Hot answers tagged hardware
12
Line in will usually be stereo and about 10Kohm impedance.
Mic in is mono and about 600-1Kohm impedance and expecting SIGNIFICANTLY
lower levels than the line, as it has a preamp to pick up the very low
levels present in a microphone.
Sometimes microphone in have XLR connector to allow Phantom Power
12
You can't go wrong with a good crisp mic pre: it'll improve the sound you get out of even a bog-standard mic compared to the ones built into your mixer/audio interface without massive investment.
But it really depends what you're doing: If you're recording choirs and musical theatre then a single high-quality pre isn't going to be that useful when you're ...
8
How important is sharpness? 1080p video is barely 2 megapixels, so it would stand to reason that an ultra-sharp lens is not really necessary to get sharp-looking video. Is this an accurate assumption?
It depends on the way the DSLR is capturing it's video from the sensor. The first method is the most obvious one, take the image and scale it, but there's ...
7
Yes, almost all rackmount devices are designed to bear their loads on the front plate. Only in very rare circumstances have I seen a piece of rack gear that has not remained rigid while mounted in a rack, and that was only after years of being in one. There are also some rack pieces that have a second set of mounts in the back, but I haven't seen that in a ...
7
I bet this won't be the best answer but let's give it a shot shall we?
Different DAWs do different things.
I wouldn't recommend Ableton Live or Propellerhead Reason for someone who wants to record a live band - both DAWs are oriented to a more software generated sound and sample handling situation.
The same way I wouldn't recommend Pro Tools for someone ...
6
Analog and digital processors work in fundamentally different ways and therefore will always have some differences, however minor they may be in some cases. It seems to be generally agreed that you don't "need" outboard hardware any more per se, however if you want the sound of a particular hardware unit, or if you want an 'analog' sound, there's no better ...
5
Yes, a good mic preamp is better than a compressor, especially for the type of recording you do. That said, the preamps in your recorder may very well be quite good. I have an old Tascam analog desk, and it has 24 great preamps! Good analog compressors are also useful, because they should happen before digitization.
Also essential are good monitors, and for ...
5
As pointed out in another question:
Latency shouldn't be much higher than
a handful of milliseconds (12–20,
maybe), if possible. The lower the
better, of course.
4
That particular one will work, no problem, per http://www.motu.com/techsupport/technotes/can-i-use-motu-hardware-in-pro-tools-software
I recommend that unit as well. I've used many, and they have never let me down.
4
what are my options as far as hardware is concerned for connecting it to my Mac Pro?
There are actually a large number of products out there for interfacing instruments with your Mac. I'm a big fan of Apogee gear and the Apogee One is an excellent solution for a high quality audio interface for a Mac that's super stable and sounds great. The advantage ...
4
You might want to look at some of the theory behind additive synthesis - this Wikipedia article simplifies some of it. It is definitely do-able.
Of course, using a single bit (ie speaker at position 0 or position 1) will add in some interesting harmonics which will vary depending on the maximum rate of change of your speaker cone and the maximum rate of ...
4
Thanks for an interesting question! This kept me awake for a while.
It is definitely possible to generate chords even if all you have is a one-bit signal to the speaker. Many games for the ZX Spectrum (3.5 MHz, 8 bit CPU, 1 bit speaker) did this in the 80's.
There are a few techniques I can think of:
Just generate (sine, square etc.) waves of different ...
4
At a basic level, you need an audio interface, AKA something to get the audio into your computer and, for acoustic guitar (or for recording the sound of an electric guitar amp/cabinet), you'll need a microphone of some kind. The "USB adapters" that you've seen are simple audio interfaces.
Many audio interfaces have USB connections and should work with ...
3
Rackmount gear is almost universally designed to bear all its weight from the front panel, yes. As Zeronyne points out, even fairly heavy gear is fine, as long as it is mounted properly.
I will simply add that I have on rare occasions seen rack gear that had optional mounting hardware for both the back in addition to the front. This is quite uncommon, ...
3
for reference and to build upon Ian's answer (I don't have the comment perk yet), I was using direct-in (mic) on a homebuilt PC with a realtek onboard chipset. As far as I know, mac pro also uses the realtek chipset.
