Busted Myteks, or busted engineer??

[pedrohead]

, ...

so i've got a little concern that's been keeping me up at night.

i'm a home recordist and recently took advantage of the "buy the Mytek AD, get the Mytek DA half off" deal that was up last month to have a pristine, well clocked 2 channel front end for my Digi001 system. given the great repuatation they seem to have around here and other places, i sold my past setup (Jim Williams modded Lucid AD9624/DA9524 with an Aardvark II clock) in order to pay for the Myteks. obviously my mistake to sell one without comparing it to the other first, but i needed the money up front and they ended up selling on ye ol' used market much faster than i anticipated.

anyway, i got my brand spankin' new Myteks out of the plastic, hooked up, burned in for a few days, and used them on a session that weekend. i was a little more than dismayed to find that my newly engineered/mixed material ended up (sounding to me at least) more quiet, non dynamic, veiled, untranslatable, frequency smeared, lacking air, mid heavy messy compared to the stuff i had recorded/mixed the week before with the Lucid setup, which came out with a more distinct stereo image, open highs and seemingly more headroom and dynamics. these sessions were done with different bands, but the exact same guitars/basses, and my same limited mic/pre supplies, mixing plugins/strategies. i imediately blamed it on engineer screwups, only to do another session the very next weekend with a different band, but the exact same results (Mytek converts, but peculiar sounding output). even vocal sessions i did the last couple days with an older band i recorded with the lucids sound different.

i asked a few friends who were as surprised as i was to hear that the stuff recorded with the Mytek wasn't loads better.

so my question is, is it possible (or have you heard of) getting a set of converters that maybe has some defects in them but still function, just not to their full ability? it's like the heralded Mytek clock isn't cleaning stuff up in there like it should. when cycling between the Mytek clock and the internal Digi clock, i can't even hear a difference on playback. but there was a marked difference with the Aardsync/Lucid.

it's starting to really get me upset now that i've spent this kind of money, can't even go back to my old setup, and i'm getting what i sense to be a major degradation in quality. i talked to Michal at Mytek when i could get hold of him, and he said he'd send me a replacement AD to see if that changed anything, but the one he sent me was apparently damaged during shipping and the front volume knob was broken off. i really appreciate his help thus far,i just haven't got a response back from him since.

so tell me, is this feasible that something's wrong with the units, are Aardvark clocked Lucids (and Jim's upgrades) better than Myteks, am I an repeatably extra horrible engineer for consecutive weeks all of the sudden?

i have WMA files of two of the songs (one with the Lucids, one with the Mytek) up on a site if you want to listen to the difference (it may be hard to tell on computer speakers, especially with the WMA compression, but what the hey, i'll try). i can't necessarily say much about the quality of the bands or the songs posted here, it just happens to be what business came in at the time....

http://www.helstab.com/creot/fhs/benwest/

Mytek users (especially Lucid to Mytek converts) let me know your experiences. i'm not trying to bash Mytek here, i just think something's wrong and i really need to fix it before i get more bands in here.

i really appreciate it.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by mdbeh


So I'd at least make sure there's nothing wrong with either the converter itself or another part of the chain. If I were you, I would get in touch with your dealer, and see if you can have it checked out. It may be that there's nothing wrong, but at least you'd know for sure.

yeah it's the exact same chain (i pretty much run everything through an RNP since it's the only decent pre I've got).

and unfortunately, i bought the last set from the only dealer in MI. i'm trying to get some replacements out from Michal, but getting in touch with him has been difficult.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by djui5
holy crap...



The difference between the 2 is staggering..


I'm taking it song 2 is the Mytek's..


That's insane...

are you being sarcastic or serious? (sorry, it's sometimes hard to tell through typed characters )

yes, song two is the myteks.

[mdbeh]

Originally posted by pedrohead
i'm trying to get some replacements out from Michal, but getting in touch with him has been difficult.

Argh. I've been through that one. I love the Mytek's sound, and the prices are very reasonable, but Michal isn't the easiest guy to track down.

BTW, I couldn't get the files to play for some reason... I'll try later.

[Jules]

"i'm trying to get some replacements out from Michal, but getting in touch with him has been difficult."

I have emailed him, sending him a "heads up" about this thread.

I would say your first port of call would be tech support, I only just got back from my AES trip, perhaps he has been traveling too. Hopefully he will be in touch with you soon.

Meanwhile, have you fully explored your word clock configuration with this new device?

Some times software settings need to be switched AWAY from the correct setting then BACK AGAIN to the right setting - when a new converter is brought into the picture...(we run into this when an MBox session loads up on our Mix + Prism system)

What might be sitting there 'looking right" in software -might actually need a little 'digital wake up" to get going properly...

