sonusman
Banned
mrclay,
You know, a soundcard like that could have a potential market.
No secret that software mixing is dubious at best. I am in possesion of many software based recordings that suffer from many other problems aside for A/D/A conversions and what not.
For a engineer that really only needs 2 in and enough out's to run each track to a mixer would be a nice feature that has many uses in less complicated recording setups. If you think about it, you could also use the two A/D converters for running the mixers outputs back to the hard drive for recording the mix.
Uh, Slack, most every A/D/A recording machine and or card has seperate converters for A/D and D/A conversions. A card that only had 12 converters total like suggested could be made for less money than a 16 converter card (8 in 8 out). Only about a 25% savings, but, a savings none the less.
DropD. As I stated earlier, I am not really convinced yet of softwares ability to effectively mix a lot of tracks. It really comes down to processing power. Especially with real time automation of volume, compressors, effects, aux sends, etc...you really start racking up the processing power needed. The chances of errors in the audio double with every volume change, inserted compressor, reverb added, etc...
With an external mixer, you are not limited by processing power at all. You are only limited to the sound quality of any devices used, and how many of them you have. But the sky is the limit.
I also question the internal bit processing power in software mixing using a $120 CPU. Digital audio processing requires big time calculations to be done in real time. Good digital processors process at at least 50 bits, and this can extend up to 72 bits for the better processors. You are asking a lot of your computers CPU to offer this quality of processing in real time, or even to not mess up the zillions of calculations in the case of rendering all the processing on the file. Personally, with all the software based stuff I have heard, I don't think many PC's are up to the task with more that a few tracks that are using eq, volume fades, compression, gates, reverbs, etc....The numbers are astronomical in calculating.
I still think the best bang for the buck is an external mixer. The sonic accuracy is retained much better, and you don't suffer the results of inadequate internal bit processing.
PC's and software are good for editing, and maybe processing one or two tracks at a time (but for mixing you need to hear all the processing at once, something that is hard to do with even a stereo .wav file that is using a few different processors). But multi track mixing is just too much of a demand to do it effectively on a PC with software. I have heard nothing by anyone (using 8 or more tracks) that would suggest otherwise to my ears.
Having used WaveLab with the Steinberg Mastering Edition plugin's to master files, I have noticed that as I start stacking up the real time processors, the sound tends to get more distorted as I go along. It only takes like a compressor and a mastering quality EQ before I start hearing these effects. In effect, the CPU is creating errors at the D/A converters that are audible. Once I apply the processing, I don't hear the artifacts anymore, but the problem is that the sound is a little different at that point. I need the ability to hear it "as it is going to sound" while monitoring in real time. I have a Celeron 400 which is suitable for the task. But, think about having even 8 tracks (4 times as many as my stereo .wav file) all with seperate processing like a volume change, eq, a compressor, effects. Even with double the processing power available, you would still hear errors as the processor and software is not able to process that much info in real time. So it really comes down to how can I effectively mix using software and plugins if I cannot have confindence that what I am hearing with real time processing is what it will sound like once I actually apply the processing? You can't, and I would suspect that many people who are new to recording experience similar problems, but just think that they are doing something wrong (of course, that may be that case too...
).
Anyway, I don't invest much in software designers claims that their stuff works very well in real time. To my ears, it doesn't at all!
Digital mixers suffer from similar problems. These $2-10k mixers just don't have the horsepower under the hood to accurately process the audio properly. That is why most of the stuff that is mixed using digital mixers sound so stale and lifeless. The original audio is so corrupted by poor processing.
These are not just theories that I am spouting off. They come for some serious evaluations of analog vs. computer digital precessing, and some indepth research into this area. I always send people over to www.digido.com to hear what an expert in digital processing has to say about it.
Everyone claims that their digital gear works so well. Yet, I see post's all over wondering why their mixes sound so bad compared to bigger time recordings. I always say it is the equipment. I stand behind this. Low quality digital gear is not going to produce even professional sounding recordings, let alone stuff that would be considered "stellar".
So anyway.
mrclay, I think you should direct this question to a design team staff at a manufacture of audio cards. It is an excellent question. Your idea is interesting, and if someone was to provide such a card, hell, I might even consider buying one.
