Solid State Logic 4.3 - Manual (Page 7)

Soundscape Mixpander
Page 7 of 59
Software drivers
The SSL Soundscape Mixpander comes with Low-latency MME drivers, WDM drivers, ASIO-2
drivers, DWave drivers and GSIF drivers for Windows 2000 and XP. It can be used with any PC
based MIDI+Audio sequencer, recording and editing software or other audio applications.
All SSL Soundscape native systems are truly multiclient. This means that you can share your SSL
Soundscape audio hardware between several different applications. You could for instance run
Steinberg’s Cubase or Nuendo, Sony’s ACID and Tascam’s Gigastudio simultaneously, with each
application using a predefined number of the available audio channels. You could also record the
output of Gigastudio into the audio software via the SSL Soundscape Mixer, along with external
sources… adding real-time DSP-powered effects and processing as you go along.
Digital mixing, effects and processing
The SSL Soundscape Mixer software runs on the on-board DSP-powered mixing engine of the SSL
Soundscape Mixpander . The Mixer’s architecture is the same as used for the high end Soundscape
Digital Audio Workstations, but adapted for the native environment: the “Track” inserts, which
can be placed anywhere in the Mixer, are available as audio inputs and outputs to Windows audio
applications such as MIDI+Audio sequencers or software samplers.
The included Soundscape Audio Toolbox provides some essential building blocks for commercial
standard mixes, with multi-function dynamics processors (gate, expansion, compression and
limiting), delay and delay based effects (chorus, flanger) and dither. Optional effects and
processing plug-ins are available from Solid State Logic and other world renowned developers
including Wave Mechanics, TC Electronic, Dolby Laboratories Inc., Cedar Audio, Sonic
Timeworks, Aphex Systems, Arboretum Systems, Spinaudio, Drawmer, and Acuma Labs.
DSP-based processing
PC-based mixers suffer from a certain amount of processing delay, also known as “latency”. This
may be very small on an expertly configured, modern PC, but gets worse as native effects and
processors are added in the signal path, so much so that it can be impossible to play an instrument
and monitor the output in real-time through a software mixer with a few plug-ins. This is why
most native MIDI+Audio sequencers now include a “plug-in delay compensation” feature. This
solves the problem in mixing situations, but is by its very nature unusable while recording.
In contrast, the SSL Soundscape Mixer and Soundscape format DSP-powered plug-ins offer a level
of performance on a par with high-end audio hardware in terms of sound quality and comparable
to a hardware mixing console in terms of latency (…or absence thereof!). This is a major advantage
when recording live vocals or instruments. DSP effect plug-ins can be inserted at any point in the
signal path and the wet signal can be monitored in real-time (i.e. without any annoying processing
delay) while recording the dry or wet signal, or both, into your chosen application.