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[Weird Geoff]

I have just purchased 8 channels of Blue ADC..I plan on using the lynx AES 16 with it to go into logic7..

I noticed the Soft saturation modes (analog and digital)..I'm not sure what do these things do.. how would you describe the sound of each mode? I want to figure out whats best for my application..which is tracking rocknroll mainly..

also if soeone could walk me through a setup i would be very greatful..for example is calibrating the input pots..and anything else I might need to do..

thx,

Geoff

[Weird Geoff]

Also I have not yet got the DAC. I will need 2 channels out of the rig.  I assume I need another chassis and one DAC card. Do I need the msync board too?

[danlavry]

Weird Geoff wrote on Thu, 20 January 2005 17:39

Also I have not yet got the DAC. I will need 2 channels out of the rig.  I assume I need another chassis and one DAC card. Do I need the msync board too?

No Msync needed for DA only chasis

Regards
Dan

[danlavry]

Weird Geoff wrote on Thu, 20 January 2005 04:42

I have just purchased 8 channels of Blue ADC..I plan on using the lynx AES 16 with it to go into logic7.. I noticed the Soft saturation modes (analog and digital)..I'm not sure what do these things do.. how would you describe the sound of each mode? I want to figure out whats best for my application..which is tracking rocknroll mainly.. also if soeone could walk me through a setup i would be very greatful..for example is calibrating the input pots..and anything else I might need to do.. thx, Geoff

It is not a good idea to drive an AD into clipping. The analog soft sat. is there to protect the input of the AD from being driven too hard. It will prevent clipping when driving the AD by a few dB, and will "soften" the clipping when driving the AD by more then a few dB.

The digital soft sat. is done after the conversion took place. The purpose of it is to provide a way to make the music sound louder. I am not talking about louder in terms of a volume control, I am talking about louder in terms of the digital format (louder with hands of the volume control). Clearly you can not "just increase volume digitally" because the music peaks would exceed the clip points (min and max) of the digital format. Therefore one needs to "do something" about it. The digital soft sat actually give you 6dB gain for every thing below -12dBFS. The top 12dB does get "special treatment" - it gets "compressed" into 6dB range, emulating an analog tape like saturation.

Both the analog sat and digital sat yield the ability to have louder sound (unfortunately louder is a desired commodity by some). I prefer the digital one, it is more "effective" and precise. Many people love the saturation functions, others (such as classical music types) prefer to have it turned off.  It will alter the sound of the peaks, and will make things sound louder.

I just put a post (yesterday) about calibrating the input pots with a reference meter bridge. All my AD's (LavryBlue and the Gold series) have a reference meter bridge. You will need some reference test tone. Many studios have such a tone. For those that do not, I would hope you can find a 1KH 4dBu tone on one of the many audio calibration CD's.

Regards
Dan Lavry  

[Weird Geoff]

Thanks Dan!

I have an old HP tube oscillator I got from Tom Fine and thats what I use for test tones. What should the amplitude coming out of the HP be? I can adjust it on the device and measure with a meter. I'm guessing 1.228V rms for a balanced line. Is that correct?

So your saying all I need to have is a chassis and a dac channel card? How would that work? And if thats the case how do I purchase just the chassis and one dac card? It seems all the retailers sell 2 channels with the msync installed. Or am I mistaken?



 

[Weird Geoff]

ok i got the answer to the amplitude in the other post.

[danlavry]

Weird Geoff wrote on Thu, 20 January 2005 22:23

Thanks Dan! I have an old HP tube oscillator I got from Tom Fine and thats what I use for test tones. What should the amplitude coming out of the HP be? I can adjust it on the device and measure with a meter. I'm guessing 1.228V rms for a balanced line. Is that correct? So your saying all I need to have is a chassis and a dac channel card? How would that work? And if thats the case how do I purchase just the chassis and one dac card? It seems all the retailers sell 2 channels with the msync installed. Or am I mistaken?