(the SRC / clocking function in my TC Finalizer also needs a'kick' sometimes by adjusting paramiters back and forth, even though it 'looks right')



I hope I haven't belaboured my point & good luck

[cl516]

michal is solid, don't worry. he'll hook you up.
i bought the first batch of the ADC and DAC stereo 96's and they've been top notch ever since.

[claudemorrow]

I'm also waiting on my stereo 96DAC from Michal also, so Jules give him a "heads up" about my order also (invoice #1163). I'm startin' to wonder about customer service.........

[WildCowboys]

I doubt that the mytek converters are responsible for a sound degradation. you just cannot compare converters with different recordings on different days with different bands, especially done by someone who is calling himself a homerecordist with 1,5 years experience - no offense, nothing wrong with that, we all started sometime! differences between converters are subtle and normally only audible to somewhat experienced engineers.
the sad truth is that highend equipment is worth jack if the one who is using the tools does not have the experience and/or skills. when i had 1,5 years experience i was sh*tting all over the place, i cannot even listen to the mixes i did back then without bursting out in laughter. i just could not do or hear better back then. i also thought it is the highend equipment that would make the difference. over the years i got better and got some highend pieces as well. what can i say, about 90% of the improvement in my mixes came from me, not from the better equipment. especially converters don´t make such a difference to me. I would rather have 5 more mics to choose from for a source than the highest-end converter. it simply makes more difference to me. ymmv
rock on! p.

ps - if the sound difference is SO noticeable, I´m even more sure it´s not the converters...

[faeflora]

For basic troubleshooting you could try using the Myteks in a different non digi environment and listen to how they sound there.

Micahl has given me good support in the past and if his new converters come out soon I'll be picking them up.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by WildCowboys
I doubt that the mytek converters are responsible for a sound degradation. you just cannot compare converters with different recordings on different days with different bands, especially done by someone who is calling himself a homerecordist with 1,5 years experience

ps - if the sound difference is SO noticeable, I´m even more sure it´s not the converters...

you know, i would agree with that, but if you could listen to the sessions that i've done with the myteks versus what i've done with the past configurations i've had (apogee rosetta, lucids without mods, lucids with mods) the difference is so big and so repeatable, that you would understand. these bands that i've recorded the last couple weeks were bands that i've recorded before. the difference in their two sessions is pretty bad.

while granted i'm not a super experienced engineer doing this on my own, this stuff is not new to me, and there's been a lot of hours put in in those 1.5 years

the last couple of days i've even been finishing up sessions for a full length i did with the band who's song i linked (that was done with the lucids/aardvark) and you can hear the difference in just listening to the vocal tracks. same voice, same pre, same mic, same compressor settings. i don't have a lot of variables in my setup because it's very small and i know it pretty well because i use the same things over and over again. the newer vocals are just mid heavy and top light. in pulling up the sessions, it was so obvious just listening to the completely unmixed/unedited tracks (i don't compress/eq on most anything going in). the lucid/aardvark sessions just sounded raw but great, like they were ready to just be touched up then done. the mytek sessions just sounded blah, like they would need a major overhaul to get something out of them.

you'll just have to trust me, something strange is a foot at the circle k.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by Jules

Meanwhile, have you fully explored your word clock configuration with this new device?

What might be sitting there 'looking right" in software -might actually need a little 'digital wake up" to get going properly...

jules, can you expand on this point? should things be switching off hardware wise or software wise?

i have constantly flipped the myteks clock source from "internal to external", constantly flipped the computers source from "SPDIF to internal." and that hasn't made a difference.

are you talking about cracking the AD open and flipping switches?

[WildCowboys]

pedro, just do the following test:
do a test recording, split the signal with a patchbay or a Y-cable after the micpre and let one run into the mytek and one into any other converter you have around (and if it´s only a stand alone cd recorder or something...). then compare those two in an A/B test. If things are as you believe them to be, you should be able to identify the broken mytek! let me know, this is getting interesting!
rock on!
P.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by WildCowboys
pedro, just do the following test:
do a test recording, split the signal with a patchbay or a Y-cable after the micpre and let one run into the mytek and one into any other converter you have around (and if it´s only a stand alone cd recorder or something...). then compare those two in an A/B test. If things are as you believe them to be, you should be able to identify the broken mytek! let me know, this is getting interesting!
rock on!
P.

i'll see if i can doll something like that up. i'm more concerned that the distinct problem i'm hearing with the mytek is that everthing is especially turning sour as all the tracks are piling up, not just individual tracks.

