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Is it possible to use outboard gear (like compressors, equalizers, etc.) with a DAW? If so, exactly how does one do this?

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audiokid Sat, 11/06/2010 - 23:55

My favourite topic and welcome to the hybrid DAW crowd. You need a DA interface that allows you to send digital audio out to your Converter and then out to your analog gear,
Then AD it back into your DAW. The [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.lynxstud…"]Aurora[/]="http://www.lynxstud…"]Aurora[/] , FF800 / RME http://www.rme-audio.de/en_index.php to name only a few... that will convert the audio to analog, What are you using now?
Find a budget and go from there. There are a lot of options.

Start reading on hybrid DAWs if you want to learn more. Its not cheap. You can use things like these:

Dangerous Products: D-BOX http://dangerousmusic.com/product/d-box/
Dangerous 2-BUS http://dangerousmusic.com/product/2-bus-plus/
SPL MixDream https://spl.info/en/products/summing/mixdream/overview.html

and the Folcrom which is a passive summing box
Roll Music Systems http://www.rollmusic.com/folcrom.php

That's lots of info to chew on.

Big K Sun, 11/07/2010 - 02:00

Hello jmm
A number of outboard gear have digital and analog I/Os. Some DAWs feature automated latency compensation for external devices, too, which makes it really easy to work with external FXs.
You connect the , e.g., M6000, to the digital or analog I/Os of your soundcard, establish a new insert or send for the connected device and "ping" the loop through for detecting the right compensation time.
Now, you can use the outboard FX like a synchronized plugin with external controls. Don't forget to safe the settings, though. Use Midi or simply store it as preset on the device and make notes of its name.
Here, I have the DAW feature that some hardware devices and their presets are already stored and can be recalled and adjusted with a corresponding gui within the DAW.
Plugin reverbs, for example, are not yet quite as good as some HiEnd devices and sometimes I just want to use my favourite hw compressors, therefore I use outboard gear on my Nuendo rig with
many productions and w/o problems.

soapfloats Sun, 11/07/2010 - 21:20

Not necessarily.

If your interface has analog I/O, you can route signals from your DAW to external gear and back in.
Then it becomes a question of is it a good idea to do this?

Like BigK said, there are many high-end outboard gear you might want to use.
But is your outboard gear any better than your plug-ins?
There is also the concern w/ latency, as he mentioned.

There's not anything I have that I want to use post-tracking. I do hit a few compressors while tracking, but that is independent of (pre) my DAW.

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