The PARIS Forums


Home » The PARIS Forums » PARIS: Main » Close, but no cigar.
Close, but no cigar. [message #75266] Wed, 01 November 2006 19:10 Go to previous message
Neil is currently offline  Neil
Messages: 1645
Registered: April 2006
Senior Member
Been researching this one a bit...

http://www.tcelectronic.com/Default.asp?Id=7618

Seems pretty good, has onboard DSP, taking a load off your
CPU... has a nice monitoring interface - simpler than TotalMix,
coupla mic inputs & DI's, as well, BUT... only has 4 balanced
analog i/o's... so you gotta buy 4 of 'em to do 16 channels
pure. ALSO... no BNC/word clock... WTF? Trying to get
prorietary on us with a unit like THIS!!!??? We have to ONLY
use these together with each other? Can't sync anything-digital-
else???

Handy, nice for "semiprosumer" applications, but another
opportunity to really go after the pro market wasted, IMO -
they have the technology, they have the tinker toy set, they
just didn't "go pro" with it... Paris didn't either at the
time, and neither did Emu with their 1812/1212, etc - although
the onboard DSP & good convertors plus a few other features
coulda got them there. Is everyone afraid of alsihad? Is that
it? Is that why all things like this come out as small-time
entrants targeted at price points in the home recording level
only?

As the subject line says: Close, but no cigar.

Here's the thing... Yeah there are other options like MADI
units that can get you 1,569,878,760,000 channels of i/o, but
who needs that much, and then you also need a half dozen
lightpipe interfaces, and stringing all that shit together &
making it hum is mickey-mouse, too, IMO.

Someone needs to developthe following:

***A superb convertor box with 16 channels in & out, throw in a
couple of d.i./mic pres & lightpipe/SPDIF ports if you want,
but really what the world needs is more single-box 16 channel
interfaces.. with 16 channels of pure analog i/o. Don't be
afraid of going a full rack space long & 2 rack spaces deep,
fer pete's sakes! Not everything has to be a single-space
and/or a half-racker!
*** It should have on-board DSP effects - like the TC unit or
the new/soon to be discontinued EMU stuff, for example.
Make 'em good ones please - you can do good ones for the same
price as sucky ones - yes, you can.
*** It should have an ASIO driver that can allow for up to 16
channels/submixes of passive analog summing (or if not that, at
least DSP summing through something other than the PC's CPU)
your box & return to 2 new channels in the DAW app - if you can
do onboard DSP EFX, you can do onboard summing, too, yes sir
you KNOW you can!
***Throw in a copy of CubaseLE if you wanna... no need for a
complete/full-out app like SX or Nuendo - people can indeed buy
that separately if they want.
*** MIDI i/o... duh.
***Absolutely make it expandable to be able to easily link 2
or more if someone needs more than 16 analog i/o's at once.
Encourages people to buy another if they ever want to go that
route anyway.
***It should be PCI-based, not Firewire or USB. One card.
Expansion units can be Firewired together via ports on the
units themselves, and routed through the same card. Maybe allow
for a max of 2 units per card to keep costs down... anyone
needing more than 32 analog i/o's at once will no doubt be in a
situation where they can go with PCI expansion chassis anyway.

Price point should be ~$1,200 to $1,500, street.

Can you imagine how many of these they could - and more
importantly WOULD - sell?

I think it can be done for that price point - I mean look at
various units like the EMu 1812, the TC unit I just linked to
above, and the RME Multiface... all those units have various &
sundry of the features I mentioned for around HALF that price
(Multiface has 8 analog i/o's, plus other digital options, &
word clock, but no onboard DSP... Emu & TC units have half-ass
versions of less i/o's and one has no word clock, but both DO
have DSP EFX) how hard would it be to incorporate all of these
features I mentioned for twice to slightly more than twice the
price?

I think the 16-minimum channels of straight-up analog i/o is the
biggest feature set that's missing from a lot of the half-
rack half-asses out there... you can do a full rock/pop/country
band with 16 in's - not a big huge major-label-type session
with top & bottom snare mics; front, back & outfront kick mics,
plus ambient room mics & a PZM taped to the wall or the
drummer's T-Shirt, plus five channels of bass & 19 channels of
guitar amp mics, but then the people who are doing those are
MOSTLY (not all, but) MOSTLY on PT systems anyway, or if
something like what I'm discussing were available, they could
just buy TWO of these units. My point is, if something like
this were available, with ONE unit, and no fucking around
trying to lightpipe & wordclock all kinds of digicrap together,
you could do basic tracks that looked like:

1.) Kick
2.) Snare Top
3.) Snare Bottom
4.) HiHat
5.) OH-Right
6.) OH-Left
7.) Drum Room/Ambient Right
8.) Drum Room/Ambient Left
9.) Bass D.I.
10.) Bass mic'ed
11.) Guitar 1a
12.) Guitar 1b
13.) Guitar 2a (or Piano Lo/Keys Right)
14.) Guitar 2b (or Piano Hi/Keys Left)
15.) Scratch Vox
16.) Cowbell

Want to spot-mic your toms, too? OK, maybe only use 1 guitar
for the basic trax & drop the cowbell if you need to & you
can't stereo submix your toms into to two channels, but you
get the idea, right? With 16 pure analog i/o you don't have to
lightpipe or SPDIF anything in, you can use all your "BOOTEEK"
mic pres like your Massenbergs & your Chandlers & your Great
Rivers, etc - none of which come with digital i/o's - and still
have a GREAT setup for a full-on basic tracking session!

Then after you track all your basics, you've got your DSP-no-
latency 'verb for the vocalist to hear as he's doing his real
takes, and DSP summing for mixdown time, just like Gay Paree
without the fucking mimes & the cats & the 17-day wait to
reauthorize like the poor couple of sonsofbitches who we've
seen posting the last few days; and just like PTHD, but without
being trapped into the endless cycle of "spend more than I
muthafuckin' have, spend more than I muthafucking have again
two years later"...

.... so why hasn't somebody done this? THIS is the market we're
all in, right? Those features at that price point? Wouldn't we
all pay it? Tomorrow, first thing in the morning? Wouldn't
about at least a quarter million other people that we don't
even know about do the same? And it can be done (obviously,
look at the half-assed feature sets at half the price that if
combined, could add up to this type of unit at that price
point!).

So why? WHY hasn't anyone done this?

<Rant off>

Report message to a moderator

[Message index]
 
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Read Message
Previous Topic: Fxpansion or Spin Audio wrapper?
Next Topic: PARIS Rig for Sale
Goto Forum:
  

[ Syndicate this forum (XML) ] [ RSS ] [ PDF ]

Current Time: Thu Dec 12 23:31:18 PST 2024

Total time taken to generate the page: 0.02173 seconds
.:: Contact :: Home ::.

Powered by: FUDforum 3.1.3.
Copyright ©2001-2023 FUDforum Bulletin Board Software