mackie mdr 24 recorder...good or bad upgrade from da-38's?

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maskedman72

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right now i have 2 da-38's and i have the chance to get a mackie mdr 24 with all of the cables and 2 extra drives for around $1800.
should i jump on this deal? will this unit sound better being that its not tape based and its 24 bit?
thanks!!!
 
The tape-based/hard disk-based distinction means almost nothing to the sound quality...but the difference in the A/D and D/A converters does. The Mackie will almost certainly sound better b/c the converters and recording are 24-bit as opposed to the 16-bit system of the DA-38s. Also don't forget that the Mackie will give you the flexibility of non-linear recording as well as the option to upgrade to 96khz recording later (with external converters) if you'd like to, neither of which would really be feasible w/ the DA-38s. That having been said...what comes out of the recorder is only as good as what goes in, and not knowing what things like mics, preamps, etc you're using, I can't really say how big of a quality jump you'd notice in your setup. Hope this helps your decision though.
-Frank
 
for mics i have sm 57's ,mc012's ,at4033 ,d112,and an audix d1.
for a mic pre i just(2 days ago) ordered a great river mp2nv.(i dont have it yet though, its in the mail)
i monitor back through a mackie 24-8.
i have heard that the mdr will blow away the da38's sonicly that is.
i would assume that going from mackie 24-8 pres and 2 da 38's to the great river and the mdr would be a good upgrade. i should notice a difference.
how would i go to 96khz and what does that mean?
with the mdr i would get all the cables 2 drives and a 48pt patch bay for 1800 bucks. is that a good price?
in buying a new recorder i am not looking to go a step sideways....only forward.
thanks frank p!
 
Yes...that's some pretty decent outboard gear, you should notice a difference sonicly.

96khz refers to the sampling rate of the recording, i.e. how many times each second the recorder takes a 'snapshot' of the analog signal going in. All other things being equal, recordings done at a higher sampling rate are of better quality. All standard CDs are at 44.1khz, the DA-38s and the Mackie's included analog i/o module support both 44.1khz and 48khz recording. The Mackie's internal recording hardware can support the data rate needed to record at 96khz, but the included converters can't work at this rate (most likely as a cost saving measure). To upgrade the machine to 96khz, you'd have to attach external converters such as those made by Apogee that can work at the higher rates...but those converters are generally going to cost several times what the recorder does. The machine will certainly do fine as is...that's just another expansion option the upgrade to the MDR will give you over the DA-38s.

As for $1800...well, last time I checked a new MDR-24/96 was about $2000 street price, and the drive modules were about $200 each...so for a recorder in anything like new condition w/ 2 drives and associated cables included, $1800 isn't a bad deal at all most likely.
-Frank
 
thank you frank! you have been very helpful! most likely i will switch over to the mdr. being that the mdr is more "computer" like than a da 38, i am afraid of it crashing. can it crash like a computer?
what is the name of the apoge unit you are talking of?
do you know off hand if the mdr supports a remoth foot switch punch in/ punch out jack? there is a jack on the back of the unit but it is just labled"foot switch" i asume that is what this is.
thanks so much for your reply's to this post.

one more question. as far as the drive is concerned, i know these things are around $200 but i hear that they are no different than a pc drive that you can get at best buy. i have head people say that you can buy a drive for around $40 and put in the mdr drive and you will have the same thing that mackie is charging $200 for.
do you know anything about this?
 
In short, yes, the MDR (as well as any other digital recorder that uses hard drives and some sort of software to operate) can crash. However, a crash on one of these machines can usually be remedied just by turning it off and back on (akin to restarting a computer), and anyway they are pretty few and far between...much rarer than computer crashes in my experience. Be aware that it's possible, but I wouldn't worry about it in day-to-day use.

I believe the Apogee units (each one only does conversion one way) that would best suit that job are the AD-16 and DA-16. Each one of those provides 16-channels of 96khz conversion, so you'd need another one or an 8-channel unit to do all 24 tracks at 96khz. Those units cost about $2900 each, and you'd need to also buy the optional digital I/O card for the Mackie to connect them. To both record and playback at 96khz w/ Apogee converters on all channels, expect to invest about another $10000-11000 or so, roughly speaking. Of course there are other companies that make devices like that in different price ranges, but I couldn't name any specific ones w/o taking the time to look them up.

As for the punch-in/punch-out switch...I too would assume that's what that jack does, but I'm not sure...I don't have an actual MDR here to refer to.

About the hard drives...yes, they are standard ATA computer hard drives that you can buy just about anywhere...and if you take the time to put it inside the carrying frame off of one of the Mackie modules, it should work just fine. It's kinda like how you can either buy DTRS formatted 8-mm tapes for the DA-38 premade, or you could buy blank Hi-8 video tapes and have the machine format them for you.

-Frank
 
i thank you for taking the time to answer all of my questions!

about the drive, right now i am used to tape based recording so if i only have 1 mackie drive housing or module and i want to change drives do i have to bust out tolls to do it? i am used to just ejecting tapes and popping in the new ones.
i guess what i mean is how hard/involved is it to swap drives out of the module?
i am the type of preson that records many different projects and i am always working on several different things at any given moment.
sorry if i am an idiot but i just dont understand this whole tapeless thing yet. i am from the old school.
can a human even hear the difference between 16 and 24 bit?
so basiclly the a/d converters of the mdr are better then those in my 38's.

thanks again!!!
it looks like its just me and you in this thread! thank god you checked it out!
-jay
 
Jay-
Glad I could be of some help w/ your questions.

Putting drive modules in and taking them out of the machine itself is about the same as tapes would be...they just slide in and out. As for swapping the hard drives in and out of a single module...I'm not familiar with the specifics of Mackie's design, but I'd expect that would require working with about 4 screws that would mount the drive and probably also connecting power and data cables to it. Shouldn't be anything that a screwdriver and 15-20mins (at most) couldn't get done, but all the same it wouldn't be something that you'd want to do right in the middle of a session. Having two extra drives like you said are included with the machine you're looking at would definately be a good thing b/c of that.

Yes...you can hear the difference between 16 and 24-bit conversion, but it's all in the details...it's not a huge difference like cassette vs. CD. You'll notice it most when you have to record low-level signals or signals that have a huge dynamic range between loud and soft. Because the 24-bit converters can register signals roughly 30dB quieter than 16-bit ones can and don't lose as much detail on quiet signals, worrying about setting levels as high as possible is not as much of an issue...just keep it from going over 0, and all should be good.

-Frank
 
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