SAC Stories

Listen to what the SAC Pioneers are saying about their Experiences!

I just have to share this with you.

I had a flawless night! The SAC engine ran 10 inputs for almost 4 hours @ 2x64 without a single buffer slip while simultaneously recording 8 tracks in SSL.

I had native EQ and comps on 8 channels..a reverberator and native delay on two returns...and a cross delay on one of the guitar channel inserts.  FOH and Mon 1 both had native graphic EQ's inserted. 13% CPU load and no glitches!

More importantly, the mix sounded fantastic. I have never felt more in control. Afterward I overheard somel people complimenting  band members on the sound...especially the vocals. I heard comments like, " the vocals sounded  better than usual tonight". I thought about this all the way home  and I think what they meant was the vocals sounded _smoother_ than normal....which I attribute largly to your channel compresser :).

Honestly, I do not make my living running live sound but I have long lusted for the power of your EQ and Comps when I do run sound. Add in the awesome stability and flexibiltiy of the software and it is simply unbeatable in my opinion.

BTW, the fader pack is a nice crutch I suppose, but frankly I might have touched it twice tonight. (looks cool though ;))

It is both humbling and  impressive to see the scope and complexity of the Harrah's intallation you shared on youtube recently...Kudos on that!...but.at the opposite end, my little adventure tonight demonstrates the scaleabilty a SAC system offers.

I ran this whole show on a $90 Intel mobo/cpu combo I built for office work last year. This little piece of crap barely worked up a sweat. Less the RME sound card, it is a $300.00 box including the O.S. and case! Amazing. Would I try to do a show with the same machine running 16 or 24 or 32 or more inputs? Absolutely no way...But it's sure good to know  when I do upgrade I can do it with peace of mind.

Thanks for listening :) Keep up the great work.

Mark - 03/15/09

SAC now makes regular appearences in Luckenbach Texas and occasionally in the dance hall at Gruene as well as coutless one-offs around the Texas hillcountry.

I run a rig that covers 1000 head by myself fron a 12' trailer...

thnx Bob

mh - 02/25/09

Well, last night was my first gig with SAC and I had the configuration like this:

- 24 Live Channels FOH and Monitor Mixer 1

- 7 instances of Drumagog in Live Mode

- EQ, Gates, Compressors Activated

- Clasik Studio Reverb plugin inserted in Return 1 with Echo/Delay plugin too for voices.

- No Buffer Drops at ASIO 64 Samples with RME HDSP 9652 PCI Card and 3 Behringer ADA8000 Converters

Only 16% of CPU was used. That's impressive  Maybe this is not a big Live Setup but it leaves a lot of headroom for expansion of more tracks in my system, maybe in the future I'll be using SAC/SAWStudio combo too  

Thanks Bob, this is a great journey!  

Jesse – 11/29/08

Just got in from today’s show, an almost horror story turned into a shining SAC triumph.

Howie Day at the Red Skelton Performing Arts Center.

Simple show...one Vocal mic, one Guitar, both extremely well preprocessed by Howie.

Conventional Monitor console (Allen& Heath) and FOH (Typhoon 4800)...when we fire it up...our normally noiseless system, which has been in that venue before, is humming...loudly.

We chase grounding & the like for 2 hours to very limited success, we get the monitor rig quite acceptable, but FOH has a loud, signal dependant, 60 Hz hum with some lovely upper harmonic content that is WAY to loud to be masked, and resistant to every effort to solve...30 minutes to doors.

I ran the SAC rig at my show the night before so the rack is still in the truck. I rush it in, pluck the snake from the FOH rig, kick the console offa the workdesk, patch the computer together...20 minutes to doors.

Fire it up, bring up the inputs which are now blessedly noise free, flatten the house EQ as the rig magically no longer needs correction, add a touch of a SIR verb that I like, and everyone sighs in relief. 14 minutes to doors.

Guitar tech bops by FOH in the middle of the show, he loves the verb I chose & suggests I add a bit more of it...he calls the sound quality 'marvelous'  

There were absolutely no further issues.

Until further notice, everyone can assume that even when an act specifies some other system from us, SAC will also be loaded onto the truck. Every time, without fail.

Christopher – 11/09/08

Hi

Just want to tell my first show with SAC and SAW went very well, no problems to report.

