tribalogical wrote:hey rahlo,
I've been reading about the Ozonic, and thinking to pick one up. I touched one at a local dealer, but it wasn't powered or hooked up to anything yet (just arrived)...
currently I'm using an Edirol PCR-M30 + M-Audio FW410 together with a powerbook 1.25Ghz. That's ok but for two things... I end up with an extra wall-wart with the pcr30, and the FW410 latency isn't very good at all..... I'm ready to dump it... I really like the layout of the 410, just can't handle its poor driver quality....
if you're getting 4ms (I assume that's one way, right? In Live, total latency is = to in + out) that's pretty good. Better than I'm getting with the 410.... Best I've been stable at is about 10ms one way... any less and the cpu goes either way too high or the crackling starts (usually both).... granted, that's probably with more channels active than the Ozonic has in total, but still, not entirely acceptable...
How is the cpu holding up when you're running at 256 samples / 4ms? And how is the overall sound/convertor quality?
One more question (someone else asked this too I think): When I use the 410, I can set the Cue Out in Live so that my cuing only hits the headphones, but not the main outs... once I've set up the routing, it's 'hands-free'.. is this still the case with the Ozonic? Or do you have to physically shift between the A/B streams to hear the cue mix through headphones?
I must say the keyboard and knobs/sliders felt pretty good when I checked it out..... surprisingly solid for an M-Audio controller. The keyboard was a tad "clattery", but I think all the smaller keyboards are...
Sorry about all the questions! I'm poised to pick one up and haven't found anyone else yet who's using it!
peace,
tribalogical
Whaddup tribalogical? How're things over in Japan? Dood, you are so fortunate. I've been there once, and have been dying to get back!
Anyway, the Ozonic's routing: Once you set it up, it's hands free, though I haven't used it that way yet. I can see it in the routing and in the outputs though that you can totally use it the way you describe--routing the headphones to a seperate output from the main outs. Most of the shows I do these days are solo, so I don't have a need for a seperate heaphone output. But, i just hooked up with a cat who's djing for me and he's using Live, and this week is our first set of shows together. He hasn't set up Live yet as you describe b/c he's basically doing my solo set. But, we're migrating slowly over to him doing more improvising while I rap, so gimme a week or two, and I can speak more credibly to this feature.
As for the latency, let me check it again at tonight's sound check. I'd been using a motu 828 mk2 before this, and I just set the ozonic to the same latency settings I was using with 828. I'll do a little more extensive test at tonight's sound check, and report back some solid info.
Also, when I said I'd done some vocal tracking at lower latencies, I was referring to the 828--I should've been more clear on that. Sorry about that man. Vocals wise, I've routed my vocal mic into the Ozonic, monitored it in Live, and applied fx to the vocal. It sounded great.
So far, I have no complaints about the sound of it. It sounds as good to my ears as the 828 does. It's easy to set up, and seems to be stable. It's driver is a little finicky sometimes though. If I start Live up before plugging the Ozonic into the firewire port, sometimes Live won't pick it up when I go to the prefs to select it. I have to put the powerbook to sleep, connect the Ozonic, start Live, then everything is everything. It's not a big deal now that I know that's the case, but I wasn't real thrilled with how intermittent it seemed to be working before.
As for the solidness of the build, it seems no worse than the Oxygen 8 to me, and that thing has been sooo solid for me. In fact, like you said, the build quality of the Ozonic may be a bit better--especially the feel of the keys.
The one cable bus powered thing is what sold me, b/c it reduces the amount of stuff i have to bring on the road. I'm selling one of my 828's, and possibly one of my Oxygen 8's because I'm mostly using this unit now. It's much more immediate for me if I wanna record a scratch vocal or something like that.
I reccommend it, but keep in mind that I've only had it now for about 2 weeks, and the way I use it to this point isn't very taxing on the cpu. It may behave differently under different circumstances.
I'll hit you back when I have more info.