Metric Halo

[dnaflr2]

Originally Posted by jslevin

At 44.1K: 8 line/mic inputs, 2 mic/line inputs, 4 AES or S/PDIF inputs, 16 ADAT inputs -- total of 30 inputs

At 96K: 8 line/mic inputs, 2 mic/line inputs, 4 AES or S/PDIF inputs, 8 ADAT inputs -- total of 22 inputs

JSL

I don't see anything in the literature to suggest that you get a (4) AES or S/PDIF ins/outs. I believe it is still a single stereo AES or S/PDIF, anyone know the answer?

[dnaflr2]

Originally Posted by Tommylicious

Henry, your enthusiasm about this product is getting at me dude, I think I want one!

No seriously, what I have read so far seems very cool and while I had made my mind up to say goodbye to firewire interfaces for now I am now actually considering this as an option to compete with a low latency Symphony or Lynx PCIe system.

What level are the onboard plugins at, in your opinion, compared to say Sonnox? And do you know if the sofware works with the same latencies when I daisychain two units for a 16ch i/o configuration.

Cheers,

I have an original MH 2882. I don't think it is wise to believe that any firewire solution is going to meet or exceed latency specs when comparing to a PCIe solution. Would love for someone to prove me wrong.

[astronmr20]

Originally Posted by Orren

Definitely not impulse response based. Nothing in the MIO is in any way IR or sample-based, it's all algorithmic processing.

Orren

Good to know. I'm glad, too.. assuming this means the character plugs will likely have a bit more "dynamic" properties to them, depending on the audio they are strapped across.

Care to delve into how you have been using the character plugs, Orren?

[sirthought]

OK, I'm a bit of a newbie. I'd don't see jacks for any mains. How does one hook up monitors to the 2882 and still keep the 8 outs open? Do you have to use an outboard device via digital connection?

(I see monitor jacks on the ULN.)

Am I understanding this correctly that if you want to use the MH plug ins you aren't doing it within your DAW? Does that mean dropping your DAW and just working with their mixing software?

Did anyone answer if you can use this thing with a controller?

[astronmr20]

Originally Posted by sirthought

OK, I'm a bit of a newbie. I'd don't see jacks for any mains. How does one hook up monitors to the 2882 and still keep the 8 outs open? Do you have to use an outboard device via digital connection?

(I see monitor jacks on the ULN.)

Am I understanding this correctly that if you want to use the MH plug ins you aren't doing it within your DAW? Does that mean dropping your DAW and just working with their mixing software?

Did anyone answer if you can use this thing with a controller?

Plugs are in the back...

You may be confused between the virtual mains and analogue outputs... What exactly do you mean by mains? The MH does not drive any speakers... Your mains are whatever outputs you want them to be.

This might sound vague, but there are many different routing options for using the mio console within or alongside your regular DAW. Technically, you can sort of use the MIO as a DAW, but it's meant also to work within your DAW.

You sort of sent what you want out of your DAW into the MIO "environment," if you will (virtually) and route it back to your DAW from there... or to wherever you like.

it can be a bit confusing at first, because it's un-conventional to what we would expect as an "all-in one" DAW workflow.

There are some videos on the MH site that might help explain a bit better.

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by dnaflr2

I don't see anything in the literature to suggest that you get a (4) AES or S/PDIF ins/outs. I believe it is still a single stereo AES or S/PDIF, anyone know the answer?

There is one AES/SPDIF I/O on the units. The 2d Card does not change that.

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by dnaflr2

I have an original MH 2882. I don't think it is wise to believe that any firewire solution is going to meet or exceed latency specs when comparing to a PCIe solution. Would love for someone to prove me wrong.

Go to the latency page our website -- we spell out explicitly what you can expect. Summary:

At 2x rates, our native Round Trip Latency is about 0.9ms more than what Apogee claims for the Symphony (for the same buffer size). That's about 50% more.

At 2x rates, our DSP Round Trip Latency (through processing) is about 1 ms LESS than what Apogee claims for the Symphony -- that's about 40%.

So, I guess it depends on what you are looking at -- but the point is either way, it is in the same ballpark.

[sirthought]

Originally Posted by astronmr20

Plugs are in the back...

You may be confused between the virtual mains and analogue outputs... What exactly do you mean by mains? The MH does not drive any speakers... Your mains are whatever outputs you want them to be.

This might sound vague, but there are many different routing options for using the mio console within or alongside your regular DAW. Technically, you can sort of use the MIO as a DAW, but it's meant also to work within your DAW.

