Anyone here know anything about the EZbus by Event Electronics?

http://www.event1.com/Products/Digital/EZbus.html

I was thinking about getting one of these. You can use it as a stand
alone digital mixer. From what I have heard the mic pres are great and
it has very solid compression, eq and gating on each channel. Not to
mention it can be an audio/midi interface/controller via USB, optical
or SPDIF.

I want to have a DAW in my rig, and it would just rock to have a
tactile interface that seconds as a conventional mixer in the case of
a computer crash. EZbus looks very promising, but I would be very
interested to hear anyone else's perspective.

~Mark

P.S. There is a newly formed yahoo user group for EZbus users, but it
is quite fresh...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ezbus/

I'd definitely give it a good test drive b4 you buy. We have a number
of these at work and while there's some neat things about the EZbus,
I've found the interface to be non-intuitive and clunky. The (2) mic
pres don't seem to be anything to write home about, and the
electronics throughout are easy to clip - and we are a broadcast
facility so we're mostly just recording voice and telephone hybrids on
them. Not exactly high SPL.

If you are planning to use one in conjunction with a DAW running
Win2k, forget about using midi over USB, your PC *WILL* crash. There's
even a note about this somewhere in the documentation. Fortunately you
can set the EZbus to use USB for audio only, or switch OSes.

That said, all in all it's a neat package and seems to be built like a
tank, but the stuff above are just some of caveats to be aware of. We
haven't tapped into all of the functions of the unit, but I wouldn't
be surprised if there were other hidden 'features'.

I would do some serious comparison shopping, where you can put your
eyes, ears & hands on this and other similar units (Tascam makes one,
I believe).

good luck

jp

(Mark Kunoff aka 'Exit Zero') wrote in message . com...
Anyone here know anything about the EZbus by Event Electronics?

http://www.event1.com/Products/Digital/EZbus.html

I was thinking about getting one of these. You can use it as a stand
alone digital mixer. From what I have heard the mic pres are great and
it has very solid compression, eq and gating on each channel. Not to
mention it can be an audio/midi interface/controller via USB, optical
or SPDIF.

I want to have a DAW in my rig, and it would just rock to have a
tactile interface that seconds as a conventional mixer in the case of
a computer crash. EZbus looks very promising, but I would be very
interested to hear anyone else's perspective.

~Mark

P.S. There is a newly formed yahoo user group for EZbus users, but it
is quite fresh...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ezbus/

I own one, but I am not a heavy user.

The OS needs to support USB MIDI in order to use it as such (!). Reason why
the feature can be turned off if needed. However, there are two physical
USB ports available which can interface with a PC in a more traditional way.
I never had ny problems with USB MIDI (WinXP-H), except maybe a slight midi
delay if transmiting messages along with audio. After all, it's a serial
interface.

I personally find the interface easy to work with. However, I learned the
value of motorized faders with his one. Although the implementation is
acceptable, It does get to you after a while. You'll have to learn not to
depend too much in the reading of the faders if you switch from controller
mode to mixer mode a lot. If you use it live, then it is definetly an
issue. Like I said, for non-motorized fader, the implementation is actually
pretty good, but not completely practical.

I had problems with USB audio initially, but I solved all the issues. I am
planning to completely bypass USB audio in the future, in order to get more
stability and channels. Although Event came out with a simple ADAT card for
PC, RME seems to have a better option.

My needs are simple, I'm happy with the unit.

Toby




"jp" wrote in message
om...
I'd definitely give it a good test drive b4 you buy. We have a number
of these at work and while there's some neat things about the EZbus,
I've found the interface to be non-intuitive and clunky. The (2) mic
pres don't seem to be anything to write home about, and the
electronics throughout are easy to clip - and we are a broadcast
facility so we're mostly just recording voice and telephone hybrids on
them. Not exactly high SPL.

If you are planning to use one in conjunction with a DAW running
Win2k, forget about using midi over USB, your PC *WILL* crash. There's
even a note about this somewhere in the documentation. Fortunately you
can set the EZbus to use USB for audio only, or switch OSes.

That said, all in all it's a neat package and seems to be built like a
tank, but the stuff above are just some of caveats to be aware of. We
haven't tapped into all of the functions of the unit, but I wouldn't
be surprised if there were other hidden 'features'.

I would do some serious comparison shopping, where you can put your
eyes, ears & hands on this and other similar units (Tascam makes one,
I believe).

good luck

jp

(Mark Kunoff aka 'Exit Zero') wrote in message
. com...
Anyone here know anything about the EZbus by Event Electronics?

http://www.event1.com/Products/Digital/EZbus.html

I was thinking about getting one of these. You can use it as a stand
alone digital mixer. From what I have heard the mic pres are great and
it has very solid compression, eq and gating on each channel. Not to
mention it can be an audio/midi interface/controller via USB, optical
or SPDIF.

I want to have a DAW in my rig, and it would just rock to have a
tactile interface that seconds as a conventional mixer in the case of
a computer crash. EZbus looks very promising, but I would be very
interested to hear anyone else's perspective.

~Mark

P.S. There is a newly formed yahoo user group for EZbus users, but it
is quite fresh...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ezbus/

"Toby" wrote in message ...
I own one, but I am not a heavy user.

