sound card + AD/DA converters + mixer

[benchi]

hello everybody..
first of all sry for my english..
now i got to ask, why in a professional studio records theres a sound card in addition to AD/DA converters and mixer?
AD/DA converters works as a sound card, dont they?
so what is the mixer for?
please enlighten me!
and if you do need all 3 of these how you connect them into your pc?
pc-> sound card
and how it goes from there?
thx you all!

 

[mjbphotos]

Suggest you do some reading. This thread is a good place to start. Basically, you need SOME device to convert audio to digital. This could be an external device such as a USB mixer, or an audio interface with USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt outputs. It could also be an internal (meaning mounted into a computer) 'soundcard'. Some soundcards do not have mic preamps, so an external device (like a mixer or stand-alone mic preamp) would be needed to provide the preamplication needed to record with microphones, then the output of this would be sent to the soundcard in analog or optical mode.

Not sure what 'studios' you have seen with all of these devices, but chances are they are not using all of them at one time.

 

[benchi]

Suggest you do some reading. This thread is a good place to start. Basically, you need SOME device to convert audio to digital. This could be an external device such as a USB mixer, or an audio interface with USB or Firewire or Thunderbolt outputs. It could also be an internal (meaning mounted into a computer) 'soundcard'. Some soundcards do not have mic preamps, so an external device (like a mixer or stand-alone mic preamp) would be needed to provide the preamplication needed to record with microphones, then the output of this would be sent to the soundcard in analog or optical mode.

Not sure what 'studios' you have seen with all of these devices, but chances are they are not using all of them at one time.

thank you for the quick answer...! theres not enough reading material in hebrew but i did read what you sent me...
maybe its to increas the number of channels recording? (instead to replace the sound interface...)

 

[bouldersoundguy]

Small recording setups usually have audio interfaces which include the AD/DA and basic monitoring. Bigger recording setups sometimes have separate AD/DA converters connected (Lightpipe, TDIF, AES3 etc.) to a digital interface in the computer.

A mixer is useful for routing signals, like making multiple monitor mixes when you're recording a whole band at once. Typical audio interfaces have rudimentary mixing built in to allow the user to hear his live performance mixed with playback of existing tracks.