Need help understanding what I need

Discussions about the use and operation of SAC (Software Audio Console)

Need help understanding what I need

Postby Koopdaddy » Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:37 pm

Hi,

I am new to SAC and I am trying to figure out if this is a viable option for an installed system in my Church. We are looking for a 32 input x 16 output digital snake and mixing solution. We also need compressors/gates, re-verb, and eq processing.

I understand with sac we need a pc. I also know we would need an interface and some mic pre's. What I am not understanding is this:
1. How do I route my sends (aux and monitor feeds)? If the mic pres are used for the inputs, where do the outputs get routed?
2. Does SAC include FX processing (compressor, gates, eq, re-verb, etc) or do I still need to patch in outboard processors? If so where do they patch in?
3. What is the interface between components and the computer? If i have the mic pres on stage is it a cat5 connection back to FOH?

I apologize if this is basic, but I am just not understanding the signal path for this. Trying to figure out how much I need in order to properly budget it.

Based on what I have read and has been suggested to me by others am I headed in the right direction with this:

MOTU 2408mk3 Interface x 2
Focusrite OptePre MkII Dymanic x 4
FocusRite Saffire Pro 40 x 2
Wireless Router x 1
Desktop Computer or Laptop
Equipment Rack
SAC SOftware

What am I missing or not doing right?

Do I have to use SAW to do multichannel recording with SAC? Or can I use any DAW (reaper, protools, etc)? Does it require a separate computer to record?

Looking forward to any help you can provide me.

I hope that made sense and please correct me if I am misunderstanding something.
Jared
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby mattseymour » Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:53 am

SAC is a fully featured digital mix engine. You get EQ, gate and compressor on every channel and you can insert VSTs or saw studio plugins on channels or main outs or groups as you require. For most people this would cover anything you might previously have done with external processing. It's unlikely you will need any however you can use it if you like.

What you need for a basic system is a host computer and a quality audio interface with sufficient i/o for your requirements. I would avoid trying to use a laptop for sac. Firewire or USB audio interfaces can work, but you need to get the right one, the right laptop and probably run at slightly higher latency. Using a desktop board, you can build your own rackmount setup as I've done, is a much better way forward for reliability. My tried and tested system uses a Clarkdale i3 CPU on an MSI mainboard, I'm just building a new host for our church using a sandybridge i3 on a gigabyte board - seems ok so far. Optimising the computer is important. It needs to be doing nothing other than audio. Don't have it connected to the internet and make sure you follow Bob's advice for setting up windows. Turn off every service you don't need and you should end up with a good reliable system.

You've listed the motu 2408, that's what I use, and many others here, it's a good option as it gives you 24 channels of i/o, 8 of which can be analogue. So two 2408s will allow you to connect 32 channels of adat, and have another 16 channels of line level analogue as well, which is handy. The motu system uses a single PCI or PCIe card that can support up to four interfaces. You can mix and match the interfaces too, so if you needed a load of analogue io, you could add the 24io in the future. They're sold with and without the PCI card, so you need to make sure you get at least one card (called the 424) to connect the 2408s to your computer.

The Octopre MkII Dynamic offers 8 inputs, converted to adat and 8 outputs as well. So each of these units gives your analogue i/o from adat.

You've listed the saffire pro. Can't understand why you would want these. My experience of Focusrite's audio interfaces is they're hopeless for low latency use. Besides, you've got the Motu for your audio interface.

If you want to link from stage to foh using ethernet you've got two basic choices. You could build a mixrack - host computer and all audio i/o on the stage and then a cat5 cable to foh where you have a second PC running SAC remote. This is a good, cheap solution if you don't need to put audio in from foh. If you do... you could run a couple of audio cables, or a few folk run line level through baluns down a piece of cat5 which can work well.

Your other option is to use one of the adat extenders. I've got on of the apps units which converts up to four adat interfaces (one direction only) and carries it up to 100m over cat5. You would need the 64 channel version probably, which uses two cat5 runs. With this solution you can put the host at foh, you get 16 channels analogue i/o on your Motus for cd/video audio/etc playback and all your mic pres live on the stage where you'd have 32 inputs and 32 outputs as well if you wanted.

There are other alternatives to the appsys.ch units, but what I like about these is their simplicity. Particularly for an install they're a good option. They don't use ethernet, but I wouldn't want to try and run the audio through a building's network infrastructure anyway, much better to use dedicated cabling.

With the Motus you can use any DAW for recording. I use Reaper on the host computer, no problems. I connect an external USB HD for recording.

All make sense?
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby mattseymour » Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:05 am

What I should add is... Whether SAC is right for your church depends on a few things. How much money do you have to spend, how many volunteers do you have who might find it scary, how many volunteers do you have who would love it, do you have people who are good at looking after computers?

We've gone/going with SAC partly because there's absolutely no money at all for the project so I'm scraping bits together from bits of budget here and there, but mainly because it sounds great. I've done tests with it a few times and received numerous complements on the sound each time. It will give us more space, without the need for a large analogue desk, it will give us more flexibility as we use the room in different configurations and I can personally fully maintain it.