You sort of send what you want out of your DAW into the MIO "environment," if you will (virtually) and route it back to your DAW from there... or to wherever you like.

it can be a bit confusing at first, because it's un-conventional to what we would expect as an "all-in one" DAW workflow.

There are some videos on the MH site that might help explain a bit better.

Thanks for the response. I can see the plugs in the back in the photo. And I know it doesn't drive speakers. But you still need to hear your audio through monitors, right? Which plugs does one connect the main monitor signal to the 2882 and still keep the 8 outs open? Do you have to use an outboard device, like a Central Station, via digital connection?

And if anyone knows about using a controller, that would be helpful.
Thanks!

[mh_bj]

There are 10 independent analog outputs on the 2882; 8 balanced outputs on the back and 2 unbalanced outputs for headphones on the front. If you want to use 2 of the balanced outputs for driving your monitor system, then you will have 6 left.

What is your application where you need 10 analog outputs from one box?

You could use an external monitor controller driven by the digital outputs but most folks would tell you that you would be taking a step down in converter quality unless you spend quite a bit on the monitor controller.

One option would be to use a 2882 and ULN-2 together -- many folks do that.

As far as Control Surface support goes, the legacy support in the console currently supports Mackie Control protocol for faders, pans, input and output gain controls, solo and mute, and transport controls. The mixer support for 2d in v.5 does not currently support any Control Surfaces except for the input and output gain controls and transport controls -- we are working connecting the mixer to control surfaces now.

[Tom H]

Originally Posted by sirthought

Which plugs does one connect the main monitor signal to the 2882 and still keep the 8 outs open?

You could combine it very good with a dangerous D-Box; monitor through the AES/EBU and use the metric halo outputs for summing-outboard.

If indeed latency is as advertised this will be a very cool combo. thumbsup

[sirthought]

What is your application where you need 10 analog outputs from one box?

Oh, does that sound uncommon? I want to have at least one set of active monitors, possibly more. If I'm tracking a band I may need to have headphones available for multiple performers with different mixes. I might want to have the balanced outs available for certain outboard gear. There could be several possibilities.

The 2882 is more attractive to me, price and feature wise. There are plenty of boxes out there that have outputs for monitors while not losing individual track outputs. I was just surprised not to see dedicated jacks for that.

[lllubi]

we are working connecting the mixer to control surfaces now.[/QUOTE]

BJ

you guys are working very hard on delivering a really complete system

could we expect a more powerfull +DSP to come out?
if the new plugs sound that good as i can imagine id like to implement
them in my template within my DAWs mixer without sacrificing any
channels from 2ds summing mixer.

thanks

[Tom H]

Originally Posted by dnaflr2

I have an original MH 2882. I don't think it is wise to believe that any firewire solution is going to meet or exceed latency specs when comparing to a PCIe solution. Would love for someone to prove me wrong.

Yes, would love that too, the main reason I am leaning towards PCIe now is stabillity... allthough Metric Halo is suposed to be king on that, so I've heard.

Originally Posted by mh_bj

At 2x rates, our native Round Trip Latency is about 0.9ms more than what Apogee claims for the Symphony (for the same buffer size). That's about 50% more.

At 2x rates, our DSP Round Trip Latency (through processing) is about 1 ms LESS than what Apogee claims for the Symphony -- that's about 40%.

Very interesting, in the first case of course a lot depends on the strength of the rest of your system, in the second case the 0.7 ms as advertised on your site is very cool and usefull for tracking.

I brought this up earlier but can I expect the same latencies for all 16 channels If I choose for a 16 ch I/O configuration over adat with two MH 2882's or another third party converter?

Cheers,

[jeronimo]

Originally Posted by sirthought

What is your application where you need 10 analog outputs from one box?

Oh, does that sound uncommon? I want to have at least one set of active monitors, possibly more. If I'm tracking a band I may need to have headphones available for multiple performers with different mixes. I might want to have the balanced outs available for certain outboard gear. There could be several possibilities.

The 2882 is more attractive to me, price and feature wise. There are plenty of boxes out there that have outputs for monitors while not losing individual track outputs. I was just surprised not to see dedicated jacks for that.

I've been in this "business" for 8 years only, and I can't remember needing to use more than 2 mono sends for headphone mixes more than 2 or 3 times.

I do use 16 outs with my system, but only when I'm mixing.

[henryrobinett]

Originally Posted by lllubi

we are working connecting the mixer to control surfaces now.

BJ

you guys are working very hard on delivering a really complete system

could we expect a more powerfull +DSP to come out?
if the new plugs sound that good as i can imagine id like to implement
them in my template within my DAWs mixer without sacrificing any
channels from 2ds summing mixer.

thanks

More powerful DSP just DID come out!

