Badside

To the guy above, you just won!!!! No wait, I won! No wait, the guy just below stands more chances

Good, how do we go about doing this? Do we simply post random stuff?

Yes. Good, how do we go about doing this?

I'm the curious type, what can I do?

No really, I want to know!

Question: is this thread just an excuse to raise one's post count?

I'll come here on 2012/12/21 at precisely 11:10 PM and post, I'll win

Originally posted by Anna Log Hey y'all... I talked to Yamaha today about my 4416. They said I should be going in at-12dbfs. They confirmed everything you guys were saying about input levels. They didn't agree with me that the guy who wrote the manual should get a shot in the nuts for not putting this kind of info in the manual. LOL It does seem weird that no manufacturer states that in their manual... I have a 400F and the manual says that I should adjust the gain so that the orange light lights up frequently but without lighting the red (clip) light. The orange light is -6dB, it's quite far into the alleged 22dB headroom (I wasn't able to understand that whole 22dB headroom thing until I read this thread). I can see how recording hot can affect sound quality: since amplifiers have a maximum slew rate, the stronger the signal, the more difficulty they have carrying a high-frequency signal (if you send a signal that is twice as strong, it means the voltage swing is twice as fast, or something like that...). I was reading on preamp design and how more gain usually means less bandwidth, very interesting. Anyway, I read somewhere that you should track with the level just high enough that with every fader at unity, you'd have your desired mix. I guess this can't be universal, but it does work! When I started doing that, it kinda scared me to see my guitar tracks so weak on the screen, but you have to realize that as you pile up track, the volume goes up. As for the whole where/kiwi argument. I understand Kiwi's point and to me he his right (from my own experience). However, I noticed that if I run a plugin on the master bus, it can cause problem if the pre-fader signal is too hot. I guess not all plugins like to receive a signal hotter than 0dB.

Make sure it has no fan! I had an old Radeon 7500 that had a tiny little fan that emitted the most annoying high pitched whine that actually varied depending on the brightness of the displayed image. It was just an annoyance until I bought a new computer, a P4, that required a case with better ventilation (which means among other things, ventilation over the video card), now the little annoyance became a big one. I simply replaced it with a Radeon 9600SE that was on sale and the problem was gone! Now I can track vocals in the same room with no problems (I have a silent case fan and a silent power supply, just need to get a silent CPU fan now)

Originally posted by numrologst I know that doesn't make alot of sense. But i read somewhere that it has a 24-bit german hardware something in it, I can't remember. It makes sense because they use digital volume control (well, I'm 99% sure). With a 16-bit converter, listening to music at 25% volume would sound like pure crap (I mean: even crappier!). 24-bit all-in-one chips (DAC + DSP) are quite cheap nowadays.

Originally posted by gsHarmony The digital mixer is very nice. Since this is the only interface I have, I wasn't aware that you couldn't monitor this way on other interfaces. Is this actually true? If so, looks like I won't be upgrading anytime soon. Not every other audio interface, but some others don't have the DSP mixer, the Firepod is one of them. You can still monitor what you're recording with 0 latency, but it doesn't allow to mix it. You can play around with the preamp gain to mix it a bit and it won't be a huge problem comes mixdown time, but you can't for example completely mute an input. For example: I've read on these forums that not giving the snare track to your drummer will make him hit it harder and go lighter on the cymbals (a good thing). With the Delta44, you could mute the snare track in the monitor mixer, but with the Firepod, you can only reduce the gain a bit (and then you'll have to bring it higher when mixing). Most other similar interfaces have a DSP mixer (the Mackie 400F has a 10X10 mixer, meaning you can make 10 different mixes... well 5 stereo mixes) and the new Firestudio will have a DSP mixer too.

Wanted to add: it's definitely bare-bones (no preamps, no spdif, no external sync, etc), but damn it comes with a DSP mixer for 0 latency monitoring. The Firepod doesn't even have that.

I can't really compare to anything else since I've never used anything else, but I can confirm it's reliable! I've had it for 6 years (maybe 7... not sure, it's so old it came with a 3.5" diskette with Win95/98 drivers!) and my computer is always on. It's good enough for me, I don't experience any noticeable jitter or noise (even though the chips are inside the computer and there's no faraday cage). I guess it's not the best card to fully represent the audible range from 20 to 20k, but it's definitely the best way to get 4 ins for cheap IMHO

I have a 17" and whenever I go above 1024X768, it's just too small, yet it's hard to fit everything in the screen with that resolution, I have to scroll through the mixing board window (even up and down) and it's a PITA! So yeah, my kingdom for a 19-20" LCD!

Originally posted by brikus ha ha ha ha any pics of the outfit you were wearing that night ? Well I WAS wearing a purple shirt...