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Soundscape Mixpander 9 Users?

Jake68

Member
Hi,

Are there any Soundscape Mixpander users here using UAD-1 cards here?

Partcularly with AMD X2 CPU's ?

The Soundscape card is a major major problem solver for me, but I want to keep my UAD compression BADLY...
 

Commodor

Member
Hi, I use Soundscape Mixpander 9 (and Mixtreme cards before that). I'm not however using the Asus A8V and X2 AMD. I tried that... gave up on it... moved on. :)

At the moment I'm using the Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra 939 (AGP) with a single core AMD 64 3700+. I have the Mixpander in the computer and 2 X UAD-1 and 2 X Powercore (1 original PCI and one Mrk II PCI) in an expansion chassis. The expansion chassis is an SBS model (Digidesign branded). FWIW, I had to put a new more powerful power supply in the chassis in order to get the Powercore cards to initialize.

I absolutely love my Mixpander card! I simply can't accept having to give it up... or the UA stuff... so I have to have something that will work with both.

As soon as I have time I'm going to assemble another DAW using the Asus A8N-SLI Premium PCI-E and give that a go. I've already picked up the mobo. Tom on the Soundscape/Mixtreme forum says that the Soundscape cards are working well with NForce 4. Just not sure about this combination with UAD-1 and Powercore... but I intend to find out! :)

Good luck,

Commodor
 

TomW

Member
Hey Commodor, did the mixpander not work with an A8V?

I've been seriously looking at the SS rig for a while now, do you use an iBox48 for I/O and if so how does the analogue stage sound?

Cheers Tom
 

Jake68

Member
Is it my imagination or is there no clear solution for Dual Core 64's AND Multiple UAD's?

Seems like the UAD's love the Via, and the Mixpanders love the Nforce. So you can use the X2 and the UAD's with the VIA but not the Mixpander. But you cant use the UAD's with the Nforce, so you'd have to ditch the UAD's to get the Mixpander working.

Seems like the X2's a gonna, anyway, who needs that much native DSP when you got 9 DSP's and 2 UAD's. Christ I am only making music not surveying the western world!
 

Akis

Sadly, left this world before his time.
Moderator
Jake68 said:
Is it my imagination or is there no clear solution for Dual Core 64's AND Multiple UAD's?
There is, as long as you ditch other stuff... :roll:

Seems like the X2's a gonna, anyway, who needs that much native DSP when you got 9 DSP's and 2 UAD's.
I do: 2 UAD-1's and 2 PoCo's here and still reaching 80% on my X2 4400. 8)
 

Jake68

Member
THat should have read no clear solution for

X2 combined with Mixpander and UAD-1.

Both Mixpander and UAD-1 are a must for me. Most of all the Mixpander truth be known, as it is a complete \"must\" solution for me. Real time mixing with effects like a digital mixer and ASIO support. PERFECT!

I want to keep my UAD's, so its gonna have to be a single core.

Cheaper anyway!
 

Commodor

Member
Tom and Jake,

Nope, the Mixpander didn't work with the A8V Deluxe (not for me at least). There's a discussion about it on the Soundscape Mixtreme/Mixpander forum. The Soundscape stuff (apparently) follows the specs much more closely than Via and there's a conflict. FWIW, I side with Soundscape on this one... if taking a side is necessary.

And I agree about the Mixpander 9... it's pretty darn incredible. MASSIVE amounts of DSP and some great plugins available. The Drawmer compressor sounds great (IMHO)! And the interface is amazing.

And I use the Soundscape version of the Compressor X quite a bit too. Then there's the Aphex stuff... love using a touch of the exciter to bring out the harmonics and make electric guitars \"sing\". And the Big Bottom Pro is killer for beefing up kik and bass (again... just a touch will do). And there's the reverbs... the Wave Mechanics, TC Verb and the dsp version of the RoomVerb... LOVE the grtr rooms!

