MACKIE ONYX 400F (audio interface)

[Music Calgary]

Well it's pretty simple to connect a compressor. I'm not going to debate you point by point, my opinion is that electrical engineers have never been less relevant to commercial audio production than today. You can get gear serviced or modified quickly and cheaply with a quick call.

My challenge to you - name ten top selling albums created this year by electrical engineers. It's just not where it's at anymore. The guy who's going to give you the best finished sound is the guy who is most connected to the music, not the gear.

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Music Calgary Well it's pretty simple to connect a compressor.

You'd be surprised at how many people don't understand the difference between standard (and non-standard) operating levels and different types of connectors. You can tell them how to do it, or tell them that they bought the wrong cable, or the wrong compressor, but they don't learn how to do it right the next time. Yea, it's simple to plug in the patch cords once it's set up properly so that it will work. You'd be surprised at how many people don't understand that you don't connect the two jacks that say INPUT together. This may not require knowledge of field theory, but it's system engineering, and if the user doesn't understand it, he'll fumble.

my opinion is that electrical engineers have never been less relevant to commercial audio production than today.

To be accurate about it, having a real electrical or electronic engineer living in the studio and applying his engineering skills day to day was never the norm. Sure, you had guys like Bill Putnam and Malcolm Toft who understood enough about electronics to build gear to use in their studios, but except for the earliest studios, this was never the way things were done. The engineers that worked in the studio repaired or modified things that we now replace instead because it's more efficient if you have more money than time or knowledge.

 

While you may not need an engineer to align a tape deck before a session (and really, you never did unless something was broken - you could teach anyone to do it) today you need different but equivalent skills. You need to know how to load a plug-in, update a driver, replace meomory, re-load the OS, or re-authorize a program when something you can't figure out happened. While it might not be Ohm's Law, it's still a technical skill that not everyone has.

You can get gear serviced or modified quickly and cheaply with a quick call.

True, if you have the money, but the greatest number of people who have recording gear don't have the money, don't want to spend the money, or don't have a clue as to who to call. I've seen people post on forums or news groups with what's a fairly complex system problem (they just bought a bunch of gear and they haven't a clue as to how to hook things up) and they clam up when I offer tol help them out if they pay for my travel and a day of my time for an on-site visit. And six months later, they're still asking questions. It's a different world when you have ot get work done.

My challenge to you - name ten top selling albums created this year by electrical engineers.

That's an unrealistic challange. First of all, I can't name ten top selling albums created this year. I probably couldn't name ten top selling albums in any year. Second, the issue has never been that they were created by electrical engineers. My point is that having some technical knowledge (which includes basic electronics) helps anyone in this business to better understand what they're doing. Is that a bad thing?

The guy who's going to give you the best finished sound is the guy who is most connected to the music, not the gear.

This has always been the case, assuming that the gear isn't so bad that it gets in his way. But how does he get the gear and get it up and working in the first place?

 

I'd challange you to name ten top selling records that were recorded with nothing but an out-of-the-box audio workstation (like a Roland or Akai), a microhone, and a set of monitors - but with today's music, I can believe that this is possible and if you follow these things closely, it's no challange.

 

And if there were no electronics engineers, where would your mic preamps or computers, or audio interfaces or monitor amplifiers come from? And if there were no system engineers, how would you know what to do with an XLR plug in one hand and a 1/4" TS phone jack in the other? That's engineering. Sure, you can ask on a newsgroup and get an answer, but then what will you do the next time? Ask again, of course.

[Music Calgary]

That's an unrealistic challange. First of all, I can't name ten top selling albums created this year. I probably couldn't name ten top selling albums in any year.

Hee. Touche Mike, I'll concede that one to you.

Second, the issue has never been that they were created by electrical engineers. My point is that having some technical knowledge (which includes basic electronics) helps anyone in this business to better understand what they're doing. Is that a bad thing?

Well it just depends on your goals. I guess what I'm saying is that if you go look at the movers and shakers they are overwhelmingly not engineers anymore. Snoop Dogg has mixed some fantastic sounding cuts, Wycelf Jean also, etc. and those guys have zero knowledge of the science of sound.

Don't get me wrong, Tom Scholz will always be near the top of my favorites list but vis-a-vis what makes the wheel go round these days it's the guys like Wyclef and Snoop who are getting the 6 figure gigs.

