Applies to: Liquid Mix 16, 32

Contents

• Can I connect multiple units to the same Mac?

• What's installed on my Mac?

• Where are emulations and snapshots stored?

• Bandwidth Issues
• Error message when installing emulations: 'The Installer could not install some files in”/“.'
• I'm losing connection to my computer during Logic's AU Validation
• Why do the attack and release time controls operate differently for the 'Stellar' emulations?
• Why does BAND 1 require 2 bands for 'OLD TUBE 1', 'OLD TUBE 3', and 'VINTAGE 3'?
• Why does Liquid Mix only use 1 processor on my multiprocessor computer?

• Where are the plugins installed on my Mac?

• How can I uninstall Liquid Mix from my computer?

• How many instances of the plugin can be used?

• How does Session Saver work?

• Is the EQ the same as The Liquid Channel EQ?
• Turning on/off all EQ Bands at once
• Understanding 'Clip at 0dBFS'

• Plugin latency

• How do I use the side-chain function?

• FireWire concepts and connectivity

• Liqiuid Mix Manager | The Hardware follows plugin option

Can I connect multiple units to the same Mac?

The use of multiple Liquid Mix units on a single computer is not supported, and won't work.

What's installed on my Mac?

On a Mac running OS X, the various elements of the Liquid Mix installation can be found in the following directories:

Liquid Mix Application:
- Applications/LiquidMix (Application)

Liquid Mix Emulations:
- Library/Application Support/LiquidMix (entire directory)

Liquid Mix Snapshots:
- Users/'username'/Library/Application Support/LiquidMix (entire directory)

Liquid Mix VST Plugins:
- Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/LiquidMixMono.vst
- Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/LiquidMixStereo.vst

Liquid Mix AudioUnit Plugins (if installed):
- Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/LiquidMixMono.component
- Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/LiquidMixStereo.component

Liquid Mix RTAS Plugins (if installed):
- Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugins/VW_LiquidMixMono.dpm
- Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugins/VW_LiquidMixStereo.dpm

Where are emulations and snapshots stored?

Emulations

Your Liquid Mix emulations can be found in the following folder:

• /Macintosh HD/Library/Application Support/LiquidMix

Please note: This is different from the LiquidMix directory in your Snapshots directory - /Macintosh HD/Users//Library/Application Support/LiquidMix

Snapshots

When you save a Snapshot using the hardware 'SAVE' button, the Snapshot is saved in the following directory on your Mac:

• /Users/“yourusername”/Library/Application Support/LiquidMix

Once you have saved a Snapshot, you can rename it from the LiquidMix plugin GUI.

Bandwidth Issues

Most issues are usually caused by the Liquid Mix struggling to obtain enough bandwidth on the FireWire bus to function correctly. Before following through this article, make sure you have the latest version of the Liquid Mix installer installed:

http://focusrite.com/support/software/liquid_mix/

To resolve bandwidth issues, try:

• Removing any other FireWire devices connected to the bus that the Liquid Mix is connected to.
• If you have to purchase a FireWire card to enable to have multiple FireWire units, we would recommend a FireWire 400-only, non-combo (i.e. not with USB AND FireWire ports) card with either a Texas Instruments or a VIA chipset, from a known brand manufacturer such as Belkin, Lacie or SIIG. For more information on FireWire compatibility, please see the FireWire compatibility article.
• Increase the minimum buffer size in the Liquid Mix manager software, and in your DAW (audio software).

You can also reduce the functionality of the Liquid Mix to reduce its bandwidth requirements.

These steps are useful to go through to help identify whether the bandwidth problem is on the PCI bus as a result of other non-FireWire devices sharing the same system resources as the Liquid Mix. If you can identify this as the cause, there are further steps you can take to adjust your system configuration to optimise the way your hardware communicates with each other.

As computers (PCs in particular) differ vastly, we would advise that you contact us directly through the contact form in regard to doing this, as there is no one solution.

You may also wish to try these tips out if you want to try running the Liquid Mix off of the same FireWire bus as another device.

• Decrease the Track count in the Liquid Mix Manager, to release some reserved bandwidth for these tracks. Even if you are not using all 32 instances, the Liquid Mix will still attempt to reserve bandwidth for them.
• Work at a lower sampling rate.

Error message when installing emulations: 'The Installer could not install some files in”/“.'

There is a bug when attempting to install the Liquid Mix emulations on a Mac. The following error message may appear after confirming the location of the Liquid Mix installation directory and entering your password.

