Best LE Compatible preamps

[billos]

Please excuse the nobishness of this question and I apologize if this has been posted previously, but;

(*) By adding a digital preamp such as the M-audio Octane (8-channel Preamp and A/D Converter with ADAT Lightpipe), do I gain an additional 8 channels within LE using the MPTK? ie; 56 tracks?

Essentially, I am trying to expand my track count via the use of a preamp, and when not expanding my track count, using it to boost any instrument \ vocal signal coming into the 003 rack

If the Octane is not the best digital preamp for what I’m trying to do, can anyone recommend another better one (eg: the digidesign pre?)


TIA



Mac Pro 3Ghz Leopard 10.5.2
8 GB RAM
003R user with MPTK – just hangin’ ‘round waiting for Leopard compatibility

[Paul Cavins]

You are confusing track count and input count. They are different things altogether.

The mic preamp and A/D convertor just expand the number of inputs you can have going into your rig at a time.

Track count is different, it is the number of tracks that your computer can play at the same time.

If you had an Mbox, you would have 2 inputs and 32 tracks. You have the producer pack so you have 48 tracks. your device came with 8 inputs on top of which you could add the 8 through your new digital device. You would still have 48 tracks.

PC

[billos]

I sorta see, just let me get this straight;

the track count is (always) 48, but the 8 (inputs) from the pre is going into 1 (or 2 for stereo) of the 48 tracks in LE?

Is the Octane a good pre to do this? Or is the Digi pre any better \ worse \ same?

billos

Mac Pro 3Ghz Leopard 10.5.2
8 GB RAM
003R user with MPTK – just hangin’ ‘round waiting for Leopard compatibility

[Ziko]

OK, you're getting a few things a little confused so I'll try and explain it simply (I hope!):

There are in effect 2 types of "track count".

The first is the total number of tracks you can have enabled in a mix at any one time. The limit of this in PT LE is 32 tracks (voices really as a stereo track consumes 2 voices but ignore this for now).
So if you have say 15 different tracks of drums (kick mic, snare mic, overhead left, overhead right etc), a bass gat track, several guitar tracks, keys etc etc, all of a sudden you might run out of voices and when you try and create a new track to lay down another overdub, say some new keys line, you might find you can't give the track a voice so you can't hear it.
The MPT extends this to 48 tracks in total (and it treats a stereo track as one track rather than 2 voices) so you can now have more tracks in your mixdown.

The other type of "track count" is how many simultaneous tracks of audio you can record. The 003 out of the box has the 4 mic pre inputs and 4 line level/DI inputs. So in total you can record 8 mono signals at once. Now if you wanted to record a whole band, you'll find 8 won't be enough if you want to do a lot of close miking on the drums. Drums alone can consume upwards of 13 or 14 tracks if you really go to town (kik in, kik out, snare top, snare bottom, Tom 1, Tom 2 etc etc).
So that's where things like the M-Audio Octane come in, they add on more inputs (8 more mic pres) so you can have more mics , DI boxes etc set up for simultaneous recording.
There's no other reason to get one of these units, thay have no affect on how many tracks you can have in your mixdown.
For many people who never record drums or live bands, they find just 2 inputs is fine, they just use those to lay down each track one by one over say some virtual drums from Strike or Reason or whatever.

Hope that clears things up a little.

Simon

[albee1952]

Good info above and here's a more exacting answer to your question. You have several choices such as:
M-Audio Octane-good
Presonus Digimax-better (just an opinion)
Focusrite OctoPre with option card-third choice
Presonus Digimax FS-should sound the same as Digimax but less money(no firewire)
Focusrite ISA428 w/option card-high-end but more than double the price

IMHO, the Digimax is probably the best bang for the buck(and should also work with CuBase or many other DAW software if that's important). Check out the Digimax FS if you only need to use it with protools.

[x-ian]

One way to keep yourself from getting confused as to which is which, is to always refer to the signal path through your gear as a channel, just like water flows through a channel. A track refers to a recorded part. Weather it's on tape or hard drive it is a track. Think in terms of a tape machine and a mixing board. How many channels are on the board, and how many tracks are on the tape machine. The more channels you have going into your pro tools system the more tracks you can record at once. When you mix you can route the recorded tracks to any number of channels on the board. I hope that is helpful way to think of it, good luck - X-ain

[joerusi]

Can somebody give me a hint how (or where to find how ) I should setup a preamp using SPDIF? I use a Joemeek Twin, but I didn't try the digital way.

Any answer would help. Thank you .

[citi]

It's actually very easy, on the back of your preamp your spdif connection looks like RCA plugs. Pick up some RCA compatible (which in all honesty, they are pretty much all the same) and run them into the Digi. Depending on the product, your mileage may vary. On my 002, they sit dead in the middle of the back.

In PT

In your input, you have the default input of analog 1/2 through whatever. Click on the input and spdif 1 and 2 will listed, just like the analog selection method. If you don't see them, you may have to activate them through the Setup: I/O

In hardware setup, change your clock source, to spdif for more accurate clocking.

BTW - I don't know your Joe Meek so you may have to activate the spdif out. Some preamps keep all the outputs hot all the time, some don't.

[joerusi]

Thank you very much! I'll try it today.

Interesting your point with the cable,I found a SPDIF cable can vary in price, from 10 to 50 $ and I was wondering if there is realy any difference.

Again, thank you for the response, I really apreciat it.

[Forum Member LE]

IMHO, the Digimax is probably the best bang for the buck(and should also work with CuBase or many other DAW software if that's important). Check out the Digimax FS if you only need to use it with protools.

If you are interested in any of the Digimax units be aware of the following.
Each of the four model Digimax's (LT, 48k, 96k, and the FS) have a slightly different design. The 48k and 96 are very close but with one op-amp change due to a chip being discontinued.
The LT is it's own unique preamp design and isn't found anywhere else. The Digimax FS borrows it's preamp from the FirePod preamp design.
The LT and original Digimax 48k use Alesis 24bit converters. The Digimax 96k and Digimax FS use AKM converters. The FS has a newer JetPLL clock circuit for lower jitter and higher stability.
It also supports SMUX dual lightpipe and has BNC in and out.

What it may actually mean to you well that's a different story.