Experience with ALESIS Masterlink? NAD C660?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality
products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D transfer
sound? Thank you.
Jay

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

the converters on the masterlink aren't bad, and you get to record hi res
24/96 audio. Masterlink is cheap enough that you get one and buy some nicer
converters
--Lou Gimenez
The Music Lab
2" 24track w all the Goodies
www.musiclabnyc.com



> From: frederick-j-woodson@uiowa.edu (Jay Woodson)
> Organization: http://groups.google.com
> Newsgroups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro
> Date: 6 Aug 2004 07:13:30 -0700
> Subject: Experience with ALESIS Masterlink? NAD C660?
>
> Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
> to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
> recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
> this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
> have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
> digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality
> products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D transfer
> sound? Thank you.
> Jay

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

> Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
> to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
> recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
> this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
> have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
> digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality
> products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D transfer
> sound? Thank you.

The A/D conversion stage is the least of your worries. Please take this to
an appropriate forum. Ripping tapes and LP's is not a professional process,
and your specified needs are to use consumer-level hardware. There are
dozens of forums dedicated to your exact needs, and this isn't one of them.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Sugarite" <nobody@home.com> wrote in message
news:6tQQc.1221$%m4.245131@read2.cgocable.net...
> > Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
> > to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
> > recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
> > this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
> > have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
> > digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality
> > products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D transfer
> > sound? Thank you.
>
> The A/D conversion stage is the least of your worries. Please take this
to
> an appropriate forum. Ripping tapes and LP's is not a professional
process,
> and your specified needs are to use consumer-level hardware. There are
> dozens of forums dedicated to your exact needs, and this isn't one of
them.
>
Please disregard the above, and feel free to continue the discussion.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

>From: "Sugarite" nobody@home.com

>The A/D conversion stage is the least of your worries. Please take this to
>an appropriate forum. Ripping tapes and LP's is not a professional process,
>and your specified needs are to use consumer-level hardware. There are
>dozens of forums dedicated to your exact needs, and this isn't one of them.
>

Is he serious? Who is this clown?
-John Vice
www.summertimestudios.com

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <iJ-dncI_7qYXnIncRVn-vQ@comcast.com> chip@cybermesa.com writes:

> Only AES/EBU from the masterlink ,
> and that has to be dumped realtime, so dumping a
> 2 hour performance is going to take 2 hours.

It sounds like this is a problem. If you can't figure out how to bill
a client for those two hours, you probably shouldn't be in this
business.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hey Mike,

I'm glad you sympathize with my problem.
I'm actually part of a non-profit organization and we produce
a weekly radio show called Southwest Stages and just began
airing on twenty stations in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas,
Utah, Arizona and Louisiana.
We don't charge anyone for anything so in this case I am the
client, and yes my time is worth something.
What we do is attend 1-4 day festivals, venues, etc. , take a
split up to 48 channels then mix to 2 track (masterlink). So for the
typical show we will come home with 2 to 20 hours of recorded
material.
We dump this raw material into the computer, add the voiceovers,
undewriting and produce a one hour show.
If there was something within our budget that had a speedy way of
dumping stuff off I would be very interested.



"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1091841958k@trad...
>
> In article <iJ-dncI_7qYXnIncRVn-vQ@comcast.com> chip@cybermesa.com writes:
>
> > Only AES/EBU from the masterlink ,
> > and that has to be dumped realtime, so dumping a
> > 2 hour performance is going to take 2 hours.
>
> It sounds like this is a problem. If you can't figure out how to bill
> a client for those two hours, you probably shouldn't be in this
> business.
>
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

The masterlink is kind of a bummer to use. I dislike the slow rendering of a
24bit session down to a 16 bit disc. Otherwise it's a decent sounding mixdown
device.
Pete Drivere
Ampreon Recorder
1024 Mahoning Ave
Youngstown Oh 44502
330-746-5706

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

In article <ABYQc.11830$cK.6050@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net> chip@southweststages.org writes:

> I'm actually part of a non-profit organization and we produce
> a weekly radio show called Southwest Stages and just began
> airing on twenty stations in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas,
> Utah, Arizona and Louisiana.