[WildCowboys]

just listened to the two songs you posted, good work! I could not have done it that well after just 1,5 years....
anyway, song2 in my opinion is just a not as good mix as song1. the upper bass/lower midrange area is too loud and making everything sound unclear. song1 has a very good present upper midrange. i guess you might say that´s the bad converter´s sound, but if it sounds like that, why don´t you mix it in a way it sounds more like song1?
rock on!
P.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by WildCowboys
just listened to the two songs you posted, good work! I could not have done it that well after just 1,5 years....

thanks man, i appreciate it. like i said, i've just been doing it on my own for about that long, but have been around the studio (having very talented people in great studios work on my band's stuff when i was doing that thing professionally for a while), so i've learned from good people. i guess i had a head start.

Originally posted by WildCowboys
anyway, song2 in my opinion is just a not as good mix as song1. the upper bass/lower midrange area is too loud and making everything sound unclear. song1 has a very good present upper midrange. i guess you might say that´s the bad converter´s sound, but if it sounds like that, why don´t you mix it in a way it sounds more like song1?
rock on!
P.

you know what, i've tried doing that on these newer tracks, and the hyped upper midrange and reduced low midrange just sounds weird when i try to trick it that way. i've tried to reference song 1 when mixing song 2 and so on... and like i said on the vocals that i did with the same singer/mic/pre/vox/comp, you nailed just what the differences were. a weird low mid bump, and less high mids and extreme air.

[Saucyjack]

I got the Mytek DAC a few weeks ago,still waiting on the AD.I had been using the DA of a Kurzweil Mangler before the Mytek.When I hooked up the Mytek DAC, I'll admit I was a little underwhelmed.The difference was not a "night and day" kinda thing... more like 10-20% better.

However,over the past few weeks after using the Mytek I've become more impressed.Mixing seems easier and more accurate...less guesswork eq wise.Overall I'm happy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the differences in converters at a certain level may be more subtle and may take some time to fully realize.As sluts it's nice to think buying one more bit of equipment will push everything to the next level but it isn't always so.I would suspect the difference between the modded Lucid and Mytek converters may not be much.I think once you get to a certain level you're dealing with small and incremental (but real)improvements...especially when discussing quality converters.

I haven't listened to your files but if the difference is that dramatic something else is going on or maybe it's just a bad unit.

Let us know what happens.

[pedrohead]

i also tried a little test run between converters, too. the best thing i could do was import a 16 bit track (Norah Jones song), take it to mono, then spit it out of the Mytek DA into my RNP. Taking that signal and going into the Mytek AD, the Digi001 AD (tried clocked internally and with the SPDIF input from the Mytek), and the Octopre AD (tried clocked internally and with the SPDIF input from the Mytek).

now i mixed up these tracks and blindly picked which one's i thought sounded the best/fullest/closest to the original track. the Myteks won, but again, you could hear a low mid bump and extreme air lacking a bit. The 001 AD's just sounded papery and 1 dimensional.

But what kind of concerned me was that there was no difference when clocking the 001 by the internal clock or the SPDIF from the Mytek (perhaps supporting my original assumption that it sounds like the Mytek unit is malfunctioning and the clock isn't getting out of the unit to clean up conversion and playback).

i would double the 001 AD tracks, phase reverse one, and it would completely go away. i was under the impression that slaving the DIGI001 to a better clock would slightly improve its conversion. Oddly enough, when I did the same with the doubled Mytek tracks, there was still a slowly drifting oscillating sound left over.

...that just doesn't seem right to me.

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by Saucyjack
I got the Mytek DAC a few weeks ago,still waiting on the AD.I had been using the DA of a Kurzweil Mangler before the Mytek.When I hooked up the Mytek DAC, I'll admit I was a little underwhelmed.The difference was not a "night and day" kinda thing... more like 10-20% better.

However,over the past few weeks after using the Mytek I've become more impressed.Mixing seems easier and more accurate...less guesswork eq wise.Overall I'm happy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that the differences in converters at a certain level may be more subtle and may take some time to fully realize.As sluts it's nice to think buying one more bit of equipment will push everything to the next level but it isn't always so.I would suspect the difference between the modded Lucid and Mytek converters may not be much.I think once you get to a certain level you're dealing with small and incremental (but real)improvements...especially when discussing quality converters.

I haven't listened to your files but if the difference is that dramatic something else is going on or maybe it's just a bad unit.

Let us know what happens.

i agree, i wasn't even hoping for a night and day improvement, if nothing else, i was hoping for an immediate lateral improvement. but it seems what i got was a significant step back.

it's interesting what you say about the Mytek DA, because one of the things that i struggled with the most when I first got the DA was trouble mixing, like I could hear all the parts, but couldn't really tell if they were balanced or something was too loud/soft, then get it in my car and the vox would be screaming loud. again maybe pointing to a bad unit/clock?

all i know is i heard a marked difference when cycling between the aardvark clock and the digi clock on playback of files. i hear no difference between the mytek and the digi.