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by MikeRivers You're right, but not for the reason you propose. The great pianists of this era all have their own piano technicians. Keeping the piano at home in good shape is just a business expense. And when they tour, either they take their own piano (and tech) or they're sponsored by a piano company who delivers a piano to the venue and a technician to set it up for the pianist and the room. Heck, even rock'n'roll bands have a staff of guitar technicians and drum technicians. Most drummers don't know how to tune their drums (and that's always been the case) but I suspect that most guitarists can still tune their guitar and change a string when it breaks.

 

I think you’re way off here, my friend.

 

Everyone, not just top artists, can use a piano without knowing anything about it. For the past 100 years, the complex technology of a piano has been made transparent to anyone who buys one, professional or amateur. You do not need to roll with a staff to get a piano to work. All you have to do is push the buttons. It's just as true for you as it is for Elton John.

 

If you buy a piano, you do not have to buy strings, a pin block, pins, an action, a harp, a case, dampers, etc., and assemble the various components. You don’t need to know a thing about the regulation of action, the point at which the depression of a key engages a complex mechanism to trigger a hammer to hit one or more strings and then immediately fall back while a damper remains suspended until you lift your finger…

 

You just push the button and it works.

 

Pianos work out of the box for everyone, their mechanism of action equally transparent to all users. When Joe Shmoe buys a piano, it comes with all its components all hooked up, ready to go. If it needs to be tuned, there’s more than enough tuners to go around (not just for top pros), and modern pianos themselves hold their tuning for a long time (that wasn’t always the case and is no easy feat given the enormous pressure of the strings).

 

My point is that as technology matures, the complexity of its individual components disappears into a shroud of user friendliness. It’s a common goal in the evolution of any technology – cars, computers, pianos, you name it. As the technology matures, the underlying mechanism becomes increasingly transparent to the end user.

 

In audio, all of this hideous ganging together of components will similarly become transparent just as it has with pianos. And the proliferation of all-in-one interfaces is part of the transition even though they may seem like an affront to the "real engineers" of the past. Certainly the worst of the all-in-ones with their sloppy compromises are an affront. But then along comes something like the Apogee Ensemble and changes the game.

 

Come to think of it, the same thing was true with synthesizers. For a while, anyone who didn't physically patch together sine waves with LFOs in a mad scientist maze of cables was a wimp. OK, so then the DX7 comes along and well, OK, so it's not a toy. But if you were serious, you had to grapple with the underlying algorithms (just to keep things sufficiently tedious). Thank God that's no longer the case.

 

A friend of mine at Sikorsky helped eliminate the need for a second pilot from some of their more sophisticated helicopters. With increasing reliance on computer automation, complex controls could be simplified, enabling one person to fly aircraft that used to require at least two.

 

If you want to make music, you should be able to roll up your sleeves and get to work, without a support staff, closet full of cables, or co-pilot.

 

Mic preamps, for example, are ridiculous, and should be eliminated from the face of the earth.

 

The idea that there has to be a box between the device that converts sound waves into electrical signals, and the device that records those signals onto a format seems ridiculous to anyone who hasn’t been inculcated into this idiosyncrasy. We take them for granted – we cherish them – but ever try to explain why we spend so much money on these things to someone outside the field, and then watch their expression turn to one of disbelief and horror?

 

And the idea that mic preamps enhance the signal only adds to their ridiculousness. If the process of recording includes capturing sound from the real world and then processing it in ways that are pleasing, why does the processing need to occur at more than one stage?

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers Today's big name engineer is pretty interesting, though. Some of them really know what's going on inside the digital boxes even though they never grew up on analog hardware and never got any training in electronics. But they're the ones puzzled by things like what to do when connectors don't mate, or the levels are too low or high. And the major artists who have home studios (like Whitney Houston's famous living room) all have their own staff engineers who are expected to keep everyting ready to record at any time.

 

Sure. But that will change. It already is changing. Andy Smith literally replicated Paul Simon's recording chain at the Hit Factory in Paul Simon's living room without a lot of fuss.

 

Like any maturing technologies, studios are becoming easier to operate, with focus shifting increasingly from engineering to music making. Although, as a young technology, there’s a long way to go.

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers Maybe in 100 years the industry will standardize on a digital microphone interface, and the tweakers will be taking apart digital microphones, installing their own preamp, and A/D converter.

 

Stephen St. Croix wrote a wonderful column about this, how he grew up as an incorrigible tweaker, taking everything apart just to understand how it worked, constantly personalizing every bit of technology he could get his hands on. Until the digital revolution, that is. With everything burnt onto a tiny little chip, inveterate tweakers like himself were out of luck.