I'm not sure what the last part of your statement means. How would you be sacrificing channels?

[henryrobinett]

Originally Posted by jeronimo

I've been in this "business" for 8 years only, and I can't remember needing to use more than 2 mono sends for headphone mixes more than 2 or 3 times.

I do use 16 outs with my system, but only when I'm mixing.

I did a session last year, a remote, where I used all 8 outputs, in stereo, all for phones for the band I was tracking, and the front headphones in front for me. No need in this case, for my powered monitors since it was a remote, so it wasn't a problem.

At home I use a lot of my outs for various things, two sets of monitors, sends to outboard. But I haven't run out yet. But I also have multiple MIOs.

[jslevin]

Originally Posted by dnaflr2

I don't see anything in the literature to suggest that you get a (4) AES or S/PDIF ins/outs. I believe it is still a single stereo AES or S/PDIF, anyone know the answer?

Originally Posted by mh_bj

There is one AES/SPDIF I/O on the units. The 2d Card does not change that.

If you go back to my original message, I was referring to the total combined i/o of two units, using both a ULN-2 and a 2882. Each unit has one stereo digital input (two channels, through either S/PDIF or AES). Using two units, you get two stereo digital inputs (four channels).

This is consistent with the rest of the i/o listed there. None of it makes sense if we're only talking about one unit.

JSL

[jlcl]

If you have,2 2882s or 1 2882 and 1 ULN, do you end up with a 36 channel mixer or 2 18 channel mixers?
if it is two 18 do you have to sacrifice 2 channels to feed the master mixer?

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by jslevin

If you go back to my original message, I was referring to the total combined i/o of two units, ... Using two units, you get two stereo digital inputs (four channels).

This is consistent with the rest of the i/o listed there. None of it makes sense if we're only talking about one unit.

JSL

Ah -- Quite so. Sorry; completely missed that.

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by Tommylicious

Very interesting, in the first case of course a lot depends on the strength of the rest of your system, in the second case the 0.7 ms as advertised on your site is very cool and usefull for tracking.

Of course, but that is also true for the PCIe based solutions. PCIe doesn't magically make your system more powerful. The numbers I quote are comparing apples to apples (for example, the MIO on a Mac Pro -- just like the symphony specs are for). Now we have tested our driver at 32 samples on a Mac Book Pro (with Logic) and it can be used reliably, even with some plugins in the monitoring path -- obviously not as many as you can run with a Mac Pro, but that's a limitation of the computer, not the I/O and not the driver, and would apply to an ExpressCard based solution as well.

The difference is that if you need to run with larger buffers for stability (because, say, your computer is not the latest and greatest), you can still run with RTL of less that the symphony runnning at 96k -- even if the session is at 44.1k (put another way: the largest RTL internal to the MIO mixer is shorter than the shortest latency available on the Symphony), with processing, on the 2d Card. And that is huge.

Originally Posted by Tommylicious

I brought this up earlier but can I expect the same latencies for all 16 channels If I choose for a 16 ch I/O configuration over adat with two MH 2882's or another third party converter?

Yes. The ADAT does not add any latency (or maybe a sample or two). So the latency of the 8 channels coming in over ADAT will be determined by the latency of the external converter. If you were to use a 2882 or a ULN-2, it would be exactly the same (+ a couple of samples of routing latency over the ADAT). With a third party converter, it could be smaller, the same or larger depending on the latency of the converter unit -- but that is under your control based upon the choices you make.

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by jlcl

If you have,2 2882s or 1 2882 and 1 ULN, do you end up with a 36 channel mixer or 2 18 channel mixers?
if it is two 18 do you have to sacrifice 2 channels to feed the master mixer?

If you have two MIOs, you have two mixers. They are not 18 channel mixers though. And they are not single busses. However, if you want to mix live inputs on 2 2882s, using external converters to feed the 2882s and you want to form one bus, then yes, you would need to use two inputs on one of the boxes to cascade from the other box.

OTOH, if you limit yourself to the analog inputs on the MIOs, and use the digital I/O for cascade, then you have a pretty natural balance between analog and digital resources.

[lllubi]

[QUOTE=henryrobinett;2093978]More powerful DSP just DID come out!

so there is only place for one DSP card in a unit?
i thought there is place for the old and new card

as i understand i have to treat Halo Verb or Charakter like a hardware unit if
i want to apply it within a DAW.
so i think i could loose channels for summing if i use sends to 2ds plugins
during mixing

[henryrobinett]

Unless I'm misunderstanding something in your post, you don't lose any of those channels. You have to not think of it necessarily as "outboard." It is in the DAW. You expanded your DAW.

