I haven’t recorded a whole band or anything but people in the UAD user’s threads always claim Mac are more stable and I’ve heard this since college. I’ve not used an Apple computer since college and most of my time in the lab then was trying to learn Apple shit because I’ve only had a PC since the old Apple IIc. That being said, my 7700k with 32 GB of RAM and an SSD drive has never had any issue with dozens of tracks in Ableton with VST plugins etc on the tracks. I had a Dell XPS 17" several years ago (still do but don’t ever use it) that was pretty solid too so most anything now days should be fine imo.
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I’m probably confused here but what are you recording into Linux with? Your audio interface is going to likely be the biggest issue if you plan on recording during playback of other tracks, etc. The PC can handle some of that but it’s mostly on the audio interface and their drivers now days. Good interfaces aren’t cheap and if they are they probably aren’t that great.
I was going to move into Universal Audio stuff but my Behringer UMC 1820 and an ADA8200 ADAT expansion gives me enough tracks and pretty decently low latency for the price. If I was recording more instrumental stuff and doing it for a living I’d probably move into UAD though. They have a ton of great plugins but you need to buy each one after you buy the interface. Kind of scammy imo but they are well known as one of the best audio interfaces.
MOTU M2. Latency is good and haven’t had any issues. I don’t really need more than that at the moment because it’s not like I have a ton of gear to hook up. I either run the guitar analog or K2000 as a MIDI controller. Can’t use the UAD hardware with Linux so I didn’t even entertain it. RME stuff might work can’t remember.
MOTU is good from what I remember. That’s what ProTools interfaces are right?
This box seems pretty good. It’s not expensive but specs well for the category. Not sure about Pro Tools these days. What’s weird is I was in a music duo about 20 years ago and we were using Pro Tools. The other guy was rich so we basically had the best of everything at the time and I don’t really remember much of anything about any of it.
What would be the advantage of going to one of the expensive interfaces like RME Babyface? I mean it at least has class compliant mode and should work in Linux whereas UAD is dependent on running their shit which is only developed for Win/Mac.
not a musician, and kind of a specific question. i have a nice acoustic guitar with a decent stock piezo pickup, but i want to install a single coil IN ADDITION to the current one, and change the output to be TRS, rather than standard TS jack. and i’d like to do that without making any more holes in the body, and no extra wires around the guitar. i already have a trs splitter on the outside, and another on/off switch for piezo/battery.
i basically got it working by doing some direct soldering and connecting them all inside the body. but, it’s flimsy, and i couldn’t get the end jack to tighten nicely, and i decided to do it over.
so, the question is: what is the right way of attaching this all? i am thinking of taking an electronics prototyping board, and soldering everything directly to it, so it’s not banging around in the body.
pics:
here’s the singlecoil i’m trying to add.
here’s my hack proof of concept. jacks are trs, but wired like ts. it all fit inside the body, and i just connected previous pickup and new pickup to the jacks.
what i’m trying to do though is soldering the endpin and the jacks to a rigid board like this, but without all the other electronics. (yet)
So there is no on-board preamp here and you just want to run it as TRS out then blend the signals with an external mixer?
If you look at the DiMarzio Black Angel products, it seems like the piezo is hard-wired the tip of a TRS endpin jack out with the mini-plug soldered to the ring that you can plug into the mag. That would eliminate one plug from your PoC there and be a little less clunky I guess but not sure if that’s possible here.
the piezo has some builtin battery preamp. the fishman is passive. is that relevant here?
I dunno about the wiring implications of that. Was just thinking about the mounting implications really. I’d be hesitant to put any of this stuff inside my Lowden. Like where does the mag plug go when you remove the pickup? It just flops around?
my hope is that it will make pickups easily added/removable, so i’d rather go with plugs. but you are right, fewer thing banging in there would be great.
i already had some velcro loops installed inside, so i just tie to the side.
yeah it’s worth thinking about, thanks. i think they can still share a ground.
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Anyone know what app on the Ipad all the musicians on stage are using for lyrics and music?
check it out, prototype v2. installed it with a bit of trouble, and still a bit flimsy for my liking, but way more comfortable playing already. only tested passive pickup so far, but it sounded great. knock on wood, soldering might hold up.
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FYI: KMI has released an new version of the QuNexus. It’s now in a red ABS case but with updated firmware. It has a few new features, but most importantly they fixed whatever problem the originals had with the pads not having consistent velocity and touch. Price down to $179. You need their $36 MIDI expander box to run DIN MIDI / CV.
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I picked up the older, more basic version of the above on the cheap. It’s really nice for being a tiny controller you could literally take anywhere. The biggest benefit for me is being able to plug straight in and sketch out an idea quickly. So far, I think its biggest weakness is velocity sensing–I just can’t seem to set it to where I can get a good range of velos without banging on it. The tilt and pressure seem to work pretty well though. With the tilt on, you can do vibrato on the pads and stuff. Note triggering can be a little wonky and requires good technique to avoid double hits, but I think I’m getting the feel for it after a few hours with it.
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Also, this workstation I bought is making a big difference. On the older laptop, a setup with Surge running would idle at 25% CPU and could hit 50% CPU playing 4-note chords. On this machine, it idles at 1% to 2% and maybe hits 5% if I throw some big polyphony at it. I went with a different Linux distro and am using mostly different tools including Reaper as the DAW. Everything seems to be working pretty well with just a few GUI clicks to set it: no insane order of operations of connecting it required to make it work anymore.
If you all haven’t tried the free synthesizer Surge, I highly recommend it.
I also like ZynAddSubFX:
https://zynaddsubfx.sourceforge.io/
Imo these are pretty incredible free instruments that cover a ton of ground. I probably wouldn’t need much outside of these other than drums and samples. I’ll try to throw a few examples together and post them.
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Should have mentioned this one too. It’s an Oberheim OB-X clone that’s completely free for non-commercial use and runs on Mac / Windows / Linux. Extremely straightforward software synthesizer that you can get running in seconds. It works as both a standalone app or a plug-in. Probably one of the best “get your feet wet” softsynths for someone trying to learn subtractive synthesis.
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