 

In 100 years, the tweakers will not be taking apart their digital microphones, they'll be using them.

 

-plb

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Music Calgary Snoop Dogg has mixed some fantastic sounding cuts, Wycelf Jean also, etc. and those guys have zero knowledge of the science of sound.[/QB]

Maybe so, but I'll bet someone with some knowledge of electronics, studio engineering, and maybe even physics and acoustics got them set up. They couldn't work without that assistance.

 

Perhaps we're arguing the wroing point here. It's not necessary for everyone involved in a music production to be technically competent, but that needs to be there somewhere, at some point, and will probably be called on now and then in the process. So for someone working alone, it behooves him or her to start picking up that knowlege.

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Brittanylips Everyone, not just top artists, can use a piano without knowing anything about it. For the past 100 years, the complex technology of a piano has been made transparent to anyone who buys one, professional or amateur. You do not need to roll with a staff to get a piano to work. All you have to do is push the buttons. It's just as true for you as it is for Elton John.

This is true if you're willing to buy a new piano whenever it goes out of tune, or the felts get hard, or you want to play a differeint kind of song and need it to be voiced differently. Now I'll admit that most pianists don't do that kind of work themselves, but it's the same sort of thing as when you want a new A/D converter and you can't figure out how to sync its word clock. Musicians can learn that sort of thing, and can do something about it. Or they can call for help.

When Joe Shmoe buys a piano, it comes with all its components all hooked up, ready to go.

OK, let's fast forward 150 years. Say he wants to hook it up to his home stereo. What does he do then?

My point is that as technology matures, the complexity of its individual components disappears into a shroud of user friendliness.

I see nothing "user friendly" about taking home a bunch of boxes from the music store (or finding they on your front porch) and trying to build a whole recording system out of it. This is not mature technology. It's moving too fast to become mature. I ask for help with "computer" things all the time, and I find that hardly anyone who works with this stuff really knows how to solve MY problems. What do they do when they have similar problems? This is a generation of musicians who work on a desert island (one island - one musician) and don't interact with others, technical or musical, so they do everything themselves. Do they do it well? Sure, you know the saying about the blind pig and the acorn. But there are a lot of confused and struggling artists who have better things to do than futz with their recording gear. If they knew what was going on, if even only at the interface level, they could work smoother and smarter.

In audio, all of this hideous ganging together of components will similarly become transparent just as it has with pianos.

Perhaps, but that requires standards, and in a technology that moves as fast as what people are applying to recording, there's no time to set standards before we need new ones to accommodate the new hardware and new capabilities. Look at how many years it took the AES to tell us that Pin 2 was hot, and they're still working on a standard for digital audio interchange as data.

And the proliferation of all-in-one interfaces is part of the transition even though they may seem like an affront to the "real engineers" of the past.

You mean something like a channel strip with a Firewire output? That's OK for someone with one microphone, but what happens when the drummer comes in and says "I have six mics. Record me."

Certainly the worst of the all-in-ones with their sloppy compromises are an affront. But then along comes something like the Apogee Ensemble and changes the game.

Ah, a Mac user. I might have known But then Ensemble is just an 8-channel Firewire interface with mic preamps with Apogee's long-standing "soft limit" and UV22 dither. What's so special about that? If you want to use EQ or compression when you track, you still have to plug in an outboard processor (and you have to choose it, and get the right cables, and agonize over whether the insert jacks are balanced or unbalanced and what the operating level is) and then you only get inserts on two channels. Simple as a piano? I don't think so.

Come to think of it, the same thing was true with synthesizers. For a while, anyone who didn't physically patch together sine waves with LFOs in a mad scientist maze of cables was a wimp. OK, so then the DX7 comes along and well, OK, so it's not a toy. But if you were serious, you had to grapple with the underlying algorithms (just to keep things sufficiently tedious). Thank God that's no longer the case.

Sez who? Sure, if you want to use presets there are a lot more synths and a lot more presets, and you can fiddle with knobs all you want to get different sounds But unless you have some idea of what you're doing you'll make a lot of weird noises before you get to where you want to be - unless of course your goal is to make weird noises.

As an aside, since we're in Anderton's forum, I was chatting with him around the Alesis booth at NAMM a couple of years back at the show where they introduced the (I think) Ion analog modeling synthesizer. He said that he had to teach them how to use an analog synthesizer - Dave Bryce had moved on to hawk Adam speakers by then and he was the last of the corporate knowledge. Now they have Jim Norman, so they may be safe for a while.