And the \"Final Mix\" Multi-band Mixing bus compressor is one of my all time favorites! Holy crap I love that thing!

And it all really does work like a \"Real\" console... I'm controlling mine with the Tascam US-2400 and it's amazing. Full control right across 24 channels all at once.. levels, solo, and mute, with rotatary control switchable between panning and 5 aux sends (in HUI mode). Way cool! :)

Major power. Major support. Great plugins. Great drivers.

NO... the Mixpander 9 stays... absolutely... no matter what! :wink: As \"Holy Grail\" as the UA plugins are, if it actually did come down to having to make a choice of one or the other... it would be a tough one to make. That's how much I think of it. I personally wouldn't want to sacrifice the power of the Mixpander for *anything*.

BUT, thank goodness it isn't necessary to make that choice! I'm still going to keep trying to find an X2 AMD solution, but I'll keep using single-core processors until I do rather than sacrifice my favorite tools just to get it.

Lose the Mixpander 9 or the UA plugins??? ... no way!!!

Cheers!

Commodor
 

Commodor

Member
TomW said:
Hey Commodor, did the mixpander not work with an A8V?

I've been seriously looking at the SS rig for a while now, do you use an iBox48 for I/O and if so how does the analogue stage sound?

Cheers Tom
Forgot to mention in the other post... yes... I do use the iBox48. Very happy with it! Very happy with the analog I/O and the extra 24 digital I/O is pretty amazing to have on hand too... lots of routing possibilities with that.

"Sound" is a very subjective thing of course. I can only tell you that I am very happy to make records with the iBox48 *any* day! Of course if you want, with this you have the option to add 8 channels (or more) of you favorite A/D D/A if you like. That way you'd have both "sounds" as well as the additional I/O count. I don't find this necessary at all myself, but nothing wrong with having "more" of course... and the option is always available with the iBox 48.

Another cool thing with the Soundscape stuff is that *all* of the I/O shows up in your Daw... so there's lots of possibilities there as well for routing. The Soundscape mixer can use the xtra routing when building your mixers whether or not you actually use all of this "physical" I/O or not. You can build very large mixers if you want or need them. Very cool! :) Simply incredible versatility. The routing options are essentially endless. If you can think of it chances are you can build it with the mixer. Buses, aux sends, sub-groups, digital I/O, analog I/O, everything either mono or stereo... any order you want... anything you want. It's a completely fexible "do it yourself" console building kit!

As a long term user, I highly recommend the Soundscape gear. I couldn't be happier with the products and the support is great as well. IMO... these guys do it right!

Commodor
 

Commodor

Member
Jake68 said:
Is it my imagination or is there no clear solution for Dual Core 64's AND Multiple UAD's?

Seems like the UAD's love the Via, and the Mixpanders love the Nforce. So you can use the X2 and the UAD's with the VIA but not the Mixpander. But you cant use the UAD's with the Nforce, so you'd have to ditch the UAD's to get the Mixpander working.

Seems like the X2's a gonna, anyway, who needs that much native DSP when you got 9 DSP's and 2 UAD's. Christ I am only making music not surveying the western world!
Yeah... it's a mess isn't it? :eek: Personaly I'm just ditching the X2.... for now at least. It's just a processor.... you don't make sounds with it! It may be powerful but it's not like you can't have a very powerful single-core rig... especially with all this DSP we're talkin about! The X2 issue will resolve in time, I'm sure. I can wait. I'm not giving up any of the things I'm already using (and lovin) JUST to move to X2. That doesn't make sense to me. I'd rather call the shots.. getting tired of having motherboard/chipset/CPU dictate to me. I'll just say NO! :lol: Until I'M ready to say yes! :)

