A to D converters

[soundguy]

My studio is entirely analog. hurray for me. I have this dat mahcine and CD burner with really terrible converters and figure Im getting to the point of needing a decent converter since everyone who comes here wants a dat or a CD and judging the sound of my joint on my digital front end is not going to be good for business for much longer. I need to start thinking about a decent converter.

I dont want to spend a lot of money, but I dont want to be wasting the money I spend either, so Im assuming Im looking at dropping trow on this one. The ONLY thing I need it for is the front end on an old dat machine and CD burner. Two channels in and out, no fancy nothing, just good sound. I was thinking about getting an L2 and using the converters in that, but Im afraid of what Id wind up doing with an L2 and am probably better off with that thing anywhere near me for the next long time.

Anyone have any suggestions? Im pretty much completely ignorant about stand alone converters.

thanks!

dave

[joeysimms]

Didn't you say you had a tascam 20mkII dat? Do the converters really sound bad?

[soundguy]

its a da30 mk 2 in here now. do they sound that bad? well, in terms of people judging whats coming out of here? yes, they sound that bad. Usable for sure, but considering the effort Ive put into the right tape decks, its getting silly to not attempt to at least preserve something close to whats being played off the tape. I'm not one for excuses and the temptation of saying, "no, the top end is actually really nice on the 1/4" is too much for me lately, so Im figuring that since the thing is a good 6 or 7 years old, a/d conversion has probably gone through a few generations since it was made and its time to upgrade. Maybe Im wrong about that, but I doubt it. The digital media coming out of here does not suggest that it was run through an apogee....

dave

[tommy]

The appogee rosetta is a pretty decent 2 track a/d. It has s/pidf and aes/ebu outputs as well as a soft limiter function but I dont recommend using that feature. I've never actually sat and a/bed the rosetta with any other a/ds out there but I did notice it was an improvement over my protools le a/d. It will run you about 800.00 used.

[stillafool]

Just got some apogee rosettas (2 channel) for about thirty days for about a grand . For a little less you can get the lucid's (about 800). Then you can spend alot more for multi channel apogees, universal audio, prisms (etc). For just a 16 bit dat, the apogees and lucids are probably overkill . You might want to look at m-audio -- I think they make some decent converters for a couple hundred bucks. I don't recall the converters on my tascam da-20 being all that bad; they sounded about as good as most other 16 bit converters (although I did notice a big difference between the 16 bit converters on an audiomedia III and an original adat -- the audiomedia III being much cleaner).

[glue unit]

I might be on glue here, sniff sniff but, I thought dat was dead. Seems like a computer is the way to go here and now. YOu can do so much more cool things when creating demo cds and then send the analog tapes in for master. Or record to disk at higher resolution and send in data cds and have them set up the cds on there quality stuff.

It doesn't take a lot to run cd architecht or whatever you use on the mac.

PS Sorry cassembler for not sending the mixes. The guys ran out of money before they could finish paying me. I'm ransoming the tapes and backups for the balance.

[ed littman]

Dave,
Hands down! Mytek & Bencmark....nuff said

you'll thank me for this one

Ed

[stillafool]

P.S., I just now started using these apogees, and so far I'm really impressed. You can listen to the converters on a tascam dat player (or at least my da20, which by the way I just sold) for about 30 seconds without fatigue kicking in -- you just want to stop listening, same with an adat, even the 20 bit ones. I've been listening to these apogees all night at 24/44.1, and the guitar sounds i'm getting are absolutely phenomenal (granted I'm using a universal audio preamp). I'd probably agree with the last couple posts about the obsolescence of dat players -- you can get a decent 24/96 soundcard like a mia for less than 200 dollars that will sound better than any dat player I know of; a cd burner i think is less than 100 dollars. Do all your mixing and mastering at 24/44.1, and then dither down to 16 bit when your finished.

[bitdump]

Also check the RME stuff. Solid simple to use and great quality.


Another option I like, as I still mostly run analog too, is the Kurzweil KSP8, converters stack up too or are better than the pro line RME, Appogee stuff as well as being a excelent FX processor. Kills many birds with one stone and you can even get a snazzy remote.

Considering what you get, it is a good deal. As a studio investment it is something to consider as it swiss army knife of FX processors.

Aside from that, every thing else mentioned here would work fine, although i have mixed feelings about the rossettas, they are priced high for what they are IMHO.

[pscottm]

benchmark!

[soundguy]

DAT may seem dead, but I would venture to guess that about 80% (or more) of the NEW movies you see are still recording their production sound on DAT. It may not be chic, but its FAR from dead. I happen to like it because you can buy 2 hour tapes, I always roll a dat during vocal tracks just incase there is some cool idea in take three that gets totally forgotten about by pass number 30. vocal session dats have saved so many guys Ive recorded its not even funny, but Im also recordinh on linear 16 track, so I cant keep creating new tracks and keep every single take. Anyhow, there is a DAT machine here and regardless of what we all think about it, when I have a client request a DAT, I have to give it to him, not everyone can play or wants to deal with playing 1/4" tape. so, its in my best interest to provide the best sounding dat I can regardless of how much better easier or whatever a computer or anything else is gonna be.

benchmark, eh? Is there a particular model I should be after? Ive heard some of the apogee converters and like them, how does the benchmark compare?

thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

dave

[glue unit]

Well sorry, I always learn a lot from reading your posts so the last thing I would like to do is insult you. I just figured that it would be better to do the computer disk at once thing instead of the stand alone track at once thing. You could get the edits all good and then do a digital transfer to the dat if they want it that way. I too prefer to track analog so I can say are you sure you want to erase the old track instead of ok we'll keep the other 100,000 vocal takes and you can try it again, and of course I prefer the sound. Maybe it was the converters on my da 20 dat that made me unhappy enough to sell it.

[soundguy]

glue- no insult taken man! its easier for some people to take home a dat than a different meduim, so I still use it, whatever. just trying to get the best sound out of an ancient machine.

dave

[Roboburger]

I just purchased a used dbx 386 (275 on/off ebay) for a few reasons- one- its two mic pres, (I hope they're worth a shit.) and two, it has much more recent converters than my 10 year old DAT machine, so I will use it aes/ebu style into my dat deck. and three, I also figure I can use it S/Pdif style to give me two more ins at a time with my digital 8 track studio that i am building...

and if it sucks, it goes back up onto ebay...

[ed littman]

Mytek has both 2 channel adc/dac...great sound & price.
http://www.mytekdigital.com/products.htm


Benchmark has a 2 channel dac..great sound & price
http://www.benchmarkmedia.com/digital/dac1/default.asp


Both are much cheeper than apogee, & there way ahead of all listed above for transparancey & stereo imaging.

Ed