#SunRise A516 Up to it?
21 messages in this thread
Tom,
I am real intrested in getting the 16-Bit Sunrise Card. Can you tell me how
it performs? Is it capable of recording live music as-in recording studio
quality? I am getting into Desktop Video/Audio and would like to record
rock bands and such using the AD516 to record and mix complete songs
(guitar, bass, drums, vocals, backing vocals, etc.) Is the Sunrise up to
this kind of use? Or am I better off getting a 8-track tape recorder?
Thanks! –Steven Walters
70524,634
Steven,
A couple of caveats to the opinions which follow: I have only had my AD516
for about a month and a half. I have never done professional recording
although I do have three DAT recorders and a high end audio system. My
impressions of the AD516 are very positive. Sound quality of music
recording recorded at 44.1 kHz and 48 kHz to hard disk are equivalent to CD
recordings played back on good mid-fi equipment. The AD516 produces no
artifacts that are audible to my ears. The S/N of the AD516 is not quite
the equal of the best CD playback equipment, but is more than adequate for
all but the most critical applications. One thing you must be prepared for
if you are going to use the AD516 for recording and mixing complete songs
(or for any other purpose) is the need for a fast high capacity disk drive.
I purchased a Micropolis 1.2 GB drive with a 10 msec average access time
simultaneous with the purchase of the AD516. So far, I am absolutely
delighted with this drive. I prepared one 18 minute video tape in which
all of the sound was digitized (at 44.1 KHz), stored on the Micropolis and
synchronized with the video by the AD516 reading SMPTE time code off the
video tape and playing the selections from HD at the appropriate moment.
Everything worked great, and at one point in the video tape I had five
tracks playing back simulataneously with no problems. In short, I believe
the AD516 would meet your needs if paired up with a sufficiently high
capacity fast HD. Would it be better to purchase an 8-track tape recorder?
I can't answer that because I don't have enough experience with multi-track
recording or the type of work that you would be doing. I hope this helps
in some way.
Tom
Steve,
For the flip side of Tom's statement, I've owned several multi-track
tape decks over the years, but have never had the opportunity to tinker
with a card like the Sunrize. I have fooled around with quite a bit of
multimedia on the PC, and my dislike of trying to adjust sound levels,
effects, and such with a mouse prompted me to opt for a Tascam 688
MidiStudio over the Sunrize equipment, although I may add the Sunrize card
yet. From a standpoint of ease of mixing, adding effects and such,
multitrack tape is still the best bet, IMHO. However, the SMPTE sync
capabilities that Tom spoke of are a HUGE plus for the Sunrize, and if
I go with one later, it will be for that purpose. You can purchase the
Sunrize outfit for about the same price that you'll pay for a unit to
sync your multitrack deck to your video signal. Hope I didn't confuse
you more!
Jerry Hatchett
Tom,Jerry Hey TOM and JERRY! :),
Thanks for the great replies! I think Due to budget constraints I'll be
starting with a 512MB Drive. I Think this will be large enough to start
with. What I have come up with is the following questions… Due to the
fact that the AD516 only has 2 RCA type inputs How do you get a good
line-in to the AD516 from micked vocals/bass and regular guitars? Also how
with only 2 inputs can you get a decent recording of a live/acoustic DRUM
set? I called Sunrise they told me I would have to mike the set 2 drums at
a time… Yeah Right! or record to 8-Track then from 8 track to AD516 for
editing… If I have an 8-track why get the card? Or use a digital Drum
set… That's the point I need to record real drums???
–Steven Walters
Steven,
I doubt I can answer your question very well because I have no experience
at live music recording. However, the only way I know to get more than
two inputs into the AD516 would be to use a mixer for your multiple inputs
and feed the mix output to the two inputs of the AD516.
Tom
Steve,
You can always use a mixer to input the multiple mikes into, then mix down
to two tracks and go into the Sunrize. If you want to do much in the way of
live music recording, I'll step out on a limb and say that multitrack tape
is still the way to go. You're gonna run into needs concerning sound that
just aren't covered yet in the realm of digital computer audio. (I liked
the suggestion you got: record and mix to 8-track, then record that on disk
via the Sunrize. My future plans exactly!!)
Jerry
Jerry,
I actually made up the Idea of recording to 8-Track and then to AD516. But
I wouldn't mix it there I would input the 8 drum tracks 2 at a time to the
AD516 and then do the editing on the Amiga. I guess I'll have to get both
an 8-Track and a AD516 to really do it right. Heck I don't know if it's
cheaper but I might be better off getting (2) 4-Tracks. The reason the
AD516 would be so awsome is that YOU can do the mixing… YOU make the cue
list… Now that I think of it why not buy 4 or 5 decent cassette
recorders? You could put one mike on each drum, use the AD516 to sync the
tracks and ping-pong down to 2 or 3 drum tracks for your final mix???
I think I maybe on to something here…
–Steven Walters
Steve,
The Sunrize board is a two channel – eight virtual track system. It isn't
intended to replace a multitrack tape recorder for the sort of recording
that you want to do. If you wait awhile, you'll be able to buy the unit
that will allow you to record eight tracks at once, but you'll still need
a mixer, or a front end at least for each channel, to deal with microphone
gain, equalisation and routing. The SMPTE capability is the biggest clue
here: if video or theatre is what you do, then Sunrize is for you. If
you're into rock and roll, then buy an eight track Tascam or Fostex, mix
down to two tracks and edit and sequence on the Sunrize.
