Fostex FD-8/4 to CDA track

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phillybean

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What is the best way of getting a song from an FD to a wave file on the computer, or to another file format that can be converted to CDA track?
I know i could always go into the line in on my sound card, but that would result in a loss of quality. I would much rather do a direct conversion, if possible.
 
If you have a sound card with s/pdif i/o then you can do a direct digital hook since both the FD-4 and 8 have optical digital i/o.

Peace, Jim
 
I burn a CD, then stick it in my Compaq- it then lets me make a WAV.
 
That's exactly what I'm looking for.
My sound card has only a 1/8" mic in and a 1/8" line in for inputs. Can you or somebody direct me to some sound cards with optical i/o ?
 
I have heard on this forum that the Soundblaster LIVE has S/P DIF optical inputs on it.
 
Check out the soundcard forum on this site. Also, you might want to try a search on this site for that type of info. By the way, I heard the same thing about the SoundBlaster Live card. I think it is the Pro model, though (don't know the cost).

Peace, Jim
 
I'm in the same dilemma. My thoughts are that a stand alone CD burner would be the way to go. Other wise you would have to buy the soundcard with he optical input plus the mixing software to mix down with on the PC. You could alway use the burner for making custom CD's also.

Does that make sense Jim?
 
A number of people give some of the stand alone burners the thumbs down. Actually, I can understand why if you have money and a computer for music alone. But i have neither. I think for those of us with little cash, the stand alone makes sense. A rack mount type even allows you to rack it, pack it and record shows live, etc. And for a little more than a PC CD burner, some "nice" stand alones have cool features.

I do know that I would like to burn CDs and the stand alone would be my route. But by the same token, my next PC will definitely get a burner, so whichever comes first.

To Phillybean:

As for the loose of sound quality of sending from FD-4 to sound card, I'm not sure how critical that would be. I think I would prefer digital, but one anologue send to the computer shouldn't degrade the sound too much, probably not too noticeable for most ears. Just a thought.

Peace, Jim
 
Soundblaster live pro is around $200 at best buy and comes with a bunch of cool bundled software too. The regular sound blaster live doesn't have digitial IO. I use a RCA cable and have even recorded from a walkman cassette to WAV and burned a CD with no noticable loss in quality on the soundblaster live.......it just depends on how much of a perfectionist you are and how much extra money you have lying around.
 
"I do know that I would like to burn CDs and the stand alone would be my route. But by the same token, my next PC will definitely get a burner, so whichever comes first."


Time is the key Jim. Most stand alones are 2x at best (assuming price is a factor for you) so if you really want to do any CD mixing/copying on a stand alone you better have time to burn as well. example, to copy a CD at 2x takes me 35 min on my PC, but to load 14 different songs from different CDs and mix them to a CD by hand takes around 1-2 hours because of all the swapping in and out. But if I burn the CD image to my HD, I can read them at 40x speed, do all the CD swapping in about 10 minutes, and then kick off the 35 minute burn to disc and walk away, eat dinner, play with the kids, etc. It all depends on what you want out of your system.
 
Is there any way the midi connection can be used to get digital audio to the computer?
 
Dlea:

No, you cannot use the midi connections for this. That type of midi information is basically command info that make s a musical instrument make music in response to a command.

Crayphish:

I hear ya. Speed would be nice. But I have heard some comments a while back about burning disc at speed instead of multi speed because the faster speeds produce more errors. Are thes error I would hear? Don't know. But it was an issue on this site (don't know which forum) a couple of months back. At least it allows me to do the old sour grapes if I don't get a fast burner.

Peace, Jim
 
Jim, my experience is the errors encountered with fast burners usually makes the disc unreadable/unusable, not an arror you can hear. The point is that the non PC burners require a lot of manual intervention if you want to mix your own CDs, the time consumption isn't saved in the faster write time, it's in the ability to mix the CD down to your HD at the speed of your faster read-only drive (40x in my case) then let the software do the work.
 
Thanks alot, all. Everyone's input has helped alot. My FD-8 is due sometime around thursday next week. I think i'll just try RCA out to 1.8" in on my sound card to begin with, and if it is too bad (which i doubt it will be), i'll just have to save up for a SB live.
Thanks alot.

p.s.
ACTUALLY, the first thing i'll do is figure out how to record on the freakin multitracker.
 
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