Interface, MPC2500 & Ableton/FL Studio

Instead of using hardware effects and compressors, I've decided I want to use some plugins that Im pretty happy with over the last year or so for effects. Now, I have switched over to the MPC 2500 and I love it. BEFORE i go buy an interface Im not going to be able to use, I wanted to ask around on these forums, because they're some pretty experienced folks around here. Here's what Im wanting to be able to do, is it possible?:

In realtime, run 8 different sounds (kicks on 1, snare on 2, etc. on the 2500 assignable mixouts) through a 8-in interface, running into a Daw such as Ableton or FL Studio, and link each of the 8 mixouts to their OWN channel inside Ableton, then use plugins in realtime to add reverb, compression, etc.)


I really love the ability to have at least 4 different FX on EACH channel, it really expands the workflow and makes everything a lot faster and smoother.

(I have no way to test this for myself, and I've read over the manuals and used the demos as well)

It is possible with the eight outputs, that's what most people do although not always in realtime.

Realtime or live use of FX plug-ins would require a suitably equipped and configured computer to avoid latency issues.

Whatever interface you have your eye on, the ASIO drivers will need to be rock solid which many are these days.

piece of cake,... as clint says, it depends on whether or not your pc can handle it.

what you could do is test what you already have,.... so if you have a 2 channel or 4 channel interface, try your idea out on that and see what kind of latency you're getting. then you'll know if your pc can handle 8 or not.

Thanks to both of you....My computer is pretty good i think, 2.8ghz and 8gb memory vista.

i've been running around 2-3+ plugins on about 8 channels in fruity studio so far, without any latency or lag issues, but that was with software strictly.

my big concern would be if i am able to link the 8 outs to 8 seperate channels inside my daw of choice (frruity studio/ableton) and use these plug ins live.

like hit play on the mpc, and then just go inside the daw and edit the effects for each sound while the sequence is playing


also, @clint246clint...how will i know if i have the best asio drivers? you mean just download the latest drivers?

Champloo wrote:my big concern would be if i am able to link the 8 outs to 8 seperate channels inside my daw of choice (frruity studio/ableton) and use these plug ins live...how will i know if i have the best asio drivers?

Yes, you can use seperate channels within your DAW of choice as I said earlier so stop worrying about that.

Most audio interface drivers use the ASIO protocol these days so make sure you download the latest drivers for your OS, just in case the CD-Rom that came with the interface has an old version of the driver.

Which interface are you interested in???

If you have a choice choose Firewire over USB, more audio bandwith equals less potential problems.

I been down this road and the latency is gonna eventually kill your plan homie, sorry to be the one to break it to you...

1. First, there's an overall latency, caused by your soundcard, and sending a signal into and out of your DAW. That's easy enough to overcome, since its a steady latency that affects all incoming signals equally. You just monitor EVERYTHING through the DAW. PITA, but not a showstopper.

HOWEVER... Because you have to monitor everything through the computer, this also means that when you tap a pad on the MPC, there's gonna be a delay before you hear it. That throws your timing off if you try to record or overdub on the MPC while monitoring through the plugin effects. And you can't just monitor the new track/overdub thru the MPC main outs, because then the rest of the sounds going thru the DAW will be delayed with respect to whatever is coming through the MPC main outs.

2. Here's the showstopper: The way that most DAWs handle live signals (signals coming in thru the soundcard and going back out) doesn't account for having several of them stay in time with one another. In other words, not only are all your tracks gonna be delayed by a certain amount (due to problem number one above), but each signal is gonna potentially be out of time with the others.

Why? Most plugins cause latency too, and most DAWs can't/don't account for that latency on live signals. The DAW assumes that the user wants to hear the effected live signal as soon as possible, so it won't delay the signal to match another effected live signal that's delayed even further due to having more plugin latency. DAWs account for this latency when they're processing recorded tracks (that's called plugin delay compensation or PDC), but most don't do the same for live signals. I know for a fact that ableton doesn't, not sure about FL.

To give a simple example, say all your plugins cause 1ms delay. If you put two plugins on one signal, and three plugins on another signal, they are now out of time with one another by 1ms. The only way around it is to manually compensate for the latency of each plugin (huge headache - plugin latency is not universally published, so you may have to go to the developer or various user forums to get that info), or exclusively use plugins that have zero latency.

-------------------------------------------------

Now all of this might sound like not too big a deal or something you could just get used to, but remember half the reason we're all on MPCs is because of the timing and the feel. Destroy the timing and feel -> destroy the experience...