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So this guy wants to start up a studio. He has the Sony console, the Tascam recorders, the Neve pre's, a few outboard units (TC verb, etc...), and money for the location/DAW/extra equipment/a few months rent. He wants my acquaintence to run this run/engineer/produce/get coffee? at the completed studio dependably and full-time for a 50/50 sort of deal profitwise. My friend (we'll call him Chris) wants to use a DAW for the bulk of the editing/recording/etc...but these hardwares seem to be making the whole thing either overly complex, or simply not possible.

To give you an idea of what we're going for ideally, um...well here-

1) Use the console for live tracking and linking outboard effects.
2) Run all channels (separately) into the DAW at 24/96
3) Be able to run all channels (separately) out of DAW for external summing, etc...
4) USE the Tascam 2424's. (This seems unnecessary, since they only record 24 tracks at 24/96 for 50 minutes or so, but he already has two of them, and wants them to be utilized with or without a DAW.)

Chris and I figured it could be too complicated to have audio going in and out of the mixer, compy, and recorders. We would have to somehow sync it all up so that Cubase is recording every channel separately and writing/reading files to/from the Tascams, the Tascams are getting the pre-summing, post-fader/eq/inserts/DAW signal from the Sony or the computer, and the Sony is somehow contolling the transport, virtual faders, and (did I miss anything?).

The main idea here is an organized and relatively simple signal path with the ability to patch outboard processors quickly and creatively, a way to route audio tracks out and back into Cubase separately (is realtime asking too much?), and the ability to change projects quickly back and forth between clients without losing motivation ("hang on another 30 while I climb under the desk") or song data ("sorry I have a 2 o'clock, we'll have to delete your 2 hrs. of spoken word.").

So far I have mics> preamps(etc...)> mixer> DAW> mixer&recorders> monitors&mastering processors, repectively. But this does not seem to work very logically.

Aside from the awesomeness of this opportunity, it is a trifle frustrating, and a workable Cubased setup is a must for the simple fact that Chris is a master at Cubase, but not PT nor Logic nor 2-inch tape. Besides, this guy has a really nice Lexicon reverb unit and not much else (I think) in terms of effects. Plus, I am wary of a digital console of that caliber having been discontinued without the USB ever being activated or the glitches worked out. Digital mixers just scream "WARNING: technical support or user-serviceable parts!"

I'm not sure if there is a question there, but.

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Comments

pr0gr4m Thu, 06/30/2005 - 00:39

The 2424's are basically like multitrack tape machines. You can't really edit or process the audio once it's recorded on to them.

If you have a recording console and a bunch of outboard gear, then you should be able to use them, but I can't think of a way or reason for using them AND cubase at the same time...other than for backup reasons.

I guess if you had to, you could take output all the channels in cubase into the 2424, It just seems like overkill.

Convince the guy to sell them and buy some new gear to augment the Cubase setup.

anonymous Thu, 06/30/2005 - 04:43

I used to record to 3 ADAT's and Cubase simultaneously just so if there was a glitch in the computer then all was not lost. However after a while I found this totally pointless as Cubase for me has never crashed and is rock solid so I sold the ADAT's. I agree with pr0gr4m, persuade him to sell the 2424's and invest in some nice UAD's or Powercore's (or both) to compliment the DAW and a controller.

schizojames Fri, 07/01/2005 - 21:10

Thanks for the quick responses, guys!

Yeah, Chris had lunch with the guy the other day and as a result dude is buying a couple of 24 channel a/d's, a compy, and all the necessary software. A nice master keyboard would be worlds more useful than two hours of storage that takes up (what is it, eight?) rack spaces. I can't wait to help set this place up! Thanks again,

sheet Sat, 07/02/2005 - 12:15

pr0gr4m wrote: The 2424's are basically like multitrack tape machines. You can't really edit or process the audio once it's recorded on to them.

If you have a recording console and a bunch of outboard gear, then you should be able to use them, but I can't think of a way or reason for using them AND cubase at the same time...other than for backup reasons.

I guess if you had to, you could take output all the channels in cubase into the 2424, It just seems like overkill.

Convince the guy to sell them and buy some new gear to augment the Cubase setup.

The MX2424's will export broadcast wave files into Cubase. The MX2424 DOES have software that was packaged with it to do editing in a computer.

The 2424's are more relaible then a computer and software to track with, but yes it is a very simple thing to track with both simultaneously if you like, provided that he has the digital patchbay for you to take AES/EBU splits into Cubase, or analog splits into Cubase A/Ds. It is not a hassle to sync all of that up.

The Sony sounds great, it's just that they have little to no support from Sony now. So, I hope the owner has the upgrades and updates to keep it working.

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