S3L Tips and tricks thread

[Kristo Kotkas]

I'm thinking it's time to share some tips and tricks for S3L systems.

I will start by letting you guys know PT11.0.3 + Mavericks works and you don't need to run an AVB enabler. But what you DO need to do is to go into Audio Midi Setup (Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup) and from there go Windows > Show Network Device Browser. In there you see your AVB devices and you need to check the box next to Avid AVB64 for the driver to show up in Pro Tools 11.0.3 Playback Engine menu.

And the good news using Mavericks is, that it seems Apple AVB driver has gone better and I'm able to select 64 samples buffer size. I have only tested it with my light session running 18 tracks and one AUX input to host Waves plugins that I use on my master fader. So this is actually my second Tip.. or trick. You can use Waves or any other native plugin with your S3L system if you patch them to the system using your free AVB feeds. In my case I send out my master fader to AVB feeds 63/64 and bring the signal back into the desk on a pair of free input channels (and keep them DOWN, even un-patched from the master to avoid FEEDBACK!). Then, in MATRIX 1-2 I choose these two channels as USER inputs and patch them to my Matrix mixer and drive the PA from that MATRIX. Doing this Native Plugin insert trick might not work too well on a channel due to added latency, but on a master fader, even at 128 samples buffer that I was running with the previous OSX it was OK. So, in case you are like me and can't live without L3LL and RenBass on your master fader you will love this trick.

And it is not hard to run Send-Return type FX that way at all, since reverbs and delays don't care too much about some added latency. And you could use your Lexicon's and Altiverbs. Haven't tried myself but can't see why not. You might need to increase the buffer size for heavy reverb plugins and higher track count though...

[vikingthor]

Originally Posted by Kristo Kotkas

I'm thinking it's time to share some tips and tricks for S3L systems.

I will start by letting you guys know PT11.0.3 + Mavericks works and you don't need to run an AVB enabler. But what you DO need to do is to go into Audio Midi Setup (Utilities > Audio MIDI Setup) and from there go Windows > Show Network Device Browser. In there you see your AVB devices and you need to check the box next to Avid AVB64 for the driver to show up in Pro Tools 11.0.3 Playback Engine menu.

And the good news using Mavericks is, that it seems Apple AVB driver has gone better and I'm able to select 64 samples buffer size. I have only tested it with my light session running 18 tracks and one AUX input to host Waves plugins that I use on my master fader. So this is actually my second Tip.. or trick. You can use Waves or any other native plugin with your S3L system if you patch them to the system using your free AVB feeds. In my case I send out my master fader to AVB feeds 63/64 and bring the signal back into the desk on a pair of free input channels (and keep them DOWN, even un-patched from the master to avoid FEEDBACK!). Then, in MATRIX 1-2 I choose these two channels as USER inputs and patch them to my Matrix mixer and drive the PA from that MATRIX. Doing this Native Plugin insert trick might not work too well on a channel due to added latency, but on a master fader, even at 128 samples buffer that I was running with the previous OSX it was OK. So, in case you are like me and can't live without L3LL and RenBass on your master fader you will love this trick.

And it is not hard to run Send-Return type FX that way at all, since reverbs and delays don't care too much about some added latency. And you could use your Lexicon's and Altiverbs. Haven't tried myself but can't see why not. You might need to increase the buffer size for heavy reverb plugins and higher track count though...

Well it is nice to see Kristo Kotkas, you found a way to use WAVES plugins on a s3l. Though i don't want to be too critical but it will never be as nice,
as it will be on the current VENUE systems.

What i find kind of weird is that; VENUE System who where the first live consoles which where able to run WAVES plugins. And now it kind of seems VENUE (the new line-up) would be one of the few digital live console who will not-be able to run waves plugins.

well not totally true maybe, but isn't it still like mixing in the box with only a mouse...... just what we don't want in any live situation.

[Kristo Kotkas]

I might be worng of course, but Waves is in close business relations with Digico, one of the main competitors of VENUE consoles so that might be one of the main reasons we don't see AAX-DSP plugins.

In my case I only need them (Waves) on my master fader. Basically doing what a Waves MaxxBCL HW unit is doing for a lot of live sound engineers out there. It's pretty much set-and-forget type of usage. In fact the absence of Waves... or pretty much any other plugins for S3L has thought me that I really don't need them ha ha I have learned to squeeze out every little bit of juice from the internal processing and all I really need is the little touch on the master fader. I would like to have a C6 there as well, but having C6+L3LL+RenBass + 128 sample buffer size is already too much latency for my taste, so the C6 needs to go.

And one more about Waves, if and when S3L will support using AVB I/O pairs as HW inserts we will be able to run Waves Multirack Native quite easily, while of course paying the penalty of Native latency, instability and poor control with "mouse only". But to be honest, I'm not happy about plugin control on S3 either. We NEED to be able to create our own Plugin Maps.