Question For Anyone With A Big Knob...

[The Weed]

That's a Mackie Big Knob

I'm going to be purchasing one of these and wanted to know the correct hook-up for the following:

A studio I was at was using an M-Audio soundcard and Pro Tools M-Powered along with a Mackie Big Knob - no mixing board. They were experiencing latency when trying to record a voice track so, thinking of the Big Knob like a board, I told them to just mute the record track. Worked like a charm. However, thinking of it later, after looking at the schematics for the Big Knob, I thought the normal hook-up would still give latency as the mic/pre signal would go to the soundcard, then into the computer first and then out to the Big Knob and the headphones. Would they have had the mic/pre go into the Big Knob and then out to the soundcard and into the computer so they could monitor the input signal instead of the signal from the DAW?

Thanks,

[The Weed]

No one has a Big Knob?

Cheers,

[Obsidian Dragon]

No one has a Big Knob?

Cheers,

I've got a Big Knob (said with a proud voice)

I don't use it like you described however. I basically only use it to switch between near fields and mid fields. Sometime I'll run a keyboard or cd-player as one of the input sources but that's all. Sorry I can't help.

[soundguy_2000]

No one has a Big Knob?

Cheers,

only you, it seems. i am, generally speaking, not one to gloat on these topics...

[The Weed]

[The Weed]

Shameless bump!

[jre3132]

I have one, I'm not really proud of it though. Its not in my studio, I've put it on my home rig that I use for editing and tuning.

I don't really think the big knob is good enough quality to use in that manner...but, in that location on the other hand, m powered and a soundcard isn't really a pro setup. The big knob is a control room monitor piece, not a mixer.

Its a very consumer piece, no where near pro. In addition to the low quality, it isn't even grounded. The UPC only contains hot and neutral wires.

[filosofem]

I don't really think the big knob is good enough quality to use in that manner...but, in that location on the other hand, m powered and a soundcard isn't really a pro setup. The big knob is a control room monitor piece, not a mixer.

Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head, as this also was my concern, but given the context, it could be possible for Headphone monitoring. I know the unit has Trim controls but wouldn't the signal be to hot, Bruce?







filo

[The Weed]

I'm just trying to figure out how they could have had it wired up so that, by muting the record track, the latency was gone and I could still hear my voice. As far as I can figure out, it would have to be a monitor of the direct signal from the mic/preamp, not a monitor of the DAW. Muting the record track in the DAW means no signal out from the record track, therefore, no signal back to the Big Knob. I guess I'm going to have to go back and see how they have it set up.

I'm just doing straight voice recording, nothing requiring George Martin's ears, gear or space and wanted something to handle all the monitoring in my little room. A friend of mine with a two room voice recording studio bought 2 Big Knobs. He's so happy with them he sold his both of his mixers. We'll see how much I like mine.

Thanks,

[monkdream]

Hello,

Maybe this can help you. I have the SPL Monitor & Talkback Controller
MTC 2381 (http://www.soundperformancelab.com/mtc/mtc_D.html) an their setup recommendation is to use, if available 2 outputs from the musician's amp, one goes to the DAW the othe one goes straight into the SPL et voilà no more latency. They same thing should apply to the big knob.

So no latency in theory but now comes the "scary" part.

I recorded my bass and also a smple percussion wave (the one they provide in one of the Ableton live tutorilas) with my "Pro Tools MBOX 2 Pro" with different buffer sizes 64 up to 1024 and each time I saw and I heard (to be honest only up to 512 or so) that the recorded waves were off except at 64 where they were acceptable. Is there no automatic compensation as in Cubase where you even can fine tune this "sample offset" under "record placement offset" or in Ableton under "driver error compensation". Do I have to manually nudge my tracks to compensate ?