Doesn't take much to make me *really* happy

digitalscream

My (second) TC Impact Twin arrived this afternoon, and I've just - on a hunch - fired it up with my main desktop, running Ubuntu.

With a bit of gentle persuasion, it only bloody works. Not only that, but it works perfectly with Reaper 5 too.

To say I'm chuffed would be an understatement. If all my VSTs work (Addictive Drums, Wall of Sound III and a couple of compressors and reverbs) I'm going to be over the bloody moon.

ThePrettyDamned

These look great, really simple but with great features.  

Love to hear detailed reviews - are you using it for vocals only, or mic'ing guitars?  Or using an XLR with a guitar DI in?

digitalscream

Best interface I've ever had, honestly. Plenty of routing, extra 8 ins and outs if you've got an ADAT preamp (eg the Behringer ADA8000), an excellent compressor on the two mic inputs, really good preamps and input reverb. You get the M40 reverb and a couple of other VSTs too, as well as a copy of Ableton.

I'm using it for vocals, mics in front of guitar cabs and a DI from my amps via a dummy load (for use with Wall of Sound III). Works brilliantly, in Windows at least.

Oh, and latency is 3.6ms in Windows and 2.9ms in Ubuntu. Any lower, and it'd be recording the sound before I'd made it.

ThePrettyDamned

digitalscream;768948" said:

Best interface I've ever had, honestly. Plenty of routing, extra 8 ins and outs if you've got an ADAT preamp (eg the Behringer ADA8000), an excellent compressor on the two mic inputs, really good preamps and input reverb. You get the M40 reverb and a couple of other VSTs too, as well as a copy of Ableton.

I'm using it for vocals, mics in front of guitar cabs and a DI from my amps via a dummy load (for use with Wall of Sound III). Works brilliantly, in Windows at least.

Oh, and latency is 3.6ms in Windows and 2.9ms in Ubuntu. Any lower, and it'd be recording the sound before I'd made it.

Christ that's fast.

I'm looking for a new interface but don't have a lot of money, so probably looking for a very simple xlr in, USB connection and just a single preamp with no extra features. If I had the money this looks like stonking value - I was half expecting another zero on the end.

I've got a line 6 studio ux2 and it's okay, but big and the software plays up on my current laptop. Which is a bugger. I just want a decent mic pre in an easy to use interface.

For like, five pounds.

digitalscream

Well, I'm selling my previous interface (Behringer UMC404HD) for not much, and it's definitely better than a Line 6, and it runs at around 5.9ms.

Just ignore the three inputs you're not using

The only reason I upgraded is that I need the option of ADAT connectivity.

PolarityMan

You got your behringer adat yet? The preamps are a little noisy compared to my focusrite but very useable indeed. Possibly the best bi of kit behringervever made.

digitalscream

PolarityMan said:

You got your behringer adat yet? The preamps are a little noisy compared to my focusrite but very useable indeed. Possibly the best bi of kit behringervever made.

Nope. I'm hoping to find one (to buy or borrow) by the end of the month, 'cos we're recording drums on the 24th and 25th

digitalscream

There's always the option of the ADA8200, which (as the name suggests) appears to be the upgraded version with the MIDAS preamps. They're only £165 at Thomann...

PolarityMan

Sweet I had no idea they had an updated model.

If you get stuck we're not in a recording phase at the minute so happy to lend you mine if you cover the postage costs.

digitalscream

Right, then...

Interface - working

Reaper - working

Addictive Drums - working (with 64-bit patch)

Molot (compressor) - working

Amplitube - fail

Ignite SHB-1 (bass preamp) - working

Wall of Sound III - fail

NadIR (cab impulse loader) - working

That's enough for me for now. Need to locate my TC reverb installer , but frankly...it's a bit bloody late. I don't think it will, because they only supply x86 versions and I'm using the x64 version of Reaper (works better in Linux). x86 plugins don't show their GUIs in Wine

I'm chuffed to bits, though. Never thought I'd see the day when I could actually do proper music stuff in Linux.

digitalscream

OK, so I got up early and experimented with loading LePou's amp plugins, since our new guitarist is coming over later to learn some songs and I just sold my last home cab. LePou + NadIR with the Red Wirez impulses sounds absolutely stellar. Happy bunny.

Since that went so well, I figured I'd load up a bunch of my old projects and see how they fared. Well...I'm honestly really shocked at the improvement. This machine is a fair bit more powerful than the one I've been using for recording - 2.66GHz Core i7 and 16GB RAM vs 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad and 6GB RAM - but whereas the old one would generally hit about 60% CPU and start chugging a bit with the graphics, my main machine never gets above about 15%.

That's insane; there's no way in hell my Ubuntu machine is 4 times as powerful as the Windows PC.

However, it does illustrate something interesting that I noticed some time ago. My daughter's a gamer, and used to play World of Warcraft a lot; at one point, I gave up with her constantly breaking Windows so I put Ubuntu on there and installed WoW in Wine. Even on the same computer, the whole game was instantly much smoother and the average frame rate went from ~30fps to ~50fps.

I haven't seen much info about it, but my subjective, anecdotal experience suggests that if your app works in Wine, it's actually going to be faster than running it natively in Windows...which is completely counter-intuitive.

ThePrettyDamned

Let me know if you sell your old interface - I may be interested.