If you want to make music, you should be able to roll up your sleeves and get to work, without a support staff, closet full of cables, or co-pilot.

I agree. And one can do this. But recording is still more complex, and will continue to be for some time. The other side of this coin is that musicians should be musicians, and when it's time to record, they should get a recording engineer involved. It may not require full time involvement, but it sure helps to get things started.

Mic preamps, for example, are ridiculous, and should be eliminated from the face of the earth.

They practically were, at least as identifiable boxes, but they've always been the interface between a microphone and some other circuit. Used to be that there was just a connector on the mixing console (or a jack on the front of your grandad's Webcor) where you plugged in the mic and started singing. It was the studio engineers, followed quickly by the musicians who didn't want to be left behind technicologically, who started using outboard mic preamps. Now everybody does it. Me, I'm quite happy plugging mics into my console, but then I bought my console when consoles cost more than $150.

The idea that there has to be a box between the device that converts sound waves into electrical signals, and the device that records those signals onto a format seems ridiculous to anyone who hasn’t been inculcated into this idiosyncrasy.

Mr. Edison didn't have to worry about no stinkin' mic preamps. Sound waves went right into the horn and wiggled a little needle that made grooves in a rotating wax cylinder. He didn't need power amplifiers or crossover networks or rear ported encosures either. We should have quit while we were ahead.

– we cherish them – but ever try to explain why we spend so much money on these things to someone outside the field, and then watch their expression turn to one of disbelief and horror?

Did you ever tell anyone how much your Steinway grand cost? Or your 1946 herringbone D-28? Or your Viking stove? People take pride in using quality tools in their craft.

And the idea that mic preamps enhance the signal only adds to their ridiculousness.

Not everyone puts it quite that way.

If the process of recording includes capturing sound from the real world and then processing it in ways that are pleasing, why does the processing need to occur at more than one stage?

Because we haven't yet figured out how to get everything we need at the final stage? Or maybe because working with the sound that comes out of a particular preamp or equalizer or compressor becomes part of the creative process? It's how we work. It's how we've worked for a long time, and it's still the way many people work even though their tools have changed.

But some people (and this tends to be genre-specific) capture or syntesize a bunch of sounds and manipulate them (almost always with a computer) in one process to create a musical work. Nobody ever played the song from start to finish, sounds were pasted together, duplicated, reversed, equalizer, pitch-transfomred, whatever, all in one shot. Is this the way all music should be produced? If so, I'm glad I'll be dead, or at least deaf, in not too many more years.

It already is changing. Andy Smith literally replicated Paul Simon's recording chain at the Hit Factory in Paul Simon's living room without a lot of fuss.

Who is this Andy Smith? The guy who set up Paul Simon's home studio, I guess. I missed that article. I'm sure that Paul Simon can afford to duplicate the control room gear, but I suspect you're hinting that he didn't have a Neve console like when he recorded Graceland, but rather a ProTools system like what his last few albums were recorded on. That's no big deal. And I"m sure that with an afternoon's worth of instruction, he learned how to arm a track and record. What then? I'd be surprised if he turned over a finished master to his record company with no outside help. He, like a couple million other musicians, may have tracks a lot of stuff at home, but I'll bet he brought his disk into a studio and got a skilled mixing engineer to work with him when it came time to bring it all together.

I'm getting the sense that you're taking a very limited view of "engineering" just for the sake of argument. The more technology advances, the less any single person can understand it all, and the more there is to understand. You have to keep abreast of the technology or you'll get mired when trying to create art with it. Or you need to know when and where to ask for help. There will always be work for engineers, even if they can't play the piano. And an engineer who can play the piano can call himself a producer and get more work.

[Music Calgary]

I'd be surprised if he turned over a finished master to his record company with no outside help. He, like a couple million other musicians, may have tracks a lot of stuff at home, but I'll bet he brought his disk into a studio and got a skilled mixing engineer to work with him when it came time to bring it all together.

 

 

I agree with this of course. 100%. My only point was that it doesn't matter to Paul Simon if the guy can solder a pot as long as he can dial the mix.

[Brittanylips]

Originally posted by MikeRivers This is true if you're willing to buy a new piano whenever it goes out of tune...

