It seems strange to me that all the sound goes trhough fx send, so if I understand this is aux, and would it be possible to use the stereo out instead? Or does it create a infinity loop…
The thing that bothers me is to hear what come from the ditto I need to engage the sample in blackbox, otherwise I don’t hear it…
Anyway, it seems that everything works properly but I need to understand if this is the best way do to do. Otherwise you sais I should find a Mixer with 2 Aux, this is always the case…something missing.
I didn’t know what was Patchbay and I went to check on google, woaaaw that’s really something from a galactic ship, something I will try to avoid, I want to have a simple setup…
Looping, sampling, effects…
Anyway, thank you very much for your help ! That’s amazing ! I will send you guys pictures when this is all tidy and organized
Is the issue that your Blackbox is not letting through the audio in signal? In that case you should turn on the Monitoring function on your blackbox (according to the manual on page 21 I believe, this should be possible).
The Aux Send approach (which on your mixer is called FX send because your mixer also has on-board effects that you can bring in and out into the same channel) is the best way if you want to CHOOSE separate sources to send to your sampler or looper.
If you send your stereo out to your looper or blackbox, it will send all instruments that are playing audibly through to your sampler. So the only way to separate a signal then would be to stop playback of all devices you don’t want to sample. If this is fine by you, you can also run your stereo out into your looper OR your blackbox (the problem of the blackbox not letting through the audio would remain).
Alternatively you could combine the two approaches. Send things to your walrus pedal and looper via FX send (and then the looper back to one of your mixer’s input channels) and use the stereo out to your Blackbox.
This way you could decide what you want to loop (and run through your walrus) and you could still sample stuff into your blackbox (note however that if you would want to sample only one instrument into your blackbox, you’d have to do it as described above, i.e. you couldn’t just sample individual instruments on the fly).
Thanks a lot it helped, the first scenario is working well, without your help I wouldn’t have found that this FX Send was an AUX out with such powerful outcome, now my only little issue is that I am goiing into the walrus (mono) —>to the Ditto x4 in Mono and to the blackbox in Stereo…
Anyway yes I could find how to turn off the Play when rec only in the Blackbox settings, that’s great, now I need to figure how to control via midi when « Rec » with the blackbox it should control the ditto, I don’t know if I should put the midi In or through… still learning !
Well without your helps I couldn’t do it, struggling since too many months…because instead of learning or reading pages about it I play and have fun and get angry because I couldn’t link all my gear! Big thanks ! Here are some pics of my setup! Big thank you
Now my question, which is the smallest, best mixer actually on the market that can be easily moved with all the necessary input and output ?
And if I buy a Digitakt, how would I link it ? I probablybuy one soon because it looks so sexy and I want to sample on the fly, I love my blackbox but it’s sometimes too much for me to just ssmple…
And I want to triggee my ditto with my blackbox in order to create perfect 4 bars or more loops, kind of doing a pre blank loop in order to be sure to have the good lenght whenI loop my guitar
Hard to say, depends on how many ins and outs you need. Which instruments do you want to connect to it at the same time? Then in terms of AUX sends, personally I try to have as many as possible of those
I’m not sure about compact mixers, maybe someone can chime in on that. I have an Allen & Heath ZED14 which is nice but definitely not all that compact. A Mackie 1604 VLZ4 (or VLZ3 or 2 used) is also a powerhouse, but also not exactly compact.
In regard to the Digitakt, is it supposed to replace or complement your Blackbox? I love the DT, it’s quite an awesome device, really great groovebox. The way to hook it up in terms of audio would be the same as any other instruments. It’s stereo outs into your mixer. Then send an aux send to one of its inputs (note: the DT doesn’t sample in stereo, only mono, so feeding it a mono signal is good enough).
In terms of midi, with what you want to achieve now, your Blackbox would be the Master device and the Ditto would be Slave to it. So you go MIDI OUT from your Blackbox to the MIDI IN of your Ditto. I’m not sure if you have to change any settings in the Blackbox to “Send Clock”, you need to look inside its settings (if it has a settings page). The Ditto will then sync to the midi clock of your Blackbox.
If you want to sync up your MicroKorg as well, you’d go MIDI THROUGH from your Ditto to the MIDI IN of your MicroKorg.
If you were to get a Digitakt, you could use one of its midi tracks to control the Ditto’s functionality from your Digitakt. I’m not sure if the Blackbox can do that as well.
Thank you ! I really appreciate the help,
And regarding Mixer, what do you think about the Universal audio apollo x4? Is it only to use via usb to computer or is it standalone?
First off your are talking about AU appolo x4 wright ?
Because that’s thunderbolt 3 not usb, or are you talking about another(perhaps older) model
And yes it can work alone without a pc, but I wouldn’t recommend that.
Also the UA Apollo x4 isn’t cheap either, for that amount of money you can buy a decent mixer who will fulfil your requirements .
If money allows I will look for a decent mixer one with groups out( other names are sub outs or alt outs etc) and min two fx sends and iff available with direct outputs
All that combined with a patch bay and I know that you wrote “looks something like… and will try to avoid it”.
It will exactly makes it al a bit easier.
I know in the beginning it can look and is a bit overwhelming but belief me it makes studio live soo soo soo much easier
To be honest that’s a bit contradictory with what you need it will be hard to find something compact
I’m not saying there isn’t anything that’s compact and will fit your needs but you limit your available choices
I hoped it makes sense what im trying to explain here
A Mackie 1642 VLZ3 can be had for 200-250€ used online and fulfills all of those requirements! Maybe not so compact, but @Kenneth is right, you will not find something truly compact with that feature set.
The UAD Apollo devices are great and do work standalone, but you have to set them up with a computer first & there are hardly any controls on the device itself to change routing / send fx / etc. I own an Apollo 8 and that’s one of the reasons why I eventually got a mixer, ‘cause the only way to do with the Apollo what I can do with the mixer is to use a computer and its mouse (mouse because: UAD doesn’t allow for the UAD Console to be midi mapped, so that’s another bummer).
exactly and a great mixer, and fulfills your requirements
But personally for me I do not like working on mixers with 60 mm faders, but if compact is an important issue(which is for theTS) that’s the way to go