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Re: Help Needed for Submixes and New MEC Expansion Module [message #109071 is a reply to message #109065] |
Sun, 10 January 2016 12:45 |
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Heya Ray - first, a few questions about your setup so we can give a bit more focused advice. A simple setup should "just work" so if it doesn't the odds are good that it's just a setting needing tweaking.
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What computer/OS? How much RAM?
How many EDS cards? How many MECs? It sounds like one of each, directly attached to each other but want to make sure.
What version of PARIS? Which drivers, the originals, Chris Thoman's 2003-ish reboot. or Mike's newest?
How are you getting audio *out* of the MEC into your monitoring setup? From the Master outs (1+2) or the Monitor outs (3+4)?
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What's the symptom of the submix not working? Hit "G" then hit "play" - are you seeing audio in the meters, but not hearing it? Or not seeing the expected audio in the meters for that submix?
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A note on PARIS' idiosyncratic submixes - when you create a submix you then have to assign it (you do both of these actions in the "Master Mixer" that pops up when you hit "G") to a submix type:
- "card" (that submix is run "live" through an EDS card, so everything should be audible)
- "native", meaning it's running on the CPU like most other DAWs nowadays - no "PARIS mojo" but should just work
- "virtual" (meaning you will only hear the current contents after you hit "update" - it's really just a stereo render of whatever's in that submix). This could cause you to not hear audio (or - if you've updated the submix previously - to not hear any changes you make until you update it again)
All three types of submixes should play back through the audio outs of your MEC. Basically you use "card" sub mixes until you run out of tracks, and after that choose one of the other two types.
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Workflow - you might consider for example putting groups of tracks that you'll work on all at once (submixed vocals; drums) on their own sub mixes, rendering them and leaving them alone while you work on other stuff, using the Master Mixer to adjust their level against the main track, and switching that submix over to "card" when you want to work on it in detail.
- if you need to have all the tracks "live" at once (say your workflow needs you to be tweaking individual levels of lots of tracks all the time) then the "native (CPU)" sub mixes might work best. Watch your levels on this type of submix - this is NOT the same as a "card" submix, which is amazingly forgiving of "going into the red". You do not want to see any red lights on the channel strips, this will give you digital clipping instead of PARIS' nice "analog squish". But handy in a pinch, particularly for "clean" tracks.
- if neither of these works and you absolutely need more "card" submixes, EDS cards are dirt cheap, and they're all you need (you wouldn't for example need a second MEC, the audio from all submixes is internally mixed and appears at the first MEC's outputs anyway). Each one - to a total of 8 (or until you max out the PCI slots on your motherboard, at which point you have to buy an expansion chassis) gives 16 more live tracks to a total of 128.
"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon
[Updated on: Sun, 10 January 2016 13:04] Report message to a moderator
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Re: Help Needed for Submixes and New MEC Expansion Module [message #109077 is a reply to message #109076] |
Sun, 17 January 2016 14:05 |
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Great - my strongest recommendation right now, and IMHO your best PARIS investment bar none at the moment, is to spend $50 and download Mike Audet's much newer drivers which superseded Chris' years ago; they even have a simplified installer which makes getting up and running a breeze. Chris' drivers were a brilliant step forward for the platform in the day but we're a decade past that in refinements and stability now.
They are much more modern with significant bug fixes and are in active development (Mike is probably refining them right now as we speak, he's always tweaking the drivers in response to user feedback). But most importantly you'll get direct and active tech support - that thing we couldn't have dreamed of for ages after PARIS' discontinuation.
Not that guys like Mike won't help you on the old drivers anyway! The community always wants to get folks up and running, no matter their system or drivers - but the new ones require far less intervention to "just work" (for example, the old system of having to do complex things to lock the driver to a core is long gone, as are a number of challenging bugs).
"... being bitter is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other guy to die..." - anon
[Updated on: Sun, 17 January 2016 14:08] Report message to a moderator
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