ULN-8 Owners... MIO vs DAW for certain plugs

[paulrk]

Hey folks, got a question for any of you out there who may have been using a ULN-8 (or other Mobile I/Os) perhaps longer than I. Latency aside, how do you all decide what processing to do in the MIO Mixer vs your host DAW?

For example, let's say I'm mixing a hip-hop track. I might want to augment the kick with the gated sine tone trick many of us are familiar with. Would you put the gate on the sine track in the MIO mixer or in, say, Logic? Maybe this particular example doesn't make as much of a difference, but it's just one such situation. I'm not thinking of things that are specific to each program, i.e. automation in your DAW or the "character" plugs in MIO Console.

I'm interested to hear what you all have found in your time with your own MIOs....


Paul

[inthere]

Depends if i want to sum separate stems in MIO or just the 2 bus from Logic. Also if there is a must have effect that I need from MIO.

[syntax]

When I'm mixing I tend to use the MIO mixer as a sort of hybrid summing mixer, by which I mean that, from Logic, I buss out some tracks individual and others in groups. For instance, I might put all the guitars on a single stereo bus, but send the kick drum from Logic to the MIO console as an individual track.

[watermuse]

I like to mix through the ULN-8 console and add a couple of outboard compressors. But I'm in to simplifying my work flow for the long-haul with the aim of sonic excellence. The MIO mixer is deep, as is the ULN-8.

Once automation is is involved it's Daw to MIO Console though. (Wishing that were some how different though MH ).

[nigel saunders]

It depends.
The strength of the MIO mixer to me is the improved sound you get from the headroom it gives you. The plug ins are fine and some of them like haloverb are very good but I still use analogue sounding plug ins in my daw (eg PSP, Softube).
MIO doesnt have the automation so all of that is handled by the daw.
As someone said it may be best to see the MIO as a summing buss but it also has the nice option of adding plug ins at that point if you need to.

[syntax]

It isn't entirely accurate to say that the MIO mixer doesn't have automation. Volume, mute, and panning can be automated via midi if you assign your DAW the task.

To be honest, however, I have to admit that I have yet to set up Logic for this task. I get by just fine leaving the automation in Logic and using the MIO as a summer. Though I have to say, that a combination of character and mioplugins can school a lot of "vintage sounding" plugs. I would choose MIOstrip and MIOq over most plugin EQs.

[Guitar Zero]

Originally Posted by syntax

It isn't entirely accurate to say that the MIO mixer doesn't have automation. Volume, mute, and panning can be automated via midi if you assign your DAW the task.

To be honest, however, I have to admit that I have yet to set up Logic for this task. I get by just fine leaving the automation in Logic and using the MIO as a summer. Though I have to say, that a combination of character and mioplugins can school a lot of "vintage sounding" plugs. I would choose MIOstrip and MIOq over most plugin EQs.

Yep, I just got the ULN-2 and I love the work flow. I've been mixing on mine only about two weeks now, but I can already tell I'm staying in logic for verbs, echoes, comps, amps, at least until I max out the cpu. This is especially true for the vocals. Some plugs are too good to pass up, like Waves CLA, Softube CL1B, Echoboy, Paul Frindles DSM plug, etc. Can't do without those.

Then it's off to mio for character, and some EQ, reverb, delays, etc. on backing tracks. I love the character plug ins, especially softsat on vocals. The DSP and the mio mixer make this box worth the price of admission, which some say is steep, but I say NOT for what you get.

I'm remixing everything now, and really happy with the sound.

[lowkey]

i generally send out 8 stereo busses out of Cubase into MIO and run MIOstrip eq/comp on each. Often ill use Stillwell Rocket in the daw as a character comp and then lightly hit the miostrip. My mixes sound better that way than all in cubase.