Rearranging the Studio

A lot has happened since 2010 and exiting the motor home. Project studios take time to hand-craft and make your workflow. After moving three times [since the RV] my workflow has really been compromised. Landing here in the mountains has been a blessing. It is great to have an improved dedicated space to set up my gear and hand-craft my new workflow here.

I'm rearranging how I do things. When technology changes it can be both good and bad. In my case it's both. In 2007 I bought into Yamaha's mLAN and 01X. This hardware took me over two years to learn how to use. By the time I became fluent with the digital mixer, mLAN drivers had already become incompatible with both MacOSX and Windows. In order to keep using 01X I elected to stay with MacOSX 10.6 and Logic Studio.

2010 was the, "Year of the iPad". Now everything has changed! iOS audio recording became an easy, intuitive, way to capture and process audio. Additionally, there is a plethora of iOS synthesizers, virtual instruments and effects. Enhancing this creativity are class compliant (CC) USB and HUI control devices which make controlling the software easy.



Now the issue is, "integrating" my legacy hardware to be useful with the new iOS technology. In order to accomplish this, a Class Compliant USB audio interface is necessary. I chose to use the Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 which is a eighteen (18) channel input and eight (8) channels output, MIDI IN/OUT, S/PDIF and ADAT.
Connections are:

Yamaha MOTIF XS6, MOXF8, Korg i3 and VoiceLive 2 all connect to AW4416 INputs. These signals can be routed to the four (4) OMNI OUT to the Focusrite 18i8 XLR INputs OR they can be routed to four (4) of the eight (8) channels of ADAT OUT to the 18i8 ADAT INputs.

This enables all of my hardware to be included in my audio and MIDI setup while enjoying the convenience of having both FireWire 01X and Class Compliant USB audio interfaces that can be used with both my MacBook to Logic OR directly to my iPad using Auria.

This is a significant improvement to my workflow and doesn't kick any of my gear to the curb simply because it's old or there are no drivers available. Instead, this maximizes all of my gear and makes the recording process much easier as well.

With this new arrangement of audio, MIDI and control surface routing I can:

• directly to iPad via Class Compliant USB audio interface with Auria, Cubasis and Garageband on iPad3 and having total compatibility with Core Audio iOS apps
• to Logic and Cubase using 01X mLAN digital mixer
• to Logic and Cubase using MOTIF XS via mLAN and peer-to-peer FireWire
• to Cubase and Logic using MOXF with USB HOST
• to iOS iPad Core Audio apps using MOXF with USB DEVICE Yamaha i-MX1 MIDI

It is my intention and hope, to power up my project studio by March and get back to recording my tracks. Nearly three (3) years ago I left the studio with three (3) songs done and scrapped one (1) of them since finding better ways to achieve things. 2014 is going to be a very musically, exciting, banner year for me!

HHNET