Audio Interface/Studio Monitors - Building a budget Slave Machine For VEP 5

[starspectre]

Hey, So I Technically have 3 questions.... firstly I’m about to make a big purchase on sound gear and I wanted to hear some of your guy’s insight/ opinions on the situation. My SoundCard Recently broke (PreSonus Fire Studio Mobile) and I want to replace it with a higher end Audio Interface – Specifically an RME Babyface or RME HDSP AIO. I called Sweetwater and spoke to a sales representative and he told me that buying a PCE-e card might be overkill because I mainly do not record anything but VST Instruments. So HE was the one who suggested instead of getting the RME HDSP AIO that I get a RME Babyface instead (which is a USB 2.0 Interface) SO… I’m curious to know if what he said is accurate and even if it’s not – What Audio Interface would you suggest for being able to handle reasonably large Templates, offer high quality A/D D/A Conversion and is reasonably priced… say…up to 1000.00 USD (Not to say that I’m going to always use templates that are massive, but if I wanted to I would be able to) ---------- PC Specs: Mobo Asus P6x58-e Pro Intel(R) Core(TM) i7 CPU 980 @ 3.33GHz, 3334 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s) 24.0 GB Mushkin Enhanced Redline Microsoft Windows 7 Professional ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- My Second Question Is on the subject of studio monitors I’m currently looking at a pair of either Focal CMS 40, 50 or 65’s. I don’t know which model would suffice or if that brand is necessary. I’ve just heard that they are very transparent and reliable. Room Demensions: ------------------------------- Height: 8ft Width: 9ft Length 11-12ft Floor Material: Wood Walls: Some kind of wood paneling? What do you guys think about Studio Monitor solutions and what kind of setups are you having success with? Lastly - I would like to build a Slave Computer for my already pretty awsome PC Rig that I posted the spec's to above. I'm fairly schooled in what components do but in terms of brands for optimal connectivity between the two systems at a reasonable budget - That's where I'm lost. If someone could enlighten me with their current setups I would be a happy camper. Cheers, Craig Ashbrook

[civilization 3]

@starspectre said:

/RME HDSP/Sweetwater and a sales representative/told me that buying a PCE-e card might be overkill because I mainly do not record anything but VST Instruments.

That word overkill has [edit:] no meaning as far as I'm concerned. The point of PCI-e is, this is the fastest path to the CPU, put it in a northbridge slot. VST instruments are as subject to latency, ie., prioritization of cycles is as crucial as whatever he thinks requires a PCI-e card. Fire the sales person/get a PCI-e card. He's trying to spin things and sell you something that isn't as good for whatever reason.

I use a Multiface 2 (has a firewire breakout box) in slot 2-northbridge.

[noldar12]

Can't help on the monitors, but a couple general points:

RME's drivers are a known good thing.

For a slave system, the key will be what you are desiring to accomplish.  For truly high-end users, a dual Xeon is sometimes necessary.  In general, and especially when paired with MIR Pro, one common suggested solution is a slave based on a 3930k.

[Beat Kaufmann]

Hi Starspectre

About the Interface

Your PC is fast enough to handle an RME-Interface either by USB 2.0 (Babyface) or what ever. I would choose the next higher one the UC because you get all in a stable box.

If you don't need the advantage of a mobile bus-powered interface (Baby) it is much more comfortable to connect your signals into hardware than into cable connectors.

Beside of this you get some more features, I think. Compare the specs.

Further, playing samples doesn't need a 1ms-latence-time. So you probaly don't have the situation to playback 100 audiotracks with 50 reverbs and in the meantime to record a singer which should have a feedback signal with a minimal latency delay. For this situation you should choose the fastest connection "interface-PC" which is clearly the way over PCI-e.

But RME-USB-interfaces are fast enough to solve all-day tasks, they are coming with fantastic microphon amplifiers and they are mobile (for recording sessions) even if they need to be extra powered. PC-Cards arn't that flexible.

About monitors

Go into a store which also sells very expensive monitors. Listen to them. Whenever you heard the quality you could get you understand...

1. Spend the maximum of money you can. If you don't you will buy another pair of speakers later on. In the end you will spend more money this way than buying a good pair once...

2. Prepare a Test-audio-CD with several examples to test the following abilities of your monitors in connection with samples and music production:

   - You should be able to do proper pannings. Some speakers will offer you the possibility to do this cm by cm between the two speakers while others sound just nice but not more.

   - You should be able to recognize different depths in the same way than i mentioned with panning from L to R.

   - The speakers should be able to reproduce signals down to arround 35-40 Hz... and they also should have a very neutral sound.

All these points lead to the Focal CMS 65 (or higher).They seem to be good. Nevertheless, Genelec, Klein & Hummel, Dynaudo, Event, PMC,

ADAM are some other companies with good monitors as well.

When ever possible: Listen to the speakers and compare them with others...

I changed my mind within the store. The "holy reference" of a magazine could clearly not reproduce the mentioned tasks above as well as another monitor I had on my list...

