24 posts
Just ordered a Roland Octa-capture to upgrade from my quad capture. Not so much for the 8 inputs (although that's nice) more for the 8 outputs for reamping duties etc.
http://www.roland.co.uk/products/productdetails.aspx?p=1127
Nice choice amigo. Good luck with it.
Looks nice. I wouldn't know. I gave up on this stuff several years ago when every setup I tried had so much latency it was like playing through a delay pedal with no original tone mixed in, only the delay.
Looks like that card has some decent specs. I'd like more than 50dB of gain, though you probably aren't using any ribbon mics or quiet sources where it would be an issue. We use 65-75dB on the Neve clones (which have 80dB total) with ribbon mics and quiet sources get 75dB. Again, likely not an issue with any source that's fairly loud and any mic that's fairly loud.
Latency is limited by science... it has to go from through an ADC, through the software, and then back out through a DAC. In between, the computer has to write to buffer, write to memory, and then write to disk, then read back out, and the smallest unit the computer can ever process is 1 sample, so there's a physical limitation. I get around 10ms on my M-Audio card through PT10, which is totally tolerable. At the studio we're using Pro Tools HD with the HDX card, which gets .7ms round trip.
Still, all you need is a cheap mixer with a minimum of 3 inputs and you can completely eliminate digital latency. Run your DAW out to two channels of the mixer, run your mic or guitar through the third channel (or mult), listen to the mixer, and mute the recording track in the DAW. This has been the recording method for at least 70 years. On analog tape machines, you had a gap between the erase head, thte record head and the playback head that caused the same issue. For a head spacing of about 1", at 15 IPS, you'd have latency of about 66ms. So you'd monitor the board, not the tape. All modern digital systems can realign (compensate) for the latency of the recorded tracks and line everything up perfectly in the end.
I don't find latency to be a problem as I never monitor what's going through the DAW software inputs, I always monitor from the Audio interface inputs to the audio interface direct outputs (currently do this with the Quad Capture and the Octa-capture has even more options on this).
My current quad capture is great but just doesn't have enough ins and outs. The disappointing thing with the Quad Capture is that I assumed quad meant 4 ins and 4 outs.....it does, but with a gotcha, 2 ins and outs are analogue and the other 2 ins and outs are spdif, which is absolutely useless to me. With the Octa-capture I get 8 analogue ins and outs and then 2 spdif ins and outs (which I will never use).
I've always found the mic inputs on the Quad capture to be adequate for my purposes so i don't think that will be a problem. I will mostly be capturing the amp direct from the hotplate and then re-amping that signal to a flat poweramp into a guitar cab. This will be mic'd with 3 mics. One on the front, one on the back of the cab and a condenser for the room - all recording to individual tracks and then time-aligned to avoid any phasing issues, except of course flipping the phase of the back mic.
Samples coming soon.... the unit should arrive later this week.
Guitar>mixer
Mixer outs > DAW in
DAW out> mixer in
Headphones> mixer
Correct?
Guitar, mic, etc --> mixer channel --> audio interface input (or mult*)
DAW output L&R > stereo mixer channel or two mono mixer channels
DAW mix plays through mixer
Any input channels you are recording are muted in the DAW, so you only hear them through the mixer.
Mixer outs L&R to monitors/headphones/etc
(*we mult input tracks... they split at a patchbay and get fed to both the analog inputs to our DAW, and to the mixer. So we monitor the preamps on the mixer, but also run the audio from our preamps directly to the audio interface.)
I left the Mbox out of the equation in my above post.
mbox probably has relatively high latency, but latency is irrelevant if you bypass it with a mixer...
Lol.... I spent $500 on that and a version of Pro Tools that will not even work on my Win 7 computers. Now i build a good solid recording computer and find out even the mbox isn't worth using? >:(
Why isn't it worth using? Why not try it and find out?
well, if that's the cause of the latency and a newer device would be much better, I'd rather use it as a nice sound card for a laptop and get something better.
