2011 question for fellow lathe cutters

[dietrich10]

Who is using time shift/delay in DAW versus hardware delay in 2011?

I have been straight out of the DAW for the three years after briefly using a delay in an analog chain. Thinking about adding that option again and curious what units in use for his lately

D

[Paul Gold]

I use the DAW. I think the best idea for a DDL is to have Shea Ako make you one. The only commercially available DDL that even comes close is the TC Electronics broadcast delay. It doesn't do 88.2/96 though. A TC6000 would work but is massive overkill. I don't know of anything else that would even work.

[Gengy]

For me today the only thing that you can use for not alter the mod signal is the time shift in the daw.

[Richard Black]

Since there's not, and never was, a true analog electronic delay for use with disc cutting (it's theoretically feasible but I wouldn't want to try building one - a couple ms of delay is plenty hard enough, never mind the second-or-so a lathe needs) your signal path would be ADC-delay-DAC. Why bother? What can it possibly give you? Someone seeking a bit of tape warmth might want to run an analog tape deck with a big loop between record and replay heads, of course, but, well....

[Paul Gold]

Originally Posted by Richard Black

Why bother? What can it possibly give you?

The ability to cut on the fly with processing if your processors are only two channel.

A bucket brigade or inductor stack couldn't possibly be better than a good ADDA even though it's analog. Ahh the good old days when digital was good and analog was bad.

[dietrich10]

Originally Posted by Gengy

For me today the only thing that you can use for not alter the mod signal is the time shift in the daw.

Yes that is the issue. I do not want to use a 2nd DA running real time capture with a MS shift on it just to run things LIVE via analog gear into a cut

Originally Posted by Paul Gold

The ability to cut on the fly with processing if your processors are only two channel.
.

yup. and since testing out this buzz eq with two sets of outputs had me thinking...

[duomo]

Im using a delay in the DAW (samplitude) works perfect. The big advantage (beside the better converters) is that you can tweak the level of the prev.signal to fine adjust the pitch control for specific musical program....

[Cellotron]

When I was at Europadisk I was surprised to discover that the path used by the previous engineer to the TC M2000 being used as the DDL was to go into its AD converter and back out the DA rather than just use the digital input to avoid a conversion when sending to it via digital sources. But when I rerouted to the digital input I discovered it would fade into the very first transient it would receive! -(similar to the "unmute" problem some CD players have) so not an acceptable way to work (I never did find out whether this was a defect in the design or just the unit we had). It also maxed out at 48kHz (which as Paul noted every other off the shelf hardware ddl on the market still does as well)

So - one of the upgrades I did was to replace the TC DDL with a SAWStudio DAW sending out to Lavry Blue converters so that I could work at 2xFs rates if I wanted and also have the greater precision of working in the DAW (not to mention the upgrade in the sound of the DAC). However there were still lots of orders which were paid for at the lower "flat transfer" rate where I wanted the convenience of not having to spend the time loading the provided CD or DAT source into the DAW first, while still being able to use the real time snapshot capability of the Neve DTC. So for these jobs I just would put SAWStudio into it's "live" mode where it passes the audio through its effects and then to its outputs without having to be placed into "record" - and then I multed in the DAW with the second output sent through a plugin delay set to wet signal only at the appropriate amount. All you need with this is a sound card with a single stereo digital input and 2 stereo outputs, and even an old Pentium III PC would be able to handle doing this. That way I could just use the DAW the same exact way as a hardware delay would work. I'm sure there are plenty of DAW apps that can do this besides SAWStudio (I'm pretty positive that Samplitude can) - but if you wanted to do this with it the "Basic" version goes for $300 and would give you this functionality. Welcome to RML Labs - The Makers of SAWStudio

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[dietrich10]

The way Steve's system would work makes me worry about stability running two computers to cut a lacquer. loads of clocking going on as well

[Cellotron]

Originally Posted by dietrich10

The way Steve's system would work makes me worry about stability running two computers to cut a lacquer. loads of clocking going on as well

fwiw - I never had stability problems - one of the strong points of SAWStudio and my self built DAWs are their stability. Again - when I used the DAW as a hardware delay I wasn't using a 2nd computer for the source. Instead I would come from directly from a CD or DAT player with AES outs and use the Neve DTC for additional per track processing that could be set up on the fly previously and then page through all the snap shots via a single button push. We had the older Aardvark Aardsync for house clock (as the Neve DTC couldn't just pass clock carried by an AES input) - but it's very possible that with the right setup you could just pass clock via AES only and not have a master clock.

Best regards,
Steve Berson

[dietrich10]

Trying to think of way to make principle work where the preview signal gets the delay sort of reverse. Cannot think of a way where it could work though...advanced digital delay...

[dietrich10]

anyone ever a/b signals thru an eventide eclipse?

[Bonati]

Hey Dietrich - I own one of the Shea Ako delays. I love it. I tried the Eclipse first and it didn't work. Sold it and put the money towards Shea's unit. In the meantime Al was nice enough to loan me a Weiss delay - worked great but of course hampered by the 48kHz ceiling.

[Bob Weston]

Originally Posted by dietrich10

anyone ever a/b signals thru an eventide eclipse?

We tried the Eclipse and did some testing. We were never able to completely null the delayed and undelayed AES streams when we recorded them and aligned them in the DAW. That's why we hired Shea to design and build us his delay box.

It's got 1 AES in, and 2 AES outs (one delayed the appropriate amount behind the first - Shea can vary this depending upon what delays you need). It runs at 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 192. There's a big switch on the front for 33 or 45.

The DAW feeds one AES stereo signal to the delay, then the 2 outputs of the delay feed: a cheapo D/A to feed the Zuma, and Lavry D/A to feed the lathe's modulation input.

So the lathe system is now a stand-alone black box with one AES input.

bob weston