 

No, silly, you don’t need to buy a new piano every time it goes out of tune, you hire a piano tuner. See, the whole experience of owning and operating a piano (a complex machine that has evolved into something easy to use over hundreds of years) is now painless for the user, unlike owning and operating a…. yeeesh, I give up, and you know what I mean anyway!

 

Briefly, however, let me clear up a few things, beginning with a personal disclosure. I belong to a race of time-traveling mollusks that has an interest in recording technology and Asian-fusion cuisine in the late 20th, early 21st centuries. And this is what I can tell you from my time travels:

 

In the future, recording studios are easier to operate than they are today. Given that the Earth took four and a half billion years to create recording studios in the first place, the fact that it took a hundred years to make them user-friendly is not all that unreasonable.

 

Also, a new condiment derived from milk byproducts and cumquats will become more popular than ketchup.

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers But then Ensemble ...What's so special about that?

 

On retrospect (this is where the time travel comes in really handy), it’s clear that one phase of studio simplification involved the convergence of functions into single devices that streamlined the workflow. While early examples often involved unsatisfactory compromises (wobbly knobs, fussy drivers, inadequate gain, and that sort of thing), when companies like Apogee got in the game, “real engineers” began to adopt them and there was no turning back. Discrete components, essential during early analog recording became less common as software integrated more tasks. Eventually even the metaphors of analog recording that dominated their early software counterparts began to dissapear.

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers Ah, a Mac user. I might have known

 

Guilty as charged. Quick tip from the future: there are worse stocks you could buy.

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers ...Who is this Andy Smith? The guy who set up Paul Simon's home studio, I guess. ... I suspect you're hinting that he didn't have a Neve console like when he recorded Graceland, but rather a ProTools system like what his last few albums were recorded on....

 

Andy Smith records Paul Simon and you’d be surprised at how much he didn’t use that big beautiful Neve. The point is that as the chain is simplifying, living room recording even among top artists is happening in actual – rather than Whitney Houston style - living rooms.

 

Originally posted by MikeRivers The more technology advances, the less any single person can understand it all, and the more there is to understand. You have to keep abreast of the technology or you'll get mired when trying to create art with it.

 

As I see it, the opposite is true. One of the ironies of advancements in computer technology is a kind of computer illiteracy among new users as GUIs progressively cloister them from underlying code. (That's a good thing).

 

The goal of any computer company is to make computers as easy to use as TVs. Compare that to the past when you had to know about programming just to use a word processor. Now they're so complex under the hood, they're easy above it. Writers can now spend all their time writing rather than fussing with their tools. How nice it will be when the same thing is true about recording.

 

-peaceloveandbrittanylips

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Brittanylips The goal of any computer company is to make computers as easy to use as TVs. Compare that to the past when you had to know about programming just to use a word processor.

Well, a TV set has always been simple to operate - you turned it on and selected the channel. Maybe you had to rotate the antenna (I still do) for best reception, but for most people, that's been replaced by cable or a satellite dish. But it used to be simple to choose among the four channels that we could get locally. Now you have to choose betweeen analog and digital cable (and we'll have to abandon our analog over-the-air TV sets pretty soon), several cable options, play-on-demand, and which one of those 462 channels do I want to watch? I'd need a data base. Is that making TV simpler?

 

And about word processors? I never used to have to write a program to use a word processor, but I grew up with Wordstar, where if you learned a few "dot commands" to embed in your document, you knew what would happen when it printed. I've been futzing with Word for 15 years now and I still can't make paragraph numbering work the way I want it to work. I don't have to remember any commands, but I have to figure out which option I want, and some of the things I want aren't available and I can't even make it do what I want. Is that simpler?

 

No, computers don't make our work simpler or easier, they just change the way we work.

[Music Calgary]

No, computers don't make our work simpler or easier, they just change the way we work.

 

Sure they do. They absolutely do. Much, much, much easier. For example in the printing industry computers have made tons of things *infinitely* simpler and easier. They revolutionized the entire process. What used to take ten men eight hours now takes 3 men 4 hours.

 

I'm not going to explain it all to you Mike but suffice to say that you are speaking only from your limited perspective. In the greater picture you're completely wrong. I can name 100s of major industries which reflect the exact same revolution the print industry underwent.

 

Mike, you are a brilliant guy but you are too black/white. Sometimes things are grey.

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Music Calgary For example in the printing industry computers have made tons of things *infinitely* simpler and easier. They revolutionized the entire process. What used to take ten men eight hours now takes 3 men 4 hours.

