Final mixdown questions

[famous beagle]

Never been a fan of the Delta's. Ok for a budget card I suppose, but you can do much better. If it sounds fine to you and works for you that's the bottom line. I choose sound cards based on how well they get out of the way and let my silky smooth analog tracks sound as much like they did as possible before conversion. Everyone and their grandmother make sound cards and interfaces so it can be a daunting task finding a good one. Honestly, when it comes to equipment selection I've led a charmed life. Most things I choose just end up being classics and well regarded when proven in the field. So I don't know... prayer? A guardian angel with a good ear? I've auditioned a lot of equipment in my life. Sure I look at the specs, but mostly I listen, take the cover off and look inside... and if I like it I take it home... more or less the same I've done with girls... you just kinda know and there're sparks, sometimes despite the specs.

So anyway, in this case I still recommend the Echo Laylas, which had great reviews when they came out over ten years ago, which made me curious. And now a decade later they’ve proven hard to top… IMO. Same with the Pioneer CD recorders like the 555RW, HHB CDR-850 and Fostex CR300. You try things, it works, so you keep doing it and try not to fix things that aren’t broken by “Upgrading” for no good reason at all except another year has passed and the new models are out… which is no good reason at all.

And besides, Layla means “Nightfall” in Hebrew, which is kinda cool. And since I’m a night owl… it just seemed right and the rest is history.

Thanks for the info. It looks as though I can just about get a Layla (with the PCI card) for the same price that I could sell my Delta 1010LT for. That would be sweet.

One question. Do you know if the Layla will run smoothly on XP? Any other compatibility issues you've encountered since it's so outdated (in computer years)?

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

As for the Layla on XP - XP has an option of running in Windows 98 mode - right click and pick properties on the application you want to run as Win98. But this is an analog forum

The Fostex E-2 guy just called and said it had problems fastforwarding and rewinding. Shit! This is bad news. I'll go down to test it anyway, but if there ain't no easy solution to the problem should I go for a Revox G36 being able to run at 15 ips? How do these things sound? It will cost me approx £160.

 

[jpmorris]

As for the Layla on XP - XP has an option of running in Windows 98 mode - right click and pick properties on the application you want to run as Win98. But this is an analog forum

If it's the drivers that need W98, that's not likely to be good enough. The thing does look like it's supported under linux, but that's a whole other can of worms.

The Fostex E-2 guy just called and said it had problems fastforwarding and rewinding. Shit! This is bad news. I'll go down to test it anyway, but if there ain't no easy solution to the problem should I go for a Revox G36 being able to run at 15 ips? How do these things sound? It will cost me approx £160.

I honestly have no idea what the G36 sounds like. You'd really have to listen to it yourself and see if you like what you hear. If it's noisy it might need recapping, but people have used these things for mastering before so it's not like it's completely uncharted territory.
In theory it looks like it can hold its own against the Otari MX5050 but it's probably subjective. Be aware that the tape handling probably doesn't have interlocks so do NOT go straight from FF to STOP on a tape you wish to keep. I don't know about you, but I'm kind of spoiled by the logic control on my decks so it's something to keep in mind.

With the E2, make sure it's not the tape. He might be using Ampex. If you can bring some RMGI along, that might be an idea. I have no idea if the E2 is direct-drive either.

 

[Beck]

Thanks for the info. It looks as though I can just about get a Layla (with the PCI card) for the same price that I could sell my Delta 1010LT for. That would be sweet.

One question. Do you know if the Layla will run smoothly on XP? Any other compatibility issues you've encountered since it's so outdated (in computer years)?

Yes, the first two generation Layla's run flawlessly on XP. They continued to update drivers for legacy stuff. They still do. They will run on any Windows OS from 95 to XP. The Layla24 may run on Win7, but it depends on a lot of things and may not run with the same functionality or reliability with Win7.

I use XP and will as a DAW OS for the foreseeable future. I never owned Vista... it was a disaster. Win7 has nothing for me either. I also ran the original Layla20 with Linux, but I just use XP SP2 lately for most things.

The original Layla's are older as in they've been around for a long time, but performance wise they're both better than many newer interfaces. The only thing that is going to make some of these older units unusable is if your motherboard is too new to have standard PCI (V 2.1) slots. The Layla cards won't fit in PCIe slots of course. Kinda dumb IMO that standard PCI is being eliminated. A buss mastering PCI card like those of the Layla's are still blazing faster and more stable than USB2 or Firewire. There’s no comparison.

I don't worry about anything though because I have some older motherboards, but great performers. In fact I just picked up another of my favorite “Vintage” MOBO's, the ASUS P3B-f. It's ten years old as well, but I hacked it to run a P3 Tualatin 1.4 GHz. If I need anything faster than that or more than 1GB of RAM for a DAW I’m doing something wrong.

 

[famous beagle]

It's ten years old as well, but I hacked it to run a P3 Tualatin 1.4 GHz. If I need anything faster than that or more than 1GB of RAM for a DAW I’m doing something wrong.

Thanks for the info. This last statement blows me away though. I have a 2.7GHz dual-core and 3GB of RAM, and I can still easily tax my system on Reaper if I'm not careful. The only thing I use my digital system for is my work, and I record all my guitars with AmpliTube 2 for that, because it's so fast, easy, and sounds pretty good considering --- and time is money. But if I have 3 guitar tracks going (or only 2 if it's AmpliTube Fender) and maybe a few reverb plugs or something, I'll start to get dropout, and I'll have to render or freeze some tracks. Am I doing something wrong? I only use this computer for music and have nothing else on it.

