Allen&Heath Zed Series

[upekah]

wo gibts den denn zu hören?

Tim Xavier & Miro Pajic - The Persian Eye auf decks.de

and sorry for OT

ahhh..! OT?

off topic = OT

[tone-def]

why an external extra soundcard with the zeds???
am i getting it wrong or isn't the soundcard built in there?
(what's the usb/fw port for then?). just checked their site and as far as i can read it you DON'T need an extra interface. what for? makes no sense otherwise
or i could just get any other type of mixer instead.

as it seems the 16 has an (10 channel) firewire audio interface, the 24 (and others) doesn't

yes, but they have USB ones, or not? so should work the same aswell i suppose..

USB hasn't got the bandwidth for recording 16 tracks of audio simultaneously. The USB can be used as an effects send and return or recording the master stereo out.

[NewSc2]

But for the same price ($3k~) of the r16, I could get a nice G5 desktop off craigslist ($700~ from what I'm seeing), an interface like the motu 24i/o ($1500) and a Zed 24 ($700). Having a desktop with additional FW ports and PCI expansions would give me a lot more flexibility for future additions. I'm torn at this point.

I wouldn't get the G5, by now it's a 4 year old machine and pretty slow. I'm pretty sure your Macbook can handle about the same amount of plugins through Logic, not incl. the benefits from faster hard drive and more RAM (aka large sample libraries).

You could get the R16 or spend less money and get a MOTU Ultralite and an external monitor.

Anyway, what's the difference between getting an R16 or going for something like a UAD card and Neve or Dangerous summing box? I like the concept of mixer/interface, but needing to group everything down and bounce stuff around is making my head spin.

[nrjizer]

I wouldn't get the G5, by now it's a 4 year old machine and pretty slow. I'm pretty sure your Macbook can handle about the same amount of plugins through Logic, not incl. the benefits from faster hard drive and more RAM (aka large sample libraries).

Well, I'm starting to think that I'd benefit from a solid desktop more than anything right now, even if I have to save some and get a used mac pro. As it is right now, Logic easily peaks my MacBook's cpu, and I get CPU overload interrupts frequently enough that it would cause headaches if I were running a track live and mixing it down on an r16 (what good is mixing live if your DAW keeps stopping becuase of CPU peaks?). Then the next thought in my mind is that if I had a desktop, I could get an interface with a lot of i/o, and I may as well just get a zed 24 or something at that point.

[upekah]

Anyway, what's the difference between getting an R16 or going for something like a UAD card and Neve or Dangerous summing box? I like the concept of mixer/interface, but needing to group everything down and bounce stuff around is making my head spin.

you could get both or am I wrong?

[coldfuture]

Ok so I got the zed-r16 in finally.

I said I'd post back, so here goes:

I love this thing. End of story. Best thing that ever happened to my studio. I just put a bunch of apogee stuff, mackie stuff, controllers, etc on ebay.

I need them not.

I dunno what else to say. If you are using hardware, this thing is a MUST.

If you are using software, I wouldn't say its a must, but still this board is damn near a requirement. It just sounds so goooooood.

[Barfunkel]

Anyway, what's the difference between getting an R16 or going for something like a UAD card and Neve or Dangerous summing box? I like the concept of mixer/interface, but needing to group everything down and bounce stuff around is making my head spin.

I don't think the Zed is the right choice if all you need is analog summing... however, if you have hardware (more than one unit), want to actually mix (ie need the EQ) in analog and record the results on a computer DAW, this thing is the next coming, more or less. I'm definitely getting one, after I've expanded my new studio a bit more.

There's also a rumored 24 channel version coming, with motorized 100mm faders and possibly subgroups. I just hope it's not insanely expensive.

[NewSc2]

I wouldn't get the G5, by now it's a 4 year old machine and pretty slow. I'm pretty sure your Macbook can handle about the same amount of plugins through Logic, not incl. the benefits from faster hard drive and more RAM (aka large sample libraries).

Well, I'm starting to think that I'd benefit from a solid desktop more than anything right now, even if I have to save some and get a used mac pro. As it is right now, Logic easily peaks my MacBook's cpu, and I get CPU overload interrupts frequently enough that it would cause headaches if I were running a track live and mixing it down on an r16 (what good is mixing live if your DAW keeps stopping becuase of CPU peaks?). Then the next thought in my mind is that if I had a desktop, I could get an interface with a lot of i/o, and I may as well just get a zed 24 or something at that point.

Huh, you're easily pushing your Macbook? I have an older MBP and a Mac Pro, and my MBP doesn't get easily pushed. I still get system overload notices on my Mac Pro, too, even on little projects. Software is always gonna be a little buggy.

My interface is a MOTU Traveler. Only reason I felt the need to upgrade to a Mac Pro was the purchase of a 30" LCD -- Expose and stuff would cause the screen to stutter a little bit. I used to have a Macbook (first version), and felt that the lack of a dedicated video card really hurt its performance.

In some ways it's nice having a desktop, but looking back, the money could have been spent much more wisely elsewhere. My next comp is going to be a quad-core 17" MBP, whenever that comes out (2-3 years down the line). There isn't too much out there that *requires* a PCIe board.