E-mu 1820M-
http://www.zzounds.com/item--EMU1820M
The big question is: Do I need an outboard compressor to compress the vocal signal from the mic, or does the compressor built into the card(which if I am reading correctly acts as a hardware compressor)act as a outboard compressor would?
With the 1820m sound card, does the DSP compressor in the card act like an outboard compressor. In other words does it affect the vocal signal from the mic, or put another way, is the signal chain something like this?
Mic - Compressor function in the sound card - from the soundcard to my Multitrack Sequencer(like Cubase SX3).
What i am trying to get at here is for instance does it have the same flow as outboard hardware. Like Mic - preamp - compressor - audio interface -
sequencer(Cubase).
Basicly, do I still need an outboard compressor?
You see, let me put it this way to. Does it act like a hardware compressor or does it act like a compressor plugin?
I know this is true for plugins
This is your signal path:
source - mic - preamp - ADC - computer - Multitrac Sequencer(Cubase SX3) -
plug-in - then back to the sequencer
If you think a little, there is no way a plug-in could effect the sound coming to the computer.
Many people get confused because you can monitor the compressed signal as you're recording (hm... live?). and you can hear it's compressed. and it is! you're right! BUT it was compressed after the ADC. so a plug-in could never give you any protection from overloading the ADC (clipping)
Again-
So in essence the big question is: Do I need an outboard compressor to compress the vocal signal from the mic, or does the compressor built into the card(which if I am reading correctly acts as a hardware compressor)act as a outboard compressor would?