Ed
You know, a soundcard like that could have a potential market.
No secret that software mixing is dubious at best. I am in possesion of many software based recordings that suffer from many other problems aside for A/D/A conversions and what not.
For a engineer that really only needs 2 in and enough out's to run each track to a mixer would be a nice feature that has many uses in less complicated recording setups. If you think about it, you could also use the two A/D converters for running the mixers outputs back to the hard drive for recording the mix.
Uh, Slack, most every A/D/A recording machine and or card has seperate converters for A/D and D/A conversions. A card that only had 12 converters total like suggested could be made for less money than a 16 converter card (8 in 8 out). Only about a 25% savings, but, a savings none the less.
DropD. As I stated earlier, I am not really convinced yet of softwares ability to effectively mix a lot of tracks. It really comes down to processing power. Especially with real time automation of volume, compressors, effects, aux sends, etc...you really start racking up the processing power needed. The chances of errors in the audio double with every volume change, inserted compressor, reverb added, etc...
With an external mixer, you are not limited by processing power at all. You are only limited to the sound quality of any devices used, and how many of them you have. But the sky is the limit.
I also question the internal bit processing power in software mixing using a $120 CPU. Digital audio processing requires big time calculations to be done in real time. Good digital processors process at at least 50 bits, and this can extend up to 72 bits for the better processors. You are asking a lot of your computers CPU to offer this quality of processing in real time, or even to not mess up the zillions of calculations in the case of rendering all the processing on the file. Personally, with all the software based stuff I have heard, I don't think many PC's are up to the task with more that a few tracks that are using eq, volume fades, compression, gates, reverbs, etc....The numbers are astronomical in calculating.
I still think the best bang for the buck is an external mixer. The sonic accuracy is retained much better, and you don't suffer the results of inadequate internal bit processing.
PC's and software are good for editing, and maybe processing one or two tracks at a time (but for mixing you need to hear all the processing at once, something that is hard to do with even a stereo .wav file that is using a few different processors). But multi track mixing is just too much of a demand to do it effectively on a PC with software. I have heard nothing by anyone (using 8 or more tracks) that would suggest otherwise to my ears.
Having used WaveLab with the Steinberg Mastering Edition plugin's to master files, I have noticed that as I start stacking up the real time processors, the sound tends to get more distorted as I go along. It only takes like a compressor and a mastering quality EQ before I start hearing these effects. In effect, the CPU is creating errors at the D/A converters that are audible. Once I apply the processing, I don't hear the artifacts anymore, but the problem is that the sound is a little different at that point. I need the ability to hear it "as it is going to sound" while monitoring in real time. I have a Celeron 400 which is suitable for the task. But, think about having even 8 tracks (4 times as many as my stereo .wav file) all with seperate processing like a volume change, eq, a compressor, effects. Even with double the processing power available, you would still hear errors as the processor and software is not able to process that much info in real time. So it really comes down to how can I effectively mix using software and plugins if I cannot have confindence that what I am hearing with real time processing is what it will sound like once I actually apply the processing? You can't, and I would suspect that many people who are new to recording experience similar problems, but just think that they are doing something wrong (of course, that may be that case too...
).Anyway, I don't invest much in software designers claims that their stuff works very well in real time. To my ears, it doesn't at all!
Digital mixers suffer from similar problems. These $2-10k mixers just don't have the horsepower under the hood to accurately process the audio properly. That is why most of the stuff that is mixed using digital mixers sound so stale and lifeless. The original audio is so corrupted by poor processing.
These are not just theories that I am spouting off. They come for some serious evaluations of analog vs. computer digital precessing, and some indepth research into this area. I always send people over to www.digido.com to hear what an expert in digital processing has to say about it.
Everyone claims that their digital gear works so well. Yet, I see post's all over wondering why their mixes sound so bad compared to bigger time recordings. I always say it is the equipment. I stand behind this. Low quality digital gear is not going to produce even professional sounding recordings, let alone stuff that would be considered "stellar".
So anyway.
mrclay, I think you should direct this question to a design team staff at a manufacture of audio cards. It is an excellent question. Your idea is interesting, and if someone was to provide such a card, hell, I might even consider buying one.
Ed
)