DAT-heads Digest #881, Volume #7 Wed, 5 Jul 06 00:50:02 EDT Contents: re: looking for a good laptop recording interface, prefer 4-channels (acffh morst) For sale : Denecke AD-20 and AT SP-CMC-8 mic's ("Tony") Washington DC Blues BBQ on XM radio ("Dat Head") Dweezil (jw@thewhitleys.com) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: acffh morst Subject: re: looking for a good laptop recording interface, prefer 4-channels Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 01:57:21 -0500 Thanks for ALL THE GREAT RESPONSES!! DAT-Heads ROCK=A9!!! So I bought a Focusrite Saffire, but have not been able to get it =20 fully working with the software I have. The Cubase LE installer that =20= came with the Saffire gets me a version which does not work on my =20 mac. Garageband seems to work somewhat, although I cannot seem to get =20= it to lock at 48KHz, I guess it's resampling to 44.1KHz on the fly? =20 That might be handy for some people, but to me it's rather annoying =20 because I want to back up all the bits on my 48Khz DAT masters. =20 Audacity 1.2.4 crashes badly and 1.3 won't run at all. But the price =20 is right!! :-\ Anyway, the reason I chose this over the Edirol FA-100 (or FA-66) is =20 that the Edirols are Optical Digital only, and this is coax S/Pdif. =20 If I ever figure out the Macbook's digital optical interface I might =20 be sorry, but for now, I have a lot of DAT"s to transcribe, and my =20 Oade cable outputs on Coax. The reason I picked the Focusrite or Edirol over the other units I =20 looked at is that they have the capability to run 192KHz and none of =20 the other interfaces I was considering went up past 96KHz. The =20 Digidesign Mbox is limited to 16/48, that's the only interface I =20 considered that did not go to 96Khz. The Digidesign of course works =20 only with their Protools software. Although it's a bit of an =20 industry workhorse, I did not feel that it was worth sacrificing the =20 high-bit-rate feature just to run a limited version of a widespread =20 standard. The M-Audio product I considered (Fast-Track Pro) would =20 work with the M-Power versions of Protools, since Digidesign =20 evidently bought M-Audio, but the unit seemed a little =20 lightweight. . . I had a hard time deciding against the M-audio. I =20 also had a hard time deciding against the Presonus Firebox or =20 Inspire, but I felt that the Focusrite would have better mic preamps =20 than those, so I would say that's what swung me to the Saffire. And =20 of course the 192KHz bitrate means I will probably use this for years =20= before I need to replace it with something of higher quality. MOTU's Traveler was too big for me, and their Ultralite looked good, =20 but I did not like the way there is one XLR mic input on the front =20 and one on the back of the unit- that does not bode well for field =20 operation. So far, Focusrite has been OK for phone support, and Steinberg seems =20 to have a large community of users on their chat forums. I hope I can =20= figure out how to run 4 discrete channels in, I really want to be =20 able to mix a time-locked matrix after-the-fact. The main drawback of =20= the Saffire that I can see so far, is that there are only 2 Analog =20 inputs, the other 2 inputs are the S/Pdif. This means that until I =20 get a high-bit-rate A>D, I can only record 4 channels at 16/48 (based =20= on my Sony SBM-1's max sample rate). That's cool for now, at least =20 until I get the software options figured out, and down the road I can =20= get a V3 or Minime or some cool high-bit-rate unit to sync with. I =20 will say that the Saffire Control software is very cool and flexible =20 and rather powerful- it takes advantage of the Saffire's built-in DSP =20= in order to do full 4-band parametric EQ on the analog inputs (if you =20= want) as well as compression OR it will do Amp Modeling! Not really =20 what I need for making matrix recordings, but it sure will make my =20 mac a flexible demo studio when I get it all figured out! Other interfaces I considered were Len Moscowitz's 4mic, which was =20 supposed to come out in November 2005, and is still not =20 available. . . I need a real interface, not 6 weeks of hoping. Echo =20 Layla is larger than I would prefer for the functionality, I don't =20 want a 19" rack unit if I can help it, otherwise I would be =20 considering the Presonus Firepod and the MOTU Traveler more carefully. The other suggestions I got were to skip the laptop and go with =20 something like the R-4 or some pocket-PC solution, but I already got =20 the Macbook and it feels right for me to record directly on it if it =20 will only perform to my liking. Thanks again to all who responded, it made a BIG difference to me. Have a good summer and KEEP THOSE LEVELS UP!! -tom "morst" PS while I am posting here, I will take the opportunity to ask =20 everyone to PLEASE RECORD CRACKER (and Camper Van Beethoven too) if =20 they are in your area. They're taper-friendly and I'll be MORE THAN =20 GLAD to post your tape as a bit-torrent and/or put it on archive.org =20 if you can't!! THANKS!! Please see http://www.crackersoul.com for =20 tour dates etc!= ------------------------------ From: "Tony" Subject: For sale : Denecke AD-20 and AT SP-CMC-8 mic's Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 02:03:22 -0500 Hey all, I'm not doing a lot of taping these days and selling off the rest of my field gear... The Denecke was used only once to record a Leftover show, it's essentially brand new. I have probably used the AT's about 10-15 times and they work fine. Looking to get $165 for the mic's and $265 for the Denecke, I would take $400 for the pair together... Pictures can be sent, let me know if you have any questions. Thanks, Tony adestefanis (at) wi (dot) rr (dot) com ------------------------------ From: "Dat Head" Subject: Washington DC Blues BBQ on XM radio Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 10:54:10 -0500 anybody tape that last weekend off of XM!? -- The difference between men and women is simple: A man falls in love with a woman he is attracted to, a woman becomes attracted to a man she fell in love with. ------------------------------ From: jw@thewhitleys.com Subject: Dweezil Date: Tue, 4 Jul 2006 15:54:33 -0700 Anyone happen to catch and/or tape any of the Dweezil Zappa tour that juat happened? http://www.zappa.com/zpz/ ------------------------------ ** FOR YOUR REFERENCE ** To unsubscribe from this digest, please send email to dat-heads-unsubscribe@datheads.phish.net If your email address has changed, you may (optionally) send the message to dat-heads-unsubscribe-oldaddress=olddomain@datheads.phish.net and the old address will be removed. 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