Event EZbus

Not bad at all. Been using for over 1 year.
Does what it says on the packet.
And SMUX DOES WORK!!!!!!!!!!
Use it everyday with a Creamware card with NO PROBLEMS!!!!!

Just have a small home setup so its fine for me.
Everything comes through smooth and detailed.

Not had any problems to date.Touch wood.

Only needed it a couple of time.
By Email, they responded within a couple of days and the information was correct. Can't say better than that.

Small, fairly easy to use; to date reliable, good sounding and very well price in the UK, lot's of input, splexable routing. I could go on but surfise to say..works for me.

They should have named this product "confuser". I found the manual lacking and editing is difficult and hard to understand. Event should have thought about musicians instead of techies when they wrote the manual.
There are not enough mix templates to cover much and none that worked for me - how hard would it be to provide a few mix libraries?
Their advice to change the AUD.INI file in sonar for the EZbus causes the EZ8 to be unusable. Basically I've found no way to use the two together in 24bit - although Event claims they will - they won't in sonar. You can use one or the other for recording to your PC but not both together.
Windows XP is not supported well in this product.
As a controll surface the only thing that worked in the sonar template was the rewind button ! ! !
Installation is difficult in XP and their instructions are contradictory and confusing.I downloaded all the software and firmware updates. Whatever you do download these and use them instead of the cds. Follow only the latest instructions for installation. You will still have some anomalies like the EZbus folder opening on startup and no mixer for the EZ8.

good sound quality BUT - If you read the web site and their ads you will think that the EZbus and EZ8 together will record 4 channels of 24/96 in SMUX mode - they won't - Why ? because the EZbus does not support SMUX. Event should have made that clear - but they don't. Very misleading advertizing.

Who knows - I haven't been able to get it to work long enough to tell but it's very well constructed and I would guess reliable. I would not use it live without a backup.

Very misleading advertizing. If you read the web site and their ads you will think that the EZbus and EZ8 together will record 4 channels of 24/96 in SMUX mode - they won't - Why ? because the EZbus does not support SMUX. Event should have made that clear - but they don't.
The rebate that was supposed to arrive in 8 weeks took 20 or more - and I only got it after calling several times!
Very friendly tech support but lacking. Can't seem to get anyone on XP and they don't understand or use Sonar 2.2. They have also given advice on set up that causes conflicts with the EZbus / EZ8 configuration. Their advice to change the AUD.INI file in sonar for the EZbus causes the EZ8 to be unusable. Basically I've found no way to use the two together in 24bit - although Event claims they will - they won't in sonar. You can use either or for recording to your PC but not both together.
The techs are trying to be helpful but I think their hands are tied by lack of support and equipment - No one had XP or the EZ8 on a computer - also there are only 3 of them ? ?

I've been a professional musician full time for 25 years and have never had a more difficult piece of equipment -ever !
I would not recommend this product to anyone. It is not EZ. It gets in the way of being creative or recording. I wish it had good support. I'm going back to my Mackie board and M-audio sound card. If it were stolen or lost I would be happy.

The EZBus has some faults when it comes to navigating its paged menus, some functions are buried 3-4+ pages deep in it's 2 line LCD interface, but these are all well documenteed in the manual. after an hour on it there is little that is not totally obvious. Also there is no Control Surface Editor for MacOSX, something i hope they remedy as the MIDI control surfaces are complex (that's good!) and an external application is necessary (WinME,2k,XP apps included and their site has software for OSX to upload profiles in MacOSX but not to create them) to properly configure the multitude of options for youtr particular studio setup. Event claims that more maps are on the way for specific applications however they already have many common maps on thier site (and they are easily created) and one can store them with a SysEx tool.

Sound Quality is pretty damn good. Compared to the Pre's on a Mackie1402 (a prosumer standard) they blow them away. I've had no trouble (mine came with firmware 1.02) routing anything to anything. The internal Dynamics Processing ( 8x PEQ, and Comp/Gate/Limit for the primary 8 channels) is good and all that i'd want in a small digital mixer, too many other similar mixers try to cram some low-end delays and reverbs, I'm happy to see only some signal processing tools and little else. Good Job Event!