Sounds like fun. I did something like that many years ago. Did some
live broadcasts in the early satellite days, but there was always a
public radio station involved to handle the heavy bills and some local
sponsorship for the small stuff. Also, it was a lot easier to be a
volunteer at things like that when I was 25-45 than now when I'm 60+.

> What we do is attend 1-4 day festivals, venues, etc. , take a
> split up to 48 channels then mix to 2 track (masterlink). So for the
> typical show we will come home with 2 to 20 hours of recorded
> material.
> We dump this raw material into the computer, add the voiceovers,
> undewriting and produce a one hour show.

We used to do something similar only it was usually mono on 1/4" tape.
We'd go through the program book and the tape logs (you should have
some volunteer tape loggers and train them very well) and pre-select a
couple of possible hours. Then, in an afternoon, dub them off to a
single reel, record the voiceovers, and splice it together. The
original tapes are archived (still, and over the past few years, have
been copied to CD-R)

With today's technology, you can make the job take a whole lot longer,
but it's questionale whether the final outcome is significantly
better. You have to take into consideration that this is ultimately a
radio show that most people will only hear once, not a studio-quality
CD that will be a work of art technically as well as musically. We'd
pick recordings that were good representations of the culture and were
of acceptable technical quality. Sometimes we cried our hearts out
because there was hum on the whole weekend's recordings from one stage
(no on-the-spot QC in those days) that we just couldn't live with.

Today that might be possible to fix, and 15 minutes fiddling with a
digital tool and another five minutes to run the song we wanted to use
through that fixer would be time well spent. But the tape would
probably go into the archive with a note "Bad hum on this reel" and
chances are 20 years down the road when someone wanted to use material
from the recording, they'd have even better technology to fix it, so
why bugger with an original?

I think that the solution to your problem lies in good documentation
of the original recordings and pre-selection of what you're going to
dump into the workstation. Dumping 20 hours in and sorting it out
later isn't an effective use of either time or disk space. And while
the producer can't be everywhere at once, he or she should be on site
taking notes as to what would be good potential material for the show
so you have a place to start. There's always the chance that you'll
miss a real gem because nobody took note of it, but this is show
business. Somebody will eventually discover it if your archive stays
around long enough.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Thanks Mike and Dan,

Yep, I think the answer is both good documentation and a decent
computer/firewire based system, Then just use the masterlink and DAT's
for the failsafe copies. We do document pretty well, we have someone
sitting with the engineer at all times to make notes but still we could do
better in that dept.

Oh, and yes we have had so many heartbreaks its not even funny, but every
once in a while a real jewel is created.

You also mentioned the "A" word (archive) ...
Right now our whole archive is on DVD's and its giving me nightmares at
night.
This is going to be an even bigger concern as our already huge archive
grows.