And the result is that there are many more jobs done today that wouldn't have been done at all if they would have taken ten men eight hours to do.

 

Back in 1965, I worked in an office where we had a real secretary. She did filing, she did typing, she knew where everyone was all the time, and knew how to spell all the words we used and correct grammatical errors. I'd write something as a draft, give it to her, she'd type it, give it back to me, I'd check it, and it would be done. Now I have a computer and a word processor, and I revise, and revise, and reformat, and e-mail it to half a dozen people to review, and then revise again. (and I got paid about double the secretary's salary) So, yeah, i can make changes faster with a word processor than if I had to wait for the secretary to re-type it. but now it's ME that has to do all the work. I keep just as busy, it's just that I waste time differently. And think of how much paper we waste printing what we think is finished, but then someone wants something changed.

 

That's my point which you can't seem to accept.

Mike, you are a brilliant guy but you are too black/white. Sometimes things are grey.

That's why we need more people like me - to wade through the gray muck. I completely agree that computers and modern technology allow us to do things that we couldn't do 40 years ago, or that it simply wasn't practical to do. But just because we CAN do them now doesn't mean that our world is better for it. Sometimes it is, but often it's just different (not necessarily worse or better).

[Music Calgary]

The only problem with assuming your own experiences apply verbatim to everyone else in the world is that they just don't. When you're a hammer everything looks like a nail.

[MikeRivers]

For anyone who wants to try it, Mackie just released a Beta version of a new 400F driver. It isn't perfect, and it doesn't address MC's major beef, but some people have found some good things there.

You know where to look.

[Boccaccio7070]

Reading this review is like wandering into an old time burlesque house, , where it takes the swirling feathered Fan Dancer 3 hours before you get to see see nipple, all the while some weird organ music snakes through your "how did I get here?" booze addled brain. WDM? ASIO? Buy a Mac and set yourself free.... javascript:smilie('')

I just want to know :

1) how does the darn thing sound when it plays back your DAW stereo mix (in my case, DP5 on a Mac G5-dual 2.5-4gig of RAM) I currently use a MOTU 1224 with a 424 pci card) Are the converters spacious, with releatively jitter steady operation for a unit in this price range? How is the imaging/depth of field?

2-Can i record vocals thru my Focusrite voice master pro with digital spdif out with some degree of low latency with the 2 mix from my DP5 DAW streaming out?

btw, i just ordered the Onyx 400 so these questions are more about reassurance than choice making. I figured since i dont have $50,000 worth of Massenburg sound treatment, i would probably not notice the difference between these Onyx converters and the ones on an Apogee rosetta 200. Or am I wrong here and will I end up hating myself even more

A respected Mackie "man behind the curtain" response here would be very comforting. Don't forget to ditch your feathered fans, though....

[rickenbacker198]

Originally posted by Boccaccio7070 Reading this review is like wandering into an old time burlesque house, , where it takes the swirling feathered Fan Dancer 3 hours before you get to see see nipple, all the while some weird organ music snakes through your "how did I get here?" booze addled brain. WDM? ASIO? Buy a Mac and set yourself free.... javascript:smilie(' ') I just want to know : 1) how does the darn thing sound when it plays back your DAW stereo mix (in my case, DP5 on a Mac G5-dual 2.5-4gig of RAM) I currently use a MOTU 1224 with a 424 pci card) Are the converters spacious, with releatively jitter steady operation for a unit in this price range? How is the imaging/depth of field? 2-Can i record vocals thru my Focusrite voice master pro with digital spdif out with some degree of low latency with the 2 mix from my DP5 DAW streaming out? btw, i just ordered the Onyx 400 so these questions are more about reassurance than choice making. I figured since i dont have $50,000 worth of Massenburg sound treatment, i would probably not notice the difference between these Onyx converters and the ones on an Apogee rosetta 200. Or am I wrong here and will I end up hating myself even more A respected Mackie "man behind the curtain" response here would be very comforting. Don't forget to ditch your feathered fans, though....

Youll be happy..
I like it good and clean,, clear.... not "brittle"

NB

[Music Calgary]

For anyone who wants to try it, Mackie just released a Beta version of a new 400F driver. It isn't perfect, and it doesn't address MC's major beef, but some people have found some good things there.

