Enjoy your API Box videos! I have all the jacks from 1-8 go out to my patch bay so its pretty simple to deploy the 500 slot wherever I want without disrupting the channel. If you use the 500 slot from the channel, in order to not disrupt the channel you are taking it from, you MUST patch from Pre Out to Insert Return.
Thanks for commenting. right, that kind of defeats the purpose for me. It becomes a lot of patching and extra cable/connectors - and then you're stuck dealing with it that way every time. If they had put a bypass switch then it would've been nice to have the flexibility, But if I have to commit to one way or the other, I'd rather not go through the patchbay and just treat it like any other mixers EQ. I do think there's a sonic advantage to having it in the channel.
Thank you very much for fulfilling my request of how your Box is patched. It's a bit over my head and I'm learning as I go but your video is very informative. TT patchbays are expensive so I'm holding off on making any rash purchases until I can figure out how I want everything routed. So far I've got the basics of the Box DB25 direct outs going into my Apollo 8 so that should hold me for now. Time to figure out the Insert side of things... Thanks!
Remember that part of the reason for the cost is that a TT patch pay holds twice as many patches :). The Redco bays at $500 each for 96 points is the best bang for the buck. And as long as you stick with short molded cables, you can get mogami TT patch cables for $10 each (Vintage King). they'll last forever.
Thanks for all these videos on the box. Much better than the shitty API, NAMM, or Sweetwater marketing videos for understanding how you can actually set it up and use it. I'm expecting delivery of mine this week and your videos really helped me choose to buy the console over a Neve 5060 setup. Thought I'd point out since you said nobody ever uses the 500 slot outside of the input channels that I plan on routing it full-normal to my patchbay. I've only got 16x16 IO from a Symphony MKII so my record and sum sides will remain fairly separate. I anticipate wanting to use some of the EQs and other modules that'll wind up in those slots as inserts on summing channels.
Hello, and thanks for the video, super informative. Having recently purchased a box I have a quick question for you if you are willing. I couldn’t help but notice that on the summing side when the zero DB buttons are not engaged I need to skew the faders by as much as 2 1/2 DB sometimes to have an even signal coming back on the two bus. Just curious if you experience this. API said it’s just the tolerances of the faders, but I was surprised it was off by so much. Other than that curiosity I am really enjoying the console. Thanks in advance for your help!
I had not noticed this. I'm pretty sure at some point I ran tones through it and checked the calibration but you know I just kind of put the fader where it sounds good lol. Just to make sure, all your pan pots are straight up center when you're doing that measurement, right? Another interesting thing to note is whether that skew follows the entire track of the faders . start them on Infinite and then put them all at 24,12, 3 etc. Also check with different sine waves. Start with 1 kHz try 100 try 10,000. it would be interesting to really localize where the issues coming from. 👍
Thanks so much for the quick reply! Totally! at the end of the day whatever sounds good is good! I was just surprised by how off some of the channels are when 0 db switch is not engaged. When running a sine wave through, pan pots at zero, I would say they are all within about 2.5 DB of each other so I guess that’s not too bad. They do all start to even out once the faders get to around the +6 range, but the difference is pretty linear before that. Once again, I appreciate your input!
Thanks so much for these videos! I just got mine and I'm having trouble figuring out some basic things so forgive me for this newbie question but what are the actual outputs from the console that you are sending to inputs 31 & 32 on your interface to print your mixes? And then what are the inputs that you use to monitor what is coming back from the computer? Thanks!
there are PGM OUT L/R jacks on the back of the console. i bought xlr to TT cables so i can patch them to any input on the interface i want. These days i send them to 29/30 (API to Converter) and then i patch convert outputs 31/32 to one of the 2 track inputs (I use D). so when I'm mixing, monitoring is set to 2 track D. and my mix bus in the DAW is set to 31/32. i have to keep the track that the mix is recording to in input mode. Thats the only track sending to the mix bus in the daw.
Ok, thank you! I plan on going out the PGM OUT L/R Directly into my interface. Why might it be better to go into the patch bay? I figured out how to have two outputs from interface to go into the 2-track for monitoring so thanks for that.
…also this may be a DAW specific question (I use Logic) but how do I place a plugin on the track that is printing the mix back to the DAW so that I can monitor what the plug in is doing while printing (or before). I must be missing some very basic concept here. Thank you!
It's pretty convoluted in logic. you have the API output Feed 2 inputs on the interface. Bring that up on a stereo track. Send the track to a bus. then open another stereo track and make the input of that track the bus from the other one. and make sure that's the only one going to your monitor outputs. brianli.com/how-to-print-effects-to-audio-files-in-logic-pro-x/ Nuendo (my daw) has dedicated input channels already so it's a lot easier.
Thanks for these videos! Just ordered mine from Sweetwater. Unfortunately they don’t expect it in til mid April. Guess I’m a great client to my sales rep cuz they do have it at Vintage King lol. Anyway I appreciate all the technical information.
very interesting video! im trying to do a faux console setup with neve summer and going to use some tt patch bay wizardry to make normaled 'inserts'. then i can steal the gear when tracking as well!
