adats and digital mixers
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sonusman
Banned
Holy cow reco!!!
(I copped the cow thing from a reply to someone of the feedback forum. The reply was that the guy was grazing his cow in the wrong field. Good one dobro!)
Anyway, I am not a big fan of digital mixers at this point. Of course my experience has been exclusively with a Yamaha O2R. What I didn't like about it was the fact that you could only use the onboard dynamic processing unless you are willing to run the all your ADAT tracks back out the D/A converters on the deck, then through the A/D converters on the console. Appearently, you cannot choose to have just a single track on the O2R selected for analog input. You have to group 8 together for either analog or digital input to the console as the digital inputs are these cards that you install in the back of the O2R, and it is for a standard optical connection, which is a 8 channel connection in the case of the ADAT optical. So, you can make the console use the digital inputs for say 1-8, and then use the analog inputs from 9-16, etc....But like I say with the analog inputs, you are running through the converters on the ADAT as well as the console. I have tried this and found that it sounds very 'digital'. Kind of brittle. So, I hated just using the dynamic processors on the O2R. They work reasonably well, but just don't have the same effect that an outboard analog processor has.
Most digital mixers will use some kind of plug in card to interface digitally with digital recorders. These are cards that you have to usually buy in addition to the console, so it is an extra cost. Usually, you can select the type of interface you want, like ADAT, AES/EBU, Tascam, etc....
If you are recording tracks on a digital recorder and want to fly them into a computer for some track editing, this is the advantage of using a soundcard with a card that has the digital interface with your recorders. You won't lose any quality from having to run through A/D or D/A converters to get to the computer. Typically, the card and software will also keep everything in sync also, so you don't need to try to do this on the computer.
If you are thinking a digital console, I would just say, Good Luck!!! I put my money into a Soundcraft Ghost for the studio. This is an investment that I have never regretted at all. I have two clients that came to me with their tapes after having mixed at other studios using digital consoles, and were not happy with using them. I have been able to get much warmer sounding mixes in a lot less time with my setup. Digital mixers with all there automation is kind of cool, but if the tracks were recorded somewhat well in the first place, you won't be doing a whole lot of adjustments at mix. When I recorded,co-produced/mixed a kind of big budget client last year, we used an analog console with moving fader automation on it, and found that we barely used it at all. We could have done mostly the same thing using sub-groups on my console. Most of the automation that I do concerns using channel mutes, and the Ghost has automation built in for that.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com
(I copped the cow thing from a reply to someone of the feedback forum. The reply was that the guy was grazing his cow in the wrong field. Good one dobro!)
Anyway, I am not a big fan of digital mixers at this point. Of course my experience has been exclusively with a Yamaha O2R. What I didn't like about it was the fact that you could only use the onboard dynamic processing unless you are willing to run the all your ADAT tracks back out the D/A converters on the deck, then through the A/D converters on the console. Appearently, you cannot choose to have just a single track on the O2R selected for analog input. You have to group 8 together for either analog or digital input to the console as the digital inputs are these cards that you install in the back of the O2R, and it is for a standard optical connection, which is a 8 channel connection in the case of the ADAT optical. So, you can make the console use the digital inputs for say 1-8, and then use the analog inputs from 9-16, etc....But like I say with the analog inputs, you are running through the converters on the ADAT as well as the console. I have tried this and found that it sounds very 'digital'. Kind of brittle. So, I hated just using the dynamic processors on the O2R. They work reasonably well, but just don't have the same effect that an outboard analog processor has.
Most digital mixers will use some kind of plug in card to interface digitally with digital recorders. These are cards that you have to usually buy in addition to the console, so it is an extra cost. Usually, you can select the type of interface you want, like ADAT, AES/EBU, Tascam, etc....
If you are recording tracks on a digital recorder and want to fly them into a computer for some track editing, this is the advantage of using a soundcard with a card that has the digital interface with your recorders. You won't lose any quality from having to run through A/D or D/A converters to get to the computer. Typically, the card and software will also keep everything in sync also, so you don't need to try to do this on the computer.
If you are thinking a digital console, I would just say, Good Luck!!! I put my money into a Soundcraft Ghost for the studio. This is an investment that I have never regretted at all. I have two clients that came to me with their tapes after having mixed at other studios using digital consoles, and were not happy with using them. I have been able to get much warmer sounding mixes in a lot less time with my setup. Digital mixers with all there automation is kind of cool, but if the tracks were recorded somewhat well in the first place, you won't be doing a whole lot of adjustments at mix. When I recorded,co-produced/mixed a kind of big budget client last year, we used an analog console with moving fader automation on it, and found that we barely used it at all. We could have done mostly the same thing using sub-groups on my console. Most of the automation that I do concerns using channel mutes, and the Ghost has automation built in for that.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Ed Rei
Echo Star Studio www.echostarstudio.com