Don't do it folks. Read the Mackie forums. Everyone who is using the beta driver on PC is having problems. 100% of them. They are all being forced to contact tech support at Mackie and wait for days to be given the firmware rollback utility to try and get their units working again... From what I've read the beta driver is nowhere near ready, even completely debilitating the units of some users, i.e.:

http://forums.mackie.com/scripts/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=27;t=000942

I'm not sure where Mike figures anyone has been saying good things about the beta driver but certainly all the posts I've read from PC users have not been saying anything good. From what I've read 100% of them are now going through the inconvenient process rolling back. Better to stick with the current drivers, they're no good but at least the unit functions.

My personal opinion is that Mackie only released this beta as P.R. to counteract the spate of negative publicity the 400F has been getting in recent weeks. It's obviously nowhere near ready for any type of public release. No professional programmer would release that code without being forced by some marketing beancounter. A 100% user rollback is the most shameful outcome a professional programmer could possibly experience.

[Music Calgary]

Update: Thankfully an intrepid user has posted the rollback files (PC) for folks who installed the beta and are experiencing problems with functionality, so you no longer have to email Mackie support and wait a week for them to send you a copy. It's here:

http://forums.mackie.com/scripts/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=27;t=000966

[Music Calgary]

Still no progress on the 400F driver... 2 years on the market and still no working driver!

http://namm.harmony-central.com/SNAMM06/discussion/display.html?cid=7645&thread=5763&start_id=5763

The public criticism of the 400F driver is now rampant, sales are stale (according to 2 separate Mackie dealers here) - so Mackie releases this non-working "beta driver" to create the illusion that they are doing something in an effort to abate the downward momentum - further inconveniencing all 400F users as they get forced to install, test, and rollback these faulty drivers.

How long is this to sit in beta? Judging solely by Mackie's software support track record with absolutely no user bias, it maybe a looooooong time. Mackie is alarmingly comfortable ignoring their software development obligations, and that's a corporate culture which is not easily changed once it's established. Once you're actively ignoring your users, there is very little impetus to stop doing it.

Except when sales sag but Mackienauts like Mike Rivers evangelize the non-working beta ad nauseum with the "better than nothing folks" approach, and the marketeers at Mackie get exactly what they want (again) - but in the end *nothing has been done*. Nothing has changed. 2 years on the market and the 400F still does not have a working driver. Welcome to Mackie. Caveat Emptor.

Don't let Mackie obfuscate this issue with their slick marketing materials if you are considering the 400F. There is only one point to focus on -> Mackie still provides no properly working drivers for the 400F after 2 years on the market.

[macle]

I'm trying out a 400f, and so far it's working well, sounds good, no problems yet.

[Boccaccio7070]

HI

MACKIE SENT ME A REPLACEMENT BECAUSE OF TRANSMISSION WHINE INTO MY GENELECS.....and didnt wait to get the 1st one back. Nice gesture, i thinketh.......but while inintially having the first unit up, it occurred to me that the latency issue was worse than my pci card based motu 1224....? I havent hooked up the 2nd unit as in middle of network session, but latency issue still bothers me from 1st unit. Am i stepping backwards by going Firewire?

current setup:
running DP5.1 ON OSX 10.4.7 Mac G5-dual 2.5
w/4 gb RAM/500gb RAID array drive 16mb/sec thruput-

PLUGINS; MOTU MX4 SYNTH/MACH 5 - SPECKTRASONICS STYLUS RMX/TRILOGY & ATMOSPHERE-NI AKOUSTIC PIANO/KONTAKT 2 & ABSYNTH 3/ IK MIROSLAV PHIL & CSR REVERB-GARRITAN GPO-ALTIVERB5-AUTOTUNE4-LOUNGE LIZARD 3-ULTRAFOCUS-CAMEL5000/PHATT & SPACE-MINIMONSTA-AMBIENT kEYS-REFX VANGUARD SYNTH-UAD1 ULTRA PAK-WAVES DIAMOND-WIZOO W2 REVERB-SFX MACHINE PRO-

i figure when i move to an intel mac in a year it wont be an issue, but any way to track vocals, reduce latency, and add monitor reverb? i question the inserts being in line with the signal path. I have UAD1 card stocked /Waves Diamond and a focusrite mic pre-so how do i get a monitor reverb to the cans that doesnt go to "tape"

Trying to get rid of my mixer as all stuff is now inside....any work arounds or suggestions.


THANKS

mark

[d. gauss]

Originally posted by Boccaccio7070 MACKIE SENT ME A REPLACEMENT BECAUSE OF TRANSMISSION WHINE INTO MY GENELECS.....and didnt wait to get the 1st one back.