It will occur when attempting to run the following installer file after installing the Liquid Mix drivers:

Liquid Mix Emulation Files Web-1.0.dmg

The following workaround should solve this problem:

1. Delete the following directory: /Library/Application Support/Liquid Mix/
2. Re-run the emulation installer.

I'm losing connection to my computer during Logic's AU Validation

It is possible for Logic's AU Validation process to cause the Liquid Mix to lose connection to the computer, causing AU Validation to hang and fail.

Performing a reset of the Liquid Mix hardware will cause the unit to reconnect, allowing the AU Validation to complete. To do this:

Hold down: SAVE, LOAD, and GO BACK simultaneously on the unit itself 

Why do the attack and release time controls operate differently for the 'Stellar' emulations?

The Stellar emulations are modelled on particular vintage compressors in which the attack and release time controls functioned opposite to the way they normally do.

For the majority of compressors, rotating an attack or release time control clockwise will increase the release time. For these particular vintage compressors, however, the release time is longest at the fully counter-clockwise position and shortest at the fully clockwise position.

This peculiarity has been emulated in the Liquid Mix emulation in order to maintain the highest level of authenticity.

Why does BAND 1 require 2 bands for 'OLD TUBE 1', 'OLD TUBE 3', and 'VINTAGE 3'?

The 'OLD TUBE 1', 'OLD TUBE 3', and 'VINTAGE 3' emulations are based upon a vintage EQ in which a low-frequency shelf has two separate gain controls (one allows for positive gain and the other allows for attenuation). In order to emulate the EQ shelf in the most authentic way possible, it is necessary to gang the frequency control for the two gain controls. Consequently, the low-frequency shelf requires two bands.

This affects the creation of EQ hybrids on the Liquid Mix when using these special low-frequency shelves.

Any time you select the 'BAND 1: Shelf LF' for 'OLD TUBE 1' or 'OLD TUBE 3', two bands will be required. This means that if a single band from another emulation exists on an adjacent band, it will be removed in order to accommodate the second band of the 'BAND 1: Shelf LF'.

In addition, if you select the 'BAND 1: Shelf LF' for band 7, it will be necessary to use both BAND 6 and BAND 7 to accommodate this filter. Both of these considerations should be taken into account when building hybrid EQs with the LF shelves of the Liquid Mix.

Why does Liquid Mix only use 1 processor on my multiprocessor computer?

Multiprocessor support is not implemented by plugins. It is something that is determined by the DAW.

Where are the plugins installed on my Mac?

The VST, AudioUnit, and RTAS Liquid Mix plugins are installed in the following locations on your Mac:

VST Plugins:

• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST

AudioUnit Plugins:

• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components

RTAS Plugins:

• Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugins

How can I uninstall Liquid Mix from my computer?

This article contains the guides for Mac and PC:

• Jump to the Mac guide
• Jump to the Windows Guide

Uninstalling from Mac

Remove the following files and directories from your system:

Liquid Mix Application:

• Applications/LiquidMix (Application)

Liquid Mix Emulations:

• Library/Application Support/LiquidMix (entire directory)

Liquid Mix Snapshots:

• Users/'username'/Library/Application Support/LiquidMix (entire directory)

Liquid Mix VST Plugins:

• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/LiquidMixMono.vst
• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST/LiquidMixStereo.vst

Liquid Mix AudioUnit Plugins (if installed):

• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/LiquidMixMono.component
• Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/Components/LiquidMixStereo.component

Liquid Mix RTAS Plugins (if installed):

• Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugins/VW_LiquidMixMono.dpm
• Library/Application Support/Digidesign/Plugins/VW_LiquidMixStereo.dpm

It is worth noting that if you are uninstalling your Liquid Mix software before upgrading to a newer version, there is no need to delete the emulations and snapshots from your computer.

Uninstalling from Windows

There are 2 stages to uninstalling your Liquid Mix from your Windows PC;

• Uninstalling the software.
• Uninstalling the hardware.

Uninstalling the software

To remove your Liquid Mix software, go to ‘Add or Remove Programs’ (START>CONTROL PANEL>ADD OR REMOVE PROGRAMS) and highlight ‘Focusrite Liquid Mix x.x’. Click on ‘Remove’ and follow any command prompts. A screenshot of this is shown below:

Uninstalling the hardware

To remove your Liquid Mix hardware, go to ‘Device Manager’ (START>CONTROL PANEL>SYSTEM>HARDWARE>DEVICE MANAGER) and scroll down to ‘Focusrite Liquid Mix by Sintefex’ as shown below. Either double-click on the text or click on the plus sign to the left of the text to expand the menu. Then right-click on ‘Liquid Mix’, select ‘Uninstall’ from the dropdown menu and follow any command prompts.

