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XONE:3D in a studio setup??
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| Indavic |
hey guys..
just curious.
im thinking about getting a allen and heath xone:3d
the price is pretty expensive.. ($2gs +) BUT i was wondering if its worth it.
i mean, im looking to use the usb soundcard mixer package as part of my studio setup as well as dj setup.
im wondering:
a) whats the latency like on it if i use the midi out/in and use it for an external synth?
b) whats the recording quality from an external synth into the allen and heath?
c) would it be better off hanging on to my crappy maudio delta 44 and use that as the recording unit for my external synth?
ps. reason why i want the xone 3d is the midi control AND i wanna dj from ableton (duh) lol :p
thanks! |
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| Ryan0751 |
The soundcard in the 3D is really not very good, which was the major reason I sold mine. Only 3 stereo outputs, USB 1.1, and I had driver issues where the audio became all distorted and I had to reset the mixer to fix it.
I also didn't care for the layout.... 8 faders are too much, there's not enough knobs for mixing with MIDI... and routing audio to the mixer portion to mix there is limited because of the soundcard.
Really well built, sounds very nice, but a flawed design.
I would recommend getting individual pieces based on your needs.
| quote: | Originally posted by Indavic
hey guys..
just curious.
im thinking about getting a allen and heath xone:3d
the price is pretty expensive.. ($2gs +) BUT i was wondering if its worth it.
i mean, im looking to use the usb soundcard mixer package as part of my studio setup as well as dj setup.
im wondering:
a) whats the latency like on it if i use the midi out/in and use it for an external synth?
b) whats the recording quality from an external synth into the allen and heath?
c) would it be better off hanging on to my crappy maudio delta 44 and use that as the recording unit for my external synth?
ps. reason why i want the xone 3d is the midi control AND i wanna dj from ableton (duh) lol :p
thanks! |
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| kitphillips |
| Perhaps think about a korg zero 8, thats what I'm leaning to I think, but I'm yet to actually try one or get enough info to be sure... |
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| Sean Walsh |
| That Korg Zero8 looks pretty nice, has anyone used one? |
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| Indavic |
yeah i looked at the korg but the xone3d has the filters AND analog channel faders AS WELL as midi channel faders.
also, the jog wheel is pretty sweet to for navigating...
the only real concern i have is analog recording quality.
oh yeah, iwont lie.. the 3 stereo outs is sorta ty... i wonder why allen and heath wouldnt have made a 5 channel soundcard... 4 stereo and 1 master out
hmmmmmmm
any thoughts? |
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| Ryan0751 |
Trust me the sound card is a HUGE limitation for ableton. If you want to mix fully in software , using the MIDI faders mapped to the software, then it's not so bad. BUT... that means you have MIDI latency, and the layout of the MIDI portions of the 3D aren't overly "DJ" friendly (no 3 band eq, short studio style faders, etc.).
Routing ableton into the 4 Xone 92 like mixer channels would have been great, but with only 3 you end up using one as your cue/preview channel, and 2 to mix with... That's lame.
The filters on the 3D sound FANTASTIC though. I would say the whole mixer sounded better than the Xone 92 I had before it.
The new Xone 2D has a MUCH better sound card than the 3D. In fact, if you don't mind not having everything in one, I'd say go with with 2D and a Xone 92 in the middle. The 3D also has some compromises over a real 92 as well.
In the end, I sold it 2-3 months after buying it because I felt like everything on it had some annoying limitation. I was tired of futzing with the layout and sound card issues.
Now I just mix with decks and a DVS, and I'm quite happy with that.
Never touched the Korg in person, but I did read there are some audio hissing issues. And some say the build quality isn't up to snuff with the like of A+H.
Also look at the new Ecler EVO-5. That has some really brilliant features on it.
| quote: | Originally posted by Indavic
yeah i looked at the korg but the xone3d has the filters AND analog channel faders AS WELL as midi channel faders.
also, the jog wheel is pretty sweet to for navigating...
the only real concern i have is analog recording quality.
oh yeah, iwont lie.. the 3 stereo outs is sorta ty... i wonder why allen and heath wouldnt have made a 5 channel soundcard... 4 stereo and 1 master out
hmmmmmmm
any thoughts? |
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| mysticalninja |
| quote: | Originally posted by Ryan0751
Routing ableton into the 4 Xone 92 like mixer channels would have been great, but with only 3 you end up using one as your cue/preview channel, and 2 to mix with... That's lame.
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shouldn't that be enough? how many do you need? |
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| kitphillips |
Well, from a studio perspective, even the zero 8's 16 isn't that many... If you were recording a band you'd have vocals, bass and guitar and each take 2 inputs each + 4 or more for drums is 10 already, before you even have synths or anything... If you have external effects to run as sends then your inputs go through the roof...
Live, 4 chanels is still pretty poor, if you think you have one for the tunes (or 4 if your jeff mills) and then you want more for loops and things as well. |
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| Indavic |
exactly.. id want all 4 channels to be active so that i can filtre loops, other synths, effects, vocals, etc...
this is more for a live pa setting than anything |
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| Ryan0751 |
Negative. In my view, if you are only using 2 channels in Ableton (essentially two "decks"), then you should just mix with decks or use a program like Traktor that uses the deck paradigm.
The 3D would be much better if the MIDI section were a little better layed out. It's clearly designed to be a controller to be used with different apps, but that means that it's not perfect for any one specific application.
What we need is a combination of physical controls and something that's customizable, like the Lemur offers.
Oh yeah, one more annoying thing about the 3D... they include ableton overlays that are utterly useless, and making your own overlays is really hard to do because they offer no blank file to edit, and the size is really odd and hard to print.
My advice to ANYONE looking into this stuff is just get really experienced at the software, then determine a set of hardware components that fit your needs. It's unlikely that an all-in-one box will do that as well.
| quote: | Originally posted by mysticalninja
shouldn't that be enough? how many do you need? |
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| Indavic |
interesting development...
on the allen and heath website they mention a ASIO4ALL program which basically makes use of the onboard ASIO soundcard as well as the XONE3D to make 4 channels available to mix with on the xone3d. HOWEVER, they mention this for applicaiton with traktor .
I know in ableton, it doesnt support multiple soundcards in ASIO.
anyone know if this is possible? if this works im off to purchase my xone3d asap.
ps. reason why im soo interested in 4 channels is so that i can sorta live produce using PARTS of songs...
ie)
ch1 is kick and percussion
ch2 is bass and synth
ch3 is pad and vocals
ch4 is fx and synths
and using the 8 midi faders to bring in the next element one by one..
but then u ask, why not just do it all in midi and software and ignore the analog component?
well i wanna make use of the allen and heath's 3 band eq and filtre for bringing in elements and stuff..
BASICALLY, if i wanna live produce on the road i need an all in one solution to do so...
any thoughts? |
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| echosystm |
| quote: | Originally posted by Indavic
well i wanna make use of the allen and heath's 3 band eq and filtre for bringing in elements and stuff..
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DA -> Filter/FX -> Analog Out -> ?? |
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