masterstink question

[The Bionic Board]

my first post here, thanks I hope to learn alot. I love my masterlink by the way... hope I didn't offend anyone. I did a search, but nothing obvious popped up- apologize if this is redundant.

Ok here's my question to the gurus of audio engineering:

I recently bought a rosetta 200 to use as a nice converter for studio chores. The big chore is I like to mix with my analog board (midas). It sounds ok and is easy to use for what I do (crap). Anyways I have been using the converters in the masterlink and have been printing mixes onto that.

I would use a variety of resolutions recording to the masterlink but dithered down to 16 bit- well eventually I felt I needed a converter upgrade, so I got the rosetta.

Ok, if you are still reading should I set the Rosetta for 16 bit/44.1 and let it do the conversion from analog- and let the masterlink digitally record 16/44.1 (would save hard drive space on my masterstink- I have the first generation) or should I set the rosetta for 24/48 and record digitally into the masterlink and let the masterlink do the dithering and SRC?

I'm not sure my ears are good enough to tell the diff. I've done a few mixes at both rates and I think I'm hearing a higher noise floor at the 16 bit- but I'm not so sure yet.

I am definitely hearing a diff though in bypassing the masterlink converters altogether.

Thanks guys.
BB

[michaelhoddy]

Set the Rosetta for whatever you're intending as your final bit depth and resolution. In other words, if you're burning a basic Red Book CD final master on the MasterLink, set the Rosetta for 16/44.1.

Once you're mixed to two-track, the only place the extra bit depth (24 bit as opposed to 16 bit) helps you is if you're doing a bunch of post-production mastering after the fact, and then probably only in a noticeable way for fades and extreme dynamics processing.

SRC from 48k to 44.1k is ALWAYS a bad idea, and avoid it whenever possible. If you're staying in the digital domain, any benefit the small amount of extra bandwidth gets you at 48k is destroyed when all the integers get sawed off during the conversion back to 44.1 for the final master. If your final format is 44.1, recording at 44.1 throughout the process is probably best. I always record at 24 bit/44.1 or 24 bit/88.2.

Incidentally, I feel the same about high-res recording. If your destination format is 44.1k, recording at 88.2k avoids the integer "leftovers," as opposed to 96k going to 44.1.

Bit-depth conversion is way less destructive.

[The Bionic Board]

SRC from 48k to 44.1k is ALWAYS a bad idea, and avoid it whenever possible. If you're staying in the digital domain, any benefit the small amount of extra bandwidth gets you at 48k is destroyed when all the integers get sawed off during the conversion back to 44.1 for the final master. If your final format is 44.1, recording at 44.1 throughout the process is probably best. I always record at 24 bit/44.1 or 24 bit/88.2.


Bit-depth conversion is way less destructive.

Thanks, that was helpful.

[DAS]

If your destination format is 44.1k, recording at 88.2k avoids the integer "leftovers," as opposed to 96k going to 44.1.

Michael, this is pretty much a non-issue these days. Most SRC (in reasonably current systems) starts by upsampling to somewhere in the mid 2 GHz range, and then the decimation process begins just as if the sample was coming straight off the oversampled converter to begin with.

[The Bionic Board]

Thanks for your input DAS.

I'm having a hard time hearing a difference between the 24 bit and the 16 bit mixes coming in from the rosetta to the masterlink. There is something going on- but I can't put my ear on it yet. No biggie.

Nice upgrade for the masterlink just the same. I can use the apogee box in my mixing room as well for the "all digital" work too.