Upgrading digital recording...what makes the most difference????

[Rockin Daddy]

I'm running a digi 001 thru a Mytek stereo A/D converter. I'm recording rock 'n roll stuff with an emphasis on guitar and vocal overdubs. Although I'm happy with this set-up, I want to make it better. I'm considering an upgrade to a Lavry AD/DA stereo converter. The question is will this move be an improvement?...Or should I consider other factors like the clock or sound card???...to be honest I have no idea how all these factors (converters, clocks, sound cards) interact and how they affect the sound....can someone educate me???

[soundwarrior]

I would keep the mytek and get a good pre and mic. Then later when I had more money get the lavry converters. I am assuming your room and monitors are decent.

[Jay Kahrs]

What else do you own & use?

In regards to your recordings...what are you most happiest with? What are you least happiest with?

Speaking in really general terms...I've found that after the quality of the source, the order of importance is mics, micamps, then converters.

[DirkB]

Originally Posted by Jay Kahrs

Speaking in really general terms...I've found that after the quality of the source, the order of importance is mics, micamps, then converters.

My experience also, ones you have some decent converters to start with.

greetings,
Dirk

[Rockin Daddy]

Although I'm a basement studio guy, I've got some good pres and mics...Great River, Chandler TG, TAB 78, the Portico (awesome)...Soundelux u195 and E-47.

I guess to more fully explain my original question, besides a converter upgrade are there other "improvements" worth considering??? Again I confess I don't know what role, if any, the master clock and/or soundcard play in digital recording...

....by the way I'm not a commercial studio and simply record my own stuff...also I focus on tracking and only perform rough mixes at my place and send out for "proper" mixing

[DirkB]

Originally Posted by Rockin Daddy

Although I'm a basement studio guy, I've got some good pres and mics...Great River, Chandler TG, TAB 78, the Portico (awesome)...Soundelux u195 and E-47.

I guess to more fully explain my original question, besides a converter upgrade are there other "improvements" worth considering??? Again I confess I don't know what role, if any, the master clock and/or soundcard play in digital recording...

....by the way I'm not a commercial studio and simply record my own stuff...also I focus on tracking and only perform rough mixes at my place and send out for "proper" mixing

I'd say invest in monitoring. With that frontend, you should be able to get great results, IF you are able to hear what you're doing. Upgrading my acoustic environment (forum.studiotips.com highly recommended!) and monitors (S3a's) made a big improvement.
Perhaps look into that and then see if you van try some better converters?

Good luck,
Dirk

[Ziggy!!]

With the gear you have there's only three things holding you back.

- Your Monitoring.
- Your Acoustics.
- You.

[BJohnston]

I personally think that a lot the quality you speak about wanting to gain could be obtained through better converters with a better clock. I just bought a Apogee Rosetta 800 96k with the Big Ben word clock to use with my Digi 001. Stereo imaging has improved 10 fold. Everything seems to sit in the pocket more. Frequencey ranges seem to really open up. Granted I've been working with my little 001 with an Alesis AI3 for a couple of years so really anything is an improvement. The cloudiness in my mixes that I use to have a problem with has gone away. No more struggling to make things fit. I posted a thread about converters a while ago. I got blasted by a few people about how the quality of the converters has nothing to do with the final product. I listened to what they had to say. I can say now having used them, I strongly disagree. It's true though, if you don't know what you're doing it doesn't matter how great of gear you have.
That's just my $.02

BJohnston

[Jay Kahrs]

In your case, like the others have said...throw money into the room and then the monitors. If you can't hear what's actually happening when you move a mic or turn a knob, the subtle differences in converters will be lost on you.

Switching converters from Mytek to an Apogee or a Lavry or whatever won't yeild any real 'improvement' since they're all on a similar level of quality, the new converter will only sound different.

There are lots of good monitors out there and IMHO, the best ones are from the companies that make their own drivers like Dynaudio, Adam, PMC etc. But still, get the room together before you get new monitors. It'll be cheaper and it'll make a bigger difference in the long run.

[Jules]

What is you d/a?

What is the signal path from the PT internal mixer to your ears?

[alphajerk]

Originally Posted by Ziggy!!

With the gear you have there's only three things holding you back.

- Your Monitoring.
- Your Acoustics.
- You.

ditto.

[T_R_S]

Originally Posted by Rockin Daddy

...to be honest I have no idea how all these factors (converters, clocks, sound cards) interact and how they affect the sound....can someone educate me???

Musicians and the song make all the difference. With the obvious all ready done, using a Digi 001 to make a pro recording is a lot like trying to win a professional auto race with a Pontiac Sunfire.
A 001 will only ever give you a good sounding demo as that's what it was designed for.

[superburtm]

I've heard some suprisingly outstanding "demos" done on an 001. It's in the way that you use it. E.C.