The character and Haloverb are part of your expanded Mixer, sideways to your DAW.

[lllubi]

Originally Posted by henryrobinett

Unless I'm misunderstanding something in your post, you don't lose any of those channels. You have to not think of it necessarily as "outboard." It is in the DAW. You expanded your DAW.

The character and Haloverb are part of your expanded Mixer, sideways to your DAW.

sorry got it now after understanding the online tutorials finally

did see the MIO strip available in a native format
so probably Character or Halo Verb could be done native as well

[Farmerbrown2200]

Originally Posted by remo

pfft, the Creamware Scope environment was doing this 5 years ago...

+1


...and now Creamware/Sonicore has Xcite! Watch out MH, duck and cover all the rest.

fb

[henryrobinett]

Originally Posted by lllubi

sorry got it now after understanding the online tutorials finally

did see the MIO strip available in a native format
so probably Character or Halo Verb could be done native as well

I think a lot of people are missing one of the major points of these "powered" plugins. The point is not whether they can be native or not, the point is to NOT be native. It protects the technology of the software from being pirated.

It's not MIOStrip that is native. That's Channel Strip. It's similar but a different beast altogether.

[Tom H]

Originally Posted by mh_bj

Yes. The ADAT does not add any latency (or maybe a sample or two). So the latency of the 8 channels coming in over ADAT will be determined by the latency of the external converter. If you were to use a 2882 or a ULN-2, it would be exactly the same (+ a couple of samples of routing latency over the ADAT). With a third party converter, it could be smaller, the same or larger depending on the latency of the converter unit -- but that is under your control based upon the choices you make.

Thanks mr. Buchalter for your answers. thumbsup

Originally Posted by Farmerbrown2200

...and now Creamware/Sonicore has Xcite! Watch out MH, duck and cover all the rest.

They are different products in various ways IMO. Both have it's advantages over each other.

Now it would be sweet if Metric Halo would include a cool softsynth in their DSP in the future....

[henryrobinett]

I don't know too much about Creamware and Scope, but they do seem to be different products. I'm certain Creamware is very cool. For one thing the Metric Halo boxes are all in one solutions. They are not separate boxes, broken up into various products. The MH boxes have their record panel that does fantastic remote recording, but relies otherwise on whatever your DAW of choice is. It's not meant to be a replacement for a DAW, but rather works and improves whatever DAW it is you work with. As far as I know, it's a new and pretty revolutionary concept. But maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps that's exactly what Creamware does.

MH is not a bunch of synths and samplers and separate products. Maybe one day this is exactly where they're going. But I don't know, I see one as being one and the other being the other.

[jlcl]

Originally Posted by mh_bj

If you have two MIOs, you have two mixers. They are not 18 channel mixers though. And they are not single busses. However, if you want to mix live inputs on 2 2882s, using external converters to feed the 2882s and you want to form one bus, then yes, you would need to use two inputs on one of the boxes to cascade from the other box.

OTOH, if you limit yourself to the analog inputs on the MIOs, and use the digital I/O for cascade, then you have a pretty natural balance between analog and digital resources.

cool. This I understand. I didn't mean to suggest that bussing and total mixer channel count to be 18. I just meant that out of your DAW you can send a maximum of 18 channels to the any 1 MIO.(correct?) But If you wanted to cascade with 2 mios is it best to:

A) mix 16 into 2 cascading into aes then use that in mixer 2

B) Mix 16 into 8 cascade over adat into mixer two

C) mix 18 into 2 AND 18 into two record each stereo stem and sum those two either back in daw or record into Console connect.

d) ???? something cooler and smarter than I can even comprehend!

Ultimately what is the best mathematical approach. And Ultimately sonically what causes the least hit to fidelity?

Thanks in advance

[mh_bj]

Originally Posted by jlcl

A) mix 16 into 2 cascading into aes then use that in mixer 2

B) Mix 16 into 8 cascade over adat into mixer two

C) mix 18 into 2 AND 18 into two record each stereo stem and sum those two either back in daw or record into Console connect.

d) ???? something cooler and smarter than I can even comprehend!

You don't need to do (A) or (B). (C) is probably the closest.

I would do 18 in the first box to stereo, and then send that to the second box with AES or ADAT, and then mix the input from the first box with 18 from the DAW in the second box, and so on, for as many boxes as you need. My point is that you are not limited to 18 inputs per mix bus per box -- just to 18 channels from the DAW. So in the first box you mix 18 channel, and then in each subsequent box you mix 20 channels (18 from the computer + 2 from the previous submix).

As far as (D) goes, we'll just have to see what the future might bring...