If you have installed a new DAW since your last update, search for - and delete all files and folders with 'LiquidMix' in the title, as a new DAW will often reassign the default VST directory. As such, it is possible for files and folders to be left on your computer, even after running the Uninstaller.

How many instances of the plugin can be used?

The number of Liquid Mix plugins that can run at one time will depend upon the sampling rate of the recording session. The number of allowed plugins for each of the possible sampling rates is shown below:

• At 44.1kHz - 48kHz: up to 32 mono / 16 stereo
• At 88.2kHz - 96kHz: up to 8 mono / 4 stereo
• At 176.4kHz - 192kHz: up to 2 mono / 1 stereo

How does Session Saver work?

Once armed, the Session Saver will monitor the post input gain signal.

If the signal overloads, it will turn the gain of the pre-amp down by 1dB. If the signal is still overloading then it will turn the gain down by one more dB. If the signal is still overloading then it will turn it down again by 1dB.

This will carry on until the signal stops overloading the ADC. The session saver does not turn the gain back up again once the signal stops overloading, since this may well result in overloading again.

To undo the effects of the Session Saver and to return to the original pre-amp gain setting the session saver must be disarmed. The reason for including this is that the signal enters the digital domain in the Liquid Channel - digital distortion sounds terrible and must be avoided at all costs. If you are running hot signals then the session saver will help to avoid digital clipping.

Is the EQ the same as The Liquid Channel EQ?

No. The Liquid Channel uses a digital filter based EQ which is modelled upon Focusrite's legendary ISA 110, whereas the Liquid Mix EQ uses dynamic convolution to emulate the unique sonic qualities of 20 vintage equalizers.

The Liquid Channel provides one unique flavour of distinctly Focusrite style EQ, while the Liquid Mix provides 20 very different EQ flavours which emulate other vintage hardware units.

Turning on/off all EQ Bands at once

There is a keyboard shortcut to turn on and off all the EQ bands for an emulation.

Hold Shift while pressing the 'EQ On' button on the plugin GUI window.

Note: This is only for the plugin GUI window, not the hardware.

Understanding 'Clip at 0dBFS'

Some DAWs, including Apple Logic, can deal with floating-point sample values greater than 0 dBFS. If the 'Clip at 0dBFS' option is turned off, then the Liquid Mix can deal with these floating-point sample values.

At some time in the future, this feature will ensure compatibility with DAWs that are capable of dealing with sample values that refer to levels greater than 0 dBFS. For now, it's best to turn clip at 0 dBFS to 'ON' (e.g. Pro Tools use where fixed-point DSP is used).

Plugin latency

Variable Latency

Liquid Mix latency is variable. It depends upon two factors: DAW buffer size and the Liquid Mix Minimum latency setting (described below). You can check the Liquid Mix plugin latency at any time while the plugin is open by clicking the Liquid Mix logo in the top left corner of the plugin window. This displays the current sample delay of Liquid Mix plugins on your system.

Minimum Latency Setting

The Liquid Mix latency is tied to the DAW buffer size in the following way:

• LM Latency = 2 x DAW buffer size + 8 samples

For example, if you set the DAW buffer size to 256 samples, the Liquid Mix plugin latency is 520 samples (2 × 256 + 8). This rule is true so long as the result is greater than or equal to the Minimum Latency set in the Liquid Mix Manager. In other words, the Liquid Mix latency is tied to the DAW latency down to a set minimum. For example, if you set the DAW buffer size to 128 samples and the Liquid Mix Minimum Latency is set to 520 samples, the resulting latency is 520 samples. However, if you set the DAW buffer size to 256 samples and the Liquid Mix Minimum Latency to 264 samples, the resulting latency will be 520 samples. Remember, if this all sounds too confusing, just check the latency in the plugin window as described above!

Liquid Mix Plugins In Series and Parallel

If two Liquid Mix plugins are inserted in parallel (i.e., on two separate channels), the delay will still be the same as with a single instance of Liquid Mix. However, the sample delay will double if two instances are inserted on the same channel, or in series on a signal path (i.e., on a channel and on a bus which the channel is routed to). For example, imagine that Liquid Mix plugin 1 is inserted on Channel 1 and Liquid Mix plugin 2 is inserted Bus 1. If the output of Channel 1 is routed to Bus 1, then the two instances are in series and the sample delay doubles.