John
John,
I hope I'm not letting my ignorance show to much…:)
"–The SMPTE capability is the biggest clue here: if video or theatre is
what you do, then Sunrize is for you.–"
Isn't SMPTE the cat on the Ren and SMPTE show? 🙂 No, realy, I thought
SMPTE was the standard time code used for MIDI and Music recording.
"–If you're into rock and roll, then buy an eight track Tascam or Fostex,
mix down to two tracks and edit and sequence on the Sunrize–"
Why would I want to mix on the tape end? I would have to do all the fades
and pans manually. Maybe I have the wrong impression of the AD516 but I
thought you could control the levels/pans and track selection all
automaticly? If I get a good mix on tape then kick it out to the AD516 all
I'll be able to do with it is very minor changes. But if I get the seperate
tracks to the AD516 I can copy/paste vocal parts around, increase the level
of the kick drum, double back up vocals, all without loosing any of the
orignal tracks. If the AD516 can't do these thing then I'll have to go
stricty tape, I hope not, I want to do the mixing myself digitally.
Thank you for putting up with me…
–Steven Walters
Steve,
You're far better off to just get you an 8 track multitrack unit, record
your drums, mix 'em down, and put it on the hard drive. You won't like
mixing live music with a mouse, PROMISE. You may spend a few more bucks
initially, but you'll have done it right the first time.
Jerry
Steve,
If you want digital audio x 8 tracks simultaneously, ck out either the
Alesis ADat gear or the new DA-88 from Tascam. I believe both are around
the 4G price. Other-wise, get one of the new Mackie mixers and mix it down
to the Sunrize Bd. IMHO, the Sunrize Bd was designed primarily with video
in mind. ie… being able to sync to Smpte and due cue lists and cut and
paste sound tracks together. Probably somewhere down the road, it will
evolve into a multi-input device, if enough consumer demand is there.
All in all, a nice piece of gear. I just got down using one to create Sfx
for a live theatre project.
C.Julson—->via Whap
Steve,
It gets too involved to go into here on this high priced forum, but believe
me, there are MANY reasons why you do NOT want to try to mix live music on
the Sunrize. Use it to sync and edit, but you're gonna get yourself into a
nightmare if you try to mix live music with it.
Jerry
Steven,
Check out the Mackie 1202 mixer. Very High performance for a very low
price. Takes up to four balanced mike lines (can supply phantom power if
necssary) takes fou more line level stereo inputs, has 2 stereo AUX
returns, tow mono aux sends, as well as tape inputs and outputs. Call
Mackie designs, 1-800-258-6883 for info.
For your hard disk source, especially if working with the AD516 give Video
Info Com a call at 408-559-4308.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Jerry,
Isn't there a synchronizer for the 688 that will read smpte and convert it
to MIDI so it will controll the 688 paly back? (A dealer in NYC told me
it would).
The reason I didn't go with the TASCAM and edned up with the AD516 is that
the TASCAM, as I recall, only had a 14 Khz top end. Is this correct (I
forget…)
The other consideration I had is that most of my audio is for animation
and short stuff (30 second -1 minute or less) and the editing features of
the AD516 have been greate (I've used it since July and had a 1012 before
that). I did, however, have to get a Mackie 1202 to tie my adudio
sourfced togeterh and to condition the unbalanced hihg signal level AD516
output to the balanced inputs of my videao decks. Going direct to the
video deck caused lots of muddy, muffled sounding audio until I put the
mixer in thee loop (takes the unbalanced inputs, and balanced inputs and
feeds them out as balanced outputs).
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
Yes, there is a synchronizer for the 688 that interfaces with SMPTE; it's
called the MidiIzer. On the 14Khz top, I'll check my manuals and post the
results, but the audio quality is outstanding, no matter what the paper may
say. There are 2 reasons why I'll probably go with the Sunrize for sync
purposes:
1. It costs about the same, or even a little less, than the MidiIzer,
and I'll get all the nifty editing features that the Sunrize offers.
2. The tape speed on the 688 is so fast (4X normal) that you only get
22.5 minutes on a 90 minute cassette. On longer projects, I think
it'll be far easier to record the multiple tapes to hard disk, and
tie everything together with the Sunrize, than it is to have to go
back through the process of syncing each tape up to video.
More Later,
Jerry
Better get a BIG hard drive – maybe even a Juke Box!
wmc – via Autopilot!
Wayne,
Gonna record 'em to disk, edit 'em, record 'em to tape, and erase
the disk! How much disk space per minute of audio??
Jerry
Jerry,
I have the AD516. To record at the CD sampling rate of 44.1 MHz require 5
MB perminute per channel so in stereo that's 10 MB per minute. I purchased
a Micropolis 3.5 in. 1.2 GB HD which I am using with the AD516. This is a
very fast HD (10 msec average seek time) and it works beautifully with the
AD516. However, I have found that even small video productions can quickly
fill up even a GB hard disk, so I have recently added a WangTek DAT tape
drive to back up the Micropolis. This tape drive is absolutely fabulous.
I backed up 555MB of data onto one DAT tape in less than 1.5 hr. using
Ami-Back and the WangTek with verification turned on and absolutely no
errors. Recovery of the data to HD is about twice as fast or more so than
storage to tape.
Tom
Tom,
Thanks for the info! Looks like I'll be going with the MidiIzer for
syncing, since I'm not gonna spend the bucks for a drive that big right
now.
Thanks,
Jerry
Jerry,
Worst case figure 44.1 Khz * (16bits/8bits per byte) * seconds of
recording * number of tracks. Roughly 5.1Mbyte per minute per track.
wmc – via Autopilot!
Thanks, Wayne.
Jerry