I've only had it a few weeks, but it's extremely sturdy. The rubberized buttons have minimal major markings that will wear over time, and the knobs are solid. this thing could take some abuse (perhaps slightly less then a Mackie1402, but then it's digital). Everything is well marked and clearly performs it's task. It'll be a matter of more time for a true reliability report, but i'm impressed so far.

I've called Event to see if some apps i have will be getting a default midi virtual map, they answered in a few rings and were knowledgable and smart. I appreciate that. The lack of and OSX Provile creator and Mix Editor is a pain, but not that large of one as I can create maps once (in Windoze) and load them from OSX. Also, as the EZBus supports Firmware upgrades, there's the off chance that added functionality is possible in the future. this is a really innovative product Event, keep it up!

The EZBus clearly outclasses the Tascam428 as a mixer, processor, and nearly so as a control surface (if only it had more knobs!) and at a close enough price for anyone looking at the Tascam to concider the Event (IMHO). I really like its stand alone mixer functions. It'd be nice if the trim knobs were MIDI mappable but i understand the need for some analog surfaces and they trim channels well. It cannot be stressed enough how versitile the EZBus is in routing I's to O's, It is so good that i'm wishing it had some more sends and returns (4 sends 4 returns), but the paired stereo channels (where 3 stereo pairs are combined into a single fader input) is great for stereo FX returns or MIDI tone genorators (whose out put is mixed before hitting the EZBus. I've had no problems with it's Digital I/O (USB and SPDIF and LightPipe). It's only shortcoming is lack of native surround sound support, however mapping from some computer application to lightpipe is not too difficult. Also there's currently no support for optical SPDIF, but thats not a major worry of mine.. (it's got 2 SPDIF outs, that works)
All in all this is the best usbIO/mixer/control sirface out there, it's nipping at the heels of the highend Firewire interfaces, lacking only the highend options (automated faders, nice displays and lots of I/O) the lack of digital IO can however be overcome with a Lightpipe card in your desktop computer, giving the EZBus 8x I/O.. Very nice!

This thing is going to get some heavy use around these parts.

No doubt. The thing is really well designed when it comes to routing audio. The included software for editing the functions on the ezbus is easy to use also. I got the sheet of paper too for no manual, but Event mailed me one as soon as i requested it. I have upgraded my ezbus twice with new firmware and it works great. Definate no brainer operation. Sometimes with windowsXP there would be a problem with the unit being recognized in the system tray - but Event promptly put a patch on their website to fix this. Nice.

I have plugged everything I own into my ezbus since i got it. Very quiet. I can hear a little his from my korg trinity sometimes but the recording i make in Nuendo is totally clean - even at 16 bits. I have done plenty of good direct in bass recordings also. The onboard compression is smooth and the noise gate works way nice. I am currently rewiring it to send audio out the digital sends to my aardvark card. No problem with the ezbus usb outs, but i would like to keep it in the digital side if i can. The only beef i had about sound was the asio drivers it shipped with. They would fuzz out sometimes in Nuendo and Cubase, but Event has since posted several new ones. The current one is very stable and low latency.

Definately will be around for a while. Very sturdy metal construction and solid faders/buttons. I have played one show with it so far without any crazy problems. In the studio it is the center of everything. I got one of the first 4 that sweetwater sound shipped in december and have never seen it mess up.

Don't get me wrong here, the guys at Event are very cool and easy to talk to. They do try to get problems fixed on a personal level. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience though. Their website is updated often though. I would give them a 7, but there is an Ezbus users group (www.jkstraw.com/ezbus) that is extremely helpful, so I'll give it a 9 instead.

Overall I will give it a 10. There are people out there that would disagree with me and they have. As far as I can figure though, it has done everything I bought it for and more. I use it for film scoring and writing drum & bass tracks. The simple fact that you can program the buttons on it makes it perfect for working with windows in nuendo and for controlling all of the parts of my scores. I've been going at the ezbus for 8 months now and feel that its exactly what I need for my studio work. Works great for playing live also. I though about the Tascam us428 for a while before i bought it, but i'm very glad i did not go that route.
Everythings a 10......... if they would just fix that blinking clipping light..... hmmm.
peace.

