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Is there a way to bypass the onboard preamps on the Digi002 rack and use outboard ones?

Comments

anonymous Thu, 07/01/2004 - 12:23

only 2 on the digi001.. but the digi002 has 4 pres.. i'm looking into buying a digi002R soon so this is also i question i would like to know.
i know you could always run your pre into one of the other ins.. but i would really like to know how to bypass them.

o and can you have 2 digi002R's in one machine? i'm sure pro tools wouldn't see both units, but i think nuendo would... anyone know

anonymous Thu, 07/01/2004 - 22:55

no u cant daisy chain the digi002 racks, digidesign has made them so u can only link on secondary firewire devices like external burners etc... as for the bypassing the pre...id iimagine you mite just use the 1/4 inch inputs, which would bypass the mic pre's...i have no idea what that does to the signal, but im sure heaps of others use them like that...i got mine about half a month ago and am still sussing out how it all goes together with outboard etc...so far am liking it. Anyone here used Rode NT5's? i got a set and i reckon they r pretty cool for stereo miking your acoustics...really loving stereo :D . any ways i always end up rambling on here lol
hope this helps...

anonymous Sat, 07/24/2004 - 15:09

BladeSG wrote: Get yourself any ADAT lightpipe pre-amp, connect to 002R to bypass pre's. Something like the Focusrite Octepre or Presonus Digimax.

But if you do that then your sampling rate can only go up to 48K, because ADAT Light pipe only carries digital information up to 48K.

Your best bet is to just use the analog 1/4" inputs, those will bypass the pre-amps, and you don't have to worry about sync that way. Just make sure you use a high quality shielded audio cable. Prefferably a short one.

But why would you want to bypass the digi 002 pre-amps? Aren't they generally considered good sounding pre-amps?

BladeSG wrote: But you'll still be using the AD converters on the 002R.]

Is that a bad thing? Aren't the converters on the 002 just as good as the ones on the Octopre and the Digimax?

anonymous Sun, 07/25/2004 - 03:14

For what you're paying for a 002R, I think they're fantastic pre's considering for $AU2000 you're getting 32 Track PT LE as well (BARGAIN). Alot of people are bitching about the 001 pre's and for what these things are going for at the moment, again it's a bargain and I also don't think it sounds bad at all, unless of course you're a total noob and don't know how to get a good signal. I've heard good things about the Digimax and OctePre but have not heard them myself yet. I don't think 48KHz to be a problem anyway unless you need the headroom that 96Khz will allow for.

Get it right at the source with enough level it this is going to be neglible anyhow.

sdelsolray Mon, 07/26/2004 - 16:42

imissthewar wrote: Is there a way to bypass the onboard preamps on the Digi002 rack and use outboard ones?

Yes. Go in through the line ins, although now that I think about it, I'm not sure if the 002 design topology actually bypasses the pres completely or just attenuates down by so many dB. Good mixers do the former, crummy ones do the latter.

There's a second issue, theough, as has been identified by several earlier posters. Even if you bypass the pres (by going into the line ins), you're still using the converters within the 002. If you want to bypass the converters also, the only way into the 002 is either (i) 2 channels of SPDIF up to 96k or (ii) 8 channels of ADAT up to 48k.

I have a Digi 001 and chose to bypass both the pres and converters. Vast improvement, but that might not be saying much, given the quality of the 001 pres and converters.

The 002 pres and converters are better than the ones in the 001. By how much, I don't know. I would suspect you'd have to spend quite a bit for outboard pres and converters before a dignificant improvement would be found (think thousands and thousands of $$).