By
trupro
Mon Sep 20, 2004 10:09 pm
Ok ok, I know that it's superavanteguard and too picky to say don't sample the 1200 with the 4000. But really, it' true. Ok yes, you will have some of that SP sound and truncation going on. But, the oversampling that alters the white noise in the SP1200, is totally refined and of a much higher bitrate in the 4000. When you sample into the sp, you go analog to digital via converters in the SP which give it a particular sound. So, what you are doing when you sample the SP1200 to the 4000 is:
going d-to-a out of the sp, a-to-d into the 4000, then d-to-a into a board of whatever cable that goes to your multitrack, or 2track to burn a cd, which means it's getting converted again. When really, you could just go out of the SP1200, into the board or multitrack, converting only 1 additional time to get it to multitrack or CD.
With that 'old school' sound from the sp, you have 'crap' in the signal, which comes from that technology's innability to correct the audio anomolies which arise from lowbit sampling. Oversampling bridges gaps in the digital 'picture' of the sound that create white noise to fill up these spaces. That is what makes the SP sound the way it does. Not only that, but the particular math the EMU used to do this on that machine, combines with the parts like it's outputs, etc, and the assembly process to put it together, all total to make that 'sound' you like in th sp.
Now, when you sample with a high end sampler, it's gonna have it's OWN algorthms and sound. In the case of the 4000, you have a crisp and deliberate sound. Very pristene. Now, that **** is gonna pick up everything in the SP sample, but the gaps in the conversion on the 4000 are very minute. But unless you sample at 96k, they can still be noticeable, so now youve got a brand new sampler, trying to make up for sapces where there was white noise that you wanted in there from the original sample. What I'm saying is that the 4000 is not trying to correct the SP, but in trying to correct it OWN 16bit samples it's gonna have it's own brand of noise in the signal. And AKAIs current brand of sampling 'crap' in the conversion is not known as a warm and fuzzy tone that 'everyone's tryin to get' like the SP is. So essentially, you gonna add overly digital crispness to those SP samples; the very opposite of the thing you are attemting to achieve by using an SP in the first place. Now, you can tell me all you want that, indeed, the differences in the human perception from sampling once, to sampling twice, ete etc...and I feel that. I actually DO sample my SP1200 with my MPC all the time, for conveniece. But I much prefer to go as DIRECT a path from an audio source to the recording medium is possible. Now, when you talk super high end gear, that's not a problem. Why put vocals direct to protools from a preamp when I can go through and LA2A compressor? But I would NEVER go to a 4000 with vocals unless I absolutely had to. It's not gonna enhance it, except for convenience.
It's gonna detract from the sound at the end of it all. But this is just theory,
and if you got to do it that way, you got to. But just keep in mind:
People will tell you that "Yo, a sample is a sample. Once you go to 16bit CD quality, it's a perfect capture of the sound."
This is incorrect, and yes, you can tell the difference. Thats why, yes
you can tell the difference between your SP1200, and someone
resampling to 12bit medium quality with the 2000XL.
That combined with the fact that you will have a thicker signal the less gear you go thru is a solid argument for using each machine as it's own machine.
Damn. Now I done bored yall to death. Anyone still alive?
