Looks like a good piece in terms of price/features. Seems a bit more together/integrated than the competition - digi002 and tascam.
mLan makes sense because its just a custom driver for firewire.
Overall I’m not sure- anyone use one here- or tried it?
nocents
I would do a lot of serious reading/research first as to the current stability of the 01X. A good place to start are the forums on http://www.01xray.com/home/index.html.
The 01X drivers were (are?) very problematic as discussed there.
Also do some Googling.
While I liked the fact that the 01X has onboard EQ, comes with some nice plugins and can be used as a full feature standalone mixer, its stability as a Firewire interface is questionable. Also, I did not like the fact that you can only mixdown 16 tracks at a time from the computer (at least that 's the way it was when I looked at it originally)
To make a long story short, I ended up getting a Tascam FW1884. I bought it from www.musiciansbuy.com for $1299.00 which included an decent large diaphram Chinese condensor mic and some ok headphones. I am very happy with this decision. The 1884 works quite nicely with Ntrack.
Whatever you decide to get, make sure you can return it if it doesn’t work with your system.
Does the 01V use Yamaha MLAN software? If not, and if you’re likely to get a Yamaha or other keyboard that supports it in the future, you might consider holding off.
Yamaha MLAN is used by Presonus and other gear, and in addition to being an interface driver for soundcards, it would allow a so-equipped keyboard to send data directly to your PC as more digital channels, rather than going analog into a mixer or soundcard.
Just a thought. This might be a reason pushing the price down, though, so maybe it’s a deal.
From what I’ve researched about mLan, it looks well positioned to become an audio industry standard. The fact that its based on nothing more than a firewire connection means proprietary hardware isn’t needed and since its based on an audio-specific driver, it can always be improved.
I’ve kept my distance from USB and firewire based interfaces because they’re not specifically for audio. Yamaha seems to have addressed this issue comprehensively with mLan in terms of time, audio channels, jitter, etc. Firewire has the most potential and the mLan idea looks like it takes full advantage of it.
Companies like MOTU and others can simply write an mLan driver for their firewire based units and it looks like that idea appeals to the companies becuase they don;t have to invest too much.
I’ve looked at the 01xray site and read the forums. Right now the 01X is still new enough to expect a few driver glitches.
Because it integrates so well with a computer, it allows a number of different ways to handle mixes. Thats what appeals to me most.
I read the review by Fred Bashour and that has helped me understand the potential this mixer has. In a review at macmusic they pointed out that the Tascam mixer doesn’t have any LED or LCD screen or menu which I also afree is a put-off.
Phillips- can the Tascam unit be used as a stand-alone mixer? That would be a big plus in its favor for me. I know the Yamaha and Digi002 can so they’re on my list.
no cents
Yes, the Tascam FW1884 can be used as a monitor mixer with gain, pan, mute, solo and fader controls only, no onboard EQ or EFX.
Phillip -
Can it be used as a stand-alone mixer without a computer. I know the digi002 and the o1x do not need to be connected to a computer to function as a full digital mixer.
For me thats a make or break feature because I don’t want to have a separate mixer for the computer and another for playing live.
nocents
Yes, the Tascam FW1884 will work as a stand alone mixer without the computer. Again, it only has limited channel controls as I described earlier. I would not use it as a live main mixer due to the lack of individual channel EQ.