Of all the gear I've ever purchased, this will go down as the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on gear. :(
Then consider yourself lucky. I've spent far more on gear that's become outdated, and there are many people out there who have spent hundreds of thousands only to see their gear replaced by newer stuff with a couple of years.
I have been using an Echo Audio Layla 24/96 since 2003 my latency direct into the Layla box is less than 5 ms, I haven't even looked at that setting in all the years I have been using it. If I ever have to upgrade my DAW which may be soon, I will go with another Echo Audio product the Audiofire 12, http://echoaudio.com/products/audiofire-12 bar none they have the best drivers in the business, and they are still supporting the Layla 24/96 for drivers after all these years after discontinuing it for the Layla 3G. I am not using a mixer so I use the headphone out of the Layla Box and also if more than 1 headphone set is needed I use the headphone outs on my Cakewalk Studiomix controller which comes out of the application after recording and processing and not a hint of latency.
yeah, but they got SOMETHING out of it before it did. As you know, I got nothing. I bought a new laptop and it never would work with it. By the time I was ready for a new one, it wouldn't work with Windows 7 on the new one. So in this case, not something that I used for a couple years and then it was outdated. It never worked from the day I got it. Like I said, I guess I have a nice $500 sound card for my laptop. ::)
desertbluesman — Jan 04, 2014I have been using an Echo Audio Layla 24/96 since 2003 my latency direct into the Layla box is less than 5 ms, I haven't even looked at that setting in all the years I have been using it. If I ever have to upgrade my DAW which may be soon, I will go with another Echo Audio product the Audiofire 12, http://echoaudio.com/products/audiofire-12 bar none they have the best drivers in the business, and they are still supporting the Layla 24/96 for drivers after all these years after discontinuing it for the Layla 3G. I am not using a mixer so I use the headphone out of the Layla Box and also if more than 1 headphone set is needed I use the headphone outs on my Cakewalk Studiomix controller which comes out of the application after recording and processing and not a hint of latency.
I've got the same one. It's still working great so I'm not jonesing to upgrade anytime soon. :)
DreamTheaterRules — Jan 03, 2014well, if that's the cause of the latency and a newer device would be much better, I'd rather use it as a nice sound card for a laptop and get something better.
Of all the gear I've ever purchased, this will go down as the biggest waste of money I've ever spent on gear. :(
$500 spent about 10 years ago... $50/ yr, $1/week... 15 cents a day... is the biggest waste of money ever on gear? you've lost more money on your expensive gear to depreciation alone in that time. how much have you spent on strings in the last ten years? I know it stings a bit when something doesn't work out... but geez, cost of doing business man! try again - failures aren't endpoints, they're lessons.
I would bet that the issue with the old MBox is the change in the Internet Explorer versions from 7 to 8. Yes I know, that's ancient, but I know this because I still run Windows XP, Pro Tools 7, M Audio based DAW. But I made it work. As Windows advanced, the Pro Tools Software developed issues because it is stationary. When IE changed to 8. Pro Tools 7 said fuck it, an quit. It wouldn't work with the Windows Updates. One fix is to stay at Windows XP IE7 and kill the auto updates of Windows. Or download the USER BASED SOFTWARE FIX that some annoyed user made available to the world. Now Pro Tools 7 will work with updated software.
My point is that with DAW's you have to make them work for your situation. The computer world is everchanging.
I guarantee that if you have an issue with something, you can find five more motherfuckers with the same issue and one of them has a fix.
You are only alone if you want to be. Sometimes it's nice just to have something to bitch about. I'm guilty of that one.
Oh, and Jon, I'd be curious to know how the new Gadget works for you. One of these days, I will decide to move on to a newer system, so it's good to know what is working.
Sheep, I get that, but you can't compare this to any other piece of gear I've bought and USED and it has depreciated. Hence my sour tone on this topic. It's the ONLY piece of gear I have ever purchased that has never once been "usable." To add insult to injury, I spent TONS of time trying to make it work. We won't even get into how much crap I used to take because it wouldn't work. LOL If I am readying this correctly, even using it with Reaper with my new computer might work, but would not be comparable to a new device, latency wise. If that's the case, I could try to use it in the manner Charger said, and otherwise it's a sound card upgrade for a laptop I want to play music through.
