Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
2020/04/07 at 6:25 am #90817
The levels are just the norm in Eurorack land, like we have -10 in consumer devices and +4 in audio pro. In modular, these high levels are what all modules are built to.
Simple interfaces that are likely below the SQ´s quality are around 120-200 bucks for a stereo pair of IO.
Real good ones are more in the range of 300-450 per pair (like Vermona TAI-4 or ACL).The bigger issue is space, as you have 2×104 hp for example, so 4 channels of IO would consume 30 of them. Worse for people going live with a skiff (small flat eurorack system), they often have just 104 or 84hp. That´s why I thought about an external converter. Could be a second skiff when using eurorack IO modules as the solution. Or something in pedal/DI box format (beware of spaghetti cabling outside the modular). Personally, I´d prefer something 19″ based, so there is enough space to grow, no eurorack space is wasted and it´s still a clean setup.
I don´t know how much effort it would take to build something that works on SQ audio quality level and simply attenuates/boosts levels at a fixed rate, like the pad button found on mixers (and a fixed preamp for the other direction). I will see if I can find people and instructions in the DIY sections of the modular forums.
2020/04/06 at 9:14 pm #90801True, some kind of a limiter that can handle modular levels. I wonder if there are any DIY projects for that. Unfortunately, I´m still new with electronics, as you can obviously tell from my posts :). But I´m willing to learn and take your bulletpoints as a starting point for further research.
2020/04/06 at 7:59 pm #90797volounteer,
I think there is a misunderstanding. Our concern regarding damage to the SQ circuits is not there because we´re trying to feed it as hot as possible, gaining maximum loudness or whatever.
The reason is that a modular synth sometimes delivers unexpected results and may suddenly put out a much higher voltage than during normal use, see my examples above. You _may_ accidentally patch a constant voltage into the audio path. The operator _may_ have wanted to patch a CV signal to a CV in, but somehow ended up at the wrong audio path. A filter may go berserk by some unplanned modulation and so on.
The high levels are not created _on purpose_, they just may occur by user error. Under normal circumstances the signal will be tamed by VCA, VCF, mixers etc and be similar to any strong synth signal. It will stay at reasonable levels that the SQ can handle. Much like your average -10/+4 synth.
2020/04/06 at 10:41 am #90769Knocking on wood that this will be implemented at a later stage. My concern is that this may turn into an artificial limitation to keep market segmentation alive, but that is just a hint of paranoia. I will keep my hopes up :).
2020/03/28 at 9:28 pm #90553Oh, I don´t. Once in DAW, I can happily pump things up.
My main concern is that modular may spit out a voltage that may _damage_ the SQ.
Example: Traditional patch, VCO to VCF to VCA. That filter will take away a lot of signal and should work without issues. But patching a signal from SQ Aux to some obscure modular FX unit may return something not as tame. Or let´s assume there is a filter somehow going into wild self-oscillation and straight back to the SQ. Worst case, you accidentally fat finger a patch in modular and send CV at full level to an SQ in. That´s where a constant +10V may arrive at the SQ until you find the right plug to pull. I´m just not sure if the SQ will handle that like a gentleman or throw some magic smoke at me.
Adding a few numbers to the discussion (kudos to 2thick4uni):
“While modular audio is typically 10v p-p, it can go as high as about 20v p-p.
-10 dBv (consumer line level) = 0.895v p-p
+4 dBu (pro line level) = 3.473v p-p
normal modular audio level = 10v p-p
peak modular audio level = 20v p-p-10 dBv = -7.78 dBu
10v p-p = +13.2 dBu
20v p-p = +19.2 dBu”2020/03/28 at 7:57 pm #90549I´m more concerned about routing signals back and forth between eurorack modular, traditional synths, outboard effects and DAW. In my case, it is studio only, so I don´t care about clipping too much. I just don´t want to fry the SQ-5 with an occasional unexpected voltage spike. Given that IO modules in Eurorack are not cheap, mono or stereo only and eat precious hp, isn´t there something like a transparent 8 or 16 ch limiter that I can just put in the rack below the SQ? I´m not an EE, so please be patient if my question is stupid.
2020/03/19 at 8:04 am #90386Necromancing this question….
I´m currently deciding between getting a second in-the-box mixer for Eurorack or use an SQ-5 for it´s obvious benefits. Still running a mixed setup, so I need to integrate line level from synths with Eurorack and vice versa. Ideally, I would be able to treat modules and synths as equal and have things routed back and forth via the SQ.
As I´m not a big fan of wasting half of the modular rack for IO modules (8-16 channels in and out to Eurorack), what are the options here?
A separate skiff for IO, holding just the conversion modules is one (costly) idea, but could grow incrementally as needed. What are the other options? Best practices?