Actually it was a very hardware mixer kind of feeling I had with SAC, it was a small setup with cello, oboe, harp and pre recorded music/efx and spoken words from an actress. I was running efx in surround.'

It was also the first time I placed the RME mixstacy on the stage with amp and a behringer ada8000 for DA conversion. This way I only had to use 2 video cables between me and the stage.

Thanks for such a good software design.

Sebastian – 11/19/08

For some as yet unknown reason I suddenly have buffers dropping at an alarming rate...like 3300-ish across a 5 hour show...darn, it WAS stable lol. Obviously I have a bit of work to do before tomorrows' show.

However, credit where it's due...it was imperceptible in my audio...the show ran fine, in fact drew big kudos from both the talent and the venue. Thank you again Bob for a product that not only runs well when it's supposed to, but recovers extremely well from the sort of real world junk that we should all expect to encounter at some point.

While I'm on the topics of 'Bob' and 'awesome'...anyone else out there as addicted to the amazing power of the left-right click? I'm not quite to the point that I want my lawnmower to set default deck height that way, but I'm getting close. I AM already annoyed that it's not software universal, I find myself trying to left-right click on everything that's fader shaped & puzzled as to why the designer didn't think to make it do something, like snap to default for example...

Bob, you absolutely rock.

Christopher – 11/22/08

Bob,

I used Saw Studio and SAC a few weeks ago in a conference and blew some guys away with its potential. The speaker of the event was so amazed with what I was using that he is wanting me to travel to his church in Lake Charles Louisiana and install a SAC/Saw Studio combination in his church. When I told him what it would cost for the complete setup he says "That's less than we planned in our console alone".

This guy is an accomplished musician and singer and was so amazed at how great it sounded. He was also impressed with the ability to multi-track in and out.

Bassthumper  – 11/06/08

I am in a Band with 5 musicans and 4 singers, all 5 musicans are equipped with in ear monitors.

The problem has always been that for so many monitor mixes (5 + 1 for the floor wedges for the singers) it was not possible for the foh guy to give us exactly the mix we wannted especially given the fact that this mix should change with different songs. I came across SAC and even if its primary goal is not what I use it for, it does a havently job for us.... each musican has a litte eeePC like computer which runs SAC remote and each musican now can mix his own monitor sound live, and even define a scene for each song. I can't describe how happy i am.

I have done too many gigs in the past without hearing what i needed to hear.

We have done our first SACified GIG this week, no problems at all.

Thank you so much Bob.

Bjoern – 10/23/08

So I volunteered to run sound for a band I used to play with using SAC. The show was last night. SAC worked great. I loved being able to just walk around with a laptop and mix from anywhere.

Didnt use my Behringer BCF2000s, but when I use the PC rig and I am playing/running sound from stage I will definitely use them. I could see pointing and clicking while playing a live show a bit harder then running the sliders.

Audio performance was rock solid. My machine is an XP machine with 4 gig 800 mHz RAM and a Q6600 processor running at 2.4 gHz (I usually have it overclocked at 3.2gHz) with an RME HDSP 9652. CPU usage was 60% with 12 ins at 2X64 buffers - and 5 mixes. I was running the Waves Renaisannce reverb on all 5 mixes.

David – 10/19/08

I used the SAC rig for the First Christian Church venue at the Lotus World Music Festival this weekend, it was a smashing success. I had four acts over two days with one act (Etugen Ensemble, a folk group from Mongolia) doing four performances and the others appearing in between. In that setting it was wonderful to have scene recall, allowing me to reset the entirety of the system to be optomized beyond simple channel strip settings for such wildly disparate genres of musicians. The church personnel commented repeatedly that they were so pleased our system had such wonderful sound with an amazingly tiny footprint! Previous years other companies in that venue have occupied as much as two full pews with FOH control. I had a screen on top of a 19" rack, and a chair...and had more control  

Christopher – 10/06/08

Hello everyone - I've just completed our local Country Music Festival (outdoors - 2 days) with SAC and 2 ADA8000's with a "Power Works" system as FOH.

It was an outstanding success with gracious comments from both performers and listeners.

SAC was flawless and my 2 BCF2000's gave me 16 channels of "hands on" control.

Fantastic weekend all around with the icing being the "Power Works" system far exceeding my expectations in an outdoor environment.

As backup on Saturday, I took along a H/W 16 ch mixer and extra sound system. Neither was needed even though the day was quite windy.

