recording audio from within scope

[jdieks]

hey, i want to try to record audio directly in scope and then load my track in cubase. that way i don't use the audio engine of cubase for recording and my guess is that sound quality will be better then.

only problem is: vdat doesn't sync to midi (or at least i don't know how)

is there any way to get vdat to sync to mtc or something so my tracks will stay in sync with my cubase project? or is there any other solution to do this?

thanks for your help

[Tau]

You can set Cubase to sync to VDAT, but not the other way around.

Connect the ClkOut of the VDAT to the Clk In of the ASIO dest module, then set Cubase to sync to ASIO SPP.

After that, they should run together, pressing play on VDAT should start Cubase, etc.


Cheers,

T

[jdieks]

thanks, that could be an option... any other device that can record audio on scope?

[Tau]

if not VDAT, I can only think of the STS sampler to record audio into. No idea about how long you can record on that, though.


T

[dradisf]

is there really a downgrade of sound quality when recording audio tracks in cubase??if so how significant?

[jdieks]

well, it depends on what you're recording:

if i record my access virus in cubase the downgrade is there, but not that significant.
but if i record any of my real analogs it's VERY noticeable. i have to dip some mid and sometimes add some highs. also, it's as if the recording has become more static. (less life in the sound)

i guess it has something to do with the overtones an analog synth makes. but the weird thing (and i've posted something about this in another topic also) it's already digital when it's in the scope, so it must be the audio engine of cubase that degrades the audio (or it might be the asio drivers themselves).

but since the summing of cubase isn't that good either i'm guessing it's cubase.

that's why i'm hoping that if i record with vdat the sound keeps it livelyness. because if you sum externaly with the scope mixer i havn't noticed any real downgrade when cubase just plays the audio.

[garyb]

yes, that's why i mix in Scope and avoid summing in Cubase.

i usually record in Cubase, though. VDAT is an improvement(at 32bit), but the convienience and editing of tracking in Cubase wins out. my clients certainly don't complain....

[jdieks]

i lot of times i wait till i've finished a track and then record all my synths to audio. to find out i have to change the mix again and never get all of the power back which was in there before i recorded the synths.

if you record everything from the start it's not a big deal, because you never get used to the unrecorded sounds i guess.

[chriskorff]

True, dat.

It's probably good practice to 'print' things, as it stops you being distracted by the opportunity to change everything, but I do find that I come up with some good ideas precisely *because* I'm able to 'twiddle' around with a synth that I would otherwise have left alone! As a rule though, I find those ideas tend to be more music-oriented than sound-based (ie. I'll come up with a variation of a synth line that works really well. The downside is that I sometimes completely re-tweak a synth that I was really happy with, and then can't get it sounding quite the way it did before!)

Cheers,

Chris

[Tau]

Absolutely. I never record any synths until it's time for mixdown (and even then, most times I record a stereo master in a single take, with all the MIDI synths "playing" real time). Of course, it's a bit of a problem when something bad happens in Scopeland, like now, for instance, I lost one of my 15 DSP cards, and I have to save up on DSP. So I "print" some sounds, and mix with those, but whenever I need to make some tweaks to an existing part (usually changing notes, not the sound), it takes a long time to unload / load the synth, set routings and fx all over again, etc...

Else, it's like "sampling" yourself... But I like to treat samples as such, and synths as synths - plastic and elastic 'till the end! That would be my main reason to go for the XCITE!

[garyb]

well, that's a nice luxury!

[jdieks]

the problem with recording a stereo mix is that you can't really reopen the track after you did 3 other tracks to change parts of this track.. that's why i always like to have a multi-track recording when i'm done.

[jdieks]

i tried sending the audio through adat to another computer which has a RME card installed. that one did record the audio without any loss.

so the only conclusion i can come up with is that the scope drivers degrade the audio.

i hope this will be fixed in version 5.

also, i tried vdat, but when i press record it just doesn't record. i've got 2 tracks record enable. they even monitor what i put in there, but the audio files just don't get bigger. anyone has had this problem too?

[astroman]

there is no problem
VDAT creates a 'tape' (set of 8 .wav files) in advance at the length you specify - it will never change, whatever you record to it.
Background is that this way there are no file system allocation requests during recording.

the quality decrease is not necessarily related to the Scope drivers - it's (obviously) the numeric format conversion in the target application.
I once made an A/B comparison between an internal and an external equalizer, recorded the 2 tracks to VDAT and could clearly distinguish them when solo-ing mixer channels.
After opening the files in a native app and rendering the respective part, they practically sounded identical
that actually was the moment I started to believe what I had read about the audio-engines stuff...
I didn't process the files at all, except maybe a small level adjustment

cheers, Tom

[jdieks]

my vdat makes wav files that are 196kb and just consist of 1 click.

and they never change in size whatever i do. (they don't change either if i change the tape length from 1 minute to 10 minutes)

i think it has to do with the conversion of bits too (the sound difference). but the thing i find so weird is that the signal i pass through adat to another computer is converted from 32bits internal scope to 16 bits for piping through adat and then recorded there without any change that i can notice from the audio that was recorded.

on the other hand cubase on the same machine gets the audio also, but for some reason the conversion process here isn't working as good. it isn't working as good either when i just record the audio in wavelab using my multi media driver.

so it's like scope doesn't do the conversion that it DOES do to pipe it over ADAT...

[astroman]

well, VDAT also seems to be a kind of 'detective' for any kind of (Scope) system misconfigurations.
It basically seems to work... and as VDAT comes in, and trouble starts...
I've had misplaced cards, erroneous installations, sync problems, broken cables, whatever - there always was something wrong with the system that became only obvious with VDAT.

What's your specs ? Mobo, Ram, OS version etc

cheers, Tom

[jdieks]

p5b delux with q6600 quadcore, 2gb kingston ram. 2x seagate 360 gb disks and one 500 gb samsung and some cheap ati graphics controller


3x p2 board.

but to tell you the truth, sometimes my p2 cards stop working all of a sudden with an error that comunication to board 1 is lost.
and to get it working again i need to get all the cards out of the computer. then let the computer boot so it doesn't find any cards. then i put the cards back in and it works again...

[astroman]

have you considered heat ?

[jdieks]

yeah.. i have thought about that... but i've got an extra fan in the case of the computer. ít's set to medium for the noise.. but putting it on high doesn't change this.

i thought that maybe my TDM should be replaced.

but i never really got to trying this out (and maybe ordering another cable for nothing )

i guess i just need to buy an x-cite to fix these problems

i hope it connects easily to 2 a16s and another adat card in some way

[garyb]

try some deoxit or stabilant on all the contacts including the ones on the i/o plate...