Very straight forward for a digital mixer; I was able to set it up with out refering to the manual (a good thing, because it's on CD-ROM, but a sheet is included saying they'll send you one upon request (a manual, not a sheet.) It's either that or a trip to Kinko's.) Everything is clearly labeled and easy to understand. The manual, once I did read the PDF file, was well written.

I was startled by how good EZbus sounds. Bought it to use as a small, portable mixer to work in tandem with an Alesis HD-24, 8 tracks at a time. Once in the home studio, though, I couldn't resist hooking it to a pair of Mackie monitors and playing various stuff through it--really nice. Clean, not hyped, not shrill--a Korg Karma sounded as good as I've heard it sound in my room. Much better sounding, say, than a Mackie 1202 (which I realize is not a Neve, but offer as a basis of comparison...)

Others have commented--surprisingly heavy, solid, and well built.

Registered via e-mail, heard back the same day--too early to tell.

Will report back at greater length when I've played with it as 1.) a Nuendo/soft synth controller and 2.) a midi port. Until then I've used it a a mixer (great results) and an ADAT lightpipe converter (fed various synths into a Hammerfall 9652 card--fine conversion). I think it's worth the dough just for what I've used it for thus far--if it actually does the digital controller thing (and why shouldn't it?) it's an absolute steal. Sorry to drool, but this thing has really knocked me out....

It's very straightforward. It does not ship with the hard-copy manual yet, but I've only had to look at the .pdf version once or twice. You can get a hard copy by requesting one from Event. Firmware updates are simple as can be--download an .exe, run it, and it updates the eeprom via USB.

Sound quality has been excellent thus far. It's actually very difficult to get the specs on this box--they don't have performance figures anywhere on their website, or in their literature. I was told by an Event tech that it has 108db dynamic range, and .003% THD. I'm sure this is at 96KHz/24bit via SPDIF. Realistically, via USB or lightpipe I think it has a little bit lower dynamic range--but it is still very quiet. With two channels and the master at unity (all other faders at min), I get noise at approximately -90db in wavelab via USB (sending the master to the USB out). This is certainly respectable. I haven't used the mic pres at all, so I can't speak of them. I have only used the built in dynamics for a few minutes (8 channels of dynamics), but they seemed easy to use and of a high quality. The display shows input levels (in -db) of the channels when they are selected, so this makes it easy to set the trim in order to maximize your use of bit depth. Overall, excellent audio quality.

I have only had it for a few days, but it has been running non-stop with no glitches or lockups. Physically, it definitely has a higher than average build quality by today's standards.

They can be a little slow responding to emails, and carry only a 90 day warranty on the EZBus, which is not very good. I haven't dealt with them in any kind of ongoing manner though to really judge them.

This is a great interface for what I use it for--electronic music that relies heavily on software synths/samplers. I only record two channels at a time, so I haven't felt restrained by the USB interface. It has 2 built in midi i/o's, so you have 32 channels of midi i/o built right into your mixer. Right now, I have a Alesis QS6.1 plugged into it as a controller, and a Kurzweil K2000 on the other i/o. No problems as of yet. As a control surface, it has actually surpassed my expectations by a long shot--very versatile and fully programmable (although it comes with pre-created profiles for VST/Nuendo/Sonar/and Logic is to be released this month from what I understand). It is very expandable as well--with a lightpipe PCI card you can run 8 channels of audio i/o simultaneously, and it has wordclock out to chain it with other gear. As far as routing versatility, you can route any input to any output, send, etc. VERY VERSATILE. I was considering an Echo Layla, as well as several MOTU products, and definitely feel that I made the right decision. The only thing that I thought may be a concern was latency when running audio via USB, but the ASIO drivers are great--most programs have been running at between 7ms (Wavelab/Reaktor) and 18 ms (VST) of latency on my system. Latency in Logic has been excellent as well. Bang for the buck makes this one a 10.

I've never owned a mixer before, and while acknowledging that there's still alot to learn about the EZbus, I feel I have a good handle on it after only a day of playing with it. A firmware upgrade is available on Event Electronics' website in the form of an executable file. Just run it w/ the EZbus connected via USB and you're good to go.