Once you are hooked up, you will want to look into amp simulators. There are lots of free options which will work in garage band. They are ...
3
You can use many different types of tape (gaffer tape, masking tape) , but mostly I've seen people use electrical tape for this purpose. Most probably because audio engineers are often electrical engineers and always have it lying around. It also comes in many colours which makes it handy for visually grouping tracks together.
3
D'oh. I found out the issue was w/ the particular FW 400 to 800 cable I was using. It seemed to work fine w/ my external FW 400 drive, but not the 1804. Just bought another. Problem solved.
After emailing and calling Tascam support, I had pretty much given up. They couldn't help me, and said there wouldn't likely be anything in terms of firmware upgrades ...
3
When you look at any piece of vintage gear, I think you are looking not only at a time capsule for music technology, but also at how that technology influenced the sound of music of that age.
For example, the Yamaha DX-7 had a profound influence on the sound of popular music in the 80's. It was a key component in the arsenal of a huge number of bands, ...
3
Those MOTU units are brilliant. We have loads of them running everything from HUI from our SSLs to MIDI Keyboard controllers.
You should be able to just select the desired ports in ProTools straight away. If any problems, you can use MIDI STUDIO on your mac os (sorry not sure if you are mac or win user) from within protools and do the setup graphically, ...
3
It depends entirely on what you're doing. If you need it to respond very quickly (for example, if you are a musician and you want to monitor what you are playing in realtime!) then low latency is extremely important. I find that my classically-trained pianist friend starts to have a lot of trouble at around 10 to 16 ms, whereas I am more of a beginner on ...
3
MIDI is designed such that on a single signal chain you have one sender that is broadcasting events on up to 16 channels; the default MIDI port chain (IN/OUT/THRU) only allows you to have one controller. Basically you have your sequencer's OUT hooked to your controller's IN, your controller's OUT hooked up to your sequencer's IN, and your other receivers ...
3
To err on the side of caution is what comes to my mind on this one.
For the most part if your 'power distribution panel' has the appropriate power surge protection and load support for all the non-computer audio gear, I don't think this will be a problem. However, Friend of George has brought attention to a very good point about computer related hardware or ...
3
If you have a 8 core CPU I'd bet it is a fast one too, so that shouldn't be a problem. 16 GB is more than enough for HD, and DDR3 should ensure the speed.
The GPU shouldn't have much to say as long as it's not crap.
If you have 6 slow harddrives, it would be a bottleneck. You should have at least 7200 rpm disks!
3
Drives are definitely the answer. My miniDV setup worked fine with 5400rpm, but HD playback looked like internet video from 2004. Upgraded to 7200rpm internal SATA drives, and ~most~ of the time, I've got good results. While I've never done any work with SSDs, I suspect those would be the ideal circumstance.
For external drives, I've used 5400rpm USB2.0 ...
3
Your best bet is to save them on two disks, that is two back up copies. A RAID sounds nice, but have you ever had to replace a RAID system with a faulty controller? It can be a nightmare. Forget RAID as a back up unless you are talking about an instant snapshot retrieval system that is online 24/7. If you are talking about a long term back up as in a real ...
3
I researched this when building my own computer for HD video editing about a year ago - I don't remember all of my sources, but there's a hardware guide on the Adobe Primiere Hardware Forum (very helpful place) that was a big help. That guide is several years old, so the specific hardware recommended is out of date, but the principles are still there.
...
3
Depending on your amp, the on off switch may do many things, not just cut power. I would suggest your best course of action may be to look carefully at the circuitry- if it does just cut power at the mains side of the power supply circuitry you should be safe.
If it cuts power on the amp side then you could risk large spikes sent to the speakers, which ...
3
The RedRocket card provides encoder and decoder support via specialized hardware that can do particular calculations well. Having multiple cards doubles the amount of calculations that can be done. Since at least some of the calculations can be done in parallel, having multiple cards increases the amount of processing power available. It probably wouldn't ...
2
You're looking for a telephone hybrid. Excalibur makes one called the HA-1:
There are a number of others, like the Broadcast Tools TT1 (still within your budget) and the JK Audio AutoHybrid (slightly outside your budget).
Trans-hybrid loss (isolation) is measured in decibels, 20db is a fairly standard number to look for. Cost goes up for greater loss; ...
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