ITB Bounce vs. Digital Xfer

[mark4man]

Here's a question for all you "in-the-box" wizards...

For a 16-Bit SONAR project, w/ plug-ins applied...will a real-time digital transfer (S/P DIF or ADAT) to an external hard disc recorder be identical to bouncing the project to a .wav file...or will it sound like the parent project?

As everybody here (painfully) knows...my CD project was all tracked & mixed in SONAR2, but I now do all my mixdowns out of SONAR4 (to take advantage of the universal bus routing, trim control on the stereo bus, etc.)

But I really prefer the way the projects sound via real-time playback in SONAR2. They may not even sound "technically" better...but I've worked the v2 mix to where it sounds exactly the way I want...& that's the sound I want, period.

My alternatives then become outputting analog (which is what I'm hearing...the sound of my AI's D/As) to an external HD recorder (Masterlink, etc.) or a digital transfer, also in real-time.

Will S/P DIF or ADAT grab all the extra plug-in DSP ambience from SONAR's internal processing depth, or will the digital signal be truncated? What if I convert the project to 24-Bit before I transfer?

And...will the digital output sound the same as what I'm hearing in typical real-time playback? Im not sure it will, 'cause the AI will be taking the signal prior to the D/A & piping that out via one of the two digital formats, right?

Maybe I should just do a frigin' analog & be done with it...I don't know. This is frustrating as shit. I have a mix I'm satisified with in SONAR2 & no way of getting that sound to redbook. F it all.

mark4man

[mshilarious]

Seems kinda quixotic to me. If you transfer to analog then an HD recorder to burn, then listen to the playback, then you will have the sound of your Sonar 2 mix, plus your D/A, plus the sound of the HD's A/D, plus the sound of the CD player's D/A.

Lemme ask you this: why doesn't a CD burned from the Sonar 2 mix, played back through your converters sound the same? If it's 16/44.1 the whole way, there seems to be some issue there.