I left all the extras home on Sunday  

Great stuff - thanks Bob.

Dennis – 10/05/08

FYI, I just finished my second conference using SAC and SAW to record. SAC ran straight for 12 hours without a hitch. The output for FOH and a single monitor feed was run through a small PA system for about 70 people however everyone commented on how good the sound was. Now, I have to mix it all  

Bruce Callaway – 09/28/08

So I've had SAC for a while now, but haven't really had a chance to put it through it's paces.

Today I got it all hooked up with my old laptop, Emachines 6805, Athlon xp single core, 1gb ram, nothing special at all. RME Digiface and 2 ada8000s.

So 16 channels input, Eqs and comps active on every channel, 1 Reverb, 1 Delay, 4 monitor mixes. At 1x64 I've had it running for about 6 hours, no slipped buffers and at 10% cpu usage.

I really thought I was going to have to buy a new laptop, but this setup is working like a champ so far. Thanks Bob.

John  – 09/12/08

Rockin here still!

30 channels, 4 delays, 14 compressors, 22 eqs and some modulation stuff here and there... 1x64 at 24/48. I've heard from band members that there were an unusual number of comments on how good it sounded. 

Robert Randolph – 06/01/08

My first public outing of SAC - a demo for a local Country music club went without a hitch yesterday.

2 Acer laptops linked with crossed CAT6 wire. One on stage and one out front.

I ran the master at 64x6. The rig ran for over 4 hours with just 7 lost buffers, though I never heard a glitch at all.

I realised after the event that I hadn't engaged the "Force realtime priority class" which could have eliminated the lost buffers.

7 channels of eq, comps and delay with 7 band eq on main out and 1 mon out.

Also Elephant 2.5 on main out.

The master laptop ran at 8 % load.

The people involved were knocked out by the sound quality of both FOH and monitors and I had many pleasing comments.

I really didn't like mixing via mouse and usually had my hands on the ADA8000's trim knobs, so I'll be adding a BCF2000 very soon.

Setup time was fast as most of the eq, comps etc. had already been done.

This is going to be a monster.

Denis Hillman – 05/27/08

Here are my feelings towards SAC..................

1. Ease of setup and tear down:

Extremely easy to set up and take down. No lugging around on huge consoles. I fit the whole "brain" to my system in the trunk of my car with the speakers being hauled in a truck. Makes for a really simplistic prep.

2. Did it take any "getting used to" the virtual vs physical fader environment?:

It took a little bit of "getting used to", but no more than it would have for me to have gone from full analog to full digital on a console. I had to remember to keep up with what view I was on. I was the only engineer for this show and was doing FOH and Monitors. If a Monitor engineer had been present this would have not been an issue.

3. Were there any comments about the sound quality, i.e. someone saying it sounded more natural, or better than before etc...:

Almost immediately the guitarist that was there could hear the difference. There were several people present that were familiar with the equipment I was using and could tell the difference in the improved sound quality. Many of these that could hear the difference have no formal sound training and could tell the difference without me prompting them.

4. reliability of the system. did you a have any slippage (latency) or crashes, or did it just work?:

After doing many setups and takedowns in my home office I felt absolutely comfortable with the reliability. I carried a backup console to the show, however, being as confident as I was with SAC I chose to leave it packed up. I didn't even place it in line to use in case of a crash. No crashes, no slippage, just plain cranking out some serious quality sound. IT JUST PLAIN WORKED!!!!!!!

5. Any other comments you might have regarding S.A.C of a positive nature:

There are so many positives to speak about SAC where does one begin. I guess a good place to start is price. For the amount of money spent on the SAC software, computer to run it, and modules to bring in the signal, there is no way I could go by a console (digital or analog) that could do the same without absolutely breaking the bank.

It is easy to learn. I am teaching some guys now how to mix using the scene feature. It takes the guess work out of a lot of it. only minor adjustments have to be made from time to time, but you can totally change mulitple faders in a matter of a mouse click by using the scenes.

6. Any negative comments (not that we're gonna use them but we wanna know) so we can address them and try to make S.A.C even better:

Not even a small complaint. Even in beta, SAC has far outdone any sound console I have ever worked on.