Variable Latency is available from v2.0 onwards.

Please ensure that you have the latest version of the Liquid Mix software installed by visiting our downloads page.

How do I use the side-chain function?

Enabling side chaining in the Liquid Mix makes a separate set of EQ controls appear on the Liquid Mix GUI.

A copy of the signal incoming to the compressor is sent to this side EQ section, which is then keyed into the compressor and used to trigger it. This can be useful for circumstances such as de-essing a vocal. You can boost around 4kHz of your vocal signal so that whenever there is a peak in the signal around this frequency (on s's and plosives) the compressor acts in a more exaggerated way, giving a more desirable vocal dynamic.

To enable side-chaining:

1. Enable “Side chain monitoring”. This makes the side EQ band appear. You cannot use an EQ emulation for the side EQ.
2. While Side chain Monitoring is enabled, you will only hear the copied signal that is being affected by the Side EQ - you will not hear the effect of the compressor.
3. Switch on the Side EQ to enable the side EQ. This switch should be used to toggle between the original signal and the EQ'd signal, to help you set up your side EQ settings more effectively.
4. Now switch off the Side chain monitoring.

What you will be able to hear now is the effect of the compressor with the side chain signal engaged. You will only hear the effect of the side EQ'd signal - you will not hear the side EQ'd signal directly.

To A/B the side chain signal with the effect of the compressor acting naturally, you need to do so in a few steps:

• To switch from side-chained compression to normal compression, just switch off the Side EQ. This, however, causes the side EQ settings to be hidden.
• To switch back to monitoring the side-chained signal, you need to first enable side chain monitoring to bring up the side EQ, then switch on the side EQ before switching off the side chain monitoring again.

This feature is available from version 2.0 onwards. Please ensure that you have the latest version of the Liquid Mix software installed by visiting our downloads page.

FireWire concepts and connectivity

Isochronous vs. Asynchronous FireWire Data Transfer

So, which type of FireWire data transfer does Liquid Mix use?

Both! Asynchronous transfers are used for Liquid Mix boot up, initialisation and for reporting buttons and status back to host. Isochronous transfers are used for Liquid Mix audio streaming because asynchronous does not guarantee a particular data rate.

To use isochronous bandwidth, every device on the bus has to allocate it before it uses it. If the allocation fails because some other devices on the bus got there first, Liquid Mix will show an error message. To reduce the chances of errors, it may be effective to reduce the bandwidth requirement of FireWire devices or remove them or choose fewer channels on the Liquid Mix.

Multiple FireWire Buses

The Liquid Mix, like the TC Power Core and SSL Duende, requires a substantial amount of bandwidth from the FireWire bus, especially when it is used to its limit. For this reason, it is beneficial to connect additional FireWire devices on a separate FireWire bus. Apple Macs which have more than one standard FireWire port (400 MB/s and/or 800 MB/s) are actually running them on the same FireWire bus. On a PC, any ports on a single PCI card run on the same bus. In order to add a second FireWire bus, it is necessary to install a separate PCI FireWire card. In order to ensure that each device is running on its own dedicated bus, it is recommended that a separate FireWire bus be added.

For Desktop Macs with PCI (G5) or PCIe (Mac Pro) slots, this can be achieved by the addition of a PCI or PCIe FireWire card. We have tested PCI FireWire cards for use with Apple Mac G5s. For Apple laptops with PCMCIA slots, it is possible to add a PCMCIA to the FireWire adapter. The new MacBook Pro features an Express Card/34 slot, which is planned to replace the current CardBus PCMCIA standard. For more information about Apple Mac FireWire ports and buses, you can consult the Apple website. Information about the FireWire ports and FireWire expansion capabilities of specific Mac models is shown in the table below.

FireWire Bus Resets

Liqiuid Mix Manager | The Hardware follows plugin option

There is an option in the Liquid Mix Manager which allows for the selected hardware plugin to follow the selection in the DAW.

When this option is enabled, if you select a Liquid Mix plugin in the DAW, it will automatically be selected on the hardware. If you have two Liquid Mix plugin windows open at the same time, the hardware will display whichever plugin has most recently received 'focus'; that is, whichever one was clicked/selected most recently.

This feature can be selected from the 'Set-Up' tab in Liquid Mix Manager.

This feature is available from version 2.0 onwards. Please ensure that you have the latest version of the Liquid Mix software installed by visiting our downloads page.