 

 

wow, they must have changed their tune on that (or you got lucky). mackie's response to my request for a replacement 400f was, "send it to us and we'll fix your unit, then send it back when it is done." this was after i even offered to pay for overnight shipping if they would send me a working replacement with NO whine issues.

 

i'm using an echo audiofire 8 now with no problems. (and echo's ones who mackie contracted to help with the 400f). go figure...

 

-d. gauss

[Music Calgary]

wow, they must have changed their tune on that (or you got lucky). mackie's response to my request for a replacement 400f was, "send it to us and we'll fix your unit, then send it back when it is done." this was after i even offered to pay for overnight shipping if they would send me a working replacement with NO whine issues.

That is *exactly* what Mackie does for individual end users. I don't believe for one second that they shipped a 400F to an individual end user without first receiving either the replacement unit or equivalent cash/deposit. That's absolute poppycock. Phone Mackie and ask them to send you a unit on spec (and pay the shipping) you'll see. They'll laugh you off the phone. No truth at all to that claim.

[Boccaccio7070]

Man, why would you put energy into writing a put down accusation and ignore the post's questions? I'll send you a photo of the 2 units and a copy of mackie's printed ups prepaid return sticker if you need it to make it thru next week.
at this point in my career , i dont have to lie to impress utter strangers. just reporting the facts and asking honest questions. maybe because i have some notable credits, i got the VIP jr treatment, ....not really understand the reason for your post? I wasnt boasting, i just thought it was a cool gesture by mackie. plenty of companies treat me like a part time hobbyist living at home with mom... others. like mackie-Universal Audio-Korg take into account that I know my stuff based on my explaination, details of my hardcore designed grounded power grid and decades of big name studio experience in these matters... They guy at mackie might have gone to IMDB to check me out. I dont know, It's not all that unusual for me at this point.
big deal!
Garritan software called about an endorsement deal last month.
who cares?

All i know is that I've supported myself soley thru Records, TV, film, and Advertizing composing since the age of 26....i'm a week shy of 50....maybe "instant replacement unit" is the "big Reward".

God, i hope not....
peace

mark
PS: any thought on my post's important questions?

[MikeRivers]

Originally posted by Boccaccio7070 it occurred to me that the latency issue was worse than my pci card based motu 1224....? I havent hooked up the 2nd unit as in middle of network session, but latency issue still bothers me from 1st unit. Am i stepping backwards by going Firewire?

Nothing is as fast at getting data in and out of the computer as a PCI bus, but many people have had satisfactory results using Firewire. Some are never satisfied, often for good reason. Since you mentioned Garritan, I assume the latency that's most bothersome to you is the time betwen when you press a key and when you hear a sound. Think about playing a pipe organ.

You have to spend some time tweaking your system, adjusting buffer size so that there's enough data buffered so that you don't lose it, but little enough so that it doesn't take too long (buffer latency) to get from the input to the output of the buffer. You just have to mess with it for a while until you either get something you can live with or you give up and go back to what works for you.

Whatever the buffer size is now, cut it in half and see what happens.

Oh, and Calgary just likes to complain because his interface won't let him do what he wants and he's too pigheaded to ditch it and get something else (and probalby complain on another forum). He also likes to complain about people who are in any way supportive of Mackie. Watch for his reponse to this post.

[Music Calgary]

maybe because i have some notable credits

 

 

Ok I'll buy that because that's *exactly* the type of weasels Mackie are - if you have some profile they take care of you - while normal people get the boot.

 

Mark, for a 50 year old guy with so much industry juice your typing is atrocious, as such I assumed you were not a bigwig. So please accept my apology, I do indeed buy your story now that I understand the reason, i.e. they helped you while leaving all normal users behind because they felt like you have the potential to affect their marketing image in some way.

 

But the reality is that if you phone them right now (as a normal person with no industry juice) they'll force you to send your unit first and pay all the shipping. No negotiation on that for normal folks.

 

Anyhow here's the key point to walk away with here people -> Mark bought a unit and it did not work. He was then forced to exchange it. *Mackie is still shipping and selling the broken units!* There's ample anecdotal evidence of that throughout a variety of popular audio forums.

 

It's fraud. Pure and simple. I spoke with a lawyer about this last night and she confirmed that for me. But she also stated that it would be impossible to litigate with the exception of a US class action, etc... So it's fraudward ho! Mackie's marketeers win again while we paying customers lose - again! Big time.