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[overeasy]

The idea:

printing my PT mixes to tape sans the benefits of a quality analog summing device (dangerous, etc.), then flying them back in to PT for final, dithered bouncing.

The gear:

PT 6.1 (Mac G4, OSX)
Digi001

Akai 4000DS MKII reel to reel (1/4" , 7.5 ips) - I've got some GP9, 499, and 456 reels lying around

The concern:

That the final results will suck next to ITB mixes, as I'm still passing through the PT summing buss.

I know, I know. Try it out. Before I ruin my day, though, I was wondering if anyone's attempted something similar.

thanks,
OE

[hargerst]

Often, just printing the mix to tape is the only final step you need.

[Bob Olhsson]

overeasy wrote on Sun, 20 March 2005 07:24

... That the final results will suck next to ITB mixes, as I'm still passing through the PT summing buss.

The summing bus is not a problem with LE but the funky converters are. Certainly feel free to try anything but don't assume it will be better and don't assume it would be as good as using first class digital conversion.

My experience has been that the biggest jump up is when you use an analog multi track as opposed to the mix.

[overeasy]

OK I tried it. Initial conclusions:

- no more recycled tape! (nothing like enjoying most of a playback only to hear the signal get chewed up in one channel)

- I can't discern any gigantic sonic improvement. Sure there's some smoothing up top, and on heavier songs it sounds like the tape has congealed the drums - but I'm not exactly blown away.

- Despite 1 and 2 - this could be my preferred method of "poor-man's mastering:"

(1) save song as a new session file - ditching the master fader*
    *is there even a point to this? Summing buss is a summing
    buss w/ or w/o a PT master fader, I assume.

(2) print the output of the Digi001 main L/R to tape - session
   playing at 24bit undithered

(3) create a 16 bit session (wav or aiff)

(4) record the taped version into the 16bit session - straight
   thru 2 passive ins on the Digi001. The Akai has no output
   controls so you get what you get.

(5) make edits as necessary

(6) bounce (undithered)

Anyone tried anything similar? I've been getting final levels that are close to what Maxim delivers. I should get some sort of brickwall plugin but if I had $4-500 to drop on gear I don't think I could willingly fork over 1 cent of it to MOA.
That's $4-500 I could squirrel away towards REAL gear.