Focusrite Liquid mix or SSL Duende for extra power

[cherryfields]

Hi folks
MIke here with a question I'm just about to leave the Cubase world for the real world (ProTools) and as I'd like to put together some kind of mobile set-up I think I might need some extra power.

I haven't yet decided if I should start with a Digi002 or wait for the new DIGI003 or whatever happens on the firewire platform but in the end I guess it has to be a HD system

So my question is:
What do you guys think about the Focusrite Liquid mix or perhaps the SSL's Duende FireWire DSP-powered Plug-ins?

What about the latency in Pro Tools LE?


cheers / Mike


Right now I have 3xAUD Cards (pci) sounds great but you will have to buy a Magma box and as it's the old PCI version I think it's better let those cards stay in the cubase workstation

[dyphase]

Hi, cherryfields!

I´m protools LE newbie and my english is not very good. But I want to inform you, that in the german print magazines:

KEYS 09/06

and

Sound & Recording 08/06

both systems had been reviewed. I´m not interested in ssl duende, because it´s too expensive for me. But i thought, that Liquid Mix could be something for me. I like the idea behind these systems, because my Host-CPU is very weak and I would like to have many high-end-plugs in one little box, because i´m a soundfreak, who loves to experiment!

But the main problem seems to be, that both systems (as far as i understood the reviews) can be used for final mix/mixdown only. There´s no chance of using this plugins during recording, because latency is 2000 samples and more.

Both systems come with an included and special optimized RTAS-Wrapper. Liquid Mix uses a special version of "fxpansion RTAS-to-VST"-Software for this. As far as I understood the review, there some other weaknesses:

- Liquid Mix has problems with DUAL-CPU-Support.
- Loading and Saving Snapshots only works with Cubase

Focusrite-Statement: "Updates in the future will fix this."

- Protools must be configured to use only one processor, if using SSL Duende
- Problems with Offline-Bouncing under Logic with SSL Duende in combination with buffer-sizes above 1024



I hope, this reply is helpful for you. I think, an expert can give you more details. I decided to wait...

[cherryfields]

Hi dyphase
I'm a newbie as well, in fact I'm so new that I haven't yet bought my ProTools system. Right now I use my friends Mbox so I can learn same basic stuff and tommorow I think I'll buy the "Pro Tools 101 Official Courseware".

To be honest I was hoping to read about the new Digi003 on the Digidesign site any day now BUT I get the feeling that it ain't going to happen this month :-(

I will check out the reviews you mention but it seems like it will be a big pain to use it if we have to deal with latency and vst wrappers etc so in the end we all have to go for the HD system right!!

What kind of setup do you have?

cheers / Mike

[dyphase]

I´ve updated my user profile. Information about my setup can be found at my website. Check it out. Trying to make music at home is only a hobby for me. I´m even far away from being an amateur-producer.