mixing with motu 896

J

jaredoco

Guest
Hi, i'm kind of new at this, so don't yell at me. I'm kind of confused is to how you mix the tracks after recording with a MOTU 896, into cubase. Right now, I have a Tascam US-428, which has a built in mixer that works on the computer. However, with the MOTU, do you need to use one of those really really expensive controllers (like the one from Radikal technologies)? Can you use a digital mixer? Or do i just have to use my mouse?

then, my second question is, if i am using the MOTU 896, would you suggest powermac G4 or a pentium 4 PC...i've been doing a lot of research, and it seems the high-end macs are better. What about those new iMacs (the one's that look like a desk lamp), are those any good for digital recording?
 
i would personally recommend skipping the iDesklamp and go for a tower....now, don't just look at the apple store for new macs, because powermax has some smoking deals on used, refurbished, and new g4s....right now the've got g4/733s for $1349 brand new.....personally i'd rather loose a few MHz for the break in the pocketbook and invest in a few other things...additionally with the announcement today of cubase sx, you'll be able to put multiple g4's and/or pentiums together with the vst system link and have a really smoking set up...(and you'll want a g4 to run os x on...the g3s just can't do it nicely on the display end)

as for the motu 896 and the tascan us-428, you should have no problems using them both.....make sure you have everything set up correctly so that the tascam is handling controlling your faders etc and that all sound i/o is set to go through the motu....

but that's just my opinion...take it or leave it.... :)
 
thanks

thanks a lot. that was very helpful. i have two more questions:
what are my options as to mixing besides using the us-428...is there any way i can mix 16 tracks without paying thousands of dollars? if not, thats cool, becuase i believe there is a "bank" option with the us-428 that would allow me to switch between the first 8 and the 2nd 8 tracks in cubase.

also, what is the minimum speed that i should look for in a G4? i'm used to working on PCs, but i want to get a mac this time. then, i'm thinking that i'd like 512 MB RAM, but i can always buy more RAM.
 
Re: thanks

jaredoco said:
if not, thats cool, becuase i believe there is a "bank" option with the us-428 that would allow me to switch between the first 8 and the 2nd 8 tracks in cubase.
Yeah, there is - you have to get used to checking which bank you're working on and using the 'null' button to adjust your faders on the US428 accordingly though.
 
i used the us-428 quite some time ago (new years eve over a year ago) and at the time it was a hassle to get most things to work....the part that really annoyed me is that typically i use stereo tracks (aka 1+2, 3+4, etc) and the tascam at the time wouldnt' work such that fader 1 would map to 1+2 and fader 2 mapping to 3+4....i think when the time comes for me to pick up a control surface i'm probably going to go with steinberg's houston for it's tight integration with cubase, but that's a year or two away for me so i really haven't done a lot of research on the topic...

as for what speed machine, i'm currently running cubase 5.1 on a b&w 350MHz g3 with a gig of ram and i'm usually able to hande 32 channels (16 stereo pairs), rebirth (all rewire channels enabled), 8 virtual effects (there are a couple that punish my system so i avoid them plus they usually aren't the effect i'm going for), and a bunch of eq's and such.....i'll finally start seeing drops in playback when i start punishing rebirth with lots of automation in song mode....i've heard a lot of people complaining that the dual 500 g4's aren't much fun and have had problems with them (as well as the dual 800s i think but check www.cubase.net's mac forum to mac sure).....with PC133 512MB chips selling for $70 right now, go ahead and fill up the slots to 1.5gigs....you'll only be able to allocate up to a gig to cubase (under 9.x until cubase sx ships) but that will leave 512 for the system, rebirth, reason, etc etc....basicly, make sure the machine has a 133MHz system bus (the initial g4s had a 100MHz bus) if you look at used/refirbished units....given the move to os x, i wouldn't recommend going under the 466s...powermax has a factory refurbished 533 w/ 128MB of ram, 40Gb harddrive, cd-rw drive, and a 56k modem for $1299...and they have essentially the clearance 733s for $1349...the catch is that the 733s have a 5400rpm drive...

not sure what your budget is hence the "wandering" with the specs...i'd probably go with the 533 and spend another $210 on ram....but that's me :)
 
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