Karaoke Forums

HEY! Thanks for the heads up!

I guess I had just kind of assumed since the VLZ series is getting up there in age that the preamps they used in the newer gear would be as good or better than.. well 10+ year old stuff.

Is there a similar sized board with built in USB interface you'd recommend?

Yeah just because it's old, don't mean it's not good!
If you really want to upgrade, look at the Allen & Heath ZED series for a mixer with USB.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I use the Zed 14.
It replaced a Mackie 1202 VLZ which I rated highly.
It was a good move.

I have never used the USB on it yet.

I also have Zed and I use USB all then time. The sound is crisp and good. I highly suggest you use it. It shows up as an audio device under Win7 and it works quite well.

_________________

Seize the day and SING!!!

Thing is I have a really nice EMU sound card.
Does the USB do anything other than deliver sound?
Not got round to reading the manual yet. Duh.

I have the Zed 14 and also use an Emu 1212m in my studio setup and the onboard usb audio card is very good for playback but won't come close to my Emu when it comes to mixing

The Zed is one of the best board out there if not the best for the price!

And to answer your question, yes the USB does more than just delivering the sound; You can do multitrack recording using the Cakewalk software that came with the mixer Keep in mind that you'll need to download Asio4All to avoid having latency problems

http://www.asio4all.com/

Emu has amazing sounding reverb. You can drop an entire rack of equipment if you have an Emu card.

If you have the 1212, upgrade to the 1820m breakout box.

OK, so I picked up the Native Instruments Audio 2 DJ. Previously, I've been also using a UCA202 like Mr. Scott and others here. Well let me tell you, the difference is amazing. I can't believe the sound quality of the NI. Listening to the same music I've played a million times is like listening to brand new music. I'm hearing things I've never heard before. I'm hearing instruments on the tracks that I didn't know were there. Wow! The headroom and clarity of this little unit is outstanding. There is no noise and this little unit rocks. I'm glad I made the jump.

Mr. Scott, remember when you made the move from your Behringer mixer to the Yamaha and you were able to tell a big difference? Well, if you are still using the UCA202, you're cutting yourself short. Upgrade to this NI box and I'm sure you'll be blown away using it with your Yamaha.

Lonnie, I want you to go out and buy the NI and compare the two. If you don't love it, and still think that the Alpha sounds better, then I will buy an Alpha, too. AND, I will make you a tee shirt that says (front) "Our Sound Is Powered By Lexicon" (back) "Alpha Rules"

I don't think the Alpha is better, it might have balanced output but the converters are not very good. It's a decent usb device that is of course better than an onboard audio chip but you can really find better for that price or just a little more. Mind you I haven't tested it or any other device but it's what I've been reading in many studio forum. Balanced outputs is not a must, good cables combined with a good D/A converter is the priority

And what would I gain by doing that? I would still be using the same audio card and I do have a good mixer with great mic preamps (Zed 14).

Well...

I'd start off by using the 4 aux sends on the Zed and send them to the inputs on the EMU, then back out to Zed.

That way you could route up to 4 EMU based effects per aux send. I would think things like Flanger, delay, and reverb would be at the top of my list.

With the remaining inputs, you could create a strip per input device (physical) set to pre-aux and have an emu strip per Zed input. This way each Zed strip could have it's own dedicated patchmix strip (and effects chain) that is separate from the aux send set of effects.

Your emu is a crazy powerful DSP effects processor and audio router, capable of giving effects to every device in your system. It just doesn't have enough inputs for you to tinker with right now.

I use a Presonus Firestudio Mobile. Not USB (it's firewire) but seems to give better sound than the Behringer Xenyx 1002FX mixer I had used for a number of years. It definitely has better playback sound than the creative A100 sound card in my computer.

_________________
Those who bring sunshine to others cannot keep it from themselves  
Snoopy

Yup. I'm very happy with mine as well.

Was able to borrow the NI this weekend and side by side it with the Alpha, in my basement there was little to no difference, as a matter of fact the Alpha had a little more gain and the NI seemed a little heavier on the bass, other than that, I didn't hear a dramatic difference (if any really) - definitely not as much as I heard from going to the Alpha from the headphone jack - even over the Behringer unit mentioned above (this really isn't a good unit, sounds ok, but so much better is out there). So given the choice, i'd still choose the $79 unit over the $100, plus it gives some other recording features that I use that cannot be achieved with the NI.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Lonnie, I'm glad you were able to check it out. I have a question about the Alpha. Can you simultaniously play and record? The Behringer let you do this with it's RCA input/output jacks. It worked beautifully with CompuHost for recording singers live.

[quote="Lonman @ Wed Oct 20, 2010 2:01 pm"][a little heavier on the bass/quote]

That's was one of the reasons I'm sold on the NI. My preference is to have too much bass available. With my PR15's and my 18" 500 watt powered sub, I normally have way too much for the venues I play, which I can then adjust for. Sometimes, an I'm amazed as well, people just want more and more bass; mostly for DJ and dancing of course. For me, it's easier to mix the bass outta the mix than to add bass to the mix when they want window rattling bass.

I like bass as well, I use 1400 watts alone on my sub. Again, it wasn't that much difference, just a slight bit more, where I needed to turn it back - comparison to a loudness switch on an old stereo system. Lower volume sounds good, turn it up and it needs to back off.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

For those in search of a good solidly build unit, you might want to consider this one:

http://tascam.com/product/us-100/overview/

http://www.zzounds.com/item--TASUS100

Not a 24 bit or balanced output but it's not required if you're only going to play your music I just got mine yesterday and tested it in my studio side by side with the onboard usb in my Zed 14 and let me tell you, it sounds incredible I even had a chance to test the phono input, still couldn't believe how good it sounded, I had fun transferring my vinyl's to digital

It's made of aluminum not plastic and it feels VERY solid, I strongly recommend