I will probably be looking for affordable upgrades to use with the new PC I'm building. If having one of the interfaces that connects directly to/inside the PC is better than the external/USB type devices, that's probably what I'll look at.
CraigBert — Jan 04, 2014
I've got the same one. It's still working great so I'm not jonesing to upgrade anytime soon. :)
The same reason I have not been upgrading, it works, it works, it works, on and on......... I have never had much problems with my setup. I am still a version of XP Pro, the pre release one they called "the devils own" that someone gave me years ago. I still have an unopened version of XP Pro also and I am thinking of reinstalling that on my old DAW and upgrading it to SP3 or using it on a new build. And then upgrading to the Echo Audiofire 12 also because my Layla 24/96 is doing great still after all these years but the sound quality is somewhat dated compared to the newer devices. Maybe in the spring I will do the new build and update my software to the newest versions.
DreamTheaterRules — Jan 04, 2014Sheep, I get that, but you can't compare this to any other piece of gear I've bought and USED and it has depreciated. Hence my sour tone on this topic. It's the ONLY piece of gear I have ever purchased that has never once been "usable." To add insult to injury, I spent TONS of time trying to make it work. We won't even get into how much crap I used to take because it wouldn't work. LOL If I am readying this correctly, even using it with Reaper with my new computer might work, but would not be comparable to a new device, latency wise. If that's the case, I could try to use it in the manner Charger said, and otherwise it's a sound card upgrade for a laptop I want to play music through.
I will probably be looking for affordable upgrades to use with the new PC I'm building. If having one of the interfaces that connects directly to/inside the PC is better than the external/USB type devices, that's probably what I'll look at.
all that time spent trying to make it work... you used it! heh, just kidding. I'm sure it's annoying as anything.
you know, these days you could be posting sound clips via the mic on your iPad or phone... it's not necessary that your first clip sounds like Dark Side Of The Moon or anything. just get started! you'll get more comfortable with it all quickly... it's not rocket surgery :)
The only reason that I have upgraded my sound unit is for the specific purpose of re-amping.....I can now re-amp without continually unplugging etc, I now have a dedicated output channel that I can use for re-amp duties. Other than that, there was no real need for me to upgrade at all as the previous sound unit did the job perfectly well, so there was no need to upgrade just for the sake of it, I simply wanted the additional outputs.
However, the additional inputs are indeed very handy to enable me to record multiple mics all onto individual channels within the daw. A really nice surprise is reverb. The Octacapture has built in reverb that is available for monitoring each input channel with reverb whilst recording without printing it to the track. This is an excellent addition and very worthwhile reason to upgrade on ts own.
The direct monitoring of the mix whilst recording is brilliant (as it was in the previous verson the quad capture). I have never been able to get even the fastest pc to record with no noticeable latency when monitoring the recording inputs via the daw software, I always found daw latency a bit like using a delay pedal and totally unusable in every daw I have ever used. Monitoring the mix directly from the octacapture gives a full mixer with reverb where you want it whilst monitoring the track and monitoring the recorded inputs with absolutely zero Noticeable latency.
Finally, within windows 7 (also works with 8 and xp) the driver installed faultlessly and I had the unit up and running within 2 minutes of getting it out of the box.
I am using it with reaper.
All in all a very good upgrade and I'm very glad that I pulled the trigger on this.
DreamTheaterRules — Jan 04, 2014yeah, but they got SOMETHING out of it before it did. As you know, I got nothing. I bought a new laptop and it never would work with it. By the time I was ready for a new one, it wouldn't work with Windows 7 on the new one. So in this case, not something that I used for a couple years and then it was outdated. It never worked from the day I got it. Like I said, I guess I have a nice $500 sound card for my laptop. ::)
I'll give you $11.78 for it. That will cut your losses. :D
I've got an old Mbox in my closet... I bet I can make it work...