Hey, Dave. I’m so very excited to see the beginnings of what will be your video series on the Flock Audio Patch. I started watching this channel from its inception and have also grown my outboard analog footprint substantially. Of course, as you know, that also means more patchbays and patching revisions. The Patch is an amazing unit in concept and I want one; I’d even reached out to my Vintage King account rep so that we can determine the proper sizing. I soon learned that even with the 192 point Patch, I’’ll still need to manually patch in a few of my analog units. I do have a slight concern about the pricing model, in that I am accustomed to seeing pricing get better as I purchase scaled up units, however, with the Flock systems, scaling up in I/O actually, in most cases, costs more than the sum of 2 smaller units. For example , the patch 32 lists at $ 1,999 and the next size up, the 64 lists at 3,099 .. that’s an example where buying at scale offers a price break but the next size up beyond the 64 is the 128 and it’s listing at $8,999… that equates to $2,801 more than the cost of 2 flock 64 units. I understand that there may be small feature variations but the point is by going up in scale the units cost even more per I/O. I googled if more than one patch can be controlled from a single PC and the search results indicate that it’s possible by using 2 Patch units in tandem, but that comes at the cost of sacrificing 16 channels of I/O to transfer between 2 units. Can you ask if they will ever offer a better way of either allowing customers to run more than 1 unit from a PC but have them independently controlled so that the Flock Patch ecosystem systems can grow as add ons ? As always, thanks for your channels, the video content, and for sharing with us !
Trust me, it's going to be one of the best items in your studio.... It's a lot of money until you realize all the time it saves you and all the back and forth testing you can do. It's literally one of the key items in my studio, It's just expensive and makes it difficult to justify the cost unless you have paid clients.
I have plenty of paying clients and this reminds me of the Trinnov. That was a huge expensive as well but with in 2 months I realized it was the best money I have ever spent in my studio
You aren't kidding! Its very expensive, that's for sure. But, for what it does, it may be worth it. I'll have to work with it for a while to determine that.
Have you seen the Wolff patchbay? It uses relays instead of VCA's and is more transparent due to this. The flock is not as good with dynamics. The Flock software is a lot better mind and could be worth it due to that. Wolff's patch bay is still being developed so it could catch up with the ease of software integration. Flocks is a lot more simpler at the moment to use, a lot easier to instantly change up patches. Can load a previous session fine but the interface is clucky and kinda looks like a euro rack style plugin and how you route that on a screen... where the Flock is very straight forward and very easy to see what is going on the second you bring up a previous session. Currently I'm still leaning toward the Flock due to this
I have seen the Wolf patchbay but it's twice the cost for the same I/O. Anyway, I don't notice any difference in sound before and after the Flock. Do you have actual hands-on experience with either solution? I mean, do you actually own one?
@@MixingMusicAnalog Sorry, but you’re mistaken about the price. The Wolff Patch is actually $13 cheaper on Vintage King lol, and both units have the same I/O with 128 channels. We had the Flock Audio at our studio but switched to the Wolff Patch, and there were definitely audible sonic differences. The Flock Audio unit relies on chips and a built-in computer, which colors the sound-we could clearly hear it in our studio. Additionally, the Flock Audio unit has a loud fan, which wasn’t ideal for our environment. It’s also quite large, along with its power supply. In contrast, the Wolff Patch is fanless, doesn’t rely on chips, doesn’t overheat, and can even be powered via USB-C. The software is excellent as well. Another major advantage of Wolff is their customer support. They actively seek user feedback and implement improvements quickly. My experience with them has been great-I was able to communicate directly without long email exchanges. On the other hand, when we had an issue with a channel on the Flock Audio unit, it took a long time to get assistance. Their support was strictly via email, with no option for quick calls, which isn’t ideal considering the high price of their product.
Good info. I know that the largest unit Wolf has is 128 points and the Flock is 192. I can tell you that the fan is the Flock is pretty dead quiet. I ran it for 3-4 hors straight and the unit barely got warm to the touch. However, I have only used it for 1 day....LOL....let's see in 30 days how things are working.
Looking forward to seeing how you incorporate this into your workflow. As a Pro Tools user, I’m desperately hoping that Flock releases a software update to allow me to instantiate the Patch alike a HW Insert plugin on each track, as opposed to routing from one track to the next (and then printing) in PT. I’ve had this on my wish list for a while, with the ONLY hesitation being a cluttered workflow in PT.
Hello, I am a big fan of your channel. Thank you for all you do. I have purchased one of the smaller 64 channel Flock patchbay units when they first came out. I am still working on the integration side of things. One thing I was originally considering this unit for is using it to route raw microphone signals into my desk from the live room. I was told that I should route all microphone signals through preamps first before running these into the Flock Patch system. This was a recomendation due to the fact that microphone signals levels are so low and these should be routed through a preamp first. I can certainly do that and I understand that having a higher signal level would be a better way to manage the audio paths without any signal loss. With that said I am now planning to use the Flock Patch unit to route pre-amplified microphone signals first then go through the Flock Patch to external compressors etc then back into my DAW. I woul like to know if unamplified raw microphone signals can be routed through the Flock Patch system. It would be great to be able to do that. Then I can route various microphone signals to a veriaety of various Pre-amps as well. Looking forward to seeing what other tests you do with the Flock. I will be getting another Flock 64 to add to my system in the future.