About Roomtreatment.

This is a complex theme. Nevertheless, a very simple start could show this video..

(there are 11 Studio-Rescue-Episodes more)

Or here

if these are advertising videos you will get an idea what you need to do.

All the best

Beat

[Beat Kaufmann]

@Beat Kaufmann said:

2. Prepare a Test-audio-CD with several examples to test the following abilities of your monitors...

Here are examples...

Not all speakers show different depths in the same clear way: Test-File Different_Depths.wav

You can't catch the position of the melody with all speakers in the same clear way: Test-File Different_Positions_L_to_R.wav

Not all speakers produce this low Organ-C of 32.7 Hz. Further you should get the clean sound of the Harp in the mean time. Test-File Lowbass_33Hz.wav

Turn up the volume a bit with this last file. Speakers with a weak amplifier will give up now. Or you will hear a lot of noise (air movement) instead of sound.

Have fun

Of course you also need to listen to your favourite music (good mixes etc.) 

Best

Beat

[Gukas Pogosyan]

@Beat Kaufmann said:

Not all speakers produce this low Organ-C of 32.7 Hz. Further you should get the clean sound of the Harp in the mean time. Test-File Lowbass_33Hz.wav

Turn up the volume a bit with this last file. Speakers with a weak amplifier will give up now. Or you will hear a lot of noise (air movement) instead of sound.

Hi Beat. Fantastic explenation as always. I have also needed this information very much.

Thanks to your tutorial I know how to Pan and make different depths, but I'm just on the way to get frequencies understood.

Could you kindly share how you have separated low Organ with Harp we can hear in the mean time.

MacBook Pro 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7, 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3,AMD Radeon HD 6750M 512 MB,

Mac OS X Lion 10.7.5 (11G63)                                           

Special edition, Solo String bundle, 

Orchestral String bundle, 

VE Pro 5, VI Pro 2, V Suite, MIR Pro

RME Fireface UFX.

Logic PRO 9, 

[Beat Kaufmann]

@Violin said:

...Could you kindly share how you have separated low Organ with Harp we can hear in the mean time.

Sorry but I don't understand exactly what you mean with this sentence. share...how you have separated Orgen with Harp...

So the try to give a possible feedback.

If spaekers need to play such a low tone with some power their woofer often swings with a big amplitude. In the mean time

it should transmit the mid frequencies of the Harp. So if the speaker doesn't make a good job the sound of the harp "flutters"

"on" the wave of the low frequencies... it doesn't sound clean and stable

In other words the two sounds appear not really separated the Harp sound depends on the bass so to say.

Beat

[Gukas Pogosyan]

Hi Beat,

There are two points here. One is a ready CD which would be quit helpful to take to shop and test monitors to buy. That is good idea.

The second is to be able to select right frequency for each instrument in general. That was  my question. Sorry.

[Beat Kaufmann]

@Another User said:

The second is to be able to select right frequency for each instrument in general. That was  my question. Sorry.

So you are speaking about producing a soundmix with samples. A simple rule is: Each instrument get a hipass filter (low cut filter) except the (contra) bass voices.

In our case the Organ. I believe that the highpass for the harp was around 120 Hz, 24 dB/ Octave. If you do just this task properly with each instruments in the mix it

will much more transparent. This procedure keeps free certain frequency ranges for those instruments which need to sound there.

How to find the "right" frequency? increase the frquency of a low cut (high-pass) filter until it seems to remove the body of the instrument.

Decrease the frequency a bit back and that's it. Even if an instrument sounds a bit thin after this treatment important is how it sounds in the whole context.

Beat

[Gukas Pogosyan]

Thanks Beat

[Raymonde]

@starspectre said:

I called Sweetwater and spoke to a sales representative and he told me that buying a PCE-e card might be overkill because I mainly do not record anything but VST Instruments. So HE was the one who suggested instead of getting the RME HDSP AIO that I get a RME Babyface instead (which is a USB 2.0 Interface)

I know this is an old thread but I'd like to put in my opinion anyway

I think the bandwidth issue with audio interfaces is on overkill in the forums that I have visited. Too much focus on how many megabits per second will transfer from the hard-drive to the audio interace to the amplifier and not enough focus on the quality of sound that is delivered. By quality I mean, especially with VSL samples, does the oboe sampled sound that is delivered to the speakers or headset, sound just like an oboe or does it sound like a slightly colored version? Do the string samples  come out sounding like violins, violas, cello or bass? Or are they sounding like sythesized sounds? That is really all that matters.

Or course if the interface can't keep up with the heavy input and starts clipping, or clicking or making sounds like an overdrive guitar when you're playing violins, well of course something's wrong. But with most interfaces running over $150 that will not happen. And yes of course having computer hardware (especially having: two fast hard drives, minimum of 16 gb memory, good quality video driver, etc (roughly $1700 for a PC)), all of that is important. With a lower quality audio interface,  What will happen in my experience is that sounds will be colored so the origninal timbre is not present. And that is the crux of the matter.