outboard CD burner v/s P.C.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lo-Fi Mike
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Lo-Fi Mike

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what exactly are the pros' and con's of using:
an outboard cd burner (ex. BURN IT,) or
Cd Architect to your cdr drive?

most concerned about sound quality.
 
By "outboard" do you mean an external device like those hooked to a stereo system or just or a computer peripheral routed via USB or firewire?
 
dwillis45 said:
By "outboard" do you mean an external device like those hooked to a stereo system or just or a computer peripheral routed via USB or firewire?
Click to expand...

the kind you mount in a rack, with the i/o being xlr,trs, or s/pdif
do you kinda know what i'm taking about?

in others words, "what are you burning you mixes on"?
what is the best way to go for sound quality?
 
Outboard pro's - portability
Outboard cons - real time, expensive, very limited editing functions

PC/Mac burner pro's - opposite of outboard cons
PC/Mac burner con's - opposite of outboard pro's

:D
 
The HHB is really nice, and Tascam makes a similar burner. I don't think you would have to worry about quality when using one of these (as long as your CDs are quality). With computer CD drives, there is a much wider range of crapability. If you have one of the consumer prebuilt computers, it probably has the crapiest cheapest burner possible. Or maybe like HP, it is a little more expensive one that can do kewl LightScribe® etched discs. But if you get something nice like a Plextor Premium (or even a Sony is pretty good), you should have few worries.
 
I can see no benefit of an outboard CDR other than real time recording. With a decent burner, you can just image your CDs and archive
 
I believe that most outboard CD recorders (excluding the Alesis Masterlink) only burn audio CDs. So if you need to send 24 bit files for mastering or mixing, you need to use a computer and software that produces a data CD.
 
The Masterlink will do 24 bit. Also, real time recording is sometimes a necessity, so the portability of an outboard reacorder is a good thing. I have them in my FOH racks so I don't always have to haul my laptop to record a show. For one, sometimes I like to use my laptop as an analyzer. Recording on it at the same time would kill that option. Also, sometimes I need to use it to program my DBX Driverack system. That is located back stage, no where near the FOH console. Also, sometimes I have a touring engineer running things and may be busy somewhere else. A standard familiar interface makes that very easy for me. Just a few reasons why outboard recorders are still useful:)
 
Back in the stone age, not that many years ago, computers either didn't exist or the ones that did shouldn't be and weren't anywhere near audio. Studios had a recording medium (multi-track tape), a mixing setup (mixer and outboard gear) and a mixdown deck (a 2-track tape deck.)

When CD's became prominent and digital masters were needed DATs were sometimes used as a mixdown deck. It took a while for that to catch on because you skip the step of the mastering tape and you are bypassing the opportunity to digitize with a mastering engineer's superior convertors. Still, it became more popular with a burgeoning new class of studios- the project and home studios because it saved money. Burnable CD's didn't exist, yet.

Time wore on, however, and today the home/project studio tends to digitize the tracks right after the preamp and its much easier to mix on the computer, bounce the mix to a stereo wave file and burn it to CD as either a data backup or an audio CD. That's a very different process than multi-track deck->mixer->mixdown deck.

Standalone CD recorders are still *very* useful in any outboard rig with live shows being the most obvious. I did a live show at an audio school here and was given a DVD and audio CD within 15 minutes of ending the performance! Only possible with a realtime external burner. At least I don't know of any software that can do that with a computer's CD drive. Also useful as a mixdown deck for those studios that aren't computer based or would rather not run their mixs back into the computer and fuss with them *again* in order to deliver a CD.

-C
 
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