Tape to digital transfer (A&H ice 16)

Thanks for the input. More reading is in order.:D
I, like you, like the work flow of track to tape, dump to daw, edit in daw, then mix on the board.
The A & H, being just converters makes that easy.
Then again, free is free, and more options open up. Along with a steeper learning curve. :D
 
You're going to have to sync the clocks up. Since they have optical and coaxial input and output I'm betting you could do it that way. Maybe the driver can run two at a time but I doubt it.
 
For my three Layla24 boxes...I install the driver three times...and they all show up in Win 7 and in my DAW (Samplitude ProX).
I also get three Layla24 consoles where I can set levels, choose clock sources and set rates, etc.

When I ran them under XP...it was pretty straightforward. When I switched to Win 7, there's a bit of an issue with the multiple cards...like when I reboot, the computer, my I/O designations in ProX would get reshuffled. I found ways around that, and most times, I simply disable two of the Layla drivers in Win7...and that's how I run most days.
Then when I need to transfer 24 tracks from the tape deck...I enable the other two, and check that their I/O designations in ProX are correct, and I'm good to go.
The multiple boxes work fine otherwise. I'm not sure if this is just a Win 7 thing, where the drivers aren't quite happy...but it's a minor issue. There's no problem in doing the simultaneous cards.
That said...I've heard of other folks with other DAWs and hardware talk about multi-card/box issues....???
 
bouldersoundguy said:
You're going to have to sync the clocks up. Since they have optical and coaxial input and output I'm betting you could do it that way. Maybe the driver can run two at a time but I doubt it.
Click to expand...

Looking at the documentation, it would appear that the daw will recognise both units as one.
You hook the master to a firewire port, and the slave gets firewired into the master unit.
 
RFR said:
Looking at the documentation, it would appear that the daw will recognise both units as one.
You hook the master to a firewire port, and the slave gets firewired into the master unit.
Click to expand...

That's nice. It must be something specific they do through Firewire. One way or another they have to share a clock.
 
Well my dilemma is over. Decisions have been made.
Getting the A&H ICE 16 AND both Focusrite Saffire pro 40 units.

And let the learning curve begin. :D
 
Got my A&H Ice 16 today.

Holy shit! Life couldn't be easier. In 15 minutes I had it hooked up and transfered all 16 tape tracks to digital wave files. One pass.
With the outputs hooked up to my console, here I was listening to my mix from earlier, yet no tape was rolling.

Sound quality is good. Sounds just like the source material.

Very easy to use. The learning curve on this was practically zero.

The only thing I dont love, but not a biggie, is the monitoring. You can only monitor the tracks via headphones and in mono. I was hoping to monitor through the board. This is really no biggie, because I'm transferring raw unmixed tape tracks and you can mute tracks you dont want to hear as you are transferring.

Overall, I'm happy I pulled the trigger.
:thumbs up:

Now get a daw, import the files and edit
I guess this is where the learning curve comes into play. :D
 
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