Sorry for these questions (and the long post) but...

It’s just that I’m entering what could only be described as a sort of “phase two” to my music production ability. I’m finding more and more, very subtle things are effecting my mixes and I’m on the verge of going from “tight and clean” to “open and big” Sometimes it’s there and sometimes it’s not.

I've been asked by a friend to record two bands performing at a private party and create a CD of the performances. It's an electric jazz funk quartet and a blues trio. I'm doing this mostly as a favor and there is little pay, that's alright. Also, it's likely to be a bit of an out of control crowd. So, I want to do the best I can with a minimun of gear.

These mics have been recommended to me by a few people that I trust, but I've been too lazy to find one to get my ears on. Does anyone have an impression of this mic that they'd like to share? :)

Well I finally had my Minidisc player re4moved from the studio. I've never liked them and I've never seen the point in using them in a pro environment (well, maybe as a digital walkman-type thing)

Does anyone use one regularly? Will portable MP3 players replace them? Does anyone else hate that crunching sound they make from time to time?

Cheers.

Has anybody had success with Audio to Score for drum tracks. I've tried this on a snare track that was gated so it only contained snare hits, and wanted to create midi triggers from the snare. Although all the midi notes created were on the beat, it contained cymbals, wooden blocks, kicks but very few snares.

when mixing(bouncing) a 16-bit mix internally (Pro ToolsIII), is it necessary, or at least important, to have a dither plugin on the master fader? ie. Waves L1 set to dither to 16-bit? i've heard various things about truncation, mixer channel summing, etc. (yes, i realize this may yet be another case of DUC-induced-paranoia!)

I have 1680 backup data from VSCDRII on several CDr's. Can I recover this to the VS2480 with the Masterlink? If the answer is NO, then is there any other way to transfer data besides the VSCDRII? Im also looking for ways to backup current 2480 data SAFELY. But if the VSCDRII is the best way, I guess I'll have to do it.

Well it’s a sign of the times I guess. Can hear my daughters boy friend driving towards my house almost a full minute before he arrives!

Any ideas as to why I would not be able to monitor on my sound card in Pro Tools? I just set up a Digi001 this last weekend. Everything works fine, except that I can't monitor or audition tracks through my sound card. The only way I can do this is through the headphone jack on the front of the Digi. I'm going to assume that all of the outputs on the back work.

What are the sonic differences between these, and other, tape types?
I'm using a 1/2", 8-track, 15 ips format for mostly rock stuff.

(my apologies for posting this in 2 places, but I'm looking for as much feedback as possible)
thanks
McAllister