Is there any point in recording in 24 bit if your mixer...

... is only 16 bit?

I would imagine not.

Recently upgraded to Logic Studio, after many many years of using 5.5.

I'm still using my O2R with 3 Adat Cards to get my hardware into Logic though.

Up till now, I've been mixing straight to an external HD/CD burner.
Mixing on the O2R and if I needed to do any serious processing, recording the part into logic and doing it there, but as much as possible doing everything in the hardware.

But now I have a super slick version of Logic, I'm thinking I should go back to recording everything internally in Logic and have a go of this "in the box" thing everone seems to be going on about these days.

Logic studio is TOTALLY different to Logic 5. I can't believe what I've been missing!

In any case, since I'm having to relearn logic, I might as well use the oppertunity to brush up on all this in the box / outside the box 16 bit / 24 bit nonsense and get it all in order.

Can you mix 16 bit and 24 bit audio files in the same project?
Should I just set everything to 16 bit until I can afford to get the whole signal path up to 24 bit?
Is it a case that the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link in this situation?

thanks,

Paul.

[Macc]

Just about to cook dinner but will mull it over and get back

Sorry for correcting your grammar in the title by the way

was its wrong?

[Macc]

I was thinking about this - isn't the O2R 20-bit?

Either way, I'd be inclined to suggest that any tracks getting bussed out and back in were done so at 16-bit in order to avoid quantisation noise when they get truncated to 16-bit by the desk. If things are staying in the box then do em at 24 bit - mixing bit depths is fine in most sequencers. Saying, if you are doing direct processing to the files, I'd be inclined to import them as 24-bit anyway to keep the processing happening at the best possible quality (minimise rounding errors etc).

In short, maximise the bit depth dependent upon where it's going, always trying to avoid conversion/truncation.

That's my line and I'm sticking to it. Unless it's wrong

Sounds good to me!

as far as I'm aware the O2R is 16 bit, but can work in 24 bit mode if I don't mind halfing the amount of ADAT channels I have access too.

I'll dig out the manual tonight and have another look through it to see what the specifics are.

Logic Studio is so much bigger than Logic 5, I'm having to re-learn everything (Kind of).
It's gonna be a couple of weeks at least before I'll feel comfortable enough using it. To facilitate this I'm recording all my hardware bits into Logic and mixing internally.

[Macc]

What sort of HW are you integrating? Just thinking the O2R's AD might be a bit :\

Everything in my studio



Novation A-Station
Novation Drum Station
Novation Supernova
Waldorf Microwave XT
Yamaha A4000
Line 6 pod pro
the Behringer Bass pod type thing.
various other bits and bobs.

Kind of need the mixer for that don't I?
This was what I was pondering the Tascam desk for the other week.

with my setup at the moment I've got 24 I/O, and Logic seems fine with that in 16Bit. It's dead neat.

With the suggestions yourself and Scope made about other options before, would it be possible to keep the audio inputs live in Logic and monitor everything from within Logic, bypassing the need for a desk altogether? Maybe get something like the Euphonic MC controller instead?

My Power Mac is only a dual core machine.

[Macc]

I'm not sure how it works in Logic, but yes I imagine you could do that.

If it's got 3 ADATs then you could do away with the desk by getting the appropriate soundcard... RME 9652 springs to mind, and the AD will be better than the O2R I'd imagine (plus you get DigiCheck ). Then you can work at 24-bit, improve the sound quality of your studio and get 20 quid for the O2R

I'm running the Adat form the O2R into the Mac with a HDSP 9652 at the moment. so that's all good.

I saw Digital village are accepting trade-in's of desks like the O2R for a pro-tools C24 desk.
Knocking over hlaf the price off the C24.
I was considering this too, but then you'd need all sorts of other pro-tools do-hickeys to get that working properly too don't you?
It's not compatible with Logic, but I suppose that's why it's so cheap, to lure you in!

Can you use the O2R as a midi control surface?

[Macc]

i'm running the adat form the o2r into the mac with a hdsp 9652 at the moment. so that's all good.

i'd say that as you are looking into it all, it's worth setting up a mix - very rough like, keeping all faders at unity gain and adjusting levels at the source.

then record all the tracks directly through the rme and bounce the mix, and record them all in via the o2r and bounce as you would normally (back out through the o2r i think you said?).

make sure the resulting files are perfectly level matched (hence keeping all faders at unity and leaving the sources as they are for both mixes), and then ab them, monitoring through the same da (rme probably best).


might take you an hour to do, but it will tell you a lot about what sounds best with what you have

Good idea!
I'll give that a go.

Can you use the O2R as a midi control surface?

I believe you can, not sure how deep you can get with it though.

[Macc]

good idea!
i'll give that a go.

even if it's a total pos tune, the more tracks you have the better - try to use everything as you would from a mix pov if not a musical pov. the more tracks you use the more the differences will show up