"Mike Rivers" <mrivers@d-and-d.com> wrote in message
news:znr1091877660k@trad...
>
> In article <ABYQc.11830$cK.6050@newsread2.news.pas.earthlink.net>
chip@southweststages.org writes:
>
> > I'm actually part of a non-profit organization and we produce
> > a weekly radio show called Southwest Stages and just began
> > airing on twenty stations in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas,
> > Utah, Arizona and Louisiana.
>
> Sounds like fun. I did something like that many years ago. Did some
> live broadcasts in the early satellite days, but there was always a
> public radio station involved to handle the heavy bills and some local
> sponsorship for the small stuff. Also, it was a lot easier to be a
> volunteer at things like that when I was 25-45 than now when I'm 60+.
>
> > What we do is attend 1-4 day festivals, venues, etc. , take a
> > split up to 48 channels then mix to 2 track (masterlink). So for the
> > typical show we will come home with 2 to 20 hours of recorded
> > material.
> > We dump this raw material into the computer, add the voiceovers,
> > undewriting and produce a one hour show.
>
> We used to do something similar only it was usually mono on 1/4" tape.
> We'd go through the program book and the tape logs (you should have
> some volunteer tape loggers and train them very well) and pre-select a
> couple of possible hours. Then, in an afternoon, dub them off to a
> single reel, record the voiceovers, and splice it together. The
> original tapes are archived (still, and over the past few years, have
> been copied to CD-R)
>
> With today's technology, you can make the job take a whole lot longer,
> but it's questionale whether the final outcome is significantly
> better. You have to take into consideration that this is ultimately a
> radio show that most people will only hear once, not a studio-quality
> CD that will be a work of art technically as well as musically. We'd
> pick recordings that were good representations of the culture and were
> of acceptable technical quality. Sometimes we cried our hearts out
> because there was hum on the whole weekend's recordings from one stage
> (no on-the-spot QC in those days) that we just couldn't live with.
>
> Today that might be possible to fix, and 15 minutes fiddling with a
> digital tool and another five minutes to run the song we wanted to use
> through that fixer would be time well spent. But the tape would
> probably go into the archive with a note "Bad hum on this reel" and
> chances are 20 years down the road when someone wanted to use material
> from the recording, they'd have even better technology to fix it, so
> why bugger with an original?
>
> I think that the solution to your problem lies in good documentation
> of the original recordings and pre-selection of what you're going to
> dump into the workstation. Dumping 20 hours in and sorting it out
> later isn't an effective use of either time or disk space. And while
> the producer can't be everywhere at once, he or she should be on site
> taking notes as to what would be good potential material for the show
> so you have a place to start. There's always the chance that you'll
> miss a real gem because nobody took note of it, but this is show
> business. Somebody will eventually discover it if your archive stays
> around long enough.
>
>
>
> --
> I'm really Mike Rivers (mrivers@d-and-d.com)
> However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
> lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
> you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
> and reach me here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hi Amy,

My experience with audio hardware is that there is often a
diappointing correlation between quality of sound and published specs.
This has been my experience with BOTH analog and digital formats.
The reasons for these inconsistencies would certainly produce a lively
thread, but I'd rather focus on the quality of sound, something which
is unabashedly subjective, yet real. I particularly like your
"weakest link" approach to a system. I gathered some info re Lynx
interfaces you use. My question is this: After transferring an LP
onto CD, does the CD sound like the record? Identical? V. similar?
Noticeably different?
Thanks. Jay

> I'm familiar with transferring LPs to digital using audio interfaces like
> the LynxONE, LynxTWO, and CardDeluxe. I think that they perform on an equal
> or better level than the ones you are interested in.
>
> What's to say about LP transcription?
>
> The most important parts of the system, the parts that do the most to set
> the final quality level of the transcription, are the turntable, cartridge,
> and the preamp.
>
> It doesn't take a heck of a lot in the way of an audio interface to
> outperform a LP and the analog gear used to transcribe it, by one or more
> orders of magnitude.
>
> One might think that the equipment I mentioned which has 17 to nearly 20 bit
> resolution, would provide a strong sonic advantage. Regrettably, the law of
> the weakest link has not been repealed, so the 12-14 bit resoltuion limit of
> vinyl itself, and even high end phono preamps which fall woefully short of
> 16 bit resolution, are your weakest links.
>
> Any of the audio interfaces I just mentioned will outperform your final
> results by almost two orders of magnitude. Exactly how much overkill do you
> need?

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Sugarite" <nobody@home.com> wrote in message news:<6tQQc.1221$%m4.245131@read2.cgocable.net>...
> > Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
> > to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
> > recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
> > this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
> > have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
> > digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality
> > products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D transfer
> > sound? Thank you.
>
> The A/D conversion stage is the least of your worries. Please take this to
> an appropriate forum. Ripping tapes and LP's is not a professional process,


it is if your business is archiving of recordings and transfers for clients.

