I find that when you have such a polished sound, it really doesn't help to not have a good handle on every instrument of the mix. One system is running Multirack, one system is running Superior Drummer, and one system is running Kontakt (for keyboards). I have three computers inside the rack on a KVM. Now, as far as setup goes, this is the tricky part. The difference between our on stage bus mixes and the master bus is night and day!) and EQ and maximizing/limiting on to get a nice signal to send out to the mains.
Then we have Acoustic Guitar and Keys, which I forgo using multirack, and I save the last two channels of the Echo for my master bus, which I run a waves g-channel compressor on (and holy ****, is this the money-maker in the chain. One guitarist is using Waves GTR, and I use the Axe FX II. We run guitar sims, so we go direct into them. I run straight into the audiofire in channels 9 and 10 to take advantage of Multirack processing on the guitars. Then I use 9/10 and 11/12 for my two guitars. I use the initial 8 for my channels, which go: Vocal1, Vocal2, Vocal3, Vocal4, Bass, Kick, Kit, Electric Kit. I've got all 8 available inserts running into an Echo Audiofire12, which has 12 sends and returns. Since I have the 20, and I don't have return busses, I have to use the analog inserts on the back of each channel.
I have a 20, and I want to upgrade to the 40 eventually, but the system I have works, so it's not really too much of an issue. It's the only rack they make that holds the Mackie 1620i/1640i. I've got an SKB Mighty Gig Rig as a rack. You need to be prepared to spend some money. Thing is, it's hard to go halfway with this. They hired out this big sound company to come in and do the FOH sound, and we blew their sound away on our dinky stage with 6 mackie mains and two subs. We recently played a show with Here Come the Mummies, and we were set up on a stage adjacent to them. Every place we play at, I insist that the sound guy just take a feed from our board from on-stage, and at first they're really reluctant, but once they hear us they're extremely interested in what we're running. I constantly get comments like: "I thought a DJ was playing but then I looked and it was a live band!". It's amazing if you know what you're doing. Finally something it looks like I'm doing that nobody else is that I can really provide some insight to, so I figured I'd chime in. How well will it run 12-14 channels of audio with fx-chain applied? - seeking as little latency as possible obviously.ģ) Other options - I'm still weary of the Brnger x32 family. If a decent analog/hybrid mixer doesn't come around the block in the next few months, I'll probably pickup a pair of Focusrite's new Saffire 18i20's and then go into the laptop.ġ) Do we have any Multirack users here on HC that can share their experiences?Ģ) I have an 'older' laptop that still meets minimum specs, Core2Duo 2.6GHz, 4GB of ram, SSD.
I've viewed some pretty impressive YouTube vids of functionality on the plugins, IE Vocal Rider, Tube Comps, EQs, etc.
(*cough* Allen & Heath, are you listening? Huge opportunity to update your MixWiz line!!) Then run Multirack off the insert of every channel. VeniceU would be an option, if only if were 12M 4S, instead of 8M 8S. Plan is to either wait for a "better" Mackie Onyx style, rackmount analog mixer with USB/Firewire outs to be released. Been thinking about dropping the analog rackgear and going with a Waves MultiRack setup.