Really looking forward to this series. I will be most interested in seeing how you address the limitations of the IO, meaning can you fully integrate the console and all of the hardware or will some still need to be done manually.
Watching eagerly! I invested a lot in really high quality TT patch bays and at least I know that with great cables I am not messing with my sound. However something like the Patch would be SO convenient for the reasons you mention. I think my main area of interest here would be to see 1. How easy is it to integrate into your workflow and should you decide to buy the Flock, what impact would that have on your current bays from a business sense ? Ie In my case I've got about 4K in the bays so making those redundant and having to sell them isn't an attractive prospect at all not to mention all the money spent on patch cables 2. It would be interesting to see if there's an audible difference between the cable bays and the Patch 3. Is the cost of the system really worth it for the ability to swap chains around quickly OR, would you find yourself reverting back to similar behaviours as with the old bays and just having go to chains. I'm skeptical that I'd be forever patching in different chains and trying things out, maybe at the beginning but not sure long term. Cheers mate looking forward to seeing more
I tested this in the "install video" which is coming in a couple of weeks. The fan is a NON_ISSUE! Don't believe what you see on the internet. unless someone has a older unit, maybe those were an issue but I can say that the fan is not loud, not even close
My question is, how stable is the software, is there any lag between switching units. Also is there any loss audio from the switching. This looks very intriguing, and I know you're going to put it through it's paces and give us an honest assessment. Hopefully you'll have a great experience with it
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Hey, Dave. I’m so very excited to see the beginnings of what will be your video series on the Flock Audio Patch. I started watching this channel from its inception and have also grown my outboard analog footprint substantially. Of course, as you know, that also means more patchbays and patching revisions. The Patch is an amazing unit in concept and I want one; I’d even reached out to my Vintage King account rep so that we can determine the proper sizing. I soon learned that even with the 192 point Patch, I’’ll still need to manually patch in a few of my analog units. I do have a slight concern about the pricing model, in that I am accustomed to seeing pricing get better as I purchase scaled up units, however, with the Flock systems, scaling up in I/O actually, in most cases, costs more than the sum of 2 smaller units. For example , the patch 32 lists at $ 1,999 and the next size up, the 64 lists at 3,099 .. that’s an example where buying at scale offers a price break but the next size up beyond the 64 is the 128 and it’s listing at $8,999… that equates to $2,801 more than the cost of 2 flock 64 units. I understand that there may be small feature variations but the point is by going up in scale the units cost even more per I/O. I googled if more than one patch can be controlled from a single PC and the search results indicate that it’s possible by using 2 Patch units in tandem, but that comes at the cost of sacrificing 16 channels of I/O to transfer between 2 units. Can you ask if they will ever offer a better way of either allowing customers to run more than 1 unit from a PC but have them independently controlled so that the Flock Patch ecosystem systems can grow as add ons ? As always, thanks for your channels, the video content, and for sharing with us !
Thanks for your concerns about the pricing. I will let representatives from Flock Audio answer these directly.
Nice!
Thanks for watching!
Trust me, it's going to be one of the best items in your studio.... It's a lot of money until you realize all the time it saves you and all the back and forth testing you can do. It's literally one of the key items in my studio, It's just expensive and makes it difficult to justify the cost unless you have paid clients.
I have plenty of paying clients and this reminds me of the Trinnov. That was a huge expensive as well but with in 2 months I realized it was the best money I have ever spent in my studio
13K ..... picking myself up off the floor. Looking forward to this series big time. Thanks, Dave.
You aren't kidding! Its very expensive, that's for sure. But, for what it does, it may be worth it. I'll have to work with it for a while to determine that.
@@MixingMusicAnalog right on. We'll be watching
Have you seen the Wolff patchbay?
It uses relays instead of VCA's and is more transparent due to this.
The flock is not as good with dynamics.
The Flock software is a lot better mind and could be worth it due to that.
Wolff's patch bay is still being developed so it could catch up with the ease of software integration.
Flocks is a lot more simpler at the moment to use, a lot easier to instantly change up patches.
Can load a previous session fine but the interface is clucky and kinda looks like a euro rack style plugin and how you route that on a screen... where the Flock is very straight forward and very easy to see what is going on the second you bring up a previous session.
Currently I'm still leaning toward the Flock due to this
I have seen the Wolf patchbay but it's twice the cost for the same I/O. Anyway, I don't notice any difference in sound before and after the Flock. Do you have actual hands-on experience with either solution? I mean, do you actually own one?
Wolff patchbay is pretty expensive
The classic "have you used it or are you just repeating things you heard/saw online by people who also probably have not used it"
@@MixingMusicAnalog Sorry, but you’re mistaken about the price. The Wolff Patch is actually $13 cheaper on Vintage King lol, and both units have the same I/O with 128 channels.
