Dangerous Music Liaison

[audiomastermind]

Originally Posted by mixerguy

power switch on the back. This should be illegal for 19" rack gear in my opinion. Bax is the same way.

and

the box reverts to memory 1 when power cycled (as opposed to where it was left - memory 1/2/3/4.

this can screw you if you are not mindful of this.

Cheers
Philip

[ionian]

Originally Posted by mixerguy

I own a Liaison.

Great box.

only 2 complains are:

power switch on the back. This should be illegal for 19" rack gear in my opinion. Bax is the same way.

A lot of 19" gear does that. My Elysia 19" rack does that as well. As I'm led to believe, it's to limit sending electricity to the switch on the front of the rack and then back to the transformer, to cut down on potential sound problems and noise which can be caused by having electricity travel past all the audio circuitry. They keep the power line to a bare minimum and put the switch very close to the power transformer.

A lot of higher end gear, as well as gear made by former techs follow this convention so I'm inclined to believe them.

Regards,
Frank

[t_d]

for that reason (the power switch on back) i put my Liaison and Dangerous S&M plugged into the FRONT sockets of a Monster 3500 power supply. these sockets have a separate power switch from the regular back inputs. this basically gives you a front-mounted power switch on gear that doesn't have one.

[Twerk]

Originally Posted by t_d

for that reason (the power switch on back) i put my Liaison and Dangerous S&M plugged into the FRONT sockets of a Monster 3500 power supply. these sockets have a separate power switch from the regular back inputs. this basically gives you a front-mounted power switch on gear that doesn't have one.

I do nearly the same thing. Did you ever solve your questions regarding routing? I've tested some similar ideas but failed to get it working outside of just a send and return loop on the inserts.

[t_d]

yeah, i solved the routing via a couple of passive XLR switchers.. so i can run the outputs of my summing mixer or the mastering DAW through the liaison/analog chain... while the liaison is set to buss A>buss B for maximum flexibility .... works like a charm!

Originally Posted by Twerk

I do nearly the same thing. Did you ever solve your questions regarding routing? I've tested some similar ideas but failed to get it working outside of just a send and return loop on the inserts.

[Twerk]

Originally Posted by t_d

yeah, i solved the routing via a couple of passive XLR switchers.. so i can run the outputs of my summing mixer or the mastering DAW through the liaison/analog chain... while the liaison is set to buss A>buss B for maximum flexibility .... works like a charm!

Any luck hooking up your tape deck to input 6?

[Strut78]

Originally Posted by ionian

A lot of 19" gear does that. My Elysia 19" rack does that as well. As I'm led to believe, it's to limit sending electricity to the switch on the front of the rack and then back to the transformer, to cut down on potential sound problems and noise which can be caused by having electricity travel past all the audio circuitry. They keep the power line to a bare minimum and put the switch very close to the power transformer.

A lot of higher end gear, as well as gear made by former techs follow this convention so I'm inclined to believe them.

Regards,
Frank

With that said, I love the way Manley solved this problem with the Massive Passive. A physical switch on the front of the unit connects to a rod that goes all the way to the back of the unit to turn off the power, so no cables, just a physical connection. A simple solution for a common problem with gear design.

[t_d]

haven't tried that yet...

Originally Posted by Twerk

Any luck hooking up your tape deck to input 6?

[masteringworks]

Originally Posted by t_d

i'm about to get a Liaison and have a couple of routing questions. the unit seems so flexible, many ways to use it, i'm curious as to how i might be able to achieve either of the following scenarios:

Hi Taylor, just saw this - so

1. i've got a Dangerous S+M box and have seen mentioned a couple of times how the Liaison and S+M could help you choose what gear to send to the M/S matrix. now, i see how this can be done with a Dangerous Master, but is there any way to use Bus B on the Liaison to hold the S+M while i route gear into it and back into Bus A?


is there any flexibility with the S+M and the Liaison besides keeping the S+M permanently patched into a couple pieces of gear on one of the inserts?

Sure, patch the MS loop in the IN and OUT of either Bus A or B and you can then decide if the chosen gear is in MS or not.

2. another hookup i may want to do is route the DAW into Bus A on the Liaison for stereo duties and route the outputs of my Rascal Tonebuss summing mixer into Bus B... this will let me do mix downs out of the Tonebuss to be routed through the outboard gear as well. all well and good... problem is.. Bus A outputs would go back into A/D-DAW.. but i'd want Bus B (summing mixer) to output to the same A/D-DAW input.... so.. could i take like the output of Bus B and route it into one of the INSERTS... thus feeding that output then into the outputs of A to the DAW.. ? (hope that doesn't sound too confusing)..

This doesn't sound like a good idea ? Do you want to use the same A/D or different ones ?

3: could i take the front panel insert 6 output into a tape machine? i know it's an insert and not a dedicated output.. but could i mix down the DAW, feeding into one of the busses, to output to the tape machine through an insert output?

