Hi, so I think I kind of understand some of this, but not really . I have an akai EIE.http://www.akaipro.com/product/eie

It is great, but the inserts trip me out. For example would I run a stick stereo cable out of the insert and then the bass and melody jacks into the "in and out" of a pedal? And then is the insert always active? Can I have the inserted fx on all channels or one at a time?> I know in abelton I can select some of the inserts so thats cool. I guess I want to know all the cool stuff I could do with inserts. Otherwise I would just run my pedals first and never even use the inserts which seems like I am missing something.

Also, can I use regular mono cables to rig this stuff up?

Basically what would you do with a stick, this unit and some fx or whatever else?!
I run bass and melody in mono separately and process them independently in channel 1 and 2.
Then the stick synth in stereo on 3 and 4.

I want to see how technical this can get you dig? thanks guys.

Thanks muchos, and yea I got the manual but its not super descriptive.
*is it possible to drag and drop pics? I can never seem to upload pics hence the link above.

Inserts are exactly how they are described. You're "inserting" something into your signal chain. This is a very old and common way to add external effects to ... say ... individual channels of a mixing board and inserts work using insert cables (which is what a Stick cable is). The stereo TRS end goes into the single insert jack in the unit while the two mono ends go into the input and output of your chain of effects.

I only did a quick glance over your link but it looks like the inserts work strictly by channel.

BTW - the old AP 13 allowed you to either use send/returns or inserts to process a channel. Using send/return allowed you to blend between dry and processed while an insert tends to be a 100% "we interrupt this signal to run it through some stuff" kind of thing. I always used the inserts and then did my blending in my FX units.

Thanks! So its like a 4 track send kinda. Nice. I shall muck about with it then. I guess I will also try it and see if it works ok without the computer. That would be a bonus

So far I like the akai cause it still works as a mixer/preamp with multiple outputs as a standalone. Maybe they all do ha, but I love that. And the powered usb ports are dope(for yourock guitar) I also like the separate headphone mix so if I am in DJ mode I can hear the click track. Although I still feel like a wanker when wearing heaphones live, but its a cool option.

I feel like the preamps work good on the stickup. I know nothing about preamps but I know it makes the tone clearer .Do you think this unit has decent preamps? For the range its in.
See I tried the pro version which is 24 bit and to my caveman ears could not tell a difference, but there was more latencey and lil pops, so 16 bit appears good to me.

Oh, and so if I plug direct in with stickup then the inserted fx are after the preamps in the signal path? This is a good thing I think cause before I would run a compressor and reverb before the preamp, which sounds fine but I think this may improve the fidelity a bit.

Should I go preamp>compressor>weird fx>reverb. I know its a matter of taste but I trust ya'll know a fairly ideal signal path. School me though

My set is pretty computer based but its great to know if the comp crashes(never has yet!) I still have my basic stick tones going and can keep playing.

On another note I am now separately proccessing bass and melody with different "beat repeats", top secret technology of course . It is so trippy to have melody side set to 16ths and the bass set to velocity sensitive where quarter notes triplets sound when played soft and harder notes 8th notes! Hard to describe but its super weird to play live and also have the beat repeats on 70% chance of the effect turning on. Magic I tell you

Any suggestions for dual stick fx? Hopefully I have the fx in abelton or something close.
I like the more abstract stuff ya'll probably know. HAILS

I do not know anything about the quality of the preamps, but I do know that the the 102㏀ "guitar" input impedance is quite low for the Stickup.

That sounds like a sample rate conversion problem.

Both are correct.

I feel that reverb should always be last, given that creativity is all about breaking the rules where the result is desirable. The reason for keeping reverb last is that reverb provides a sense of space, and whatever other sound shaping you have done exists in that space.

Are you looking for dedicated hardware or something to run on your laptop?

Hey thanks ya'll! Good points. SO the guitar input is still a bit weak huh? Do you think I should compress it before preamp or is that silly? And I thought the 24 bit issue could have been solved but it was more expesive and I have yet to hear a example that blows me away. I guess you are supposed to record at 24 bit and then dither down to accomidate to weak ass internet sound quality or cd quality which is 16 bit. Peeps say that it sounds better, others have said the dither down is kinda strange.... ideally should one record at 128 bits(theoretical) and then convert to 16? Opinions there?

I am looking for dual fx on the computer. Any free vst or plugins that are dope? Or whatever comes with Gband or abelton. I have absynth but that is pretty cpu intensive. I also have reason too but I don't think thats for audio fx so much.

Oh and I have turnado on iPad, that is insane!. You guys dig the sugar bytes stuff? Super abstract and proved to me that ipad and stick play nice together. NO crashes and good quality, I know I was a skeptic too. Check this http://sugar-bytes.de/content/products/TurnadoIOS/index.php?lang=en
I never whould have thought looping could be even passable in this mode, but it is. Loopy app and others are crazy with midi synch and multiple loops of different lengths.
Any iphone users should get a little $20 audio interface and a few apps and give it a shot. For that small a investment you can get into mad science.

I rock the ipad stick rig with a wireless blue board and its just nutty. It just gets out of hand when I do ipad and computer, holy lordy! But man this kind of fx was probably like a million dollars in the 70s-80s. I know eventide is a king but some of this stuff sounds comparable for a $15 app. Cray cray. I feel so fortunate to live in these times. I think alot of what I use would be only a dream for a broke musician in the past. Now we are free!

Hit me with some cool ideas. I want to make a psudo synth pad with reverb washes and stuff.
I really like delays that pitch shift only the delayed part. I also like granular stuff. That is some weird shizzle huh? Friggin granular audio synth, who would have thought.

Thanks again.

It is worth doing it each way and comparing the results.

The problem would have been the sample rate conversion, not the bit depth.

The idea is that any distortion or noise will be outside the "target zone" of a 16bit/44.1㎑ delivery format (when mastering for CD). Here is some further reading on the significance of that delivery format: [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyquist–Shannon_sampling_theorem]Nyquist-Shannon Sampling Theorem[/url]

Sorry, I cannot help with the laptop-based effects.

Gotcha!

Here is a page with some examples of what I speak of. Sometime talk just don't do it...https://archive.org/details/StickbeatrepeatandNS

The track I wanted to illustrate the tech is called "stick clean and ns" I think track 11

Also the track 8 "encrypt" shows this too. It still needs JBA to overdub, its a raw version...

The sector clips are4 and 5 but they are more insane fx tests. way over the top haha

The novation launchkey track 2 is a NS composition that is kinda cool, not done yet...

And if you want to hear me play synth live (not my best but cool) "sol" track 10 is a live jam.

Thanks for checking em out, and if ya'll have any tech clips or just tracks I am a fiend!
Hails

Ok guys, we are all ace here now. It is pretty amazing. I understand and now utilize this system. Sounding super dope.
Hails, and now onto more multi effect mis- management. I will be locked up one day for abuse of electronic frequencies.

Special thanks to Oceans for his explanations. Besides Greg's class at FHA on FX, I have basically no knowledge. This was helpful.

Here is my ultra tech experiment...now with some stick synth and snip snappy beats, psudo binarual inducing "supposedly" altered states but whatever haha its just over the top experimentaion also with harmony in my lil universe, still changing chords at a pretty even 2/4 bar phrases but I'm getting betting at maybe adding lil ornimentations like a christmas tree u dig? maybe.... https://ia902301.us.archive.org/27/items/StickbeatrepeatandNS/stsyn.mp3