VM-42 Valve Mixer ... no longer available

[voidar]

I say keep it simple and release more advanced versions in addition.

[kylie]

3) You can add maybe a bypass for the tube effect on the mixer so it will be used as normal mixer for comparing ?, If that easy of course...

ack!

[musurgio]

Well yes ok leave that out regarding the bypass switch maybe you have to build a new dvice for that...
The others though are a nice addittion.
If someone wants it simple he can always use it as it is now simple and elegant...
Regards,
Dimitrios

[Shroomz~>]

Hey Ken, you're the first to report an error message. Has anyone else experienced this problem? I don't have a pre-SFP4 install running here for testing as we're only running 4.5, so I need you to do me a favour so I can try to figure out the problem. The device should load on 1dsp on board 0, so check if it loads error free into an empty project. If it does, then I suspect the project that you've loaded it into doesn't have a dsp spare on your first board. I thought it made sense doing it that way to try to retain the best possible sample accuracy accross the channels & mix, but perhaps having it require space on the first board isn't such a good idea.

Musurgio, I'll work through that list. Some of your suggestions should be possible to do. Unfortunately I can't promise all of those requests as additions to this particular mixer as it currently uses almost a full dsp and I didn't want it to use more than that. Maybe it would be better to make some variations which each have different features (like LPF's instead of HPF's), but still load on 1dsp. mmm .. needs some thought.

Voidar, yes more advanced versions will surely follow !!

[musurgio]

Dear Shroomz,
I always get a dsp reload warning message and I just push reload dsp and everything loads fine.
I guess it looks for empty dsp this way...
Regards,
Dimitrios

[Shroomz~>]

I've done some more tests & the device loads without errors in a cut down or empty project. SFP will prompt for a global optimization if you try to load it when most of your primary cards' dsp power is in use. After optimizing, the device will have forced it's way onto a dsp on your primary board.

[musurgio]

Good.
So you are able to force your device to load on certain board ?
Like the big mixers do ?
Maybe if we have full one card's dsp is it a way to force it to load on second or even third board like in big SFP mixers with boardid's ?
Regards,
Dimitrios

[Shroomz~>]

Yes I can set it to load on any board, but haven't discovered how to make the assignments dynamic & user selectable or if that's even possible with the standard sdk. I'll look into it further...

[LHong]

Hi Shroomz,
Wow, I'm impressed! The GUI looks great! How you do that?
The Clipped detector LED would be nice!
Thanks,

LongStudios

[hifiboom]

just one question, does this mixer affect the sound if the HighPass filters are switched off?

[Shroomz~>]

Hi Lhong, the clip leds are no problem to implement. I actually thought about it yesterday, so now you've convinced me You mean on every channel, right?

Hifiboom, yes the mixer should be affecting the sound with the HPFs switched off. It should be very subtle rather than overly coloured like version 0.1. The next version will have a valve response control as suggested by musurgio & kensuguro, which will allow morphing between this cleaner, more subtle sound & a slightly more coloured sound. The new control will have various uses, but it'll primarily be in there as a feature useful for drums.

I've already altered the gui slightly to allow for more channels within a given space

[LHong]

Beautiful!
The Clipped detector LED for each channels and Master L/R channels.

Thanks,

LongStudios

[Shroomz~>]

Sounds good to me. I should have an update sometime tomorrow hopefully. That's not a deadline though

[Shroomz~>]

beta v0.4 now available.

- added 'drive' parameters to each channel which alter the character of the ECC83s..
- added clip LEDs to all four channels.
- gui update.

[hifiboom]

very nice shroomz and thx for the info....

this is cool .....

[musurgio]

Great addition thanks !!
Shroomz please consider as where is 0 detent for mixer channles ??
Is it your preset 2 'o'clock reffered as 0 ?
Also please consider using the switch for HPF also as a LPF.
I am sure LPF is more usable with tubes because it is the low end you wanna here and some kicks and basses will benefit from LPF...
Thanks,
Dimitriios

[bosone]

i still have to test it... but i'm sure it will sound great!
why not a "link" button to link drive and level settings for use as a stereo channel? (you of course want opposite pan for that two channels...)

[Shroomz~>]

beta v0.5 now available.
- added min / max markings for HPF freq' controls.
- added zero markings for level controls.
- set default MIX level to 0 (version 0.4 only had the 4 channels set at zero by default)


musurgio, I can't add any more to this module, as it's JUST under the limit of 1 dsp. That means the only option for adding LPFs to the channels is a different LPF version of the device. I'll see what I can do because I do agree that a version with LPFs would be very handy.

The decision to go with these HPFs ranged from 20Hz > 600Hz was based on the design of Allen & Heaths' Xone V6 mixer, which is a very nice 6 channel rackmount valve mixer. The HPFs ranged like this are very useful for many sound sources.

Bosone, the stereo link button is a good idea, but I can't add the extra circuitry needed to this module for dsp usage reasons (see above), so the only option would be a 2 stereo channel version of this. I do however, plan to make a bigger mixer based on this which could have both mono & stereo channels.

[rodos1979]

Hello!

A silly question.... why does it have to load on one dsp?

[at0m]

Once the 1 DSP is exceeded, phase issues come into play...

Great work, Schroomz!