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Hello Forum,

I just purchased the Black Lion Sparrow A/D Converter. I was wondering what would be the most effective and efficient way to incorporate this unit into my setup. 99 % of my productions are made with Reason and/or DP 6/7. I do not record any instruments live except vocals. (I believe the human voice box is an instrument). My main purpose for this A/D is to enhance quality of recordings. Should I run each individual track through A/D back into DAW or should I take summed recording from DAW into A/D back in to DAW for CD. My gear consists of:

Apple Dual 2.8, 10 Gigs RAM, 500 HD
Black Lion Modded MOTU 828 MK 1
dbx 386 Vacuum Preamp
dbx 266 Compressor
ASR 10
DP 7
Reason 4.01
KRK V8 Series 1
KRK V12 Sub Series 2
Tons of plugins/sound library
Room is 14' x 13' x 8' w/ 28 bass traps/mid-hi frequency absorbers

Can someone or everyone please provide feedback on incorporating this A/D into my setup. I know there's more ways than one so please feel free to name all ways you may know possible. Any and all feedback is highly appreciated.

Thank You, Signed
Seeking the knowledge. PlayItByEar Music

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Comments

Boswell Wed, 09/23/2009 - 02:57

Your questions are the sort to ask before buying new gear.

Since you now have the Sparrow, connect its S/PDIF output to the RCA S/PDIF Input of the 828, and use the Sparrow as two additional input channels. You will most likely want to put the vocals through it, as the pre-amps and converters are substantially better than those in the 828.

Set the 828 clock source to be taken from the S/PDIF input.

Once the audio is recorded into your DAW, the Sparrow is out of the loop. Given the gear that you list, there is no point in outputting the stereo mix via the DACs in the 828 just to re-convert it with the Sparrow. You could consider that route for using outboard effects on individual tracks, when you would then mix in some of the re-converted wet track with the digital original, but beware of time alignment differences when doing that sort of thing.