Yes, it is 1.228V rms and it can be balanced or unbalanced - the LavryBlue AD will treat it the same. You could use an unbalanced tone generator to adjust and later use a balanced drive to record, of the opposite, or have both balanced, or both unbalanced...

The amplitude should be fairly accurate. A 15mV error (1.213- 1.243V) is good for .1dB precision. A 30mV error (1.198-1.258V)is good for about .2dB precision, which is still pretty good.

While 1KHz is a standard tone, that frequency is not critical, you can be off by an octave or two and it will be just as fine.

Regarding the DA, one of the configurations is just a 2CH DA in a chassis. No Msync! The Msync is attached to the left most AD, so without an AD there is no place for it. A 2CH DA (no MSYNC)is one of the standard configurations.

Regards
Dan Lavry

   

[Weird Geoff]

Thanks again Dan!

another question (sorry i'm not very technically inclined)

i noticed fooling around with the sync that i could not get the msync to clock a motu1224 while connected directly to it, yet it would with a lucid distribution amp between them. (genx6) Is this a termination issue? I cant understand why this happens. Is it normal? I'm sure about the test because I switched rates to see what was doing what, i.e., there was a change in speed.

[danlavry]

Weird Geoff wrote on Fri, 21 January 2005 04:12

Thanks again Dan! another question (sorry i'm not very technically inclined) i noticed fooling around with the sync that i could not get the msync to clock a motu1224 while connected directly to it, yet it would with a lucid distribution amp between them. (genx6) Is this a termination issue? I cant understand why this happens. Is it normal? I'm sure about the test because I switched rates to see what was doing what, i.e., there was a change in speed.

It is hard to debug over the Internet. The Msync has 4 switches and the one rightmost switch is a 3 position switch The up position is for internal clock, the middle position is for word clock and down position is for locking on AES. So make sure that the switch is set to the right position. You can try both positions to see if one works (the lock light will show when it locks). That would probably fix it. If not we will try something else. But the switch must be set to AES for locking to AES, or to Word Clock for locking to WC. Let me know if that was the problem...

Regards
Dan Lavry

 

[Weird Geoff]

Its just fantastic that the actual designer of a product offers this kind of support. Thats really increadable in this day and age.

The problem was actually opposite. I was using the Blue to clock the motu. connected directly the motu would not lock to the blues external out at 44 or 48 with the blue set to internal and 44 or 48, yet it worked like a charm with the lucid between the two devices. In that situation i could swithch the rate on the Blue and hear the speed change. then also switch to internal on the lucid and switch rates and hear the speed change. I also connected the lucid to the Blue and the Blue locked to the lucid fine just to be more specific.

[danlavry]

Weird Geoff wrote on Fri, 21 January 2005 13:12

Its just fantastic that the actual designer of a product offers this kind of support. Thats really increadable in this day and age. The problem was actually opposite. I was using the Blue to clock the motu. connected directly the motu would not lock to the blues external out at 44 or 48 with the blue set to internal and 44 or 48, yet it worked like a charm with the lucid between the two devices. In that situation i could swithch the rate on the Blue and hear the speed change. then also switch to internal on the lucid and switch rates and hear the speed change. I also connected the lucid to the Blue and the Blue locked to the lucid fine just to be more specific.

It still may be a WC vs. AES issue. The LavryBlue clock out is a WC (word clock) so the motu should be set to receive a WC. Asumming "all is well" the clock out yields about 3V into 75 Ohms. I am not sure why the Lucid sees the LavryBlue and motu does not. It certainly suggests that Lavry is putting out the clock. Do you have an external termination on the cable? External terminations should be used ONLY when the reciver does not have internal termination. If the Motu is internally terminated, you have to remove any external termination.

Regards
Dan Lavry

[Weird Geoff]

My money would be on the MOTU just acting up, it's known to act funny with sync in my experience. I dont plan on using it when your converters are integrated into my studio so its not a big deal in the grand scheme. I was more curious than anything else. I will conduct more tests when I get home later tonight.

and Dan thanks yet again for your toughtful responses. I'm very exited to sart using your converters. My word of mouth will be extemely positive about your products and support.

-Geoff