Somewhat OT - Presonus StudioLive and recording at 192

[Dave Labrecque]

No, none at all. I don't think that digital was even involved at this point - or, at any rate, I have no reason to believe that it was. And I get that being wrong about almost everything ruins the entire point I was trying to make. It's disappointing to me on a number of different levels.

LOL. The reason I asked is that I did some googling and could find the MFL half-speed master album, but could find nothing about digital anything in relation to it.

Maybe it's Paul's fault... And he sold them to me at a discount and soldered them directly to my stereo amplifier and speakers after tearing off their original connection apparatus that was intended for zip cord at best. Terrific until I moved.

He CHARGED you for the cable that he stole from the x-ray lab? And then he soldered you to your premises (in effect)? Yeah, I say we blame Paul.

[John Ludlow]

He CHARGED you for the cable that he stole from the x-ray lab? And then he soldered you to your premises (in effect)? Yeah, I say we blame Paul.

Hey - I never said that he stole it. The story, at least, was that he had a relative who was an electrician who was hired to install an x-ray machine and that there was some left-over cable from the spools (one green, one white...) that wasn't long enough to do much with otherwise - nor worth keeping around for the unlikely potential of being tapped a second time to install another x-ray machine. So, he sold it to Paul at a discount. I don't know if you're aware of what 4 gauge cable looks like. It's a serious fraction of an inch thick. Eight feet of 180 strand weighs over a pound, I'll bet. Not a lot of call for it, is my point. You know how you buy a spool of hi-z cable and make guitar cords out of it as needed, and eventually the last one is either longer than intended, or else there's a little left over? Similar, I'm thinking. So, nothing nefarious. And Paul did obtain my reluctant permission to 'modify' my components.

I only say 'blame Paul' because that was where all my information on the subject was coming from. Knowledge of breaking technology was much more difficult to come by in those days. I know that you remember. The Internet didn't exist. I might have gone on a campaign at the library or subscribed to a trade magazine - but otherwise it was Paul or nothing. And Paul was a fussy offset pressman who loved high tech music technology - not an engineer. Also - he's not here, and I could use someone to hold that bag. So, yeah. Let's blame Paul.

[Dave Labrecque]

Hey - I never said that he stole it. The story, at least, was that he had a relative who was an electrician who was hired to install an x-ray machine and that there was some left-over cable from the spools (one green, one white...) that wasn't long enough to do much with otherwise - nor worth keeping around for the unlikely potential of being tapped a second time to install another x-ray machine. So, he sold it to Paul at a discount. I don't know if you're aware of what 4 gauge cable looks like. It's a serious fraction of an inch thick. Eight feet of 180 strand weighs over a pound, I'll bet. Not a lot of call for it, is my point. You know how you buy a spool of hi-z cable and make guitar cords out of it as needed, and eventually the last one is either longer than intended, or else there's a little left over? Similar, I'm thinking. So, nothing nefarious. And Paul did obtain my reluctant permission to 'modify' my components.

I only say 'blame Paul' because that was where all my information on the subject was coming from. Knowledge of breaking technology was much more difficult to come by in those days. I know that you remember. The Internet didn't exist. I might have gone on a campaign at the library or subscribed to a trade magazine - but otherwise it was Paul or nothing. And Paul was a fussy offset pressman who loved high tech music technology - not an engineer. Also - he's not here, and I could use someone to hold that bag. So, yeah. Let's blame Paul.

I guess I was presuming that the hospital (or whoever hired the electrician) had paid for the spool. So maybe it's the electrician who "stole" it and charged for it? It's very important that we nail down this detail thirty years later.

Yeah, 4 gauge sounds pretty hefty. Some might even call it overkill. But we who've spent the money know better.

[John Ludlow]

I guess I was presuming that the hospital (or whoever hired the electrician) had paid for the spool. So maybe it's the electrician who "stole" it and charged for it? It's very important that we nail down this detail thirty years later.

Yeah, 4 gauge sounds pretty hefty. Some might even call it overkill. But we who've spent the money know better.

Or - or - one could see it as having been leftover from the job, like cardboard from a Big Mac, and rather than being thrown out was re-purposed by selling it to his nut cousin who, in turn, after using some of it himself, sold the rest to his clueless co-worker? These things often depend upon one's perspective.

And finally, the question that everyone wants answered, did it indeed improve my budget Akai amp's control over my Pioneer speaker's bass within their location opposite a stone fireplace and from one's listening position, either on the couch in front of the right speaker, or in the chair in front of the left? Was it worth the cost of the cable and the destruction of the hardware? Well... it certainly sounded different to me from then on. Some days, with the clear knowledge that my damping factor was now zero, I thought it was better. But, it also shut Paul up and, in his mind, made me a sort of junior audiophile. And that was priceless. Plus, when visitors happened to inquire about the elephant trunks welded to my speakers, I could lecture them about the damping factor afflicting their own systems, and the relative perfection of my own. Things like that sometimes spread like covid. Here. Let me turn that up so you can listen to the bass...

[jmh]

A StudioLive AR16 USB is what I had been using, but it turned out to be too small when I began hiring some session guys. At that point, I had a behringer x18 - which is a digital mixer, but with no surface. The X18 was real inexpensive ~400. I bought it because I had one I used at work to mix school board meetings, so I knew how to run it - and actually had explored the features pretty extensively. But I'm not really cut out for the web like interface application with various tabs and menus. If someone asked for some adjustment, I might have to begin wandering around to find it and wind up like the deer in the headlights. Nevertheless, I wound up having very productive sessions.

Anyway, the series III 32SX made it's debut last night.

Dinner time - to be continued...

So where was I?

The session worked out very well - although there were a few curve balls one is there are no pads on the inputs. I have a couple of nice outboard preamps that are beautifully forgiving to hot signals through the tubes and transformers, fortunately I discovered this beforehand and had turn the gains way down to forgo the sizzle - which after all, is the reason you might use that gear. I'll have to get a couple of inline pads for next time.
The next thing was I had planed to be able to have everyone manage their own mix. Unfortunately (for me) that remote software doesn't let you specify an IP address (or at least I didn't find a way) but rather auto discovers the mixer. I was using a raspberry pi to link the lan and provide a wifi hotspot. Unfortunately, on the pi, you get two different network segments (without embarking on a research project). If I had had a wireless router this would not have been the case and it would have just worked. I stubbornly tried to make it work on the pi - but got inconsistent results. So the self-mix was abandoned - although there are several aux layers, so it wasn't difficult to provide headphone mixes by hand - which is really why I bought this mixer.
I had tried to use the dca groups for controlling the aux mixes - but removed them from the aux user layers as something weird was happening. I'll have to play around some more to get a better understanding as to how the dca groups work before I use them in that way - if I can.
The only real problem was that I had burnt myself out screwing around with this crap all day(s) before the session started. I was paying these guys, could barely hold a guitar pick, and the main song chosen to be recorded was particularly hard. They were so good that they made it work (although I'm betting the guitar track need to be redone) - so a triumph!