfectly each time, once I figured out the "gotchas" listed above. However, the return signal is subject to the interface latency. With reverb, this isn't terribly important; basically, the latency provides "free pre-delay."

When I first tested the Fabrik R with Sonar, I was put off by what I thought were latency issues (remember, for whatever reason I can't get operation below 256 samples with Sonar) that caused obvious delays. However, this was due more to the patch that I selected having significant early reflections, which emphasized the time difference. Reducing the amount of early reflections solved the problem. In programs with 128 samples of latency, the latency with reverb wasn't an issue.

Using Fabrik C as a send/receive effect is a different situation, in that you really don't want to hear it play along with the original track because of the "slapback echo" effect caused by latency. It would be tempting to just say "Well hey, I have other compressors and EQs" and not worry about it, but you'd only say that if you hadn't worked with the Fabrik C -- as we'll see later on, it's a very tasty and versatile processor that can sound anywhere from natural to highly effected.

Furthermore, most of the time what you really want with a channel strip effect is to use it as an insert effect, not a send/return effect. So, I came up with a simple workaround that solved both issues. Send any signals to the Fabrik C pre-fader, and bring down the level of the original channel so you hear only the Fabrik C output. Once you have the sound the way you want, bounce the processed signal to another track, and shift it forward in time (line it up visually with the original, source track). Keep the source track muted or archived, or if you're sure you won't need it again, you can always just blast it away.

The bottom line is that while you can't use the Fabrik C as a true insert effect on host tracks, you can accomplish the same result with the workaround detailed above. [update: This is possible using the "External Effects" option in Cubase SX3 and Cubase 4 -- see Mike Martin's reply below]

[Anderton]

Mike, I went to my local shop and they were saying that I could use the effects on the Konnekt as a normal VST, that is not what I have read.though..you need at some point to record the Reverb or the Fabrik's signal back into the DAW, am I right? I mean you cannot automatize that inot a mix and bounce the whole thing?

 

Well I'm not Mike, but no, you cannot insert the K24D plugs as normal VST inserts. However, there is the workaround described above that works on a track-by-track basis if you want to create the end result of using insert effects.

 

Furthermore, it's not necessarily true that you need to record the Fabrik's signal back into the DAW. As pointed out above with the example of setting up Acid for send/receive processing with Fabrik R, you could have multiple tracks all dumping some signal into the send bus that goes to the Fabrik R input, and monitor the Fabrik R out just as if it was a plug-in. However, you can't do multiple instances (e.g., have two buses of reverb). Of course, you always can record the track in the DAW, but you don't have to.

[Anderton]

First, I was wondering if the 24D DSP effects worked as bus sends in Acid 6. When I assign the reverb or channel strip to a bus in Acid 4, I hear a blip of noise and then it goes silent. Have you tried assigning the effects to busses in Acid 6?

 

See above. If that doesn't work for you, let me know and we'll work through it further.

 

Second, it seems pretty easy to overload the preamps when just connecting a cndsr mic. When using my Voicemaster Pro, I really have to crank the input to clip; whereas, I begin to overload the pres on the 24D when the gain is at much lower levels. Any thoughts?

 

Does this happen even with the pad engaged?

 

Lastly, can I safely connect outboard preamps to the rear line inputs on channels one and two so that I can use the compression while recording? I notice the preamps light up on the front and I wondered if I was coloring the signal or at risk of damaging something.

 

I'm not sure I understand your question. Why not just use the preamps in the K24D? You can still use compression while recording. If you want to use "boutique" preamps or whatever that color the sound, just be careful not to blast the K24D ins with a zillion dB and things should be fine.

[Fredsa]

Thanks Craig, I see that you could monitor the reverb bus the way you described it, but at the mix down I should need to have the ourput of the reverb (killed dry) recorded as an audio track in the daw...right? and then treat it as a Reverb return chanell (I am using Cubaes SX).

