A Newbie Question from a not-so Newbie: A/D Converters???

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Nate74

Nate74

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I tried some internet research but I apparently don’t have enough of an understanding of this topic to even ask a question that Google/Search Function can understand… so here goes.

After the birth of my first child in another few weeks, the bedroom that was once just my "studio" will have to become my studio/office/TV Room. As such, my Soundtracs Topaz will be heading to craigslist as well as my Alesis HD24XR. Also my rack full of outboard gear will be drastically downsized as well.

On my last several projects, I've actually only been doing the tracking with the Topaz and transferring the raw tracks from the HD24XR to my PC where I mix in Sonar.

Having been out of the equipment buying world for about 4 years, I have no idea what my options are but here's what I think I'd like to do.

I'd like to use my "live" board which is a Allen & Heath MixWiz that has 16 direct outs to track through. That will let me create a studio mix, a few headphone mixes and send 16 channels into some sort of A/D converter. Then from the A/D converter into my PC where hopefully Sonar will gladly record those (up to) 16 tracks simultaneously.

So my first idea is to find 16 channels of A/D conversion but I have no idea what that might look like or cost. Ideally I’d like them to be roughly the same quality as the HD24XR’s converters. I'm also assuming that a USB 2.0 or Firewire connection from the converters to the PC is all that is needed?

Second idea that my drummer brought up was that now there are apparently mixers that have converters built in and that instead of using the MixWiz and separate converters, one of these boards could do both.

That concept is appealing as it downsizes the setup even more but I can’t imagine selling the HD24XR and the Topaz would come close to paying for such a board.

Does that question make sense at all? Any and all guidance would be most appreciated.
 
OK, thanks. That helps me get my head wrapped around what I think I need. It looks like since I have a mixer I want to use, all the audio interfaces that have built in preamps don't quite fit the bill. I'm thinking I'll check into the Moto 24 I/O Core. Not firewire, but I don't mind adding a PCI card to my studio PC.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/24ioCorePCIe/

Any thoughts on this approach?
 
The 24i/o is a great way of getting lots of channels to and from a mixer. Its not so ideal if you're starting a setup from scratch, but you've already got the mixer so its probably just about right for you.

Some people will say the quality of the converters isn't great, which is kind of understandable seeing as they've crammed 24 channels of AD and DA conversion into a shallow depth 1u rack unit! Thats the kind of conversation you get over at Gearslutz though, and back over here in the real world the converters would be considered perfectly adequate :). They're not going to be any worse that what you'd find on any other consumer level interface (you could use the nasty word 'prosumer' if you wanted :)), just they won't so much compete with the 'big boys' (Apogee, etc)... that's if you actually believe you can hear a huge difference, which is also debatable.
 
mattr said:
Some people will say the quality of the converters isn't great, which is kind of understandable seeing as they've crammed 24 channels of AD and DA conversion into a shallow depth 1u rack unit!
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You kidding? 1U is huge considering how integrated ADC/DAC hardware is these days. About the only reason it takes up that much space is because of all the jacks on the back panel. If you design one with a breakout cable and an external power supply, you could fairly easily cram 24+ bidirectional channels into a 1/4U rack unit.... :D
 
Nate74 said:
Does that question make sense at all? Any and all guidance would be most appreciated.
Click to expand...

Something here doesn't make sense to me and possibly because I have a different approach. You said this is a spare bedroom studio and yet you want to track 16 channels at once?? You certainly don't get a whole band that needs 16 channels in your studio, do you? :eek::D

So, I'm curious how many inputs you want to track at once. I think it's a lot less than you really need. My reasoning is based on mixing in the box rather than on a board, which I'm assuming is what you want to do. You already have Sonar and it's a very capable program. (Just got it myself recently and I'm still learning) I think once you get used to using the mixer in Sonar, you'll find 16 channels is limiting.

Re-assess what you really need for inputs and your options might open up a lot.

peace.... and congrats on the new addition to the family. :)
 
Chili said:
Something here doesn't make sense to me and possibly because I have a different approach. You said this is a spare bedroom studio and yet you want to track 16 channels at once?? You certainly don't get a whole band that needs 16 channels in your studio, do you? :eek::D

So, I'm curious how many inputs you want to track at once. I think it's a lot less than you really need. My reasoning is based on mixing in the box rather than on a board, which I'm assuming is what you want to do. You already have Sonar and it's a very capable program. (Just got it myself recently and I'm still learning) I think once you get used to using the mixer in Sonar, you'll find 16 channels is limiting.

Re-assess what you really need for inputs and your options might open up a lot.

peace.... and congrats on the new addition to the family. :)
Click to expand...

Some good points. Thank you. Let me clarrify a bit. I do track bands in my house on occassion but use my bedroom studio only as my control room and run a 24 channel snake into my living room, which becomes my live room. Drums go there. I have a closet off my living room where a guitar amp can go and then I'll run the bass player (me) through a Bass PODXT. For vocals, I either put him/her in the control room or of to the side the live room, behind a screen or something similar. When I track with this setup I usually end up using around 16 channels.

You are right though, for 75% of what I do in my studio, I only need the ability to track 3 or 4 tracks at a time; sometimes less (vocals). But I'm not quite ready to give up the ability to track a band "live"... maybe this 8-pound roommate I'm getting soon will feel differently though.:)

ALL - thanks for your input and thoughts. Much appriciated.

BTW - given that I'm used to the sound/quality of the converters on my HD24XR, will the MOTO be about the same?
 
thajeremy said:
prove it..... :p
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Take four Delta 1010LT boards and slap them in. They should fit in a quarter of a rack unit. Of course you obviously wouldn't be trunking a PCI bus up to a rack unit, so that's not absolute proof of feasibility, but it is a pretty good approximation.... :)

Oh, you mean you want me to *make* you one.... Uh... no.
 
Nate74 said:
Some good points. Thank you. Let me clarrify a bit. I do track bands in my house on occassion
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Well, that does answer my question. Cool, but I'm sorry I don't think I can be of much help to you. I know there are some firewire interfaces out there that are stackable. Each with 8 channels, 2 would give you 16 through one firewire port. It's doable. Ahh, looking through Sweetwater, there are several choices for you. Check it out:

http://www.sweetwater.com/c683--FireWire_Audio_Interfaces

peace.
 
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Chili said:
Well, that does answer my question. Cool, but I'm sorry I don't think I can be of much help to you. I know there are some firewire interfaces out there that are stackable. Each with 8 channels, 2 would give you 16 through one firewire port. It's doable. Ahh, looking through Sweetwater, there are several choices for you. Check it out:

http://www.sweetwater.com/c683--FireWire_Audio_Interfaces

peace.
Click to expand...

Chili - actually you've been quite helpful in helping me think this through. I like the idea of two 8 channel interfaces a bit more than one 24-channel interface for a reason I didn't expect.

I'm discovering that many of the 8 channel interfaces have built in preamps; which would let me just go straight to PC if I wanted. This would be great for getting ideas down and on smaller projects where I don't want to fire up a board and a bunch of outboard gear. The one 24-channel i/o I found is from Motu and it does not have built in pres (not surprisingly) and would always require a board/outboard pres.

So provided one of these 8 channel interfaces have flexible enough outputs to let me do a room mix, and one or two monitor/headphone mixes, I can also have the flexibility of not using a board up front if I don't want.

I at first looked at the Motu 8pre, but it has zero output flexibility. That led me to the Motu 828. I could get it as my first expendature and then as needed add a second unit (maybe the 8pre) to gain a total of 16 inputs.

Now to do some reading on the 828 and the 8Pre...
 
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