23 Aug
2014
23 Aug
'14
1:56 p.m.
Partly also for historical reasons, I think. In many
ways digital
recording started as the "poor man's tape". Direct to disk recording with
no effects was at first all that could be handled and most peole using it
were replacing 8 track tape with it. They already had a mixer. As the DAW
developed, mix down on the computer has been next. But for many people the
recording part of the strip has been outside of the DAW, on an analog
mixer. This is changing as a new batch of people are going mic->
interface. Their input strip is whatever the interface provides... often
only trim (either as a pot on the pre or in ALSA).
Is this for convenience or not having the ability to afford something else?
I think a lot of times money is spent on the wrong thing such as buying a
fancy multicore computer when something from 8 years ago is totally adequate
for digital audio.
So digital recording is
also going through a two mixer to inline transition. From hybrid to
digital only. The trim controls are there, where they should be, as close
to incoming signal as possible. I don't suppose it would be too hard to
add alsa trim for a card like the d1010 to ardour, but many USB IFs (even
PCIe) have no controls in alsa. It is a physical pot somewhere. So rather
than being in front of the engineer, it is hidden and easily missed by the
newby... or even not so new. So much is done digitally, that the remaining
analog items are forgotten. This is a real problem with a two input IF,
The trim needs to be set every time and the variety of signals through one
channel is huge. Everything from a ribbon to line level. Having a set of
good pre amps could be worth while, this is probably the biggest hole in
the hobby studio. I have two, tube and solid state. (plus line)
It is very simple to keep a few notes on what is a good preamp setting for
a given mic and preamp combination. One inconvenience with some budget
preamps is that you don't know what sort of gain it is providing, so while you
may write down the setting by using a notation like 2:00 for dial position,
you haven't learned anything about gain, so if you swap out a preamp you need
to guess at where to start.
You can get into trouble with a mismatch between preamp and converters, such that
you are trying to "maximize bits" by getting a hot signal level into your
converters.
The preamp ends up distorting and you have a hi-res recording of a distorted sound!
I actually had this problem with a remake of a vintage preamp. So it seems every
preamp has a voltage sweet spot that it should be operated in.
The best situation is if you have converters with analog trims, which is I think
what you were saying, and set them accordingly for each preamp. I leave my preamps
plugged into a specific A/D channels that have been calibrated for that preamp.
One other note, some budget preamps are not qualified for certain levels of input.
I have a Presonus Audiobox which can sound fine for an acoustic guitar, but throw a
drum at it and it is automatically over full scale and unusable.
Grekim