MOTUnation.com

This is my first post in a while, but I've read this forum for a long time (back when it was it was unicornation) and I've gotten lots of good info from this community- thanks...

I do a solo guitar/looping gig 6 nights a week and I've used my Mackie 1402 for the last 12 years at my gigs. It's been dying a slow death (busses crackling, Main outs that have to have the cables shaken to work, faders sticking) and because I play outside and the my gear sees some tough conditions. I paid for itself a million times, so I'm not griping about my experience with older Mackie gear here...

I've used an 828mkII in my studio for the last 5 years or so with DP and I've always loved it. When the 828mkIII with DSP came out, I thought that it could work as a stand alone mixer for me, but I only saw a couple of reviews posted here about people actually doing that (with any success) so I was slow to make the jump. My board dying last week made me take the plunge and buy the 828mkIII.

So far, in my situation, the 828mkIII is absolutely AWESOME as a live mixer. I'm running Voc, Stereo Guitar (from a Pendulum SPS), and loop return on my main outs; 2 different busses to control different sends to the looper; and a separate sub mix to send only GTR ad Loop to the FOH sub-woofer. I use the LA2A-ish compressor on each channel and the main outs, reverb on the inputs of the 4 channels that feed to Main out channels, and EQ on every channel. The DSP chip isn't even flexing it's muscle...

I certainly don't claim to have the best ears around, but over the years I've grown to believe (or at least convince myself) that I can hear most eq freq problems. The first time I hooked up the 828mkIII at my gig, ran it to an old firewire macbook, and opened the "frequency response graph" on an input channel in the expanded view I just about fell over. It's AMAZING (BTW that was supposed to be said like "Kelly" from "the office"). To have that kind of real time info about an individual channel's freq response made EQ-ing the channel easy and so much more effective (or should that be "affective"?) than just using my ears.

The LA2A optical compressor setting sounds really great for vox and acoustic guitars. It is a setting that you can just turn on with a little make up gain and forget it. It just makes everything sound better when it's on- pretty much a "doesn't suck button".

The reverb took some serious tweaking. I'm curious to hear what "rooms" people prefer in CueMix FX. I know it's all preference, but I haven't found any discussion of the 5 different room types on this board. For what it's worth, I'm using "Room B" now, but I'll probably change. I haven't gotten the reverb dialed in like I'd like it to be. I know that it's user error, but there are so many variables to tweak that it'll take me some time to dial in the reverb. Any suggestions would certainly be welcomed...

I play at the same place every night, so once I dial in my setting, I can just save it as a preset. I don't think I'll need to bring out my old MacBook once I get it dialed in, but for now the MacBook is great for helping me set up my mix between tunes when I'm playing. I could not mix on the LCD- no way.

I have an engineer buddy who is going to come out and help me tweak some phase things at my gig this week and I'm looking forward to seeing how that helps my sound. The thing that I keep coming back to is that there is no excuse for my rig to sound any less than ideal with this piece of gear. It has all of the tools for live mixing (and then some) and for a "set it and forget it" kind of gig- IMHO it just can't be beat. I think back to how I sounded last month with my old 1402 vs. now with the 828mkIII and there is simply no comparison.

I do think that I'll invest in a Furman 1215 and maybe some cooling fans for the back of my rack after reading some comments on this board. My rig ain't cheap anymore, damn is it sounding good...

I'm only a week into using the 828mkIII at my gig, but I wanted to post my experience using it as a live mixer.

Thanks for writing this up -- very interesting to me. I don't play live, but I have been using CUEMIX more and more as a studio mixer.

Maybe you missed my postings about mixing live shows on a 24 ch 896mk3 rig with a touchscreen...
ok I use analog gates inserted on a ADAT interface for drums, otherwise I route back spdif and aes -back in- for subgrouping, and I can tell you that although this is poormans digi touchscreen board, it sounds great
I run two of these rigs...

http://www.redmountain.ch/wwerk217.jpg

Take care
Klaus

Hey Klaus,

I did see your rig- it's beautiful! I posted my experience to let people know that this works well live as a "set and forget" setup for a solo gig. What is your experience with the verbs live? Any preferences?

