Since you're used to working in a flatter and dryer environment, try to think of VSX as enabling you to hear your mixes in other professional environments (and not) with more of their room sound (without having to go there in person). For example, I like the Archon Fars because they expose peaky transients that I don't realize are there on my own system or headphones (but they are there).

Hey y'all,

I always enjoy when others share their VSX mixes, so here's one I did:
https://open.spotify.com/track/3T8pg...R4Wd1og0kng89A

It's a pop tune from a 16-year old singer/songwriter in Nashville, Ainsley Costello. I mixed mainly on the Archon mids, balanced vocals on the boombox, and did mix checks in Howie's room (eng), the Tesla, and Archon fars. I also checked on pair of passive 90's KRK K-RoKs I have at home and my Sennheiser HD 6XX headphones. I'd say I did at least 95% of the work within VSX.

That's something I've arrived at as well but haven't seen mentioned much here... The "wow I'm in a room!" feeling is icing on the cake, but not in any way necessary. That feeling doesn't happen for me (the second say "hmm" about a mix decision, I'm reminded I have headphones on lol) and I don't care at all... My mixes translate better as a result of using this system, and that's invaluable. I'll take that over virtual reality.

Is there any word on when we can expect the update?

Bravo! Enjoyed that mix

This is news to me. What functions don’t work with soundsource?

The 2 second palette cleanser (2SPC) and EQ don't work in SoundSource.

And I can also confirm that SoundSource has terrible customer service, because I also offered to surrender my license for SoundSource and pay the $20 difference in price for Audio Hijack, and they said no. Very bad and very stupid.

Thank God Slate's customer service isn't like that.

Wow makes sense. Good thing I didn’t pay them for an upgrade. I couldn’t hear certain things but people were saying it was subtle haha.

I don’t like running plugins like vsx in my daw. I like all audio to run through these secondary hosts like Soundsource. What can I use to achieve the same work flow as soundsource w full functionality of vsx

Oh, the Depth control doesn't work either.

Blackhole 2ch combined with a DAW loaded for VSX specifically (I'm using Live as the 'spare' DAW) while also using SoundSource as the volume controls for all apps, this is a clean and simple setup. SoundSource allows for control of each app specifically as well as overall gain for all sources using the main volume, or the volume control for the VSX/DAW combo.

That won’t work for me. Too cluttered. So to be clear there’s nothing that does what soundsource does but correctly

Depends how you have your MacOS Desktop set up. I find it perfectly usable. Not the most elegant solution but it certainly works, and works well.
The advantage is loading various plugins, such as multiple analysers on screen at once, and you could also record any audio. This is of use to me as a producer and I like to sample various sources from the internet.

I can only suggest that you try this method. To me it is far better than VSX working at 50% in SoundSource.

And to answer your question: No, as I understand it.

I know it's been mentioned before, but check out menuBUS for a systemwide solution on Mac OS. I have it working just fine on Catalina.
https://www.menubus.audio/versions

Make sure to grab menuBUS Free 2.4.04 - that's the one that works.

All the functions of VSX work in menuBUS!

Thanks I’ll try that


I barely like running vsx in soundsource so that def won’t work for me. Thanks for the incite

Gotcha.

Seems like I blanked Menubus as that doesn't work for me for some reason!

I hope it works well for you, it is great little device though a little clunky and lacking features as the guy dropped support to move on to develop programs at Rogue Amoeba. Like SoundSource I guess.

Typically the case

Just for balance, and not to diminish your poor experience at all, but my experience was totally different...

I bought soundsource, realised it didn't quite work right, contacted developer & asked for refund.. Got refund, bought audio hijack, realised that had sound issue, contacted dev again, asked for refund, got refund AGAIN, then rebought Soundsource 😅 dev was responsive & helpful & friendly throughout.

SS is absolutely brilliant BTW, the ultimate systemwide app...just such a shame it doesn't work 'quite' right with VSX. Naturally both companies blame the other - just hoping one of them knuckles down & fixes it soon.

