I’ve managed to use the jog wheel to move up to 8 parameters at once in Traktor Pro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXODK_Be-ho

actually, by using one extra key from either the keyboard or another MIDI control as a modifier, you can roll up to 8 pages, giving you the possibility to control every single parameter from this unit!

Nevertheless we grew accustomed to using the word “professional” in a sense synonymous with “elite” and “top notch”, implying in the back of our minds the multimillion studios of Hollywood, Nashville, New York, and England, such as Gower or Abbey Road. Yes, they have the best fascilities, the best gear, and most of all knowledge and talent.

But even if you have their knowledge and talent, isn’t it absurd, or at least childish to expect to get the same results/quality with an “all-in-one” box? Especially when the price of that box would hardly buy you a dozen patchcords at those same studios (mogami, monster, etc). Like mama always said, you’ll get what you pay for. Preamps, converters, interfaces, mixers – at those studios these are usually separate dedicated units, each well into the thousands $range, which can be configured with any other gear to have a specific setup which will allow the creation of any signature “type of sound”, or to create a new one – where here we have all those things reduced into one little brick for about the price of a decent stereo. Yeah, it will do “well”, and will probably sound clean and all – but it’s something you’re stuck with – and you’ll sound like every other owner of the same brick.

People think that since it’s digital, it allows the little box to do the same things as the bigger boxes, which fits perfectly well with their (consumer) logic and experience of things getting smaller – cell pnones, mp3 players, flat tv’s, etc.

A true audio pro knows that the only way to get a “good” preamp is to up the voltage. The higher the voltage, the better the preamp, as it gives you a much higher representational scale, naturally allowing a cleaner amplifying or “zooming in” of the microscopic mic voltages, while at the same time having the tendency (natural phenomenon of analog gear) to excite (introduce artifacts by overdriving)the frequencies that please our brains most. These are the artifacts that people don’t complain about, and actually seek – the “warmth”! A whole industry has been “re-born”, catering to seekers of this “warm” sound, but again, more often then not with artificial or half-there means (down to the absurd “tube” software plugins)! Yeah, you can digitally ‘control’ an analog circuit, but you can NOT digitally ‘recreate’ one.

Anyways, not to ramble off topic too much, BEWARE USB INTERFACES THAT DON”T HAVE A SEPARATE POWER SUPPLY!!!!!!!!! These marketing claims for USB powered interfaces having “pristine preamps” are a bunch of horse maneur! Or when they say something like “uses same A/D/A converter chips as…” some high-end piece/brand – again beware. Just think about it – does having one great big iron link in a chain otherwise made of crappy pot-metal give you any more strength? Of course not. In fact just ONE crappy link would reduce the tensile strenght of the whole chain! And you know that that’s exactly what any studio is – a signal CHAIN! Everything that the sound will go THRU – MUST be high-grade, if you want that sound. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see any USB devices doing that.

That’s why any pro-studio will use FireWire or better connections, such as MADI, Optical, D-sub, etc – NOT USB. And as a general rule of thumb, those pieces will have an external power supply, unless it’s not a part of any signal chain.

I am now ditching (selling off) all my stuff in favor of one RME unit, which will be either the FireFace 800, or their equivalent PCI unit, depending on where I will get lower latency and better flexibility (still researching).
I’m done screwing around with half-a$$ed gear, which “allows” you to record “up to 96k or 192k/24bit” – yeah, maybe a track or two @ that format, but it’s farting and bursting at the seams while doing that – cause that’s the most it can do.

My BOTTOM LINE is – i’m sick of consumer oriented hardware – they’re just toys with “high specs”, but nevertheless toys. They will entertain you and allow you to feel like you’re creating music “professionally”. But that’s not quite the case. (Although ironically, a “professional” is simply one who gets paid for what he does – thus making it his “profession”. This speaks little of the actual quality of his work.)

thanx
martin

lacks digital i/o
only stereo
due to latency is not suitable for live and realtime softsynthy performances

As far as I can tell Audio Kontrol 1 is not multi client compatible?
That is, only one application can use it for audio output?
There is no virtual mixer.
Can someone confirm this?

I’m looking for a new soundcard to replace my RME RPM, and I’m 1 click away from getting Audio Kontrol 1, but it just occurred to me it might not work for me…

I’m using Ableton and Traktor at the same time. The RME card allowed me to use up to 6 applications simultaneously outputting to the same physical audio outputs.
I will not be able to do that with the Audio Kontrol 1, will I?

can someone please confirm?

looks sexy and I like Line6. am using Guitarport and it’s so easy to use because of plug-and-play (USB). I like that.