[pedrohead]

one other thing i meant to ask you mytek users, is how do you have your dip switches and jumpers set up? i'm hoping this is nothing more than a cal problem?

on my AD:

-all dip switches in "off" position
-75 ohm termination jumper is "off"
-trim pot jumpers at the bottom
-J1/J3 (enable mini trim pots) "off"
-J2/J4 (enable external volume knob) "on"

this is how it came and how Michal recommended (as far as i could understand).

[cdog]

"all i know is i heard a marked difference when cycling between the aardvark clock and the digi clock on playback of files. i hear no difference between the mytek and the digi."

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm......

I would rent or buy a Rosetta 200 or UA2192 and do some further A/D and clocking tests. You need to get back that 3rd perspective you had with the Lucid....

[Jules]

"Jules, can you expand on this point? should things be switching off hardware wise or software wise?

i have constantly flipped the myteks clock source from "internal to external", constantly flipped the computers source from "SPDIF to internal." and that hasn't made a difference.

are you talking about cracking the AD open and flipping switches?"

No I meant togeling back and forth on the software and re booting etc... obviously the last toggle must be to the correct setting.

"But what kind of concerned me was that there was no difference when clocking the 001 by the internal clock or the SPDIF from the Mytek (perhaps supporting my original assumption that it sounds like the Mytek unit is malfunctioning and the clock isn't getting out of the unit to clean up conversion and playback). "

I dont like the sound of that.....

Seems like it might be a word clock problem, have you tried changing cables?

[pedrohead]

Originally posted by Jules

No I meant togeling back and forth on the software and re booting etc... obviously the last toggle must be to the correct setting.

yep, done that, too. as mentioned below when trying to listen with and without the clock.

Originally posted by Jules

"But what kind of concerned me was that there was no difference when clocking the 001 by the internal clock or the SPDIF from the Mytek (perhaps supporting my original assumption that it sounds like the Mytek unit is malfunctioning and the clock isn't getting out of the unit to clean up conversion and playback). "

I dont like the sound of that......

me either not one bit.

Originally posted by Jules

Seems like it might be a word clock problem, have you tried changing cables?

i'm just using the same canare 75ohm word clock cables that i used with the lucid setup.

[mytek]

Hi Josh,

Just found this thread. Yes, this is really wierd, it definitely is not normal. IMO there are two possibilities- there is some strange stuff going on with interfacing to your mic pre or the Mytek is broken. We have sold tons of this boxes and this is the first time somebody has experienced this.

Also there is several things invlolved here which needs to be separated, like for example jitter test. You say you heard a huge difference btw monitoring Protools with Lucid using internal ck and Aardsync and you don't with Mytek ADC and DAC.

This is actually correct, this is how it should be. Protools produces more jitter on internal clock, but the subjective difference depends entirely on the jitter suscepility of the monitoring DAC. Unlike Lucid, our DAC is very immune and on Superlock completely immune, so you won't hear any difference. Same with Benchmark DAC1 or Lavry.

As far as overall recording quality- there is definitely something wrong.

I'm in touch with you now, we are doing some tests and hopefully resolving this very soon.

Regards Michal, Mytek

[mytek]

[quote]
[b]"all i know is i heard a marked difference when cycling between the aardvark clock and the digi clock on playback of files. i hear no difference between the mytek and the digi."

Things that make you go hmmmmmmmmm......


This is actually correct, this is how it should be. Protools produces more jitter on internal clock, but the subjective difference depends entirely on the jitter suscepility of the monitoring DAC. Unlike Lucid, our DAC is very immune and on Superlock completely immune, so you won't hear any difference. Same with Benchmark DAC1 or Lavry.

Remember- jitter only matters on conversion points. You are not"improving" entire Protools with external clock. You are only improving converters. If you use state of the art converters on Prootols extrenal clock does do much of anything.

Michal M

[pedrohead]

michal was very kind and gave me a call and worked through some tests this afternoon to make sure i wasn't doing something else wrong. it looks like my pres are all interfacing correctly with the AD, so that eliminates that possibility.

he's going to ship me another unit to let me try and see if there is any improvement, which again i greatly appreciate.

i'll let you know what i find out, but i really appreciate michal's help through all this. i don't mean to make him out to be problematic or anything, he's been very helpful when i've talked to him. it's just been a busy time for him at AES and for me here in le studio.

thanks.

[mytek]

I meant of course:

"If you use state of the art converters on Prootols extrenal clock does NOT do much of anything"

Michal M

[claudemorrow]

I hope Michal ship my stereo96DAC soon as well

Claude

[Link0126]

how would you hook a RNP into Mytek 96adc and then into a digi002?

Balanced TRS out from RNP into...