2019/01/14 at 8:01 am #81386If I got OP right, he is streaming 16 channels TO the SQ, let´s the SQ do the summing and then records the stereo out. So he is only writing a stereo track to the disc – but while reading 16 tracks from it.
Is that a HDD or SSD? Have you tried using one disc for playback and another for writing?
2018/12/19 at 9:11 pm #80959Comparing Dante to ADAT or MADI, I didn´t find Dante to be slower. The cable to program latency is 1ms in 1 ms out, so 2ms overall at 96/24/64 in Ableton Live for example. My RME ADAT cards and USB interface are not faster. Of course you´d need to add a bit of latency for the digital transport, but that´s with all digital protocols and we´re talking 0.25ms using PCIeR cards on both ends. So what other options would you look at, that make Dante a bad choice? I´m still building the new studio, so I need to make choices and probably didn´t consider all options.
2018/12/19 at 8:58 pm #80958Focusrite are great and well known for their converters, but for pure DD conversion I´d look at less costly alternatives like ferrofish verto mx (just a converter) or rme digiface dante (also is a usb interface). Both are around 50-60% of the red box, so still costly. There may be others, those two just from the top of my head.
2018/12/19 at 8:54 pm #80957Hm, why not go modular and offer 16×8, 32×16 stageboxes with a slot for cards that deliver the Allen Heath Protocols and/or Dante, maybe MADI as well. On one hand you would loose the vendor lock-in, but on the other hand those boxes may pull in additional buyers who run Dante already, but don´t go for a new desk at the moment.
2018/12/17 at 2:22 pm #80902For a mostly unidirectional workflow, latency is no a big issue.
However, having a DAW and SQ as the core of the studio with mixed ITB/OTB instruments and effects… plus back-and-forth conversions… things will add up.
In my planned setup, I think about SQ feeding the DAW via Dante. I also run two more machines, one laptop for portable work and another computer as VSTifx host. Now there is the option to somehow get that laptop on Dante, but there is no single great solution. Or I could simply hook the laptop to the SQ and use it as the laptops interface. That´s where the latency is compared to say, an RME Digiface. THe complete chain of signal may be: MIDI controller to laptop (vsti) to SQ to Dante to outboard fx to Dante to main DAW (and maybe back to SQ-6 to speaker). And at some point your routing choices will be limited due to overall latency. It´s much nicer to get really low values, so can route more with less concerns.
1.67 ms sounds very good to me, does anyone know if that´s at 96/24 with 32 samples ASIO latency?
2018/12/17 at 11:21 am #80895Just to check if I got that right:
– The SQ series offer 48 channels with hardware layout in 16/24/32 channels
– Setting up your DAW to have 16/24/32 channels would make sense, as they can be controlled by setting up a layer that maps the “DAW-control MIDI channel strips” to the physical hardware (or do a wild mix between SQ parameters and MIDI parameters on any layer to confuse the Russians).
– Setting up your DAW to have 48 channels does not make sense, as there are only 32 MIDI channel strips, ie no option to fully represent a console with expansion boxes.
– While there are 6 layers on any SQ desk, there is no option to control more than 32 MIDI parameters, as the number of MIDI channel strips is limited.
– The more MIDI channel strips you use for DAW control, the less fader/knobs are left for tasks like plugin/synth/fx control.What´s the reason behind the 32 channel limit? To have MIDI channels is great in the first place, don´t get me wrong! It´s just that I´m in the middle of a studio rebuild and wonder if the SQ could make a Mackie MCU Pro redundant or not (minus transport controls of course). Just need to plan for the central desk layout, which could mean 1-3 SQ desks doing everything vs. a combination of 1-2 SQs and dedicated MIDI controls like MCU.
2018/12/11 at 10:29 pm #80781bump. Very interested as well.
2018/12/04 at 1:12 pm #80546Hi Steffen,
I had my first hands-on yesterday just for a short time, so I may have not found it. The reference guide mentions fixed assignments, like MIDI Faders 1-32 map to CC 0-31. Is that just an adjustable default, ie could I send CC99 on MIDI Fader 17? It´s a different story for the soft rotaries, but there is just 0, 4 or 8.
I think about functional mixing vs. channel-centric. The idea is to build a group of faders to control a synth, f1 being the (stereo) channel controller on desk, while f2-fn would control a few things important on that synth like cutoff, frequency, bit of ADSR and slide. As many older synths can´t learn CC-parameter mapping, I´d either need some software in between to do the conversion (BOME of course, don´t know AH DAW Control yet) or create the right CCs directly at the source, which would be much preferred. That may be a feature request “assign arbitrary CC numbers to MIDI strip faders” same thing for buttons, but with notes.
Also, for creation of “synth edit” scenes, transforming the SQ into a MIDI controller box, the 0/4/8 soft rotaries are not exactly enough :).
-
AuthorPosts
