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Old 02-04-2003, 03:16 PM
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michaux michaux is offline
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Default SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

Well folks, I have been bringing up the subject of comparisons of A/D for a few weeks now and I want to thank all of you who were interested and commented. I also want to thank Rex at Sony Studios-Nashville, Matthew Craig and Antony at Sweetwater, John Robinson at Guitar Center-Austin, Gary and Roger at Apogee and Mark at FMR Audio for all your assistance. Most of all I thank my wife Arlana for her patience while I temporarily lost my sanity. I wanted to purchase the RME ADI 8 Pro, Lucid 9624 and the Rosetta to complete this test but my wife wouldn’t let me max out the credit card, good for her!

Initially, I wanted a dual pre, A/D converter and compressor to get the best quality vocal recording for the price. The Mini-Me (MM) seemed to be perfect for me. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand some things about it once I got it and I had some misconceptions. It seems that because it only has 4 leds: 2 green, 1 yellow and 1 red, I didn’t feel that the unit was giving me enough headroom. The leds measure as follows; -40, -12, -2 and 0 db. I didn’t pay any attention to these markings and just tried to hit the yellow light too hard with my vocals in the soft limit (SL) mode. This caused distortion. I didn’t understand that this was normal. The –2 level in SL or SLC mode is meant to handle transient peaks and smooth them out, NOT the constant long tones of vocals that I was throwing at it. Since there are only 2 green lights, I felt that I needed to light up the yellow light all the time to get a good loud signal. The fact is that there is 10 db of headroom between the green led and the yellow led that is not visibly apparent while using this unit. I only understood this after a couple of calls to the guys at Apogee who finally got this through to me and also that the Mini-Me compressor settings can’t compete with a compressor that has the ratio, attack and realese controls needed for many different situations. According to Apogee, you can get distortion on the unit if you hit it too hard when lighting up the –2 db led. I wanted to make sure they where on the level with me and Mark at FMR Audio also confirmed this for me. Once I understood these things, I proceeded with my test:

For testing, I used a CAD E-300 large diaphragm mic, the MM, the RNP and RNC, Digi 001 and PTLE 24/44.1 session.

The MM pre produced a fat tone that was both big on the bottom and clear and crisp on top. The sound was very round which I loved!

With the MM set to line level and the RNP connected the tone was very nice, hence the name! It sounded like a very high-end pre worth a lot more than $500! There was a tad bit more clarity and sweetness on the high-end frequencies and a tad less bottom than the MM pre.

When in the SL mode, the MM tamed the transient peaks if you hit the yellow light occasionally but not constantly. Once I got used to this feature, I really started to like it.

When in the SLC mode, I concentrated on the best compressor sound for vocals, which is SLC 2. I felt that this preset was a very good all around vocals compressor setting.

I connected thee RNC via the inserts on the RNP and quickly found the Super Nice setting that I felt was best for vocals. I recorded some identical vocal lines in PT with both the MM pre SLC 2 mode and using the RNP/RNC combo at the Super Nice setting. To my amazement, both tracks sounded great and I could hardly tell the different! I brought my wife in for a blind test and she told me that they both sounded great and that she couldn’t tell me which track she liked better! I decided to keep the Mini-Me because I primarily needed something to cut my vocals without spending an arm and a leg. To keep the RNP/RNC and buy a Rosetta would be considerably more money. Since I couldn’t go out and buy the Lucid, RME and Rosetta, I felt that I had to stay with what I knew from testing was going to be a very high quality A/D and clock. I told Mark that his combo would be my very next purchase and that I really appreciated him letting me try them out! The RNC has a whole lot of flexibility that can get a lot of great sounds for many applications. The RNP can compete with pres many times the price! It is a real winner in my opinion! The Mini-Me sounds great and can’t be beat for the best bang-for-the-buck with all of its features. The fact that it is a tad less bright and tad bigger bottom than the RNP works for me because my CAD E-300 that I primarily use for my vocals is very bright anyway. Now it’s back to recording my vocals! Thanks everybody!
[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]
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Old 02-04-2003, 04:27 PM
Bloux Bloux is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

Carl,

great job, congradulations on moving ahead. (what a relief I bet).understandable but too bad we cant get a side by side with the mini-me vs the RNP/RNC/Lucid and then the RME as well.

I know this might sound crazy, but it would be cool if say we can get a bunch of people togather who own each unit, use an sm57 as a constant and start with a session that gets passed around to the parties. put your mini-and voice on the session, someones RNP/RNC/Lucid and their voice on it after your done and the RME with the RNP/RNC and that persons voice.

i would have no problem bouncing all the examples to disc, making cds and sending them out to whoever is interested in hearing the converter/pre differences.

anyway good luck with the album..would love to hear the final version posted when your done.

Bobby
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Old 02-04-2003, 04:34 PM
Severe Severe is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

Thanks for the post michaux, but what concerns me about the mini-me is the lack of a clock output. Were you using the 001's? I see this as a big advantage of the other AD and AD/DA units.
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Old 02-04-2003, 04:58 PM
Duardo Duardo is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

If you're using the MiniMe with the 001, you're using the MiniMe's clock. You can't do it any other way. The 001 will lock to the MiniMe's clock through the S/PDIF data stream.

The only time this would be a problem would be if there was a third digital device involved, such as an Octo Pre, going into the ADAT inputs...in that case, you'd have to get a sync distribution box that converts AES to a word clock signal, such as the Lucid and Aardvark units, and sync the Octo Pre to the MiniMe that way...then everyone would be in sync.

-Duardo
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Old 02-05-2003, 08:21 AM
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michaux michaux is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

Bobby,

I would be happy to participate in further testing and I don't think your idea is crazy! Get back to me with the details of how to proceed with this. I supose we would be sending CDs though the mail.
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Old 02-05-2003, 09:29 AM
davidp158 davidp158 is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

I'd like to hear samples of various converters, so if you guys do produce sound samples, please let us know. I'm going for a new mic pre, but my next investment will be a converter.

regards,
dave patterson / knobville
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Old 02-05-2003, 09:30 AM
davidp158 davidp158 is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

I'd like to hear samples of various converters, so if you guys do produce sound samples, please let us know. I'm going for a new mic pre, but my next investment will be a converter.

regards,
dave patterson / knobville
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Old 02-05-2003, 10:28 AM
guiroo guiroo is offline
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Default Re: SHOOTOUT RESULTS Mini-Me vs. RNP/RNC

GREAT IDEA! (The only trick is getting the input content similar enough.)

Can someone add a Focusrite A/D card sample? I have a Penta and thinking about getting the card but want to compare it to a dedicated (much more expensive) piece.

Chain = SM57 > Penta (flat, s/pdif out) > 001

I would be willing to put some small mp3s up on my site for download instead of CDs.
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