In Use: Alesis Multimix Firewire,PC,Vegas 7!

Peter Vred wrote on 12/6/2006, 8:09 AM
I recently bought the Alesis FireWire 16 for my home studio.
Took out the old Mackie 1642, removed Echo Layla soundcard & drivers, and installed the Alesis drivers.
Installing the Alesis was a breeze, it can record 16 inputs plus the stereo main mix for a total of 18 tracks at once.

The mixer looks and feels cheap and the sound/stereo imaging is not as good as the Mackie
was when running the onboard PC sound card into the Alesis.
But once I got the playback coming thru the Firewire and not the Mobo sound card, things improved greatly!
Overall, a step down sonically, but a step up in simplicity and studio space-saving ergonomics,
not to mention remote live recording with a laptop.

So far only technical problem is that Vegas "hangs" when I arm the first audio track for recording.
(locking the whole PC up tight).
The Alesis drivers were selected in the audio devices tab in options, so I don't know why it hung.
After resetting the PC, it worked fine the next time.
(this has occured three times since installing the mixer two days ago.)

I think the hang has to do with the order in which components are powered up.
The Alesis manual, says to power on the mixer first, then the computer.
But I find powering up the computer first avoids the "hang"...in my case anyway.
I also have removed the Mobo sound card drivers and shut off the onboard sound in Bios.
That could also have contributed to the hangs, I'll know more next time I run it.

In all fairness though, I do a lot of non-sound work on my PC and had done so
before firing up Vegas every time I have tried it since the Alesis addition.
Probably a reboot before recording would be a good thing.
I will post any other problems encountered after a real recording session.

Comments

farss wrote on 12/7/2006, 3:45 AM
Some of the firewire devices require a reboot to complete installation, that might have had something to do with your hang.
Also I found having ALL firewire devices connected at boot time to be pretty vital otherwise things can get real ugly, like trying to send a video stream to my 410, not a nice sound at all.

Thanks for the post, I've been looking at both the Alesis and the Phonics firewire mixers, just as a cheap way to get a multitrack location recorder. I've already got the 410 and an Edirol R-4, both of which have given good service but I find I'm wanting to record one track per mic rather than relying on feeds from desks, if anyone can recommend an affordable multitrack (>12) recorder apart from the Alesis or Phonics I'm all ears but so far nothing seems to be out there at less than 10x the price of these units. I know these two units are hardly robust mechanically but how bad can they be sonically?
Some of the venues mixing kit and mics are nothing out of the ordinary anyway. Short of double micing everything on stage I think I'd be wasting serious slabs of money aiming for anything better anyway.

Bob.
Peter Vred wrote on 12/7/2006, 7:34 AM
Band rehearsal report - 3pc 60's band, guitar, bass, V-drums, 3 vocals:

The new mixer is amazing,

The Pros:
I ran all vocals and instruments into the Alesis.
Vocals panned Left Out to my Bose L1 sound system into Channel1 with mic preset #5 (SM58),
instruments panned Right Out to L1 Ch2/pre00, for monitoring in the room.

Mixed the music to fit the room, then opened my Vegas softare on the PC,
assigned channels 1-10 on the mixer to 1-10 in Vegas and hit record.
That simple.

The sound was very similar to what I achieved prior with the Mackie 1642 & Echo Layla. Very quiet, using the Alesis preamps.
Vocals a bit dull, but that's typical when not using an outboard pre. All in all...very good sound.

I noticed there were no sound card conflicts between vegas and my mp3 player (winamp) during rehearsal as is usual.

Usually, when Vegas is running and I open the (winamp) MP3 player to listen to a new tune, Vegas can lock up if in "record standby" mode, or at the least will re-assign it's own output from channels 1/2 to channels 3/4 as soon as MP3 player plays. Not a problem to re-assign when I go back to Vegas, but now the problem is just gone.
Also...no more PC "hangs"...tried to get it to do it and it won't.
Nice.

The Cons:
True Bob, the Alesis is nowhere as sturdy a mixer as Mackie, but for my home use it is fine.
I love the simplicity and not having to re-patch all the time.
I will certainly buy a good case for it for when I get a laptop and go remote.

