Fenestration

[tea for two]

In the review of the Volt interfaces in the current issue we are "Told there is an ASIO driver" but no clue is given as to how well this works.

I need to know how the Volt interfaces behave (or not!) on W10 especially their latency performance before i part with any ill-gottens!

Dave.

Here you go Dave.

https://m.youtube.com/c/JulianKrause/videos

Julian Krause's Windows review of UAD Volt 276 and Volt 2. With graphs, measurements, explanations.

::

Dear SOS I think you should consider requesting Julian Krause to review audio gear for SOS.

Julian is as thorough as Hugh.

Julian has to purchase audio gear to test.
Julian can only afford upto £400 gear to test.

It would be wonderful for Julian and SOS, to able to test the high end gear sent to SOS.

Why would SOS want to duplicate Julian's tests when they are freely available online?

I also think there are legal problems with purchasing gear and publishing reviews?

Dave.

Dave FUTURE reviews DUH! Not duplicating already exsiting reviews.

Also as I made clear Julian has to purchase gear to review it.
SoS gets gear sent to review. Thus it would be wonderful for Julian to review gear sent to SoS on behalf of SoS magazine.

Jeeez Maaan hold your horses before in jumping willy nilly.

[ef37a]

In the review of the Volt interfaces in the current issue we are "Told there is an ASIO driver" but no clue is given as to how well this works.

I need to know how the Volt interfaces behave (or not!) on W10 especially their latency performance before i part with any ill-gottens!

Dave.

Here you go Dave.

https://m.youtube.com/c/JulianKrause/videos

Julian Krause's Windows review of UAD Volt 276 and Volt 2. With graphs, measurements, explanations.

::

Dear SOS I think you should consider requesting Julian Krause to review audio gear for SOS.

Julian is as thorough as Hugh.

Julian has to purchase audio gear to test.
Julian can only afford upto £400 gear to test.

It would be wonderful for Julian and SOS, to able to test the high end gear sent to SOS.

Why would SOS want to duplicate Julian's tests when they are freely available online?

I also think there are legal problems with purchasing gear and publishing reviews?

Dave.

Dave FUTURE reviews DUH! Not duplicating already exsiting reviews.

Also as I made clear Julian has to purchase gear to review it.
SOS gets gear sent to review. Thus it would be wonderful for Julian to review gear sent to SOS on behalf of SOS magazine.

Jeeez Maaan hold your horses before in jumping willy nilly.

Sir, I no longer "jump" in any sense of the word and neither my "nilly' nor "willy" is any concern of yours!

So, would Julian write reviews for SoS instead of posting them online? Cannot see the point of both? Then, the fact that mnfctrs choose to send their gear in has implications. They are proud to show it. Many time there are requests from readers "Why have you not done a test of Assfaddle's latest Gobulator Galactica Mk ll ? Who knows? May it ain't as wonderful as the add peeps would have us believe? For me personally if SoS have not run a ruler over 'it' I don't buy it! I trust few others.

I am totally in favour of private persons doing reviews, long may it continue but IMO they should not be 'sucked up' by commercial interests. I trust the personnel at SoS implicitly but not all such platforms are so benign.

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

SOS gets gear sent to review.

Usually, but not always. Products thought to be significant have been purchased when a distributor or manufacturer were unwilling to supply a review unit. It's a rare event, for obvious reasons, but it has certainly happened and no doubt will continue to be an option.

[ef37a]

Oim bek!

I have waited a decent interval for peeps to have their holiday and, if I am honest, to see if anyone else picks up the cud'...I mean BATON!

I refer of course to Sam's review of the SSL Big Six mixer interface. Yes, we are pretty sure it will work splendidly on a mac but what the majority of readers surely want to know is how it performs in Windows?

Being SSL I dare say we can take it as read that driver stability and latency will be as good as modern practice allows but the B6 is such an important product that it would be nice to be sure.

If I can add to Sam's lists of "wants"? MIDI. It is an interface after all.

Forgot to add. A recent piece on BBC R4 showed that online 'reviews' are largely bogus. It seems people are pressured and even bribed to give five stars. So, good, independent places like SoS are Gold dust!

Dave.

[James Perrett]

Being SSL I dare say we can take it as read that driver stability and latency will be as good as modern practice allows but the B6 is such an important product that it would be nice to be sure.

