Re: Virtual Mixing Console

Romeo
You make a great point here. I guess I will need to build a box with
faders
to attenuate the outputs of the computer (there will be only 8 of those)
before the main L-R mix and 4 monitor outputs head to the amp and monitor
racks in case the computer tanks on me.

This would be my biggest issue. The thought of 0 dBFS sound card crash
noise hitting all those big power amps, taking out your speaker drivers
and never mind the possible law suits for hearing loss and broken
glassware.

That's something I hadn't initially thought of and whomever made the
suggestion was right on target, then again I've never seen an RME card crash
in that way, they have always muted when they lose sync and I've never
actually had anything like that happen in the recording studio regardless of
what interface I was using (and I used to work at one of the busiest single
room studios in the southwestern United States, I will say this about my
former boss... the man was used to billing some serious hours, that's for
damn sure... but we almost worked ourselves to death, but that's another
topic), I don't expect that it will happen live... but I agree, you can't be
too careful. I did have an intern cook a set of tweeters because he hit the
wrong buss assign buttons, that's the worst that's happened except for power
outages and brownouts and such. I've had more problems with tape machines
than with PC's (trying spooling up a whole roomfull of 1/2" Ampex 467 when
the power goes out during a fast wind). PC's are very stable if you build
them with the right parts, maintain and optimize them well. I'm using a
digital crossover/ speaker management unit, for that matter it could also
take a dive and cause serious damage.

Make sure to build in RAID 1 for the system drive and as fault tolerant
a PC as possible.

Aww, if the HD tanks, I mix on the analog board and run to Walmart the next
day, but a new HD and re-install from my backups (yes, I do make backups
:-). Anything more serious and we stop at Kinkos, get on the web, order
parts and mix analog till they get to us. Most of our shows are within
reasonable traveling distance, but as the business gets leaner and leaner,
we find ourselves going further and further from home.

Keep spare sound cards with you, spare PC parts.

I've never had a soundcard tank on me. Unless you have bad power or
something serious happens to the PC, they aren't going to quit on you. If
they do, we mix analog until I can get a replacement.

Don't drop it. Keep a hardware mixer in the truck for OH SHIT SHOW MUST
GO ON time.

Even with the most stable PCs I've built and used I still like an
analog mixer live.

I would feel more at home with an analog mixer, but I would like to cut back
on the sheer amount of gear that has to go out with us. I'm not getting any
younger :-) I'm not too worried about it, we've always got a spare mixer in
case something happens to the main mixer anyway. I don't carry backup power
amps or crossovers or drivers (or guitar and bass amps for that matter), we
don't have a backup trailer or backup truck to pull the trailer. I do use
backup vocal mikes, only because they take so much abuse. You have to draw
the line somewhere. I would never put myself in the position of the PC being
mission critical for this application, and not for the reason of instablitiy
but for the fact that I'm gonna push software to do what it was never
designed to do, it may not act the way I would like it to in the real world.
I expect some hiccups along the way. I'll still be nervous the first few
shows I'm sure.


.

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