It's just like the manufacturer says it is--you can map anything to anything else. If you really want to confuse yourself, you can have channels 1-4 become 6-8 and vice versa, make all the sliders affect the pan instead of the volume, and make all of the trim knobs change the mid-level EQ boost. Everything is really easy... all the buttons are clearly labeled, you can browse through and select a mixer configuration for whatever you're doing (Cubase VST main mixer, LM-4 add-on, Model E addon, B4 organ addon, whatever... even most of the other recording apps have preset mixer configurations--4 "pages" of "configurations" per "configuration"). You can really do whatever the heck you want with this.

I'm not a big-shot label-owning musician, I'm mainly a hobbyist. This piece of equipment is the most professional one I own. I have a Red Sound DarkStar, a Kawai K11 (money is an issue, as you can see), and of course, my computer.

Here's a little story about sound quality. The DarkStar (analog DSP synth, for those who don't know) is a NOISY instrument. Static, inc. I tried plugging it into my regular soundcard (cheap stock card) line input, and buzzzzz... you could hear the instrument SLIGHTLY w/ full volume, but mostly static.

Here's the EZbus, now. I plug in the DarkStar, adjust the trim and mix level... no matter what I do, I can't hear any static (I was trying to get it to give me some static... no go). I can really push the limits on the volume of this thing now. Absolutely crystal clear (after all, it does 24-bit, 96kHz sound). Also, the EQ can be used to pick up the bass (mmmmm) and tune the mid-level and highs (basically, a 3-band EQ per channel (8 hard channels, up to 20 channels just piping through)). Dynamics (compressor, gate) are also included on this thing, which is another reason why I wanted it.

The damn thing is made out of old Russian tanks. I wouldn't want to test it out by dropping it, because it would get scratched, but I can see this thing would take a lot to get dented. All knobs/sliders are plastic, all buttons are rubber. The display is 2-line text, 2-bar (L/R) visual meter, and mute/solo status for each of 8 channels. BTW you can see by the way the metal looks on the bottom that this stuff is high grade. This isn't the stuff they make music stands out of. It has rubber feet (BIG rubber feet).

I'm giving a rating of 9 for the customer support because they do lie. They said "shipping will begin by X"... next phone call a month later... "shipping will begin by the end of Y".... It's understandable, I guess, but at least they did give the disclaimer that no matter what they said, it would be shipping before Christmas (and it was). They are nice people, regardless of their failure to meet deadlines. Strikes me as an unusually small company--no 1-800 number, either.

About the price paid, I purchased it from www.bpmmusic.com, and didn't pay as much as I quoted, do to a special deal that I was given, but do not feel free to disclose. The price I quoted is the price bpmmusic.com will give you, with free shipping. I suggest purchasing it there, since it's the lowest price available (as far as I've seen). Enough of my "thank you for the deal" advertising...

I'm into some trance/drum-n-bass, but also classical and jazz. I feel this mixer will suit me well for all of that, since it's not an instrument. I'll keep this thing forever, whether I'm in a band or whatnot. It's built to last, and I think Event is right in saying that it's worth the money. I can't afford the $849 list price, but I haven't seen anyone charge that much anywhere, so I think it's safe to assume that the price most people will pay is $700, which is still undervalued for what you get.

ONE BIG HEADS-UP/CAVEAT EMPTOR: I was under the impression that I could send at least 8 channels of audio to my computer via USB. I was mistaken. TWO CHANNELS OF AUDIO CAN BE PLAYED BACK OR RECORDED SIMULTANEOUSLY. What that means is, go ahead, get the EZbus, but if you want to open a mini-recording studio, you'll need an internal sound card that has S/PDIF in or Optical in to get 8 channels simultaneously. I'm sure you can find a low-feature card that ONLY does that somewhere for not too much. I think the product is geared mainly for electronic types--people who have computers and aren't planning on recording a huge band. For live stuff, this thing can take big stuff right out of the box. For recording, you'll have to take it 2 channels at a time. I'll probably end up getting an internal soundcard myself eventually.

Overall, the thing is a feature-full mother of mixers with a relatively small desk footprint for what it is capable of. It's about 2.5 or 3 inches tall, maybe 18-20 inches long, and goes about 9 or 10 inches back (width/depth).

I highly recommend getting this thing.