A16 for a newbie clown

clueless_clown · Post by **clueless_clown** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 1:55 am

Right firstly I would like to introduce myself, my name is clown and I have been bungling with electronic music since amiga days creating anything and everything. I have a p4 with asrock motherboard 500meg crucial memory etc etc and a pulsar 2 (plus version) and powersampler. Having looked around the forums I have seen a lot of posts that have useful bites of info but I would like for somebody to lend a little help to someone who is new to the routing and ASIO nature of creamware also a little help on what exactly the ultra A16 is and can be used for a studio setup. I'm sure from looking around that there are pros who could answer these questions no problem so please lend a hand if you can.

1. Exactly what is the A16 Ultra? Does it basically give me the ability to ditch my old 16 track mixing desk and have most of my outboard equipment being routed through it and into a creamware mixer? I believe I would have to use an ADAT connection to do this.

2. I have been using my MPC's to sequence but wish to give cubase xs a try. Would it be easy for me having purchased an A16 and cubase to route the incoming signals from creamware into cubase for recording? Would this be done through ASIO (I still don’t really know for sure what ASIO is??). I would love to be able to record say 4 (if not more) tracks at once from my mpc, s5000, synths etc. Would this be possible with an A16?

3. I have been looking around the forums but does somebody have a definitive way of settig up cubase and creamware to work in harmony together?. Can I have cubase record the cool creamware synths into an audio track?

Sorry to ask so many questions at once but I'm considering sx and A16 right now and wish to know If it can do what I want it to.

Cheers everyone

Clown

[ This Message was edited by: clueless_clown on 2004-06-22 05:22 ]

borg · Post by **borg** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 2:55 am

1. indeed, you can dump your 16 tracks in the computer using either ADAT or, if your pulsar permits, Z-link.

2 and 3. yes, you can do it all. your outboard stuff will enter the computer through the a16, in scope you mix it with the DSP synths, and through ASIO you can route everything (as a whole, or as seperate tracks or submixes) into cubase or whatever sequencer to record it all.

welcome

clueless_clown · Post by **clueless_clown** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 4:21 am

Great news borg so basically I can create a fully immersive environment from my desktop. The great thing with cubase so it seems is the ease of fading in and out tracks rather than going for an automated desk. Now I just have to get an A16 SH or new. Then its onto SX.

I don’t suppose you would know of where I could see how I go about linking my pulsar 2 to SX do you.

Thanks for the help so far I only posted a little while ago it's nice to see friendly users about.

Cheers

C

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 6:05 am

To 'link' SX to Pulsar, you first have to make sure the Pulsar project (Pulsar comes with its own OS, SP4) contains ASIO and MIDI (Seq. Dest/Source) drivers and select these drivers in SX. Inside SP4, load the ADAT or Z-link from A16, mix and process them as you wish and connect them to the ASIO ports.

It's easy to set up and very flexible, once you get to it. Have fun!

Maybe this topic should be in General forum...

clueless_clown · Post by **clueless_clown** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 7:18 am

Cheers chaps. Ok I will post such things in the general area next time.

Thanks again anyway.

C.

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:48 pm

well, aside from that 'giving Cubase a chance...' - if you're used to sequence with your MPCs the Creamware VDAT may be worth a peek as a recording app.

I must admit I overlooked this gem over quite some time

not to forget it records exactly THAT 32bit sound that's passed between the DSPs...

cheers, Tom
ps: sorry for the ad - but I'm impressed

Post by **garyb** » Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:52 pm

that cutmaster app coming up any day will be something cool, i'll bet....

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 3:13 am

Right astroman, vdat is totaly coOl.

It's also the first plugin i bought on creamware platform.

I use it all the times, and nothings compare to it soundwise so far

Love it

BingoTheClowno · Post by **BingoTheClowno** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 11:20 am

Does anybody know why VDAT needs to allocate space before a recording?

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:09 pm

real tapes have to be formatted, so do virtual ones

It just speeds things up, a lot of (allocation and availability) checks can be omitted as the file IS already present, it's a simple trick.

Of course it's also giving people used to Adats an immediate familiar feeling, but the improved disk writing is the main reason imho.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-06-23 18:10 ]

blazesboylan · Post by **blazesboylan** » Wed Jun 23, 2004 5:35 pm

Incidentally, database servers almost always do this (for speed, as Astroman pointed out). I haven't tried 128 tracks recording at once, but I imagine it would be impossible without setting aside a contiguous chunk of HD space for each track.

Even then, I doubt my IDE drive could keep up...

How many simultaneous tracks have y'all tried with VDAT? Just curious...

Johann

marcuspocus · Post by **marcuspocus** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:17 am

can easily record 48 24bits/44.1khz track in vdat on a dedicated disk.

probably alot more in a raid5 configuration.

Creating contiguous files on the hd is what vdat does to acheive this high track count. The wave is created with zeros inside before you start recording.

All that's left to do is set value inside the huge waves files while recording, no need to waste time to create or extend the wave files while recording. That help obviously.

[ This Message was edited by: marcuspocus on 2004-06-24 03:20 ]