The inserts can of course also loop a tape machine back for sound. Also remember there is a Monitor (parallel) output for Bus A and B before and after processing. It may help with this. Hope this helps - Stefan

thanks for your help!
taylor

[t_d]

hi stefan

thanks for your replies. i've been using the liaison for a solid couple months now and LOVE it.. i don't miss my patch bay one bit...

i've got a pretty good way of working now. basically i've got bus A routed into bus B so i can have more flexibility changing around the order of the gear.

i've got the summing mixer and stereo outs of my DAW into passive A/B switch boxes so i can hit those and choose whether i'm sending the Tonebuss (when i'm mixing) or the DAW outputs (when i'm mastering). it's quite easy!

your M/S hookup makes total sense! i think i'm going to route that. right now i have the M/S only routed to channel 3 of the liaison, where my two EQs sit. but i like the idea of putting it on bus B. not that i do too much M/S compression (ok, i've NEVER done it) but for flexibility it might make sense.

of course, with A routed through B that may mess things up because if i still want to put an EQ in the MS loop.. by switching it to B, the EQ will now be POST-A.. which i may not want it to..

hmm... have to have a think on that

anyway, thanks for the insights.

taylor

[Twerk]

Originally Posted by t_d

hi stefan
your M/S hookup makes total sense! i think i'm going to route that. right now i have the M/S only routed to channel 3 of the liaison, where my two EQs sit. but i like the idea of putting it on bus B. not that i do too much M/S compression (ok, i've NEVER done it) but for flexibility it might make sense.

of course, with A routed through B that may mess things up because if i still want to put an EQ in the MS loop.. by switching it to B, the EQ will now be POST-A.. which i may not want it to..
taylor

Perhaps if you put the M/S on A, then your M/S processing will always be first if you decide to use it. This is why many people put the Liaison bus A on insert 2 of the Dangerous Master.

[tomteontour]

Oh and just in case somebody of you does not need his anymore : Desperately looking for a Liaison ( and currently out of budget for a new one )

[Focalpress]

Originally Posted by ionian

A lot of 19" gear does that. My Elysia 19" rack does that as well. As I'm led to believe, it's to limit sending electricity to the switch on the front of the rack and then back to the transformer, to cut down on potential sound problems and noise which can be caused by having electricity travel past all the audio circuitry. They keep the power line to a bare minimum and put the switch very close to the power transformer.

A lot of higher end gear, as well as gear made by former techs follow this convention so I'm inclined to believe them.

Regards,
Frank

you dont need to run power to the front of the unit to have a switch at the front. you can control it with a 4 dollar switch which controls a contacter at the back of the unit. who ever suggested that is being silly.

[t_d]

i'm trying this now.. and.. i think it works fine! i've got #6 SEND going out to a tascam 122 cassette deck for mixdown of this project and levels are fine going in.

now, i have my liaison hooked up in the A>B type setup. if i click the #6A button, going to the caseette, it cuts the signal going to my monitoring chain... because i don't have the cassette outputs going back into the returns, but if i click #6 on the B chain it DOES send to my outputs...

not sure why this is the case.. but i haven't really thought too hard about it yet

this really saves me a lot of patching being able to do this.. and i don't see any drawbacks or problems. i hope there's not something weird happening to the levels or anything like that, but it doesn't seem like it.

the gear before 6 (i've got a MP in #3 and a vari mu in #4) can be switched on for a little bus processing on the mix down. really handy.

Originally Posted by Twerk

Any luck hooking up your tape deck to input 6?

[t_d]

one of the cooler uses for this front panel insert (or any of them, really) is to patch a recording tape machine into the path and essentially use the tape as a processor in your chain. the signal passes through your analog chain and into the tape machine as it records and back out the other side into your capture computer.

if i had realized this before i would have saved a step of recording to tape and then dumping back into the computer... could have done it in a realtime pass.

obviously you don't need the liaison to do this, but it sure makes it easy!

[Twerk]

Originally Posted by t_d

one of the cooler uses for this front panel insert (or any of them, really) is to patch a recording tape machine into the path and essentially use the tape as a processor in your chain. the signal passes through your analog chain and into the tape machine as it records and back out the other side into your capture computer.

if i had realized this before i would have saved a step of recording to tape and then dumping back into the computer... could have done it in a realtime pass.

obviously you don't need the liaison to do this, but it sure makes it easy!

Glad to hear that's working out. That sounds like a great setup and option.

As much as I keep trying to justify why the 6th insert is on the front, I really just wish it was on the back. The desk looks so much cleaner without a pair of cables being passed through some vents. Grrr.

[t_d]

i could go either way... the convenience of them on the front is really useful.. but, yes, because of the "cable through the vents" thing.. i just keep it unhooked until i need to patch a piece of gear in.

aesthetics is everything!

Originally Posted by Twerk

Glad to hear that's working out. That sounds like a great setup and option.

As much as I keep trying to justify why the 6th insert is on the front, I really just wish it was on the back. The desk looks so much cleaner without a pair of cables being passed through some vents. Grrr.