Digital Mixers and DAWs

[Guest]

Hi,

 

New here.

 

I am looking to make the leap from analog to DAW based production and am wondering if anyone can enlighten me on just how much control a mixer such as the Yamaha 01V would give me when mixing with an app such as Cakewalk or Vegas.

 

Would like to go digital but fear that I'll have fader withdrawal!

 

Please help!

 

Thanks,

 

Jon Bryson

[Anderton]

Originally posted by jcbryson1@hotmail.com:

 

I am looking to make the leap from analog to DAW based production and am wondering if anyone can enlighten me on just how much control a mixer such as the Yamaha 01V would give me when mixing with an app such as Cakewalk or Vegas.

 

A good digital mixer offers several advantages. I'll give the DA7 as an example because it's what I use.

 

1. The converters are better than what you'll find in the average sound card.

2. ADAT I/O lets you transfer 8-24 tracks at a time into an ADAT-compatibl digital sound card.

3. The DA7 has 4-band EQ and dynamics on each channel. Using the processing in the DA7 not only avoids loading the processor, the EQ sounds really good. And I can use a hardware reverb in the aux bus instead of using a reverb plug-in, thus allowing more processor headroom.

4. You can mix with real faders instead of a mouse, which is a lot more fun.

5. The DA7 has a MIDI Control layer that's great for programming my POD or continuous controller data in a sequencer.

 

There are other reasons too but those are the main ones. I still do a lot of mixing in the computer, using the rubber-band type automation. But for situations where the mix is part of the performance, the DA7 (and its ilk) wins hands-down.

[Anderton]

I just re-read your message and notice that you mentioned Cakewalk...don't forget about the StudioMix add-on if all you really want is the benefit of automated, real-time fader control. It costs much less than a digital mixer.

[Guest]

Hi Craig, thanks for the reply. Do you know anything about the 01V? Seems like it may be a good value but noticed it only accepts 1 ADAT card. Guess this means only 8 tracks get the digital i/o treatment while mixing, but maybe this is sufficient for doing a submix of tracks, or I could get one of boxes like the Delta 1010 (how are the converters on this) to use the analog ins on the Yamaha? Like I said, don't have this kind of experience yet. Does it make a noticeable difference to the sound to go analog out to the board and bring it back to the PC?

 

I do like the idea of offloading processing though.

 

Jon

[Anderton]

Originally posted by jcbryson1@hotmail.com:

Hi Craig, thanks for the reply. Do you know anything about the 01V? Does it make a noticeable difference to the sound to go analog out to the board and bring it back to the PC?

 

 

I haven't worked with the 01V, sorry.

 

As to bringing sound back into the PC...you can using the digital section to premix back into a lesser number of tracks. But why not just bring out a collection of analog and digital outs into the 01V, and mix down to something like a DAT or MasterLink?