Mike http://www.mmeproductions.com

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Robert Orban" <donotreply@spamblock.com> wrote in message
news:-fidnbd9EL1u2oTcRVn-vQ@giganews.com
> In article <OsadnTIcqJryponcRVn-uQ@comcast.com>, arnyk@hotpop.com
> says...
>>
>>
>> "Jay Woodson" <frederick-j-woodson@uiowa.edu> wrote in message
>> news:b29ec4bb.0408060613.7120340c@posting.google.com
>>
>>> Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've decided
>>> to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a standalone
>>> recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat concerned that
>>> this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of you gentle readers
>>> have have direct experience transferring analog (preferably LPs)to
>>> digital using the ALESIS Masterlink 9600, NAD C660, or similar
>>> quality products? If so,what is your opinon of the resulting A/D
>>> transfer sound? Thank you.
>>
>> I'm familiar with transferring LPs to digital using audio interfaces
>> like the LynxONE, LynxTWO, and CardDeluxe. I think that they perform
>> on an equal or better level than the ones you are interested in.
>>
>> What's to say about LP transcription?
>>
>> The most important parts of the system, the parts that do the most
>> to set the final quality level of the transcription, are the
>> turntable, cartridge, and the preamp.
>
> You forgot one of the most important -- the wet-wash vacuum cleaning
> machine (VPI, Nitty-Gritty, etc.) that should be used to clean
> _every_ record before transfer. I would rate the importance of this
> device as anywhere from #1 to #2 (where the cartidge is #1).

IME they can't work wonders. I've heard a lot of claims, but I've seen
nothing better than manual cleaing with similar fluids and applications.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.opinion,rec.audio.pro (More info?)

"Robert Orban" <donotreply@spamblock.com> wrote in message
news:lpSdne3tucuOUofcRVn-sg@giganews.com
> In article <4amdnTdSStcc04TcRVn-qA@comcast.com>, arnyk@hotpop.com
> says...
>>
>>
>> "Robert Orban" <donotreply@spamblock.com> wrote in message
>> news:-fidnbd9EL1u2oTcRVn-vQ@giganews.com
>>> In article <OsadnTIcqJryponcRVn-uQ@comcast.com>, arnyk@hotpop.com
>>> says...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Jay Woodson" <frederick-j-woodson@uiowa.edu> wrote in message
>>>> news:b29ec4bb.0408060613.7120340c@posting.google.com
>>>>
>>>>> Thank you folks for your adive re "Which CD Recorder". I've
>>>>> decided to narrow my search. For a variety of reasons, I think a
>>>>> standalone recorder is a better fit for my needs. I am somewhat
>>>>> concerned that this may yield only "mid-fi" sound. Does any of
>>>>> you gentle readers have have direct experience transferring
>>>>> analog (preferably LPs)to digital using the ALESIS Masterlink
>>>>> 9600, NAD C660, or similar quality products? If so,what is your
>>>>> opinon of the resulting A/D transfer sound? Thank you.
>>>>
>>>> I'm familiar with transferring LPs to digital using audio
>>>> interfaces like the LynxONE, LynxTWO, and CardDeluxe. I think that
>>>> they perform on an equal or better level than the ones you are
>>>> interested in.
>>>>
>>>> What's to say about LP transcription?
>>>>
>>>> The most important parts of the system, the parts that do the most
>>>> to set the final quality level of the transcription, are the
>>>> turntable, cartridge, and the preamp.
>>>
>>> You forgot one of the most important -- the wet-wash vacuum cleaning
>>> machine (VPI, Nitty-Gritty, etc.) that should be used to clean
>>> _every_ record before transfer. I would rate the importance of this
>>> device as anywhere from #1 to #2 (where the cartidge is #1).
>>
>> IME they can't work wonders. I've heard a lot of claims, but I've
>> seen nothing better than manual cleaing with similar fluids and
>> applications.
>
> OK. But the point remains that wet cleaning followed by throughly
> removing the contaminated solution from the record should always be
> the first step in a serious vinyl transfer. How you remove the
> contaminated solution is your call. But vacuuming is very effective.

Now that makes a lot of sense to me. The point is the basic mechanics of
cleaning, not the precise details of how it is accomplished.