Hi All,

Think this is the right sub forum so here we go.

Just purchased a Focusrite Liquid Mix 32 of fleabay the other day but after the auction the seller all of a sudden remembered he was unable to locate the PSU.

I'm now looking for a replacement power supply. The website, and Focusrite themselves (who are ace at replying to questions), state that the PSU needs to be putting out 12v 1,5A AC. Now I checked with Focusrite as the unit itself states 12v @ 1A but the guys told me it is very likely the unit would then draw so much continuously it would kill the PSU in no time.

Focusrite's email states that I best look for something that is 12v 2A AC. So I was wondering if anyone knows a good supplier or has had to get a replacement themselves? Looked at Maplin but they don't seem to carry the right one. Most I find are AC/DC and I need a new PSU, not an old rock band

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Control room to be finished summer '12

yep, right forum.

Are you aware that the LM can be powered off the Firewire buss? You only need an external PSU if you're hooking it up via a FW port on eg an interface, which won't supply power. Which is presumably why the owner lost it.

Hi,

yes I am aware, it sitting here powered up but I will get my Liquid Saffire 56 back from servicing tomorrow and the unit will then have to sit in daisy chain unit Apple pull their finger out and release their promised Thunderbolt - FW cable.

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Control room to be finished summer '12

I bought a FW400 PCIe card solely for the LM as I tend to get data bottlenecks and system overload when chained with my FW audio card.

Quote BWSE:

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my Liquid Saffire 56

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Ah, understood. No bus power from the LS56 FW daisy chain.

Quote:

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Apple pull their finger out and release their promised Thunderbolt - FW cable.

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Yep; one thing that steers me away from Apple is the way they keep adopting new connectivity options (commendable) but dropping or severely scaling back all 'legacy' ones before the new ones are properly implemented. I had LS56 and LM working fine on separate buses on my (several years old) MacBook Pro.

Not sure on the connector, but presumably a laptop of monitor PSU would do the job. They're usually rated at 12V and 3-4A. Haven't checked for availability, but I'd usually go to CPC, Farnell, Maplin or Mouser to check for this sort of thing. FWIW, the stated spec on the Focusrite site is 1.5A, not 2.

Awooga Awooga!! Danger Will Robinson!!

IIRC, the Liquid Saffire 56 and the Liquid Mix don't play so nicely together on the same firewire bus as they use different chipsets. I know that Max (I miss Max ...) had issues and solved them by putting them on different busses. You may get lucky and it may only be when the 56 is using all available bandwidth (you can turn off the Adat ports and just use it as an 8ch interface).

Obviously this is subject to my flaky memory what with the source not being around these parts any more, but best to be prepared for issues ... just in case ...

Oh .. and mine has never used the power supply. I think I found the empty box the other day ... ho hum ...

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Hi Dave,

I think that's a simple bandwidth issue, not specifically a LS56 one: it's the same with my Fireface 800.

Always thought it a shame on these interfaces you couldn't restrict *just* the inputs or outputs independently. But yes, definitely a good plan to use a dedicated bus wherever possible; and to stick with 44.1kHz project sample rate and dynamic convolution impulses.

M.

Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the answers, I think I have found the right one at Maplin now. It's multi voltage and 1,5 amp just took some browsing as it doesn't come up in results at the search page when I typed the specs but I persevered...

I will let you know how I get on with them on the same bus. I run mostly 48kHz or 96kHz 24bit so I'll try that first. But if it's dysfunctional, I'll try with a Lindy FW repeater first. Should work out better as the hub is FW800 and then feeds down to two FW400 devices? As now it goes from my MBP FW800 - FW400 - LS56 - LM.

On another note, very OT, I just got my hands on 2 DBX 160a's for dirt cheap. Hooray!

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Control room to be finished summer '12

The LM doesn't play nicely with ANYTHING else on FW. It's a full-on nightmare.

As for power supplies, it's perfectly happy with the one from my Tascam FW1082. I know that because I plugged the wrong supplies into the wrong items when rewiring...



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"We knocked on the doors of Hell's darker chambers..." But no-one answered, so we went to the pub instead.

There must be a pile of these power supplies somewhere because the LM I got off eBay recently didn't have one either. Probably in a corner with all the odd socks and half-used biros.

Anyway, works fine on the FW, but it definitely needs its own card.

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getting better all the time..

Thanks again for all the replies guys, I'll have to see how I get on having it sharing the bus and I will let you guys know near the end of the week. I'll get it on a separate bus as soon as apple makes the TB - FW cable available.

I see somebody opted for a pci-(e?) card but that is not a possibility with my 2011 15" MBP? Well, not a realistic one unless I would buy a magma expansion chassis on Thunderbolt. Which, at approx £900 is not a realistic option...

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Control room to be finished summer '12

So far, the LM plays nicely with :

a) a variety of audio interfaces,
b) Powercore
c) Lexicon PCM96

On macs anyway...

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)

Well, what do you know, I happen to own a mac!

So far:
Not even showing a sign of life (when daisy chained) Even with a new 3A power brick. Getting a replacement PSU from focus rite tomorrow to the exact spec. Hope that solves it.

I really can't listen to my shitty M-box 2 anymore. the difference in quality between that and my LS56 is astounding!

EDIT: From nothing to fully working and so far playing nicely together in minutes! Hooray!

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Control room to be finished summer '12

Edited by BWSE (02/08/12 08:07 PM)

Nice one. Now have a play with the different images on the LM. Some are fantastic; some are less good. You need to make your own mind up. I'd recommend spending a day or two auditioning the different EQs and compressors and making a shortlist of five or six of each so you don't spend forever wading through presets when you're mixing. There's a script knocking around the web somewhere for Mac only which gives you snapshopts of everything with the proper name, instead o the lawsuit-proof cryptic names given by Focusrite...

Hi yeah, I have been using the LM for a week now and have some emulations I like to use. Partially because of knowing what some of the HW units do well (as through my work I've been lucky enough to actually touch a fair few models). One that really surprised was the emulation of the BSS 402, I have just tested 6 of them for a large stock sale and the emulation does a good job, were it not that the emulation actually sounds better.

Once all my kit is built in and up and running by the end of next week, I'll compare the 160A's I now own with the Big Blue presets, they are not the same colour wise of course but their compression is quite similar in real life so I'll see how they match.

I saw the script, which is pretty much the snapshots with the real names but I tried it last weekend and it didn't work, audio went in but didn't come out.
I've gone down to V2.3.something now because I tun pro tools and the unit responds better so I'll give it another go.

Just wondering, has anyone also noticed weird phase artefacts? I have noticed twice this week while mastering something, that when I used a low shelve the HF disappeared or just started to phase. As if using a 31-band GEQ and using extreme settings which ruin phase/ time alignment correlation?

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Control room to be finished summer '12

There is a known bug in the very low areas and if you do a search, there are discussions around it. Personally, it's never affected me much so I don't mind.

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Veni, Vidi, Aesculi
(I came, I saw, I conkered)