Riffoworks and Gearbox Plugin

[opdev]

I currently use a Toneport UX2 (and an m-audio 410) for recording.

With riffworks, I pretty much stick to the TP UX2.

I am thinking about selling the TP and the 410 and buying a Presonus Firepod with the L6 Gearbox plugins.

This will give me more mic pres and more simultaneous tracks. It will also let me modify the tone and preserve a "clean track"

However, I love recording direct to RW with the toneport and hearing the tone I want in real time.. I am assuming I will not lose this feature when making the switch?

[pbear5]

well, my understanding of the Gearbox plugin is that it is host dependant plugin so you'll need host software that works with (on PC) VST plugins. i don't think that Riffworks works with VST or external plugins.

Assuming you switch to a VST host losing the DirectTone monitoring may or may not matter depending on the new interface, your computer and your typical project size. DirectTone adds a controlled amount of delay (latency) independant of what your recording software is set to. if you have enough computer power you can set your latency low and be fine without DirectTone but if your computer is weak you and forces you to increase the latency for a large project you loose the ability to effectively monitor with Gearbox live.

Also, because RiffWorks is a single input at a time recorder (one track or layer stereo or mono) i don't think you'll be able to "preserve a clean track"--i'm assuming you are referring to a re-ampeable signal. i suppose you could split it out panned Left & Right but it would be pretty worthless. any other DAW software would do this automatically if you were using the Gearbox VST plugin--all processing is done after the track is recorded so, until you freeze or render the track to save cpu, you have full control over any parameter in Gearbox or any other plugin in the chain.

so, it's not a bad idea but, at the moment, i don't think RiffWorks is the right DAW for doing this. Mackie's Tracktion is very similar in flow to RiffWorks if you don't want to wait for RiffWorks to add VST capability.