Commodor
 

GerhardS

Member
Commodor said:
Another cool thing with the Soundscape stuff is that *all* of the I/O shows up in your Daw... so there's lots of possibilities there as well for routing. The Soundscape mixer can use the xtra routing when building your mixers whether or not you actually use all of this "physical" I/O or not. You can build very large mixers if you want or need them. Very cool! :) Simply incredible versatility. The routing options are essentially endless. If you can think of it chances are you can build it with the mixer. Buses, aux sends, sub-groups, digital I/O, analog I/O, everything either mono or stereo... any order you want... anything you want. It's a completely fexible "do it yourself" console building kit!
As a long term user, I highly recommend the Soundscape gear. I couldn't be happier with the products and the support is great as well. IMO... these guys do it right!
Commodor
I second Commodor's post in terms of the flexibility of the Ssmixer. But there are 2 bottlenecks: Number of streams is limited to 64 (a stream is the 'virtual cable' between the Soundscape world and the native world) Every connection to a DAW software eats up a stream AND the usage of a VST/UAD plug-in in a mixer channel also needs also one stream to the plug-in and one from the plug-in. So you easily run out of streams. You have to plan you mixing application very carefully.
Second bottleneck is the usage of UAD plug-ins in the Ssmixer. It is not possible to use e.g. some 1176 in the Soundscape Ssmixer and use a Fairchild in Cubase/Sonar/... at the same time.
A big advantage is the latency of the Soundscape cards. It's only one sample in/out. So I use the Soundscape very often as 'inserts' in a digital mixer. But as soon as you leave the Soundscape world you're faced with the standard ASIO latency figures. So the decision is not for the one or the other but having both, gives you the biggest flexibility you can imagine. The Ibox 48 is really great and a 'workhorse' for everything.
Even the low-cost Ibox 8-line gives you fantastic sounding 8 channels analog I/O to TDIF - these 20 bit AKM converters sound better than most of the 24 converters in the market.
br
Gerhard
 

Jake68

Member
Yeah even though I am prospective customer only, the Soundscape range is mega impressive in what it actually does. Which is more than the scope of any other DSP application including PT for PC because it allows a choice of software. In some senses its more limited than PT, but in others its a liberation to be able to use it on PC at a lower cost with VST plugins if you require AND mix in realtime as you record. And 64 streams doesnt seem to be a limitation at all to me, depending on how you work of course, and you can increase this amount by adding another card as I understand it.

Actually from the horses mouth the buffers is 4 samples, but that is still sweet f ayye in comparison to the native thing. And more than PT as far as I know.

This really is a realtime DSP solution for the real world. Inexpensive greatsounding flexible real time mixer. Like having an 02R in your machine.

Moreover I have just been told that their ADDA is to be rebranded by AMS Neve, so it must sound pretty dang good.!

.....as for the compatibility, hell I'd even use a P4 to get this begger working!

Jake
 

TomW

Member
Thanks a lot Commodor and Gerhard - sounds like you're really happy with your SS rigs. Its got a lot going for it. Aside from a change of mobo (A8V to NForce something or other) there should be no issues with a Mixpander/UAD-1/Poco rig on a single AMD CPU. Its just X2 duals that mess it up?

If so thats no bother to me, with a couple of UAD's, a Mixpander and possibly a PoCo I whould never run out of power..seriously it wouldn't be possible, well maybe with new UAD emus taking 50-100% DSP!!

I'm looking at it as I really want to be able to set up multiple headphone mixes with verb etc and do real-time non-destructive M.S decode/encode monitoring while tracking etc. Also you can sidechain compressors in the mixer right? Not being able to do that frustrates me in SX (VST) world and really miss it when not using PT and have to mix.

Being able to buss out and S/C is a workaround but useful none-the-less. I'm not particularly interested in running VSTs in the mixer so the lack of streams would not be a problem. Also looking at a SS32 and laptop for location recording, its got the perfect I/O compliment.....and I didn't realise you could laptop-it until last week - very very cool!

Have you guys compared the iBox48 converters to anything else? SS is really a sleeping app that doesn't get much press on the message boards and I think it deserves more attention. Why don't more people develop plugins for it?????