With all these products from companies better known for the analogue gear, I would assume that the audio interface part is just a standard set of chips bought in from XMOS or similar and using their standard driver with a few fancy graphics on top.

https://www.xmos.ai/usb-multichannel-audio/

Good to see that they are a UK company based in Bristol.

[FrankF]

If I can add to Sam's lists of "wants"? MIDI. It is an interface after all.

Dave.

This both puzzles and irks me. (At last! I get to use the magnificent word that is IRK!)

Tascam actually REMOVED MIDI from their DP24 and DP32 multitrackers. Why? Do they pay some extortionate licence fee in order to have MIDI on their devices, and did the retooling involved not outweigh that cost?

I've just checked, and only the Tascam Model 12 has MIDI sockets, but not the 16 or the 24.
Toyah was right: it's a mystery.

[ef37a]

If I can add to Sam's lists of "wants"? MIDI. It is an interface after all.

Dave.

This both puzzles and irks me. (At last! I get to use the magnificent word that is IRK!)

Tascam actually REMOVED MIDI from their DP24 and DP32 multitrackers. Why? Do they pay some extortionate licence fee in order to have MIDI on their devices, and did the retooling involved not outweigh that cost?

I've just checked, and only the Tascam Model 12 has MIDI sockets, but not the 16 or the 24.
Toyah was right: it's a mystery.

I have no idea FrankF as to the cost of including MIDI but since it is fitted to some very low cost interfaces and other devices it cannot be a lot?
Of course, some interfaces have a very crowded rear panel and there is simply no room for two DINs but the 3.5mm jack has become tolerated if not gladly accepted. To add insult to injury you sometimes see a redundant RJ45 port "for future use" but no MIDI!

Dave.

[Drew Stephenson]

I suspect that the thinking might be that, once you hit more than a dozen channels of audio, then you're likely to be dealing with multiple midi inputs too and you just buy a separate midi interface as well.

[Sam Inglis]

If you put a MIDI socket on something like the BiG SiX everyone would assume that it was a fader controller...

[Mike Stranks]

Some of you may want to sit down for this...

Maybe various companies are coming to the conclusion that for many of the potential buyers of some of their products onboard MIDI isn't of any importance.

[ef37a]

Some of you may want to sit down for this...

Maybe various companies are coming to the conclusion that for many of the potential buyers of some of their products onboard MIDI isn't of any importance.

No surprise to me Mike! Many of the 'posher' AI companies have left MIDI off their products for years. This is precisely why I keep on keeping on about it!

The odd thing is, when one read The Synthersizer Time... I MEAN Sound on Sound there are many, many 'synth' type products and these are invariable festooned with MIDI DIN ports. Missing a trick there IMHO.

There was an article in the mag a while ago about 'super' MIDI which will almost certainly talk to the world via a USB C port...SURELY they can find room for one of those?

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Its capitalism in action, Dave.

If the manufacturers thought more people would buy more of their products if they had MIDI they'd fit MIDI.

And if people really wanted MIDI they'd only buy products with MIDI, and all those manufacturers not fitting MIDI would go bust.

But thats not happening because most people wanting MIDI choose 'better' alternative solutions.

[ef37a]

Its capitalism in action, Dave.

If the manufacturers thought more people would buy more of their products if they had MIDI they'd fit MIDI.

And if people really wanted MIDI they'd only buy products with MIDI, and all those manufacturers not fitting MIDI would go bust.

But thats not happening because most people wanting MIDI choose 'better' alternative solutions.

Well, I did not want to get political but "capitalism" is the cause of enormous waste. "Market forces" hardly ever gets it right. E.G. the present scarcity of LF tests.
Then, if your theory was valid Hugh you would expect the cheapest products to have the lowest incidence of DINs. Actually the reverse is the case.

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Actually, I'd expect most budget interfaces to have MIDI, and more expensive interfaces not to... which I think is broadly the case

[ef37a]

Actually, I'd expect most budget interfaces to have MIDI, and more expensive interfaces not to... which I think is broadly the case

Which is contrary to 'market forces'. But I would love to know why? RME seem to be about the only top chaps still fitting DIN ports or breakout skts.

Dave.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I imagine people in the market for larger,
expensive interfaces prefer external MIDI solutions as they are more likely to have elaborate system requirements.

People buying budget interfaces typically won't, and so on board MIDI would be more useful as a selling point.