Benjamin R. Pounds – 05/28/08

Owner of Premier Sound Equipment

Conroe, Texas

Use of SAC for a conference (1 and a half day Christian conference with music and speakers):

1. Ease of setup and tear down

SAC was very easy to setup and tear down. I had asked the organiser to give me the list of microphone channels in advance and monitor requirements. I setup a mix configuration based on this information and made last minute adjustments on site. This process was relatively simple.

2. Did it get take any "getting used to" the virtual vs physical fader environment?

The regular sound guys who mixed using the inhouse hardware used my SAC setup for the conference. I setup the SAC input, submix and output channels so they all appeared in one screenshot. Once they understood the interface based on their understanding of the hardware mixer, they had few problems with SAC.

3. Were there any comments about the sound quality, i.e. someone saying it sounded more natural, or better than before etc...

First comments about the improved sound quality were from the musicians who noticed the improvement in the vocal and acoustic guitar sound in the monitors. Since then, I have received more positive feedback saying that the overall sound in general was much improved over the existing hardware setup.

4. Reliability of the system. did you a have any slippage (latency) or crashes, or did it just work?

None, it just worked. On the Saturday, it ran non-stop for 14 hours.

5. Any other comments you might have regarding S.A.C of a positive nature

I used SAC in a pretty simple configuration. It was obvious that it opens up a lot of new possibilities. The conference organiser loved what SAC achieved and started thinking about new ways of mixing sound. I also used SAWStudio to record most of the conference sessions in tandem with SAC and this also worked without a hitch again opening up new possibilities.

6. Any negative comments (not that we're gonna use them but we wanna know) so we can address them and try to make S.A.C even better.

The only negatives I found are more specific to the total system used to run SAC rather then SAC itself.

1. Configuring equipment that was outside of SAC but were necessary for SAC to work. For example, the operation of the Digimax outputs and the cabling for the existing monitors was an issue given I had very short timeframes to get the system working. Getting the correct connections was also an issue for example, xlr vs jack plugs for the existing mixer. Bring your soldering iron and tools!

2. Getting used to using SAC as part of the entire setup took time to understand. Again this was due to limited time to test the entire setup and handing the system over to other sound guys to control. This was really evident with the usual sound guys who were not computer savy.

Bruce Callaway – 05/28/08

Canberra Region

Australia

1. Ease of setup and tear down:

Setup is very easy. I can create custom console setups before I get on site and it operates exactly as setup. I can transport the equivalent of several large format consoles in the trunk of my car rather than having large trucks to haul this equipment.

2. Did it get take any "getting used to" the virtual vs physical fader environment?:

SAC is very intuitive. It works and functions better that an actual console. I don't have to run back and forth working over an 8 foot console. Everything is at my fingertips, including all external sound processing.

3. Were there any comments about the sound quality, i.e. someone saying it sounded more natural, or better than before etc...:

I have had multiple folks in the audience as well as performers comment at how great the sound was.

4. reliability of the system. did you a have any slippage (latency) or crashes, or did it just work?:

Now that my system is setup and running, no crashes. The system just simply works. Bob's software works better that advertised. I am a SAW user from back to 1992 when Bob first started out. The product just keeps getting better and better.

5. Any other comments you might have regarding S.A.C of a positive nature:

SAC actually works better than any piece of hardware that I have used. Much clearer sound, much easier to use. I now don't have to have consoles that are just hugh slabs of steel. I now don't have to have trailer space to haul these consoles over the road from one event to the next. I have multiple consoles available in a small space, things that are not feasable with hardware.

6. Any negative comments (not that we're gonna use them but we wanna know) so we can address them and try to make S.A.C even better:

Not even a small complaint. Even in beta, SAC has far outdone any sound console I have ever worked on.

Greg Angst – 06/08/08

Houston, Texas

This setup was for a three day music festival:

a) Setup and tear down of SAC could not have been easier.

b) The biggest adjustment to using the virtual console for me was using only a mouse for making changes... kind of like using only one hand to adjust controls on a physical console.

c) These mixes went out live over the regional area radio waves, plus live HD internet streaming. I received numerous positive comments from people at the festival about how good the sound was on their home and car systems. I also noticed a marked and improved difference when comparing the reference cd's I burn in realtime (from the same radio feed output) to last year's reference recordings (using an Ashly line mixer)... all other things being more or less equal.

d) There was no question in my mind about reliability and SAC proved flawless in this respect.

