Hi All,
This is going to be a longer post, so feel free to skip it, but I will be grateful for affirmations or the opposite anyone can give me.
I haven’t posted in a while, because life. In connection to this, I started to really appreciate my free time and decided that music gear and tinkering is on top of my priorities lists, but, since I don’t have a lot of time, I will try to keep to the funnest parts of it - which is tinkering with stuff and see what comes out. No patience to edit stuff extensively in the DAW and apply effects there with ever-changing complicated MIDI or hardware set-ups.
I think I finally found gear/software that I will definitely keep, and use primarily in my sanctuary:
- Digitakt 2 as the main box where everything gets sampled into, arranged and performed,
- Hydrasynth Explorer as my main hardware synth and MIDI controller,
- iPad as a sound an MIDI source,
- MacBook Pro as a sound, MIDI source and recorder,
- Bitwig and Overbridge as the software to record in, and post edit (with Bitwig),
- Steinberg UR824 as the mixer and audio interface for the iPad, it’s mixer part controlled from the official app on my iPad. This is where everything is nicely routed, so I can freely sample back and forth.
- MioXM for MIDI interface duties,
- MOTU M2 as my Mac interface.
This setup works very well for me. The MOTU M2 sounds good to my ears, and is extremely low latency, I get 3.2 MS at 48/128. I can use each part of this set-up on it’s own, or in any combination I want, leaving other things off, or switching them on whenever I want without any glitches.
What I am missing is a hands on effector unit to spice up my recordings before baking them, and I am heavily leaning towards Heat +FX. I had the Heat MK2 some time ago and am still kind of bummed I sold it, but to be honest I didn’t know how to properly integrate it back then - totally different set-up and needs. Also this one comes with a bunch of digital effects which will add instant variety to the end chain recording.
I would like to replace the MOTU M2 with Heat +FX as my main interface + the thing that I want for effects when sampling, end of chain recording and live performance.
Now here come the questions:
- How is the analog path latency? I understand the signal gets converted into digital and back to analog inside the Heat +FX. I also understand the tape warble effect introduces about 10 ms of latency. What about the other digital effects. Does latency apply even if you turn the tape warble off? Do you need to turn the whole digital block off to get rid of that latency? Does it completely eliminate latency if you turn the digital FX block off?
- How is the analog path noise floor (interface mode)? I would be sending things from device A, B, C to a mixer, then to the Heat, then back to the mixer and into the DT II for sampling. One of the things I like about this, is that you can use Overbridge trough USB completely and eliminate a lot of the noise introduced in the analog path for sampling purposes, which brings me to the next point,
- How low can you go with latency through Overbridge? For context, Digitakt II OVB playback is really good at 48/128 - adequate for me, which is around the same as my MOTU M2. My thinking is, playing software instruments in the Mac through the Heat + FX OVB plugin, then sending the signal to the mixer and then to the Digitakt. Worst case, if I need something clean, I presume I can send it through the Heat + FX plugin, back into the daw, and then sample through the OVB Digitakt II plugin, eliminating the analog path noise, but obviously introducing heaps of latency… how much are we talking about here?
- How is the sound quality? I remember on the Heat MK2, I was noticing quite a difference in clarity between it and my MOTU M2 at 48 kHz.
I really wish this would work out, as it seems like the perfect thing for my needs, just need a little push or a stop. So thanks to anyone who crawls through this text and finds time to reply.
TL;DR I want to use Heat +FX as a multi purpose toolbox including main audio interface for Mac, FX pedal, and an end of chain recording unit. How are latencies, noise floor (as interface) and sound clarity on it?