We had the Flock Audio at our studio but switched to the Wolff Patch, and there were definitely audible sonic differences. The Flock Audio unit relies on chips and a built-in computer, which colors the sound-we could clearly hear it in our studio. Additionally, the Flock Audio unit has a loud fan, which wasn’t ideal for our environment. It’s also quite large, along with its power supply.
In contrast, the Wolff Patch is fanless, doesn’t rely on chips, doesn’t overheat, and can even be powered via USB-C. The software is excellent as well.
Another major advantage of Wolff is their customer support. They actively seek user feedback and implement improvements quickly. My experience with them has been great-I was able to communicate directly without long email exchanges. On the other hand, when we had an issue with a channel on the Flock Audio unit, it took a long time to get assistance. Their support was strictly via email, with no option for quick calls, which isn’t ideal considering the high price of their product.
Good info. I know that the largest unit Wolf has is 128 points and the Flock is 192. I can tell you that the fan is the Flock is pretty dead quiet. I ran it for 3-4 hors straight and the unit barely got warm to the touch. However, I have only used it for 1 day....LOL....let's see in 30 days how things are working.
Really looking forward to see how this shakes out.
Me too!! :)
Looking forward to seeing how you incorporate this into your workflow. As a Pro Tools user, I’m desperately hoping that Flock releases a software update to allow me to instantiate the Patch alike a HW Insert plugin on each track, as opposed to routing from one track to the next (and then printing) in PT. I’ve had this on my wish list for a while, with the ONLY hesitation being a cluttered workflow in PT.
Hello, I am a big fan of your channel.
Thank you for all you do.
I have purchased one of the smaller 64 channel Flock patchbay units when they first came out. I am still working on the integration side of things. One thing I was originally considering this unit for is using it to route raw microphone signals into my desk from the live room. I was told that I should route all microphone signals through preamps first before running these into the Flock Patch system. This was a recomendation due to the fact that microphone signals levels are so low and these should be routed through a preamp first. I can certainly do that and I understand that having a higher signal level would be a better way to manage the audio paths without any signal loss. With that said I am now planning to use the Flock Patch unit to route pre-amplified microphone signals first then go through the Flock Patch to external compressors etc then back into my DAW.
I woul like to know if unamplified raw microphone signals can be routed through the Flock Patch system. It would be great to be able to do that. Then I can route various microphone signals to a veriaety of various Pre-amps as well.
Looking forward to seeing what other tests you do with the Flock. I will be getting another Flock 64 to add to my system in the future.
I forgot to mention that the Flock Patch system can also provide phantom power to microphones.
Great, questions. I know Flock will be reading these comments and I will let them answer this specially.
Really looking forward to this series. I will be most interested in seeing how you address the limitations of the IO, meaning can you fully integrate the console and all of the hardware or will some still need to be done manually.
The install video is coming in a couple of weeks!!
If you start with a smaller flock, like the LT, can you expand it later by adding more and connecting them together?
Yes, you can connect more than one unit together. I don't know the specifics on exactly how that works, but I will find out
@@MixingMusicAnalogawesome! Thank you!
I'm predicting that you'll be keeping this unit Dave ... just a hunch. 😆
Will see :)
Watching eagerly! I invested a lot in really high quality TT patch bays and at least I know that with great cables I am not messing with my sound. However something like the Patch would be SO convenient for the reasons you mention. I think my main area of interest here would be to see 1. How easy is it to integrate into your workflow and should you decide to buy the Flock, what impact would that have on your current bays from a business sense ? Ie In my case I've got about 4K in the bays so making those redundant and having to sell them isn't an attractive prospect at all not to mention all the money spent on patch cables 2. It would be interesting to see if there's an audible difference between the cable bays and the Patch 3. Is the cost of the system really worth it for the ability to swap chains around quickly OR, would you find yourself reverting back to similar behaviours as with the old bays and just having go to chains. I'm skeptical that I'd be forever patching in different chains and trying things out, maybe at the beginning but not sure long term. Cheers mate looking forward to seeing more
Thanks for your input and for your questions. I will hopefully be able to answer them as I become more familiar with the Flock
Soneone talked about the fan noise of the Flockaudio patch, can you confirm if this is true?
I tested this in the "install video" which is coming in a couple of weeks. The fan is a NON_ISSUE! Don't believe what you see on the internet. unless someone has a older unit, maybe those were an issue but I can say that the fan is not loud, not even close
My question is, how stable is the software, is there any lag between switching units. Also is there any loss audio from the switching. This looks very intriguing, and I know you're going to put it through it's paces and give us an honest assessment. Hopefully you'll have a great experience with it
Thus far the software is super stable. No lag when switching. However, I have only used it for 1 day....LOL. More videos coming soon!
96 i/o means 32 inserts and 64 i/0 for rackgear right? That’s pretty dope 😊 Or does that leave 16 i/o for rackgear ?
96 I/O means 96 in and 96 out for a total patch points of 192
You lucky dog you
Thanks for watching!