Multichannel Audio Follies
Audio software and hardware has gotten more and more complex as it has become geared towards live performance. Frequent readers know that I’m a devotee of both Ableton Live and Traktor DJ Studio. Both of these programs offer “pre-listening” or cueing features, allowing you to audition, in your headphones, the sample or track you’re about to incorporate into the main mix of sound running out to the speakers. This, of course, is one of the foundation techniques of DJing: if you can assure that your mix is perfect before the audience ever hears it, you’re golden. However, pre-listening requires that you have a seperate audio output from that of your main mix. In the analog audio world, that’s not particularly difficult or expensive. However, when software like Live or Traktor is virtually routing that audio to another output on your soundcard or audio interface, problems arise.
The primary problem with software pre-listening is the difficulty of keeping your two audio sources, the cued audio and the main output, in sync. If your two audio sources are going to the same audio interface, obviously one with multiple channels (multiple plugs to connect to both your headphones and the main speakers, at least), this problem is moot. But if you want to send, say, the pre-listening to your laptop’s headphone jack and the main output through a USB soundcard, doing so requires an advanced programming technique called multithreading. Multithreading, which allows a program to handle multiple simultaneous tasks far more deftly, is very processor-intensive and brutally hard to code and debug. Therefore, audio programs like Live and Traktor simply don’t allow you to divvy up your mix between two audio interfaces. So what does this entail for the laptop musician or digital DJ?
It means you’re spending more money, whether you like it or not. At the very least you have to invest in a multichannel audio interface, which is probably going to be USB-based for laptop use. M-Audio’s Quattro seems like a good choice at first, but it has to plugged into a bulky “wall wart” AC adaptor in order to run, and that means less portability. Also from M-Audio is the Ozone keyboard/audio interface/MIDI controller, which I was personally lusting after until I was informed that the headphone output is not a separate channel, but merely a means of monitoring the input. Without multichannel audio, the Ozone is totally useless with software like Live, for which M-Audio is the US distributor (what are they thinking?!?). Without delving into the faster and exponentially more expensive Firewire audio interfaces, the only decent option remaining is Emagic’s Emi 2|6 interface, which offers a stereo input and 3 stereo outputs in a small, blue, and totally USB-powered package (no extra power adaptor required). It doesn’t come cheap, but users have reported ultra-low latencies (delays in transmitting your audio, for which low is a Good Thing).
I’m still personally broken up over the Ozone, though. It seemed like the ideal package: assignable controls to manipulate the various knobs and sliders in your software; a few piano-style keys, if slightly small, to tap out the occasional melody or trigger samples; and just enough audio input and output to make it usable for live performance or the occasional impromptu recording. But it turns out that last part isn’t “just enough,” it’s flat-out NOT enough. M-Audio (formally Midiman) has a terrible reputation for customer service, but people keep looking to them for audio solutions simply because it’s such a small playing field, manufacturer-wise. But it’s high time for another audio company to pick up the “live performance” ball and run with it, because a quick look on the Ableton or Traktor forums exposes the musicians starving for just such a hardware solution.
Forcing customers to purchase both an audio interface and a USB/MIDI controller seems like it would be to the manufacturers’ financial advantage, but in truth it places the whole mess of hardware out of the price range of many musicians. My hope is that Edirol, who presently offers an affordable selection of audio interfaces and controllers of similar price and superior quality to M-Audio, will take up their competitor’s slack. Putting a proper dual stereo in/out interface in a controller like their lovely PCR-30 would be ideal.
Every trade show season that comes and goes without products that work for laptop musicians and DJs is countless business lost for these companies. And, with the software end of multichannel audio being limited, as explained above, it’s really in the hardware guys’ court.