The computer is a Dell Optiplex GX270, and it says the PCI slots are 2.2. Will that work?

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

As good as Otari MX5050? It might be worth checking out. Love the thought of using tubes during mixdown and mastering without buying some fancy tube compressor without liking compression that much. The guy selling it says that it's a 1/2". Suppose he's wrong as 1/2" 2-track is an 80's thing as far as I know?

The Fostex E-2 was working last week - actually couldn't tell the sound of it from the FLAC with Morphine I was feeding to it, but appereantly it's a problem machine. Payed for the thing, brought it to the studio only to realize that the recording head was fried. Luckily the seller was a good guy and didn't mind giving me the money back after testing the machine himself.

EDIT: yeah, the FF problems was caused by Ampex 456. Shitty tape - amazing that these was the studio standard for so long. It was fine using Maxell.

 

[jpmorris]

The G36 is half-track, not half-inch. AFAIK they were only ever 1/4" machines. And ugh, that's a shame about the E-2 head. Might be possible to jig a TEAC head or something onto it, but that is a bit of a risk.

Like I say, I've never seen a Revox machine aside from the B77, so I'm just going on hearsay.

 

[Beck]

Thanks for the info. This last statement blows me away though. I have a 2.7GHz dual-core and 3GB of RAM, and I can still easily tax my system on Reaper if I'm not careful. The only thing I use my digital system for is my work, and I record all my guitars with AmpliTube 2 for that, because it's so fast, easy, and sounds pretty good considering --- and time is money. But if I have 3 guitar tracks going (or only 2 if it's AmpliTube Fender) and maybe a few reverb plugs or something, I'll start to get dropout, and I'll have to render or freeze some tracks. Am I doing something wrong? I only use this computer for music and have nothing else on it.

The computer is a Dell Optiplex GX270, and it says the PCI slots are 2.2. Will that work?

Yes, anything 2.1 and above for conventional PCI will work.

Using too many plugins is one of those wrong things I don’t do. Ideally one plug is too many, but remember this is an analog forum. The other wrong thing I don’t do is use anything other than the Layla’s. I can easily transfer 16 tracks at a time. It’s never come close to stumbling with what I do.

Beyond that I have Win XP tweaked to the max for DAW use. There is so much extraneous overhead in a typical Windows OS installation. Most people don’t know how to tame it. Instead we just throw faster processors and more memory at it. XP is a one-size-fits-all OS after normal install, which you don’t want for DAW use because it’s loaded with resource-eating “Features” that we never use. They hog resources just sitting there in the background. So people can keep upgrading hardware to meet the demands of new poorly designed software, or they can tame that software and make it work better on much less hardware.

I’ve kept the MOBO I have as current as possible with new things I can use, like USB2 and I have a Promise Ultra100 HDD controller card in it for better HDD performance. I discovered the Asus P3B-F in 2000 and newer boards I tried when I was interested in upgrading weren’t as stable. The Asus P4 board that was supposed to replace it really sucked and it took a while for P4’s in general to do as well as Tualatin P3’s. So I kept keeping it and now here I am still using it. A PC that I’ve tweaked to perfection and does what it needs to do is just another piece of classic gear to me.

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

The G36 is half-track, not half-inch. AFAIK they were only ever 1/4" machines. And ugh, that's a shame about the E-2 head. Might be possible to jig a TEAC head or something onto it, but that is a bit of a risk.

Like I say, I've never seen a Revox machine aside from the B77, so I'm just going on hearsay.

Yeah, won't dare it as all I've (somehow) successfully done when it comes to repairs is putting on belts. I'll go for the G36, though I fear the heads might be worn down. Had a lovely A77 that suffered from completely muffled sound on one channel. Sounded great on the functional one though.
How do I go from FF to stopping without using the stop button? Sorry if my sense of logic is lacking but it's four in the morning.
And yeah, the Fostexes will usually think for me, even when I'm a stoned dumbass going straight from FF/RW to play.

Thanks for your response guys, you've been a great help.

 

[jpmorris]

What you actually do is go from Fast Forward to Rewind. This has the effect of gradually slowing the tape down before it starts rewinding. When it's going slow enough, you hit Stop. Likewise, if you're rewinding, you hit Fast Forward first. I believe it's known as 'rocking the tape'.
Slightly later decks had an interlock to disable STOP while the tape was fast winding, and the logic and CPU-controlled ones do the reversing thing automatically.

 

[jpmorris]

Oh, one other thing about the G36 - hope it doesn't matter, or that it's not too late if it does. The G36 capstan is locked to the mains frequency, so there's no varispeed and it will mess up if you have to move it between 50Hz and 60Hz territories. It can switch between two speeds by enabling and disabling different parts of the windings, but you can't choose anything in between those two speeds.

 

[WarmJetGuitar]

The guy tested the G36 - it didn't run an he was wrong about it being 15 ips. It's a freakin' jungle out there, appereantly only 1 out of 10 actually test the recorders before putting them for sale as "in good working order" or similar.
Think I might jump for a deal on a A77 running 15 ips. It's owned by a former state radio engineer which could be good sign.
If this one is fucked too I'll save up money for a more fancy machine like Studer, Otari MX5050 or the Revox PR99.