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jf_uk · 15th June 2008, 12:34 AM

Hopefully not too unrelated..

I bought two Logic 2 + Audiofile SC32 systems from a production company which couldn't make ends meet not too long ago. I sold my Audient ASP 8024-36 and a Radar II to make way for them. I have crashed them many times out of tinkering and curiosity, but eventually learned a few of the bugs and just avoided such. I am of the school who think 96k is just next year's model and doesn't get you there much faster or in more comfort than last decades'. But my my my. Putting a clean source through just a stereo channel, with a basic stack of eq etc, of a favourite classical recording which sits at "near all 0's" a lot of the time gave me goose pimples after playing with the famous (as described by many in feature houses) impossible eq's. I'm only running it at 44.1 too. Even these old Motorola DSP's, now long discontinued, in their dozens, make any Protools or other web-surfing word-processor based system creep toward mp3 players. (ooh, the offence caused.) It is only after you have the chance to truly try your hands at world class audio paths from the best of analogue and digital that the difference can be understood sonically. But the magic of the research which went into the AMS backend systems, even for little details: function DSPs' are used to control the audio DSP's at a 1:3 ratio for generating coefficients on the fly involved in simply fading an audio signal for instance; This is where there is no comparison with new desktop based systems. They're just different beasts. There simply isn't the processing power for the money to do true and correct digital audio manipulation. eg: a lot of manufacturers use look-up tables for the math involved in gain, summing, multiple channel mixing, and the end multiples of many sources are not the same as if done in real-time, by dedicated hardware reading the stream and acting on each in turn, measured with all involved prior to generating the result. Hence the "flat" term given to a lot of digital audio systems.

In the day where so much of our work ends up compressed with 'lossy' formats, broadcast over 'lossy' multiplexes for DVB-T or -S, and copied and traded as cheap commodities, most younger folks these days have no idea what real serious "big format" quality really is/was? about. A lot of it is scrapped for workstations, and what's left is in busy production houses only used on serious clients, or in esoteric folks' garages and basements as objects of pride. -but sadly not on widely distributed great recordings-

I think all of these older desks should be put to work on good recordings, demonstrating that they still are very much today something to reckon with as when they were introduced. I'm not really trying to toot my own horn, but rather admire the other folks dotted around the world who have managed to get ahold of the last generation AMS/Neve systems for personal enjoyment, and tout their stories and defence-of here. Top class.

sore fingers after that ramble.

15th June 2008, 12:34 AM	#14
jf_uk Gear interested Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: London Posts: 1	AMS Neve, though of the Logic 2 variety, not Libra. Hopefully not too unrelated.. I bought two Logic 2 + Audiofile SC32 systems from a production company which couldn't make ends meet not too long ago. I sold my Audient ASP 8024-36 and a Radar II to make way for them. I have crashed them many times out of tinkering and curiosity, but eventually learned a few of the bugs and just avoided such. I am of the school who think 96k is just next year's model and doesn't get you there much faster or in more comfort than last decades'. But my my my. Putting a clean source through just a stereo channel, with a basic stack of eq etc, of a favourite classical recording which sits at "near all 0's" a lot of the time gave me goose pimples after playing with the famous (as described by many in feature houses) impossible eq's. I'm only running it at 44.1 too. Even these old Motorola DSP's, now long discontinued, in their dozens, make any Protools or other web-surfing word-processor based system creep toward mp3 players. (ooh, the offence caused.) It is only after you have the chance to truly try your hands at world class audio paths from the best of analogue and digital that the difference can be understood sonically. But the magic of the research which went into the AMS backend systems, even for little details: function DSPs' are used to control the audio DSP's at a 1:3 ratio for generating coefficients on the fly involved in simply fading an audio signal for instance; This is where there is no comparison with new desktop based systems. They're just different beasts. There simply isn't the processing power for the money to do true and correct digital audio manipulation. eg: a lot of manufacturers use look-up tables for the math involved in gain, summing, multiple channel mixing, and the end multiples of many sources are not the same as if done in real-time, by dedicated hardware reading the stream and acting on each in turn, measured with all involved prior to generating the result. Hence the "flat" term given to a lot of digital audio systems. In the day where so much of our work ends up compressed with 'lossy' formats, broadcast over 'lossy' multiplexes for DVB-T or -S, and copied and traded as cheap commodities, most younger folks these days have no idea what real serious "big format" quality really is/was? about. A lot of it is scrapped for workstations, and what's left is in busy production houses only used on serious clients, or in esoteric folks' garages and basements as objects of pride. -but sadly not on widely distributed great recordings- I think all of these older desks should be put to work on good recordings, demonstrating that they still are very much today something to reckon with as when they were introduced. I'm not really trying to toot my own horn, but rather admire the other folks dotted around the world who have managed to get ahold of the last generation AMS/Neve systems for personal enjoyment, and tout their stories and defence-of here. Top class. sore fingers after that ramble.