Don't any of these sites speak ENGLISH??

[CupidCult]

OK... I found a sound card, the MOTU 2408 MKII with 8 analog ins, 24 channels of ADAT optical in and out, 24 channels of Tascam DA-88 in and out, and 2 channels of S/PDIF in and out. That all sounds great, but they lost me after the 8 analog ins. What's it all mean?? Can anyone help me?

 

[Shailat]

ADAT -Alesis Digital Audio Tape.
optical connections for transferring digital data 8-tracks at a time.

Tascam DA-88 uses TDIF -Tascam Digital InterFace. To transfer digital audio as well.

S/PIDF - Sony/Philips Digital Interface - For interfacing digital audio together

In short - There are different formats, and the Motu card helps you interface with them by supplying you with conections to the different most popular formats

 

[CupidCult]

shailat:

So can I use those inputs for regular audio? (duh)

 

[darnold]

Nope pesaroso. Qualquer um envolvido na gravação audio fala o português estes dias. Voltado quando o yah aprender Portugues.

 

[BigKahuna]

that's a pretty powerful soundcard ...

What do you plan to hook it up to? Sounds like you got a whole lot of options for I/O.
All of those connections are for digital audio.
This is why I ask what you want to hook it up to ...
You could get one or more ADAT XT20s or Tascam DA88s and use the ADAT (lightpipe) or Tascam (TDIF) inputs on the soundcard. You can transfer tracks digitally to and from your computer using these inputs ... so that you can edit them or add effects/processing and then transfer them back to the multitrack. All in the digital realm ... nice and clean.
Another option, you could just get a digital board and the appropriate ADAT/Tascam cards for it and then use your computer as the multitrack.
So it depends on what you intend to hook it up to.
The s/pdif I/O is good for hooking up 2-track units ... like DAT machines or stand alone CD Recorders. Nice feature to have on any soundcard, for sure ... the 8 analog channels are great too ... but the power (IMHO) is in the 24 ADAT and 24 Tascam I/O. If you're not planning on using that feature ... you can probably find a soundcard without it for less $.




[Edited by BigKahuna on 12-11-2000 at 21:57]

 

[CupidCult]

still confused...

At this point, I have 64 audio tracks on my Cubase software, but I can only record to one at a time. I'd like to record 8 to 12 tracks at once, discretely. What's the simplest and least expensive way to do it? I'm still confused about all this ADAT AD/DA BLAHBLAHBLAH stuff. I'm just looking for something that allows me to plug 8 to 12 microphones into my computer. sigh... duh!

 

[RWhite]

Cupid - I am going to assume from your last reply that you currently have a basic sound card (like a Sound Blaster product) that will record one stereo track (or two mono tracks together) at a time.

All the digital connections (ADAT, S/PDIF etc.) in the MOTU are for interfacing with digital equipment ONLY. If you want to "plug 8 - 12 mics into the computer" there are two ways to do this:

1) Buy a mixer. If you are recording a band live, using a bunch of mics on drums, guitars, etc you run all your mics into the mixer, run the stereo master output into your current sound card, end of story. The big limitation in this case is your mix is also done live - i.e. if it's not perfect, there is no way to change your relative instrument levels later.

2) Buy a device that records multiple ANALOG INPUT sources at one time. I believe the MOTU records up to 8 tracks at one time, and can play back as many as your computer can handle (they all need to be assigned to one of 8 different OUTPUTS the Motu can handle at one time). If you go this route you will want to buy a mixer anyways, as a mixer is generally needed to boost the signal level from mic level to line level. Plus a mixer is VERY useful for EQ, mixing effects, stereo panning, etc. etc. etc.

A real world example - I have a Gadget Labs Wave 824 card, a similar product to the MOTU with 8 analog inputs and outputs. I use an Alesis Studio 32 mixer. Usually when my band records a song, we start by using 2 inputs for drums (an electronic kit, stereo left/right outputs), one for bass (either direct through the mixer or a mic), one for guitar, and a fifth input for a "scratch" vocal track that is almost always re-dubed later. then we add more tracks as needed. If I were using a real drum kit I would need at least 6 mics on the drum kit, and I would either use an input channel for each plus one each for bass and guitar (=8, and add the vocal later) or I would do a live mix of the drum kit down to 1 stereo left/right track.

Hope this counts as english....