[miziq]

Mike or Craig

is it possible to use Konnekt 24 d as a standalone digital converter. For example feeding the spdif with digital signal from dvd-cd player.

Also for example ipod xpress with airtunes. Will this combo work? It seems that airport xpress have digital (optical out) and konnekt also have adat(optical) in. Is this compatible?

Everything i mentioned above is for standalone application.

I guess konnekt do come with power adapter right?

Thanks in advance

[Mike Martin]

Originally posted by Fredsa Thanks Craig, I see that you could monitor the reverb bus the way you described it, but at the mix down I should need to have the ourput of the reverb (killed dry) recorded as an audio track in the daw...right? and then treat it as a Reverb return chanell (I am using Cubaes SX).

 

 

Fredsa,

If you have Cubase SX 3, use the "External Effects" feature. It allows you to integrate Konnekt 24D's effects like a VST. The reverbs are recorded automatically at mixdown.

[Mike Martin]

Originally posted by miziq Mike or Chris is it possible to use Konnekt 24 d as a standalone digital converter. For example feeding the spdif with digital signal from dvd-cd player. Also for example ipod xpress with airtunes. Will this combo work? It seems that airport xpress have digital (optical out) and konnekt also have adat(optical) in. Is this compatible? Everything i mentioned above is for standalone application. I guess konnekt do come with power adapter right? Thanks in advance

Yes this will work fine and yes it comes with a power adapter.

[shawn fin]

Thanks for the routing advice! As for the preamps, allow me to reference the initial question and I'll try to be more exact this time.

Second, it seems pretty easy to overload the preamps when just connecting a cndsr mic. When using my Voicemaster Pro, I really have to crank the input to clip; whereas, I begin to overload the pres on the 24D when the gain is at much lower levels. Any thoughts?

Does this happen even with the pad engaged?

As a comparison, I can set the output of My Voicemaster to zero and give only a moderate amount of gain while getting a healthy recording level. On the 24D, I overload the preamps before reaching even zero db recording levels. Is it just a difference in what the preamps can handle? It makes me concerned that I won't be able to record really dynamic instruments, like drums, without overloading the preamps and still get equally healthy recording levels--especially with the pad engaged. With the pad engaged, I have to crank the gain to get good recording levels but run into the problem of overloading the pres again.

[Mike Martin]

Originally posted by Anderton The bottom line is that while you can't use the Fabrik C as a true insert effect on host tracks, you can accomplish the same result with the workaround detailed above.

 

 

Craig,

This is perfectly possible in Cubase SX 3.0 and Cubase 4 with their "External Effects" feature.

[miziq]

Mike,

thank for quick reply. I'm buying it on saturday.

So at standalone mode i just connect dvd player via spdif and connect out 1 and out 2 to amp. Konnekt recognize this automaticly?

Will the volume knob work in this situation? Can i adjust volume ?

If i understand this coorect i can use also Konnekt as AD-converter and headphone amp right? Without any other connection or adjustments?

I have Rotel rd-1090 2 x 380 w power amp. Would like to use Konnekt as a multi purpose device. Well amp accept balanced inputs, but the same shape (neutrik) that are on the front face of 24D (xlr). How is the output hadleded on konnket and what kind of cables i need? Are those outs (female jacks) also balanced the same way as are normal xlr balanced connectors?

Thanks

[Mike Martin]

Miziq,
Your DVD player will be playing CD's or DVD audio? Konnekt will NOT decode a surround encoded singal.

Once you set up your digital ins, and direct monitoring is engaged it will work as you describe.

Outputs are 1/4", balanced or unbalanced.

[miziq]

Mike,

just stereo out of dvd-cd!

Thanks for all the info!

[Retro749]

First of all thanks for the great work with these reviews. Appreciated and helpful.

I am interested in pulling the trigger on the 24D ASAP...but I have to say the questions raised about the mic pre's apparent headroom issue for Shawn are a concern to me.

The few reviews I've read have all commented on how good the pres actually were for this price point.

????