RE: Audio Interface for Notebook Users

[improv@peak.org]

I've had an Echo Indigo i/o for 3 years, and until 2 weeks ago, it was
great. Low latency, surprsingly great sound, easy to use, reliable, etc.
On the first night of our current tour, it died on a gig, wouldn't power
up and Ableton wouldn't recognize it when plugged in. Very frustrating,
I've had to resort to using the built in soundcard, which is pretty high
latency and only OK sounding. This means ditching all the live VST
instrument stuff I've been doing, as well as the looping in Mobius/Live,
the latency is too high to make it work in time. I'm still able to trigger
pre-recorded loops in Live, I just have to compensate by hitting the
footswitch WAY ahead of the beat. Fortunately, our drummer is pretty good
at following loops, even when mis-triggered.


On a positive note, an email to Echo got an RA# from them, they will
attempt to repair it for free, which is very cool as it is way out of
warranty.

While I'm complaining about gear, one more whine. Why do gear makers make
effects that power up non-bypassed! We've had a couple of gigs where power
has been sketchy, several times my pedalboard has lost power in the middle
of sets. When it comes back on, both my evolver and Moogerfooger are in
active mode. Since I usually have a pretty high-gain distortion patch on
the evolver, it means my bass goes into total feedback before I can bypass
the evolver. Highly frustrating. After this trip, I plan to squeeze an
effects loop switcher/true bypass switch onto the pedalboard.

Tim Thompson wrote:

>Add my enthusiastic vote for the Echo Indigo line (2in/2out or 4out).
>Their drivers are solid and provide multiple independent virtual outputs
>with a mixer so that multiple applications can have their own outputs.
>
>    ...Tim...
>