Mixdown Gear Comparison

[BenWV]

So,

I'm digging into this whole analog thing and I'm really appreciative of everyone's help. I'm working on recording a 4 piece bluegrass band on a 1/2" Otari 5050 and I'm wondering what to do during mixdown. I used to do everything digitally, so I'm wondering if I'd be better off to buy a good cassette deck, a good stand alone cd writer, or a good a/d d/a converter for my mac to mix down to. I think in the long run I'd be more satisfied with the a/d d/a converter, but I guess I'm wondering if I mix down to a cd or cassette and send it off to master if that will be a good solution. What does everyone else do ??

[JohnDavisNYC]

I don't think cassette would be an appropriate mixdown format at all... granted, really high end cassette decks can sound amazing, but they aren't really 'master' quality... at the end of the day, you would probably be best off getting some decent converters and capturing the mixes that way.... if your mac is a desktop with PCI slots, or your laptop has a PCMCIA slot, I really like the RME Multiface II... it is a really great sounding, really solid interface.

John

[BenWV]

Will this be better than the converters in my Motu 828 mkII?? Is there a unit I can get that would be a 2 channel ad/da converter that would replace the mkII as my soundcard and can run firewire??

[8th_note]

Will this be better than the converters in my Motu 828 mkII??

If you're getting your analog tape mixes the way you want them to sound I wouldn't want to mix down to cassette. I think you would be better off burning a CD.

You might try this test to see how much you would gain from new converters. Sum an 8 channel mix down to 2 channels and output the signal to your MOTO and record it to your DAW (I assume DP). Now synch up the output from your DAW with the summed analog signal from your tape deck (the same signal path as you sent to your MOTU). Make sure both signals are following the same path, i.e., that both signals go through your board and there's no other differences. Playing both simultaneously get the volumes as close as you can and listen for the difference. If the round-trip A/D/A conversion sounds nearly identical to the summed analog tape then new converters won't do you a whole lot of good. If you take a big hit in the sound quality then a good 2 channel converter would be more likely to help.

[SkullChris]

Ben! I want my CD's back! -(hris