The OS needs to support USB MIDI in order to use it as such (!). Reason why
the feature can be turned off if needed. However, there are two physical
USB ports available which can interface with a PC in a more traditional way.
I never had ny problems with USB MIDI (WinXP-H), except maybe a slight midi
delay if transmiting messages along with audio. After all, it's a serial
interface.

I personally find the interface easy to work with. However, I learned the
value of motorized faders with his one. Although the implementation is
acceptable, It does get to you after a while. You'll have to learn not to
depend too much in the reading of the faders if you switch from controller
mode to mixer mode a lot. If you use it live, then it is definetly an
issue. Like I said, for non-motorized fader, the implementation is actually
pretty good, but not completely practical.

I had problems with USB audio initially, but I solved all the issues. I am
planning to completely bypass USB audio in the future, in order to get more
stability and channels. Although Event came out with a simple ADAT card for
PC, RME seems to have a better option.

My needs are simple, I'm happy with the unit.

Toby




"jp" wrote in message
om...
I'd definitely give it a good test drive b4 you buy. We have a number
of these at work and while there's some neat things about the EZbus,
I've found the interface to be non-intuitive and clunky. The (2) mic
pres don't seem to be anything to write home about, and the
electronics throughout are easy to clip - and we are a broadcast
facility so we're mostly just recording voice and telephone hybrids on
them. Not exactly high SPL.

If you are planning to use one in conjunction with a DAW running
Win2k, forget about using midi over USB, your PC *WILL* crash. There's
even a note about this somewhere in the documentation. Fortunately you
can set the EZbus to use USB for audio only, or switch OSes.

That said, all in all it's a neat package and seems to be built like a
tank, but the stuff above are just some of caveats to be aware of. We
haven't tapped into all of the functions of the unit, but I wouldn't
be surprised if there were other hidden 'features'.

I would do some serious comparison shopping, where you can put your
eyes, ears & hands on this and other similar units (Tascam makes one,
I believe).

good luck

jp

(Mark Kunoff aka 'Exit Zero') wrote in message
. com...
Anyone here know anything about the EZbus by Event Electronics?

http://www.event1.com/Products/Digital/EZbus.html

I was thinking about getting one of these. You can use it as a stand
alone digital mixer. From what I have heard the mic pres are great and
it has very solid compression, eq and gating on each channel. Not to
mention it can be an audio/midi interface/controller via USB, optical
or SPDIF.

I want to have a DAW in my rig, and it would just rock to have a
tactile interface that seconds as a conventional mixer in the case of
a computer crash. EZbus looks very promising, but I would be very
interested to hear anyone else's perspective.

~Mark

P.S. There is a newly formed yahoo user group for EZbus users, but it
is quite fresh...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ezbus/


I've been using the EZbus with the 8 ch card fro about 6 months now
and love it- I've had no midi problems, but keep in mind that my audio
is not using USB. As far as preamps, they're fine for day to day, but
I come in SPDIF from outboard preamps for vocals- As one user
mentioned, it takes a while to get used to the interface, but once you
do, the fleibility is amazing-

I used Ezbus+VST to replace a large Paris system, and have had no
second thoughts- Highly recommend for a small studio or project
environment.

If you want to hear what the pre's and A/D converters can do on the
EZbus, goto my band's website, www.nakedmileband.com. On the music
page, all the guitars on tracks 1,2 and 9 off our album were recorded
through the Ezbus pres and converters with a 57 against the grill of a
early '70's Fender Vibrosonic. It's not Godlike, but it gets the job
done in a respectable manner.

Bassmon

(Mark Kunoff aka 'Exit Zero') wrote in message
. com...
Anyone here know anything about the EZbus by Event Electronics?

http://www.event1.com/Products/Digital/EZbus.html

I was thinking about getting one of these. You can use it as a stand
alone digital mixer. From what I have heard the mic pres are great and
it has very solid compression, eq and gating on each channel. Not to
mention it can be an audio/midi interface/controller via USB, optical
or SPDIF.

I want to have a DAW in my rig, and it would just rock to have a
tactile interface that seconds as a conventional mixer in the case of
a computer crash. EZbus looks very promising, but I would be very
interested to hear anyone else's perspective.

~Mark

P.S. There is a newly formed yahoo user group for EZbus users, but it
is quite fresh...

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ezbus/

The latest update addresses an issue with SPDIF timing, check on that.

And yes, I meant MIDI ports...

Toby


"Vladan" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 7 Jul 2003 17:13:34 -0400, "Toby" wrote:
...
I'd be even more happy if optical input would work as supposed.
However, every few days it stops, or turns the signal into kind of
static crackling

On Wed, 9 Jul 2003 14:35:37 -0400, "Toby" wrote:

The latest update addresses an issue with SPDIF timing, check on that.

Thanks. I have upgraded to 1.02 version, guess that's the most
contemporary one, but no luck. As I understood, those firmware updates
are adressing optical output, which works just fine in my case. My
problem is optical input. As a matter of fact, the unit seams to be
receiving clock info and syncing to external clock rather well, but it
can't turn the rest of the signal into something meaningful ie. sound.
Vladan
www.geocities.com/vla_dan_l
www.mp3.com/lesly , www.mp3.com/shook , www.mp3.com/lesly2
www.kunsttick.com/artists/vuskovic/indexdat.htm