1. Any other comments you might have regarding S.A.C of a positive nature

This was my very first outing with SAC as the front end mixer for my SAW PC. Three eight-hour days, ten bands worth of great music and hours of nearly flawless recording and live mixing using SAC and SAW on one PIV/2G PC and a single 19", wide-screen monitor.

With only a few days worth of testing and setting up rough templates, I was able to set up my live-to-radio mix and a second monitor mix in SAC which completely replaced both my soundcard software mixer and hardware line mixer needs from previous shows. Compensating for the festival soundman's actual channel layouts and the continual changes from band to band turned out to be one of the most painless (and rewarding) operations of the weekend thanks to SAC's Scenes and the SAW hooks. The ability to import SAC channel settings to SAW made setting up the record channel assignments go really fast and saved a lot of time since I didn't have to re-label SAW's channels.

SAC and SAW worked together perfectly! Running anywhere from 19 to 38 channels of mics from my splitter at the FOH board, SAC would operate at about 12-15% load with just the raw channels and the Levelizer patched to the radio feed output to 24-38% with one reverb and one delay on return channels, the Levelizer on the radio feed output and half or more of the inputs using EQ and Aux sends at any given moment. The load would jump significantly when using lots of the channel strip dynamics, but I ended up barely needing them (in spite of my tendency to think I might).

2. Any negative comments (not that we're gonna use them but we wanna know) so we can address them and try to make S.A.C even better.

There are some negatives, but not so much "negatives" as observations about working within the virtual mixing console domain that make it a little difficult to work quickly. As long as I didn't "freak out", none of the mixing issues I faced were overpowering at all though. I think that with some small changes to the mixer and a lot more hands on time from me that using SAC for my needs will be a breeze, even using just the mouse and keyboard to operate it and SAW.

Dan Towey – 07/07/08

Cedar Rapids, IA

1. If you have used S.A.C in the studio can you give a brief comment, a sentence or two or three that would describe your experience.

I have been involved with recording for over 20 years. The thing I missed most when switching over to ITB (In The Box) was the lack of a console. I felt like I was compromising with the feature set included with the built in monitoring the sound card companies would offer. SAC has eliminated that compromise and offers total flexibility. The best part is how it integrates so seamlessly with SAW. To be honest since using SAC I don't know how I got along with out it! My sessions go much smoother and the artist love the fact I now run 3 separate headphone mixes all with eq, gating, compression & effects. Like I said “total flexibility”!

2. If you have used S.A.C in a live performance setting clubs, concerts, churches etc, we would love to hear of your experience:

I do not use SAC in a live setting however I have taken the liberty to respond to the questions related to the use of SAC in the studio with SAW

a. Ease of setup and tear down

Well this is a no brainer. Literally only a few mouse clicks!

b. Did it get take any "getting used to" the virtual vs. physical Fader environment?

Absolutely no “getting use to”. The navigation is a breeze and the flow is very logical. It kind of reminds me of another intuitive software program . . . . SAW  

c. Were there any comments about the sound quality, i.e. someone? saying it sounded more natural, or better than before etc...

The quality is first rate. I am feeding the software with ADDA by Lavry (Blue Series). The digital buss is clean and accurate. What you get in is what you get out! What more can I ask for when everyone is happy how well SAC (and SAW) works & sounds.

d. Reliability of the system. did you a have any slippage (latency) or crashes, or did it just work?

Since just receiving the update that include the SAW hooks . . . I am running SAW & SAC on a MacPro with BootCamp with my RME FF800 set to 1X64 Buffers. I have not experienced any slippage (latency) or any crashes. This setup is a rock. I dove into DAW’s (SAW Plus) over 10 years ago. This is a dream come true that that has been brought to reality by one man! Bob was on the cutting edge of PC DAW’s from the inception and to date manages to stay one step ahead of the competition.

3. Any other comments you might have regarding S.A.C of a positive nature.

Once again SAC (and SAW) is a dream come true. When I first purchased SAW Plus in 1996 I had no idea what path Bob would lead. SAC totally completes SAW and I am proud to be a part of Bob’s vision. My use of SAC is currently for studio use only, however I can only imagine how it will change the present (& future) of live production. The way SAC integrates with SAW has totally changed how I will work in the studio forever.

4. Any negative comments (not that we're going to use them but we want to know) so we can address them and try to make S.A.C even better.

Can’t think of any!!

Joe Fanelli – 07/08/08

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