Farview
Well-known member
There are a couple things that need to get done when mixing OTB.
1. A/D conversion.
Obviously, you want the best converters you can get. Even if you have a 24 bit dat machine, the converters are a couple generations old by now. The conversion in even a cheap interface is better, plus you can use higher sample rates if you want. If the DAT machine is still 16 bit, you are using converters from the early to mid 90's.
The converters on the stand alone burner may be newer, but it still only stores 44.1k 16 bit information, most mastering houses would rather have 24 bits to work with. Handing in 44.1k 24 bit wav files is a much better way to go, you can even FTP them to the mastering house and save the FedEx charge.
As was mentioned, at $500 for a stand alone burner, how much of that is the conversion? If you already have a computer with a CD burner, getting a $500 interface would get you much better converters.
2. Track sequencing.
with a stand alone burner, you are stuck with how the burner decides to deal with song spacing and markers. If you make a mistake, you have to throw away the CD and start over.
In the computer with some software, you can crossfade songs and put the markers exactly where you want them. that's a big plus if you want to get creative with that sort of thing.
3. Burning
With a stand alone burner, you can only do one disc at a time in real time. I would assume that even if you used a stand alone, if you wanted to make copies, you would put it in the computer to copy the CD...so what's the difference? In the computer, you can sequence the CD once and burn it to a disc at 24 times real speed. You can save that sequence and, if you remix one of the tracks, replace the old track with the new one and burn another disc in a couple minutes instead of spending a lot of time recreating another CD in real time.
It's all digital. You might like the converters in one thing over another, but if you are buying a Tascam CD burner and a Tascam audio interface, I'll bet you that the converters are the same. If they aren't, I'll bet the ones in the interface are better/newer because that is where the technology is going.
On other advantage to using the computer is upgradability. You can upgrade your interface without changing the software or the CD burner in the computer. You can also upgrade the burner without changing anything else. If one part of the system breaks, there are hundreds of choices and thousands of people that can help you get it fixed (Geek Squad, etc...)
In order to upgrade the stand alone unit, you have to get rid of the whole thing and get a new one. If anything goes wrong with it, you are hard pressed to send it across the country to find someone who can fix it for $300 more than a new one costs.
1. A/D conversion.
Obviously, you want the best converters you can get. Even if you have a 24 bit dat machine, the converters are a couple generations old by now. The conversion in even a cheap interface is better, plus you can use higher sample rates if you want. If the DAT machine is still 16 bit, you are using converters from the early to mid 90's.
The converters on the stand alone burner may be newer, but it still only stores 44.1k 16 bit information, most mastering houses would rather have 24 bits to work with. Handing in 44.1k 24 bit wav files is a much better way to go, you can even FTP them to the mastering house and save the FedEx charge.
As was mentioned, at $500 for a stand alone burner, how much of that is the conversion? If you already have a computer with a CD burner, getting a $500 interface would get you much better converters.
2. Track sequencing.
with a stand alone burner, you are stuck with how the burner decides to deal with song spacing and markers. If you make a mistake, you have to throw away the CD and start over.
In the computer with some software, you can crossfade songs and put the markers exactly where you want them. that's a big plus if you want to get creative with that sort of thing.
3. Burning
With a stand alone burner, you can only do one disc at a time in real time. I would assume that even if you used a stand alone, if you wanted to make copies, you would put it in the computer to copy the CD...so what's the difference? In the computer, you can sequence the CD once and burn it to a disc at 24 times real speed. You can save that sequence and, if you remix one of the tracks, replace the old track with the new one and burn another disc in a couple minutes instead of spending a lot of time recreating another CD in real time.
It's all digital. You might like the converters in one thing over another, but if you are buying a Tascam CD burner and a Tascam audio interface, I'll bet you that the converters are the same. If they aren't, I'll bet the ones in the interface are better/newer because that is where the technology is going.
On other advantage to using the computer is upgradability. You can upgrade your interface without changing the software or the CD burner in the computer. You can also upgrade the burner without changing anything else. If one part of the system breaks, there are hundreds of choices and thousands of people that can help you get it fixed (Geek Squad, etc...)
In order to upgrade the stand alone unit, you have to get rid of the whole thing and get a new one. If anything goes wrong with it, you are hard pressed to send it across the country to find someone who can fix it for $300 more than a new one costs.