I reduce the room reflections and get less chorusing, and pretty much a vintage reverb.
Paste ( replace ) this into the reverb section of the xml file, just after <XSET name="PageRevAlgo">:
<DBLE name="RevEnable" value="1.000000"/>
<DBLE name="RevSplitPoint" value="0.000000"/>
<DBLE name="RevTime" value="3185.298828"/>
<DBLE name="RevPreDelay" value="74.000000"/>
<DBLE name="RevCutFreq" value="14860.001953"/>
<DBLE name="RevCutLevel" value="-36.000004"/>
<DBLE name="RevRefsSet" value="2.000000"/>
<DBLE name="RevRefsSize" value="247.000061"/>
<DBLE name="RevRefsLevel" value="0.550000"/>
<DBLE name="RevTimeLo" value="40.000061"/>
<DBLE name="RevTimeMid" value="48.999996"/>
<DBLE name="RevTimeHi" value="84.999939"/>
<DBLE name="RevFreqLo" value="586.139954"/>
<DBLE name="RevFreqHi" value="2698.565918"/>
<DBLE name="RevWidth" value="1.000000"/>
I used this lately for fem vocal and acc gtr
To get more reverb return, I open the return pot on the mix master *and* on the main output

Take care

Klaus

I also use my mkIII as "plugins" when I work with a analogue desk and am missing EQ or comps.
I use stereo pairs in sub groups for FOH , using the Leveler , wonderfull....

The only "hic" , is if you assign to a mkIII subgroup and then assign to another wich isn't, the latency causes nasty Phase shifts.......


Anybody knows what the timing latency of a mkIII ?

I repost, because the last reply didn't make it...
The 896mk3 has about 1.9 mSec i/o latency @ 44

Take care

Klaus

Hey Klaus,

Thanks for the reply and the XML. I want to try your reverb settings out, but I cannot find info on where this XML file lives. Sorry for being such a noob, but I searched these forums and I can't find a mac path to the file. I've searched with spotlight for specific pieces of code and tags from your xml, searched com. prefs- I don't know where else to go... Any help would be appreciated.

thanks,

From withing Cuemix FX, export your current Cuemix FX settings via menue > configurations > export,
this will create the xml.
Then open this xml with an xml editor i.e. TextWrangler,
http://www.barebones.com/
and replace the mentioned lines, then import into Cuemix FX, and select it in configurations,
this will bring the settings into Cuemix FX

Best

Klaus

If I send say 6 drum channels out the ADAT optical as a group then back in again, then mix that with say 1 vocalist that is not in and out the ADAT, is there delay problems?

ie do I have to set up a dummy subgroup with say just the singer and then mix that with the incoming drum subgroup, or is it just like analog desk where subgroups have no delay?

I guess a further problem, if I have a drum subgroup, then mix that with some instruments into a further 'band' subgroup, then mix that with a direct vocal, am I in trouble because one is in and out and in and out and one is direct?

Wayne

A source should go only 1 route...
Make sure you don't create a feedback loop...
Complex routing.... :
It depends on the 'source crosstalk', and eventual compression, compression can augment crosstalk a lot.
You will hear it, if ....

Take care

Klaus

I know a source should only go one route.

What do you mean by crosstalk??? Do you mean bleed from the mics in the original input signal?

Just say for arguments sake, I record a snare, it comes into my MOTU and is sent via BUS 1 (my drum mix) out ADATA output 1 which is looped back into ADAT A input 1 and onto BUS 2 (my main mix) and out my FOH.

Now I have a Guitar coming into my motu that is sent straight onto BUS 2 and out my FOH.

Are you saying that if there is some snare sound picked up by my guitar mic I will notice two snare sounds with a slight delay between them because of the different signal path in the mixer? OR is the delay negligible? Or will it cause some kind of phasing problems?


Wayne

Yes, depending on the 'source crosstalk', and compression on the guitar you will hear it..., in 'guitar pauses'
( if this happens *at all*
More like a flanged / chorused sound...

Klaus

Yes just found this.

So if I want to put one track through a submix then I need to put everything through 1 submix and then mix them all to main out.

...Just the sources that cause the problems... I mean you will hear it

Take care

Klaus