So Roland unveiled their new entry in the Aira series - the Aira MX-1, an outboard mixer meant to act as a physical DAW interface.
It seems interesting at first glance, but my only gripes with the Aira series is the lack of control of parameters. This is accentuated in their effects section where you can only choose between a pre-selection of effects without having the ability to manipulate the parameters such as filter resonance or delay timing. Having a limitation on the selectable parameters turns me off, but the concept of the mixer is great.
Sonicstate provides the first in-depth glance of the machine:
This is pretty much what Iâve been wanting elektron to make. A sort of central hub that ties all their boxes together. This actually looks kinda sweet, if only you could get in and really access the engine that does all the scatter preset processors. I think elektrons take on this concept would be so much more interesting though.
Yeah scatter is so nearly great - is lots fun to mash around with on the tr-8, but after a few goes you learn the really limited character of it, so in use it kinda sucks and doesnt get touched much (occasional backspins maybe). And what the hell is with just a knob and buttons on the tr-8 to control it, surely an xy pad makes far more sense and would make it a ton more musically useful???
having only 4 mono inputs (and one minijack stereo), i donât see how this can compete with the OT.
if you donât have an OT, then it starts to make sense, but only if you have more than two airas⊠to get the full potential of the mx-1 youâd need to buy the entire aira line⊠nice idea from a roland perspective, but not for me.
This is almost perfect. The fact that you donât get all the tracks from the TR-8 via USB kills it. This is basically a $600 âjamâ mixer, and something for live use. And at that, itâs far too expensive.
Aira is a joke.
The TR8 is cool cause it has âthoseâ sounds, but overall, Aira gear is like a kids toy.
The effects are cheap, the styling is nasty and the attitude of the company is arrogant.
Plus they expect money for boring, limited updates⊠ummm noâŠ
Looks interesting. It doesnât exclusively need to be used with the Aira modules. Could be good for elektron boxes plus other synths and your daw maybe.
What you think folks.
âThe MX-1 can mix up to 18 audio channels from a computer, and AIRA devices are able to communicate directly via USB alongside other analog and digital gear.â
I know itâs wishful thinking, but when overbridge comes, we are getting digital audio over usb right?
Wouldnât it be great if the rytm and a4 could plug into the mx-1
IF it was possible to get A4 tracks in there using the USB, it might feasibly be a product for me⊠But I think not.
Shame they made it so geared towards Aira â I see the business logic, fully featured product range and all, but they are shutting a lot of people out by doing that.
On the other hand, the door is still open for a âlive performance mixerâ, done right⊠Hör ni, gubber i Göteborg?
I suppose with a computer as the middleman, and overbridge, you could do some cool stuff with routing. Grouping RYTM/A4 voices in a daw, and sending them back out over the 18 usb channels etc., that is providing latency isnât an issue.
Some rudimentary channel eq seems like a bit of an omission, but maybe the filter/tone will be usable instead.
Nice for the AIRA owner.