2 Track Recorder

[Malius]

Hi again,

I'm looking at getting my mixes from Pro Tools to CD at 'Red Book' Resolution. I was looking at the Alesis ML-9600 2-track recorder. Any Ideas on this particular piece of gear?

Any recommendations?

[terminal3]

If I had a need to do that, I'd look at this:

Korg MR-1000 Professional Mobile Recorder at DV247.COM

DSD recording, easily converted back to PCM...

EDIT: sorry, I guess you're actually looking for a CD recorder, sort of misunderstood, been a long day! Oh well. Can't help you with that other than by saying a colleague of mine uses an HHB system that works really well for him.

Might be more than you need, but I'd think it's worth a punt so you'll have the best of all worlds.

But the bigger question is, what's wrong with bouncing from Pro Tools back to your hard disk and then just creating a CD with software?

[Malius]

I don't know, hah. I just kinda assumed that it would be better quality finishing it with a dedicated CD burner.

[terminal3]

Originally Posted by Malius

I don't know, hah. I just kinda assumed that it would be better quality finishing it with a dedicated CD burner.

I would doubt it. Doing it 'in-the-box' gives you much more control over dither, SRC if necessary, the sort of thing that you have no (good) idea how an external box will handle.

[TrevCircleStudios]

I use a masterlink (as des Frank from GIK from memory). It's A/d is poor and I certainly wouldn't use it's onboard plugins but with a decent 2 bus chain and a/d converter into it it's incredible value. I currently have a mytek in front of it but am planning to change to a hedd soon.

[terminal3]

Originally Posted by TrevCircleStudios

I use a masterlink (as des Frank from GIK from memory). It's A/d is poor and I certainly wouldn't use it's onboard plugins but with a decent 2 bus chain and a/d converter into it it's incredible value. I currently have a mytek in front of it but am planning to change to a hedd soon.

Enlighten me - what is the advantage to using something like that, assuming I could put a good converter in front of it - is it simply speed?

Currently I bounce from Pro Tools as 24 bit, apply MBIT+ dither in Wave Editor, then do a burn in iTunes, or an assembly in Peak Pro if I need fancy stuff like crossfades, ISRC codes & all that jazz. Assuming I don't have to do all the nonsense in Peak Pro it's actually pretty speedy.

Not that I get asked much for CDs anymore... it's quite rare!

[TrevCircleStudios]

Masterlink will do redbook standard so you can do the 'fancy stuff' there as required. It's also a cd burner and a seperate reference system for the stuio. Not to mention it's also a great archiving system. Of course if you are summing OTB in any case or even if just your 2bus chain is analogue it's as easy to go down that chain and into a standalone recorder as it is to go back into your daw.


That said there's quite an interesting thread on GS at the moment about the caps on the input end of the MS. Whatever. Works for me. As ever YMMV!

[FrankGIK]

I do have a MasterLink in the control room...I mainly use it for quick daily's or push mixes for clients, and I NEVER use the A/D...goes straight in from the SSL's via S/PDIF. The onboard effects aren't terrible...the compression and limiting is better than Cubase's stock dynamics plugin. It'll produce a Redbook production master just fine, and the burner is excellent...very low error rates if you use good discs (TY's for me).

If I'm doing any serious finalizing (ahem.."mastering" lite) I do it with Wavelab 6. Far more control...much, much easier to move things around, tweak fades when they vary over the course of an album...just far easier to get things lined up.

Frank

[Stagesound]

I regularly use an HHB in a couple of different situations, and I know others who have them too. We have found they are very choosy about which discs you use, and we only ever now use HHB CDR80IP (the IP just means Inkjet Printable). They're not the cheapest, though worth paying the extra for rather than loose a project because the recorder stops in the middle of a session! (Unfortunately I've had to use them for live work a few times as the main recording medium (don't ask ), though I always run a DAT as a backup).

I can't see any advantage of coming out of the recording system to an external CD Recorder at all, and would never do it by choice.

[RedDavid]

Originally Posted by Malius

I don't know, hah. I just kinda assumed that it would be better quality finishing it with a dedicated CD burner.

Bits is bits, man. In the analogue world, a poor duplication of a waveform diminishes the sound quality, but here in the digital world, a poor duplication is corruption, and it doesn't manifest as dodgy sound quality, it manifests as skipping, garbling, or violent speaker explosion and possible death. So just output the audio file at 16bit / 44.1, and burn it as you would normally. A slower burn speed is a safer way to burn a disc. Unless the burner app does something silly to the data, on the disc will be a perfect replication of what came out of Pro Tools.

[FrankGIK]

Originally Posted by RedDavid

Bits is bits, man. In the analogue world, a poor duplication of a waveform diminishes the sound quality, but here in the digital world, a poor duplication is corruption, and it doesn't manifest as dodgy sound quality, it manifests as skipping, garbling, or violent speaker explosion and possible death. So just output the audio file at 16bit / 44.1, and burn it as you would normally. A slower burn speed is a safer way to burn a disc. Unless the burner app does something silly to the data, on the disc will be a perfect replication of what came out of Pro Tools.

I agree. I don't see the point of using the MasterLink for anything but quick mixes. It's nice to have around for that purpose. About burn speed, as long as you stay under 8x (preferably 4x) and use good CD's you'll be fine. Burning fast with crappy CD's will produce a disc that will fail standard replication tests though.

Frank

[TrevCircleStudios]

Bits is bits, man. In the analogue world, a poor duplication of a waveform diminishes the sound quality, but here in the digital world, a poor duplication is corruption, and it doesn't manifest as dodgy sound quality, it manifests as skipping, garbling, or violent speaker explosion and possible death. So just output the audio file at 16bit / 44.1, and burn it as you would normally. A slower burn speed is a safer way to burn a disc. Unless the burner app does something silly to the data, on the disc will be a perfect replication of what came out of Pro Tools.

Hmm. I agree to some extent but with a little modification. It's pretty well known for example that bouncing to disk in protools does not provide the same summed signal as recording to track (they will not null). Likewise using a master fader will not provide the same summed output as using an aux fader as a master (again they will not completely null). I guess that is about how you get the audio out of PT but given, ie that I didnt want to bounce but to RTT, together with the fact that I wanted an all analogue mixbus chain led me to an outboard recorder. Works for me but, like I said, YMMV.