[Prickstein]

And I've heard some hideously bad mixes on HD through a large console

[u b k]

IMPROVE THE ROOM.

it's not often i yell, but if you're doing rock, then your front end is solid. no more gear. the room is everything. make it sing.


gregoire
del ubik

[Rockin Daddy]

My D/A is whatever comes stock with the digi 001...I know it's lacking and from the majority of replys to my original post, I'm getting the feeling that this is the point in my chain that needs to be upgraded...for monitors I'm using KRK Rockit 5s, NS10s and Sony headphones...I guess my choices are the Mytek, Benchmark, or Lavry D/As....does anyone have any experience as to how these units interact (which is best) with a digi 001 setup???....

Keep in mind that for my current project, I tracked drums and bass at a studio with a large room, neve pres, neumanns, thru a desk, into a pro tools HD rig...the tracks sound great....my questions concern my home studio where I'll overdub vocals and guitar....then I ship everything out to be mixed thru a pro tools HD rig, and then mastered at a NYC mastering house....I'm expecting this scenario to give me "pro" results!

[Don S]

I would upgrade your monitoring environment. Including a reference D/A. You can't fix what you can't hear!
I still use my Digi 001. The Benchmark Dac1 made the biggest difference out of any upgrades to date! I thought I hated my 824's and needed to replace them. All because of the lousy DAC on the 001.
Best,
Don

[BJohnston]

I guess my choices are the Mytek, Benchmark, or Lavry D/As....does anyone have any experience as to how these units interact (which is best) with a digi 001 setup???....

I've never had any experience with any of the mentioned units. The word clock is one the most important aspects for good D/A A/D converters. I'm only able to run mine at 48K because of the Digi 001 specs, but there's a HUGE difference with the clocking @ 48K with the Rosetta. Even things that I've recorded using the Digi sound much better played back through the Rosetta. As far as what will work better with 001, it shouldn't really matter since the better D/A A/D would be used for the master. The Digi will be syncing to it rather than the other way around. I would try to record and monitor playback as much as possible with the better A/D D/A's, if I were you.

B

[cl516]

hi everyone
i'm in the same boat as rockindaddy,
doing the mytek ad/da through 002r.

i'm thinking of going up to some adam's S-series from my dynaudio bm6a's right now,
but temptation also has my eye peeking on a nice compressor like maybe a varimu or chandler tg limiter. (i have a smart c2 right now.)

what do you guys think, a high end comp or some adam's?

i'm also in the process of finishing my basement, which is nice so i can do some bass traps and foam properly.

p.s. i don't mean to hijack the thread sorry if i did yikes.

[fritz]

When I upgraded from a delta 1010 to a rme adi8 pro (48K) it was like I upgraded everything in the whole studio. On the monitoring side I could hear instruments on commercial cds that could not be heard before. Microphones that I didn't like (sm81) are now great. I bet if you had a great d/a you could hear how great your front end is and you would decide that no upgrade is needed provided your room is OK. You certainly have a better front end than I do.

I always wonder when I read these threads and the guy has a
tlm 103 -> great river -> motu 828 and he says the Neumann sucks

[BJohnston]

what do you guys think, a high end comp or some adam's?

The Dynaudio's are great monitors, unless improvements need to be made to your listening environment, those should be great. I've got a pair myself. High end compressors aren't going to improve your situation either. You need to hear what you're compressing first. IMO the converters are going to be a major step in the right direction. That is if you've done everything possible to get the listening environment up to par. That along with your knowledge of the gear and your ears are the most important attributes.

B

[StephenMarsh]

the fastest, easiest way to make ANY digital device sound better - CLOCK. get a proper clock, don't push the PT too hard (ie: red lights everywhere) and focus on getting good clean, natural sounds into the box - my 2 cents--Steph

[NathanEldred]

RD,

You aren't mixing your own stuff (correct me if I'm wrong), you already have A+ top notch gear, it doesn't get much better (although Lavry IS king IMO). The only thing a D/A will do for you at this point is allow you to make tracking decisions easier, since you are not directly/hands on involved in the mix. This is important, but after hearing your mixes there isn't anything much left to improve other than subjective possibilities. Your raw tracks seem very clean but with a slight 'warm' edge (but could have more growl and grit). The only thing I could honestly say your tracks would benefit from would be to mix on a full featured console, mixed with lots of class A outboard (not ITB with plug ins), and somewhere in the path tape should be involved (either transferring your tracks to 2" and back to digital, or at least mixing to tape). This may have all changed since I heard your CD (which already sounded excellent, just a too 'hi fi' by about 50% for the style to my ears). Just my dollar and change worth of opinion.

[cl516]

so bjohnston,
in a way, assuming my room is good,
i guess i'm asking is it better to stick with my dynaudios and get lavry's?
or stick with my myteks and get some adams?

hahah i can't have both though
$$$$$

[BJohnston]

so bjohnston,
in a way, assuming my room is good,
i guess i'm asking is it better to stick with my dynaudios and get lavry's?
or stick with my myteks and get some adams?

hahah i can't have both though
$$$$$

Stick with the Dynaudios. If the Lavry's have a good Word Clock go with the Lavry's. Everything you need, as far as good monitoring, you've got in the Dynaudios. You just need to step up the converters. Like I said though I know nothing about the Lavry's. If the clocks in those Lavry's compare to what the Apogee Big Ben does you'll be really happy with the results. Your stereo field will really open up for you.

B