Hey Jake - any more info on AMS-Neve OEM'ing SS converters? They are listed as a partner on the Sydec site but I found nothing concrete....whats the gossip?

Cheers Tom
 

Commodor

Member
Well, just to add in here... I don't find the 64 streams limiting for my own use... others might perhaps... but I've never had a problem with this.

The Ss mixer is, as far as I know, the closest you're going to come to having an 'actual' hardware mixer in a DAW environment... without actually having to have one. And in many important ways it has quite a few advantages over a hardware mixer... the versatility to set up your own mixer design to suit your needs (from a blank starting point) being probably the foremaost advantage. From there the routing possibilities are almost endless. I've never run across a routing stiuation that I couldn't handle with the Ss mixer... in a lot of years of work and in many different working situations. This is not to be taken lightly. It is simply very, very versatile and very, very powerful.

And I agree with Gerhard, the iBox convertors sound great... even the older 20 bit ones still hold their own! No matter how you look at it, there's tremendous value in the Soundscape products compared to anything remotely in this echelon of DAW equipment.

Jake, you called it a \"liberation\". I'll second that! I've found it liberating to the extreme over the years with the Mixtreme cards and now the Mixpander. Soundscape/Sydec were literally years ahead of everyone else in my opinion with their design goals and their products... and that maturity shows in their current lineup. While these may appear to be \"new\" products to some people... Soundscape/Sydec has actually been doing these things right for quite a long time now.

Tom... first of all Yes.. I'm very, very happy with my Ss rig... absolutely no questions of that whatever! And for waht it's worth... this is how I make my living. I need and want professional, well designed, flexible, and very, very dependable products... and with no monkey business when it comes to support. I get all that with the Soundscape products... in spades!

Now, about the X2 issue. I don't mean to lead you astray here... it's primarily the A8V that seems to be a problem with Mixpander... not X2 in general. And in all fairness... there seems to be restrictions/problems between many of the various DSP cards and mobos. As you may already know, it's not a universal situation where anything works with anything... far from it.

I plan to try an X2 cpu in my Gigabyte K8NS Ultra-939 sometime soon and see if \"everything\" will work there. Others have reported this is working well with Mixpander/Mixtreme. The issues as well are with UAD-1/Powercore. It's pretty easy really to build (or buy) a rig that suports these things... just maybe supporting them *ALL* at once that gets a little complicated. :wink:

And yes, you can set up multiple headphone mixes ..with reverb. And it will all work as expected like a hardware mixer. You can do literally anything you can think up so long as you can plot it out in the mixer. The software is capable. I've amazed myself at times by \"suddenly\" realizing some new routing situation that I hadn't thought of before... even after years of using the Ss mixers.

Compressors (and anything else) can be set up pre or post (so that you can record through them or simply monitor the results) by simply moving the plugin in the mixer to a pre or post \"visual\" position in relation to the \"trk\" inserts. Much harder to explain than to do. It's really all very, very simple and intuitive in actual use. And once you set up mixers how you like them you can save them as presets. This kind of versatilty is pretty much \"total\". :)

There isn't anything else on the market even remotely like this.... at anywhere near this price point (or arguably at all) that I'm aware of.

There was a great review in the April 2005 issue of \"Sound On Sound\"... Very comprehensive and well worth ordering the back issue or reading online... highly recommended. If my excitement isn't convincing enough... read what this guy has to say!!! :lol: The reviewer was obviously very blown away with the Mixpander.

Cheers,

Commodor
 

marcus c

Member
I would like to agree with everything said about soundscape,I have a mixpander 9 powerpack that I use in conjunction with Nuendo.It really is the best kept secret on the DAW world,

Great product,great company,great drivers.

marcus
 

TomW

Member
Thanks for the detailed reply Commodor,

the iBox certainly looks like it packs a load of features for the money, I'm just dying to try one and find out if its a step back from my Lynx conversion wise...

Cheers Tom
 
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