ad converters in the analog world

  • Thread starter Thread starter Golden
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Bumping this thread back to life. At the moment, I record on location with digital gear, then mix down to my Tascam 22. Overall, it has made things sound better. The biggest improvement is in how much easier it is to get the mix to sound good. Getting the bass to sit right is no longer difficult, etc...

Anyway, I do need to send it back in for CD burning, and sometimes I may need to mix in Cubase and send it to tape and back in again. I am stuck here until I build up some more outboard gear. So the question is:

My soundcard is a Delta 44. How much better quality would an investment in Apogee or similar yeild? Has anyone made a similar upgrade and said "holy shi!t, that made a big improvement"? If so, what did you upgrade from / to?

Thanks.
 
Upgrading converters will get you more 'depth' and/or a 'wider' stereo field and everything will become 'clearer'. Of course, the clearer part is what the analog tape tends to take away. The best converters are the most transparent ones. Since you run everything to tape, you really aren't looking for transparency...

The main difference between the M-Audio and the cheaper Apoggee is the quality of the analog path and the clock.


It will be noticable, but until those are the only things keeping your mixes from being great, you are probably better off spending money and time elsewhere.
 
Farview said:
Upgrading converters will get you more 'depth' and/or a 'wider' stereo field and everything will become 'clearer'. Of course, the clearer part is what the analog tape tends to take away. The best converters are the most transparent ones. Since you run everything to tape, you really aren't looking for transparency...

The main difference between the M-Audio and the cheaper Apoggee is the quality of the analog path and the clock.


It will be noticable, but until those are the only things keeping your mixes from being great, you are probably better off spending money and time elsewhere.
Click to expand...

I'm confident my mixes are at a level where converters will make a difference - provided better converters make a difference.

I know the question may make me sound like a beginner, but since I do location recording, I was content with the stock A/D converters in my Alesis HD24 or my Edirol R4 for the most part. I have not had to put much thought into converters. I put much cash/thought/time into mics and pres. Now with extra trips in and out of the box as I move to a hybrid setup, I need to research better conversion, assuming it exists. Respectable folks like Ethan Weiner have made claims that it's not that important. I wanted to hear from dedicated analog folks.

The quality of the analog path and clock makes sense. Thanks for the input.
 
Since you run everything through a A/D converter, you really aren't looking for transparency.

(just a btw note)
:)
 
leddy said:
The quality of the analog path and clock makes sense. Thanks for the input.
Click to expand...
That is really the big difference. Most of the actual converter chips are the same from unit to unit. There are a few different ones, but the actual chip doesn't seem to matter as much as the surrounding circuitry. The conversion itself is pretty straight forward. But, like preamps and microphones, all the details start to add up. The clock is the the important thing for the conversion process. Of course, the path leading up to the converters needs to be of high enough quality to not color the sound on the the way to and from the converter.
 
sO I can just mix down directly into a CD recorder like the fostex mentioned above, from my tascam 424?
 
mfdjuve said:
sO I can just mix down directly into a CD recorder like the fostex mentioned above, from my tascam 424?
Click to expand...
Yup, just like they could a year and a half ago.

It's normally better to use a computer. The stand alone CD recorders sometimes make you use special CDs that are more expensive. Also, if you make a mix mistake, you've just made the mistake to disc. So you will have to start over.


With a computer, you can just mix to it and when everything is ready, burn the CD.
 
FYI I've used a Sony DAT deck to mix to and then either pulled the info straight from the tape, (using dat2wav -- I have a couple of audio capable DAT computer drives) or used the SPDIF input on a sound card. I don't have anything higher end to compare to but the DAT decks I have seem to be OK.

One has "super bit mapping (tm)" ... FWIW, last time I checked (about 4 years ago ????) Apogee still had after market A/D converters for one of them (Sony PCM-2500) for IMSMC about $400 for the pair.

DAT is an unpopular format, so you can pick up dat decks relatively cheaply. I ran into problems going SPDIF on an old old AMD K6-II machine, (clicks and clacks...) but OK on a (still old) Pentium III box.
 
This thread is awesome. This will be my 3rd post in 3 years... I got a materlink, its the bomb. With good outboard comverters, its near perfect.
 
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