However there are a few interesting things happening in the industry. The Behringer X32 is coming soon... I've no idea if it's any good, but it's cheap and offers a great deal and A&H iLive have got considerably more affordable (although still a significant investment).

For example your proposed install (buying new in uk prices) would cost over £4k. You get flexibility and excellent preamps. It will sound great. The X32 is supposed to be released at £2500. No word on what the stage boxes will cost yet, but I suspect the prices would be comparable.
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby WurstWerner » Sun Jul 01, 2012 4:19 am

Sorry for OT
Concerning the X32...I wrote some details about it here-->
http://soundforums.net/junior-varsity/4 ... ssion.html
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby mattseymour » Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:08 pm

Good link, well worth a read. The X32 looks like an excellent product. I'd personally never buy one because I'm just not swallowing Uli's "we build stuff well now". But it's a very capable console and you would do well to at least consider it.
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby tubetonez » Sun Jul 01, 2012 1:27 pm

Koopdaddy wrote:1. How do I route my sends (aux and monitor feeds)? If the mic pres are used for the inputs, where do the outputs get routed?
The "pres" are A/DA, usually with 8 in and 8 out.
Koopdaddy wrote:2. Does SAC include FX processing (compressor, gates, eq, re-verb, etc) or do I still need to patch in outboard processors? If so where do they patch in?

Answered in previous post, eq comp & gate on every channel built in with the capability of using other VST, DXi, or native plugins.
Koopdaddy wrote:3. What is the interface between components and the computer? If i have the mic pres on stage is it a cat5 connection back to FOH?

The usual method is to keep the "host" computer system on or near the stage. SAC includes network protocol to allow use of it's free remote app, which you can run at FOH mix position over TCP/IP Ethernet either WiFi or wired. Remote computers (up to 28 max) can be assigned "rights", so you could have one or more setup to allow only access to Monitor mix.
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby soundguy » Sun Jul 01, 2012 1:46 pm

Koopdaddy wrote:I am new to SAC and I am trying to figure out if this is a viable option for an installed system in my Church. We are looking for a 32 input x 16 output digital snake and mixing solution. We also need compressors/gates, re-verb, and eq processing.

============

What am I missing or not doing right?


SAC seems to do well in the church settings. Once you have it up and running, there is usually little change in the "set-up", so it should continue to run smoothly.

You didn't mention if you had already purchased a SAC license, or are experiementing with the demo. If it's the latter, you may want to consider the recent changes in customer support and the hints given by the developer that he may choose to no longer support the product at all. His "last post" to his user base is listed elsewhere on this forum.

Another good resource of tech support was the original forum which he had taken down due to what he calls numerous "negative" postings from his users. Regardless of that recent issue, the extensive documentaion of user problems and how and if they were solved are no longer available to the public. Although the developer says he will continue to provide personal support via email and telephone, the varied tech support contributions from his experienced users have been removed.

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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby shmick » Sun Jul 01, 2012 2:34 pm

The current forum still shows:

"Tech support questions can be answered by phone or email using the contact information found on the SAWStudio and SAC websites."

While I haven't had to call Bob for support, many have and are usually quite happy with the result. It would appear that you can still call for support, as well ask questions in this forum, so I wouldn't be too concerned with support, to be honest.

If you run into problems, ask here and/or call Bob. Most of us here are more than willing to try and and help solve problems.
Host: ASUS P5Q SE/R, Intel E8400 O/C'd to 3.8ghz, 3 x RME HDSP 9652, XP Pro
Gear: 9 x ADA8K, 4 x Audiorails, 1 x BCF2000
Config: FOH + 12 stereo IEM mixes
Misc: Dual Linkwitz-Riley plugin, Studio Levelizer, Studio Reverb, Frequency Analyzer, SAWStudioLite
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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby soundguy » Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:14 pm

As a potential new user who has been watching development, this is my concern ... in the developers own words:

Just thought I would warn you all that this thread is about to go... not because of anything one person said, but because it is completely irrelevant to what this forum is about.

I am not asking for consultants on how to run my business or design my software.
=====edit=======
... you must learn how to build it, or pay someone else to build it, and you must invest some effort in learning how to work it... it is different from everything else the industry currently offers... look at that as a good thing... If this concept is not acceptable for any reason, you should not get involved... period.

This venture will continue until I can no longer find those that support it... then I will make my living some other way.


A day or two later ... after a couple more feature requests or bug fix requests, he took the forum down, and along with it, years of user input and documentation of problem solving. That search of legitimate problems and their solutions (or lack of solutions) is no longer available. Much of it was hardware specific for those considering different hardware choices.

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Re: Need help understanding what I need

Postby Administrator » Sun Jul 01, 2012 3:25 pm

And with it, the ability to notify us of version updates and bug fixes.
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