The knobs are all "wiggly", and the silver painted fader fingerpads are ugly as hell, makes the whole thing look toyish.
(But I do like the silk-screened zone divided look of the console face and am warming up to it overall,
I just might buy some nice white or gray fader fingerpads).

Can't adjust Effects parameters...but I knew that coming in, and have a nice TC M300 for that.

Bottom line: The Alesis MM-16FW...It's a Keeper!

Peter Vred wrote on 12/9/2006, 6:37 AM
Working in Vegas last night:
Tweaked mixes on 4-5 of the recent test tunes.
Then pulled up a recording done on Vegas 5 a few months back.
As soon as I clicked play Vegas locked up, had to reboot to end program.
After reboot, the V5 song played okay. I saved to new version.

Opened another oldie, same situation, lock up.
But found that turning off the mixer would let vegas shut down
normally via control/alt/delete.
I re-enacted the situation a few more times to the same result, lockup,
But turning OFF the Alesis, Vegas would shut down without
having to reboot computer.

So...Pulling in old version mixes after mixing later versions is a problem,
but the workaround seems to be simply rebooting.

Have also found that when I have the Alesis powered on when initially starting up my PC, that it won't boot up at all.
Turning off the mixer, booting up, then starting the mixer, everything is fine.
farss wrote on 12/9/2006, 3:43 PM
None of this sounds too serious. If I was to buy one it'd be solely for multitrack location recording, I wouldn't be using it for mixing afterwards.
BTW, also check for updates to the drivers, I know the early ones were very buggy with lots of users returning units because of this. Probably why the price has dropped a bit too.

Thanks for the mini review, now I just need to decide between the Alesis and the Phonics. Only reason I'd go with the Phonics is I need lots of channels.

Bob.
Peter Vred wrote on 12/11/2006, 12:18 AM
hi farss,

I have the latest drivers.
Have had a few more buggy lockups, but nothing shutting off the mixer or a reboot doesn't cure.
I'll get it all figured out.

I looked at that Phonics Helixboard 18:
Fewer input channels, 14 to Alesis's 16.
Notice that channels 7 & 8 have EITHER XLR or stereo input.
So you really only have a total of 12 inputs if using 8 mics.
With the Alesis you get 8 XLRs AND 4 stereo ins.

Phonic's sweep mid EQ is nice...I miss that with the Alesis.
That feature alone, if the EQ is clean, would have made a difference to me.
The extra Aux is nice too, and Efx footswitch inputs are a good addition.
But all the above is really for live sound, and not so needed to record via firewire.

Phonic's "faders" for effects return, monitor, and "alt" group seem unnecessary.
I'd rather have the Alesis's extra stereo line-in, Alesis reverb, and Alesis's track record in the audio biz.
Don't care for the onboard graphic EQ on the Phonics either, those are usually pretty useless for recording purposes.

Better to put the money in the a/d converters rather than extra bells and whistles.
Just MO.

P
Peter Vred wrote on 2/1/2007, 10:41 PM
Alesis Users who might find this interesting.

I have had a few problems:

1) Vegas would lock up if I tried to record 48hz - 24bit resolution.

2) Weird high pitched metallic ringing/modulation accompanied louder vocals when recording/playing back. Tried different pres, gains, and with and without input monitoring. Couldn't get rid of it. It only occurred at a recent session when the vocalist got to a louder passage.

Tonight I upgraded Vegas to 7.0d and the Alesis drivers/firmware to the new version (Dec2006).

This cured the 24bit lockup bug. Hoping it also cures the metallic ringing, I can't test it right now, it's 1am and everyone's asleep. That ringing might also have to do with buffering, I'm at 256 now, for low latency, but turning that up might cure the ring, although I will then not be able to use input monitoring. Too bad we have to make that choice.

All that aside the mixer is nice portable interface...BUT, one major thing I overlooked when buying this mixer and selling my Echo Layla, the firewire software allows for 18 tracks in to PC, but only TWO out...bummer. I overlooked that entirely when making this move.

I used the multiple outs on the Layla for effects sends and re-triggering drum samples. All that is pretty much over now. I have learned not to be so hasty with old gear and eBay.

P