Digidesign Eleven Rack review – part two
By Rob Sandall
| Posted in Guitar, Music Technology
In part one of our Digidesign Eleven Rack review I talked about the Eleven Rack’s features before plugging it in to try it for myself. However, I soon realised that I’d been flicking through the numerous tones well into the early hours of the morning, and so I thought I’d better get to grips with the recording interface.
Pro Tools LE 8 will demand little in the way of spec as long as you’re using a modern PC/Mac, and you connect up via USB 2.0, the first Digidesign model to do so in favour of 1.0. Notably, the Rack does all the signal processing onboard, so you don’t need to worry about it eating your processor power – brilliant.
The included manual leads you through the simple-enough setup, and while it obviously helps you connect the Eleven Rack, it also makes sure to help you prepare your software and hardware for the likes of MIDI and computer optimisation, so you’ll be fully clued-up by the time you fire up a session.
When it comes to recording, you’ve actually got a mic input as well as one for your guitar. Fine, this might not present you with as many options as Digidesign’s 003, but then again this Rack is specifically for guitarists, so that makes sense.
You can also record from and to external digital sources and effects via AES/EBU and S/PDIF connections (note that only one format can be used at once, though), and it’s fully MIDI capable too.
The Eleven Rack processor itself pops up as a mimicking visual interface within Pro Tools, and syncs up bi-directionally, so changes made to user settings on the software will register on the hardware and vice versa. The chain of selected pedals appears too, so even with a mouse everything still feels hands-on, picking them up and dropping them in as you see fit.
The familiarity of the mirrored panel on screen makes the whole ordeal for first-time users less daunting – at bare bones, once you’ve clicked around with your tone, you have to learn little more than how to record a track or two with a session.
I’ll just add that in terms of syncronisation, if you come back to a recording of a guitar part and have since messed around with your user settings, meaning you can’t get exactly the same sound back, there’s a nifty embed/retrieve option available which allows you to recall the settings from a take itself.
Perhaps my favourite feature, however, is the ability to record both a wet and dry signal at once, to two separate tracks. This means that if you’re unhappy with the tone of a take that you nailed, you can take the unprocessed sound and either tweak the track with your computer, or run the signal back out to an amp and re-amp it. Regular visitors to this blog will know that re-amping is by no means unique to this set-up. But that fall-back peace-of-mind is a welcome addition.
So will guitarists find themselves inspired or smothered by this gentle introduction to the digital revolution? I believe that my favourite sort of person – the tone-obsessed guitar noodler who wants to get his work down – will actually feel exhilarated at all the options within easy reach. Even if you’re new to recording, the Eleven Rack could be a springboard to great things. I recommend you make the leap.
Tags: Avid Eleven Rack, digidesign, guitar effects, recording guitar