Thoughts on the Focusrite Liquid Mix

DrTroutHair · Post by **DrTroutHair** » Thu May 22, 2008 9:49 pm

How do folks.
I'm thinking of indulging in the Liquid Mix.
I'm looking for your thoughts on how the compressors and EQ onboard the liquid Mix compare to those onboard Ableton 7. Can I expect a significant improvement?
Another issue is daisy chaining. I use a Macbook Pro which has one Firewire 400 and a Firewire 800. Currently I use the 400 for a MOTU Ultralite. The Luiquid Mix also requires the 400 port. Everything I read on the Liquid Mix suggests that daisy chaining onto one Firewire port causes glitches under significant usage.
What I intend to do is use a Firewire 800 to 400 adapter to give the two 400's I need.
Everything I read on Firewire suggests that 800's are back compatible with 400's.

Has anyone (1) used the Lquid Mix with Ableton 7 and (2) used a Firewire 800 as a 400?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

GUY SMILEY · Post by **GUY SMILEY** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:03 am

well i bought one and loved it.
think about it less as an accurate emulation and more as a compressor and eq with loads of options.
In other words if you love messing about with a drum loop and compressors and eq's to see what you can do then the liquid mix is great.
I've heard the UAD cards are slightly better -- but having never used them can't comment.

BUT Do not think you will get away with daisy chaining. I have a liquid mix and a motu traveller and they would not play nicely together on the same bus. I had to get a PCMCIA expansion card with 2 extra firewire ports.
AND if you get an expansion card make sure that it is a texas instrument chip.
see this article..
http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/article.php?id=186

roach808 · Post by **roach808** » Fri May 23, 2008 7:05 am

I've always been a big fan of my liquid mix. As for the emulations, some of them are very good and some of them are so/so. As for the firewire issue, i found a nice little firewire 400 to 800 turn-around so i can keep my liquid mix on a different port other then my motu 828.

fishmonkey · Post by **fishmonkey** » Fri May 23, 2008 9:36 am

by the way, although you've got firewire 400/800 ports on a MacBook Pro, they share the same firewire bus... so if you've got a 400 and 800 device plugged in the 800 device will be forced to operate at 400...

another option is to get an ExpressCard/34 firewire card, then you can have the best of both worlds...

Namihei · Post by **Namihei** » Sat May 24, 2008 1:57 pm

I love my LiquidMix.EQ is great. compressor is OK.
I use with a ultralite and a powercore compact on a macbook.
no problem.

I'm trying to make a GUI wrapper
http://music.geocities.jp/icontrolit57/