What's the best way?

[Bguzaldo]

I'm going to pick up my first multitrack tape deck tomorrow and now I have to look into the future. What is the best way to get your analog recordings to CD? Perserving the character of the tape and all. I've heard a lot of good and a lot of bad about The Masterlink 9600. Other than that I'm not sure if most would just recommend really good converters or whatnot.

If anyone has advice I'd love to hear it.

Thanks,
-Barrett

[themaddog]

Use what you have at your disposal first - especially since you are new to analog multitrack recording.

Record your mixes to computer, using an RCA to 1/8" cable. Plug in the RCA cables (red and white) into the output of your Portastudio or mixer, and the 1/8" side into the line input of your computer. If you're not satisfied with the quality, look into a better sound card or something like the Alesis Masterlink or a standalone CD recorder.

-MD

[mixsit]

How are you capturing your mix in the first place? Then do you plan to do any post processing and/or assembly in digital?
The simple answer is one good stereo A/D, then..

[Bguzaldo]

Originally Posted by mixsit

How are you capturing your mix in the first place? Then do you plan to do any post processing and/or assembly in digital?
The simple answer is one good stereo A/D, then..

I'm track with my soundcraft mixer to tape. Using all hardware. No computers or digital processing.

[mixsit]

Originally Posted by Bguzaldo

I'm track with my soundcraft mixer to tape. Using all hardware. No computers or digital processing.

Not to be a ... but this is piecemeal info.
Now you've narrowed it down to..
A good converter > to any burner (it doesn't much mater) to audio cd or data.
Send cd to mastering (or not.
Or even skip that and send the two track.

[Bguzaldo]

Originally Posted by mixsit

Not to be a ... but this is piecemeal info.
Now you've narrowed it down to..
A good converter > to any burner (it doesn't much mater) to audio cd or data.
Send cd to mastering (or not.
Or even skip that and send the two track.

hahaha yeah sorry i was on the fly and couldn't type a dedicated response.

i track with a 24 channel soundcraft ghost, i'm working on buyin a tascam msr 24. i'll be doing all of the mixing out of the box. i will master onto a 2 track technics rs 1700. i was thinking for a while of going from the master 2 track to an alesis masterlink 9600. but maybe a good stereo digital converter would be a better investment.

thanks for all the help, sorry for being to incompetent
-barrett

[jedblue]

Welcome to the land of analog Barrett. It's all been said before in this thread but here's my take; you've got plenty of options here already from what you say. Clearly you're going to need an AD/DA of some sort (if you don't already have one). I don't know what an Alesis Masterlink goes for where you are but everytime I've looked into a standalone CD burner and other high bit mastering devices I just can't bring myself to do it for what I'm involved in. So you might find an AD/DA to your computer is the best option. That's what I ended up doing and I use an old M-Audio Audiophile USB 24/96 that I picked up off eBay for fifty bucks. Then I just burn the disks off my laptop.

You might find that you also don't need to mix down to the RS1700 either if digital is going to be your final form. I go both ways with my reel machines depending on the need but I think if I was going to digital as a final form I'd probably mix direct to digital and skip the analog mixdown step. Others may disagree but I sometimes wonder what extra value another analog generation between the mix and the digital final master actually adds if you've got all the analog goodies on the tracking tape. Although I guess that with the RS1700 being a wide format machine with 15ips capability, it might improve the mix before it goes to digital if it's coming off a narrow format multitracker like the MSR24?

Anyway, it seems to me you've got plenty of options and if you already have an AD/DA and a computer then I'd use that to start with rather than a dedicated CD device and try also mixdown via the Technics and just straight in to the AD/DA as well. You'll hear whether another analog process inbetween adds or subtracts to the final mix soon enough.

We've also settled on 24bit / 48kHz as our initial analog to digital conversion rates rather than going to 96kHz.

Have a good time and let us hear some of what you come up with.

Geoff

[Blue Jinn]

Probably overly complicated, but I've used both a M-Audio Audiophile for 2 track or mixed to a DAT deck. From the DAT deck either pulled the audio from the tape using DAT2WAV and an audio capable drive, or the S/PDIF jack on the Audiophile.

[mfdjuve]

MIxing down to digital, does I need and AD converter for sure? How is using a converter different going through an interface?

[Chilljam]

Originally Posted by mfdjuve

MIxing down to digital, does I need and AD converter for sure? How is using a converter different going through an interface?

An 'interface' is an AD converter.

An AD converter is simply some analog to digital converter, hence you will definitely need an AD converter to mix from analog to digital. Your computer input, any digital audio interface or dedicated AD converter is just simply an AD converter. If you use the line in on your soundcard, you are going through an AD converter just that it's not a particularly high quality one. If your not happy with the quality of that converter, you can buy a dedicated AD converter (external), this will usually be higher quality compared to most standard sound cards.

[mfdjuve]

Originally Posted by Chilljam

An 'interface' is an AD converter.

An AD converter is simply some analog to digital converter, hence you will definitely need an AD converter to mix from analog to digital. Your computer input, any digital audio interface or dedicated AD converter is just simply an AD converter. If you use the line in on your soundcard, you are going through an AD converter just that it's not a particularly high quality one. If your not happy with the quality of that converter, you can buy a dedicated AD converter (external), this will usually be higher quality compared to most standard sound cards.

ok thanks, my friend has a new 12 channel m-audio interface...running into pro-tools, this should be ok right?
What we would be the difference in mixing down on Pro tools and mixing down on a CD recorder
He has this interface
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire2626.html

[Chilljam]

Originally Posted by mfdjuve

ok thanks, my friend has a new 12 channel m-audio interface...running into pro-tools, this should be ok right?
What we would be the difference in mixing down on Pro tools and mixing down on a CD recorder
He has this interface
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/ProFire2626.html

Yep the interface you got there will be good. Mixing down to pro tools compared to mixing down to cd recorder...

First of all, given that you already have all the equipment required for mixing down to pro tools, there really is no need to worry about mixing to a cd recorder. I'm pretty sure that sonically, there is no advantage mixing to cd recorder than there is to protools via the m-audio interface. I guess with the cd recorder, it's a bit more of a portable 'mix down unit' but i don't see really how that can be used to any considerable advantage.

Also, I am starting to look into this as well... what you are talking about when you say 'mixing down' is doing all EQ, effects, volumes, panning etc then outputting it to a stereo track and you want this stereo track to be digital. Like i said, both cd recorder and your friends interface can do this...

Question for someone else to answer because I don't know much about this stuff, will the 12 channel M-Audio interface for example that mfdjuve's friend has, be able to transfer separate tracks from the reel to reel recorder onto separate files on the computer. What i mean is if i want to just press play on an 8 track reel to reel and output all 8 tracks straight from the direct outs on the recorder to the M-audio analog inputs, will this (through firewire,usb or whatever way you plug that thing in the computer) allow me to record and save each track as a separate file so i can master the tracks on the computer?

Basically, can i get a soundcard or interface where i can record more than just a stereo track on the computer like you get on a normal sound card (line in) i cant just record two tracks at a time because obviously the recorder will not play the tape exactly the same speed each time and so the tracks would be out of sync.