How I spent my weekend (was favorite rack gear)

[mark sottilaro <zerocrossing2001@yahoo.com>]

> I've seen people use the SPDIF I/O ports on their
audio interfaces to      > connect their Lexicon 

This is exactly what I tried and I found it to work
perfectly without any noticable latency and no CPU
load to speak of.

I compared a lot of demo multieffects to the MPX-1 and
IMO, they often do more interesting things (more
easily) but not really better sounding effects.  There
was a lushness and sparkle in the Lexicon that seems
hard to emulate. Rich.  Since I'm not recording a band
live, it's not that important for me to have a bunch
of effects running at once so the MPX and some
creative bussing will probably do fine and anything
extra can be done in software that I already own. 

Not that some of the software out there isn't great. 
But when it came down to it I felt that by the time I
sold my MPX-1 (would probably fetch about $400 on
ebay) I probably would just about have enough to get
software that replaced it.  Why bother?  Different
isn't always better.  I'm going to spend time working
with a software editor to get my patches all nice,
like I like 'em.  That's my one major complaint with
the MPX-1.  It's interface blows.

So here's what I've figured out (I think I've come to
similar conclusions to Per's):

The dream of going pure laptop will not happen for me.
 Doesn't matter though, as my guitar effects processor
is on the floor and not much bigger than a MIDI
controller I'd need to control software anyway.

My secondary processor (Boss VH-1) is small enough to
be a non-issue and really good.

Any other additional audio processing done by my
laptop doesn't need to be the quality of an MPX-1 for
live situations and there's a ton of free stuff out
there that sounds pretty damn good and is amazingly
cool and interesting.  Will the people who are
listening to my mp3 tracks on $30 computer speakers
notice that I'm using Live's reverb?  The people in
the concrete floor boomy club/cafe notice the
difference over the sound of the milk steamer?

What's not free is often near free like CamelPhat and
Ugo's Tunguska and Metallurgy.  If you're a laptop
looper make sure you check these out.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

Mark



 
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