True either way.

Yeh soundsource is amazing. Since I changed my monitor setup I haven’t been able to use it as much but definitely recommend outside of vsx

Just preordered.

In the meantime I bought some absorbers and diffusors to treat my room, as well as IK Multimedia ARC 3 to help the foam.

Damn, have to wait until April here in Germany to be delivered, can't wait!!!

I'm using Blackhole straight back into my Logic project. I have a separate 2 bus Aux for my all my "musical" processing that my mix goes through and just have monitoring plugs on the stereo out (Metric AB, Tonal Balance, VSX etc)

I have mac audio prefs to use Blackhole as default and an Aux I've called System that monitors Blackhole and sends it to my stereo out. That Aux is muted but to hear my system sound I just need to solo it. Makes it super quick to swap between references and mix etc. Logic is set up with input as Blackhole and output as my DAC.

I had similar weird distortion/crackles with Sound Source and Audio Hijack. Tried using Patchwork but depth knob didn't work. Tried Menubus but was a bit buggy on my system. This solution seems the best option I can come up with!

I was struggling with some high end stuff as well. Had some repeated issues with particular frequencies of sibilance that I just could not hear in VSX but was clear as day on my usual listening gear...

I'm profile 2 but from someone earlier in the thread I tried this eq setting:

L - 1am
LM - just closer to 12 o'clock than that
M - + 1 tick
MH - 10pm <<< this and high are the important bits I think.
H - just past 2am

and getting pretty solid translation at the mo. No surprises! All problems are caused by my own mistakes... [grin] It's funny because I thought I was a borderline profile 2 as I use earbuds a lot but this has really helped for me.

As an aside... does anyone else find that using the eq somehow lessens the binaural effect for them?

and a further question! Is it by design that HD linear in bypass is not effected by eq but is if I choose it as a room? Or have my ears turned to jelly and it actually is...

I have been using the VSX since it came out and i feel that it has really upped my game. I use Archon and Howie and find that working 90% in Archon and then switching to Howie for the last 10% puts things in perspective for me. I still throw the track on in the car when I’m driving around, but I don’t make a point of doing that any more. I have a great treated room with a pair of 6Be’s that I love, but rarely use now. Here’s a tune of mine that I recently finished. 95% Slate plug-ins as well. FWIW I was a very early Slate adopter. ������

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fbdAl61rZM4

nice work !

Very nice, reminds me a bit of The Neville Brothers.

thanks guys. it's a tribute to a time I hope will return once again...

I listened to it in the VSX Club. Totally digging it!

Is this worth the investment for a someone who can't use speakers above subdued talking level due to circumstances... but wouldn't come up with the greatest mix if I could? Would this product help me to improve?

Or is it more for people who already know what they are doing and find this a convenient way of checking how their already excellent mixes will translate? From reading the thread I get the impression that you guys are mixing "in a room" you find to be the most similar to what you are used to, or have aimed to actually provide with real gear in your own studios. That's a way away from me. Do I even know what a well produced record sounds like in such a real room? I'd have to stretch my memory back 40 years!

I realise it's priced well if it does what I hope, no complaints there, but would be a big investment for me. Any general views on this from people using this software and phones? May it even require a certain amount of crucial setting up that I would be incapable of?

Thanks in advance.

VSX is for anyone who has less than great monitoring.

I don't have a treated room and my monitor speakers are broken right now. I'm getting work done which my clients are happy with using just VSX and the crappy built in speaker in my computer monitor for real world crappy speaker perspective.

Weird combo, but VSX makes it simple to get a wide range of useful perspectives which allow the user to work the sound into a shape which will play nicely on virtually all devices.

Definitely, these take time to learn but they're genuinely great fun to use.

As an aside, when a bass music track has genuine room shaking sub, there's a weird experience to be had on some of the speakers with vivid subs, like Archon Nears/Howie Engineer Position where the room simulation really feels like it's vibrating and pulsating as it would in the real world. Really cool!!