A/D D/A Converters?

anyone use one to beef up your samples before sampling into the MPC??
do they really make that much of a difference in your samples?
anyone know of any good ones for under $500?

A good sound card will have ad/da converters already in it. Most of them do anyway..

Uh, like, your MPC is a AD / DA converter.

A good sound card will have ad/da converters already in it. Most of them do anyway..

I'm pretty sure a sound card IS an ad/da converter, too!



@nyst8: you only need an ad/da (analog2digital/digital2analog) converter when you go/record into your pc/mac!

when you sample stuff with your mpc, it does the a/d conversion for you.
It creates digital .WAV (.SND? - sorry I'm a mpc1000 user) files which you can transfer to your pc with your medium of choice (CF, ZIP, Disk) without a need for a sound card.

But If you want be able to hear your files on the pc - you need a soundcard which converts the digital files into analog sound (d/a).

The MPC is doin' the same thing before the stereo outs!

ddot_SFV wrote:Uh, like, your MPC is a AD / DA converter.

j.m wrote:I'm pretty sure a sound card IS an ad/da converter, too!

You are correct my man. Maybe that's how I should have worded it in the first place. my bad.. Not tryin to confuse anyone.

If you're looking for the cleanest, most dynamic sound, it pays to use good-quality external converters. Apogee or Prism converters are the shiznit, but cost big money too.

Personally, I prefer the sort of lo-fi but punchy sound of the 2000xl's converters.

ddot_SFV wrote:Uh, like, your MPC is a AD / DA converter.

hahah....obviously....i meant like a Apogee or sumthin big willy.....but thanks

so anyone with an Apogee or Prism that they run through before sampling into the MPC?

I use an apogee AD8000 to record analog sources like vinyl, live instruments and vocals directly into Pro tools, then transfer anything I want to sequence into the 4000 using AkSys. I dump my sequence back out to Pro Tools using the adat digital outputs so everything remains in the digital domain. My samples are only converted once using the top notch AD8000. I don't know if a good converter will phatten a sound if its not already fat in the first place. A good converter's strength lies in its ability to reproduce a sound source ultra accurately. If your looking for a piece of gear with "phattening" effect I would look into a tube mic/line preamp, compressor or a vintage neve peice. I've used these with good results.


http://www.empiricallabs.com/
The trick is to run you sound through a quality piece of analog gear then through your high-end AD converter.

There are countless options, most are not cheap. I doubt you can find a good AD /DA converter for $500. The 2 channel Apogee mini me runs about $1100.
I heard good things about the Lucid 2 ch.

Can be had for about 9-hun.
http://www.lucidaudio.com/

Hope this helps.

Right.
Esoteric A/D converters are more usefull for recording live stuff, or vocals. I doubt if sampling through an Apogee will sound that much better . It's stil vinyl, and that will never be noiseless anyway.
Perhaps you should look into buying a really good needle for your turntable. I think that will give you more improvement in sound than a $1500 converter.
A compressor with tubes will also fatten your samples quite a bit.

Something like a TL-Audio, and a very good needle and turntable will make a much bigger difference than an Apogee for sampling for half the price.

What are you guys on?? Every piece of equipment has DA's,... ( otherwise, no sound.. you know... ) Some has AD's. A sampler for instance.

You guys mean tools for warming up your sound?

Besides whats the advantage in throwing a sample into an Apogee and then back to the MPC??

Most soundcards do have pretty sh*tty convertors! Dunno why this is as they are the most important thing on the card. RME has good ones, Yamaha to, Akai also (samplers, so I guess the soundcard has good ones too). But E-mu/ creative, Tascam, M-audio, Digidesign etc f*cks up your mix! Like Behringers. Muddy, muddy mix
You hardly hear this with just one take, however when you record every sound seperate, your mix is wasted.

ddot_SFV wrote: If your looking for a piece of gear with "phattening" effect I would look into a tube mic/line preamp, compressor or a vintage neve peice.
The trick is to run you sound through a quality piece of analog gear then through your high-end AD converter.


Can be had for about 9-hun.
http://www.lucidaudio.com/

Hope this helps.

What about a Vintech x73i Will this Fatten Your sound??

ikke wrote:What are you guys on?? Every piece of equipment has DA's,... ( otherwise, no sound.. you know... ) Some has AD's. A sampler for instance.

You guys mean tools for warming up your sound?

Besides whats the advantage in throwing a sample into an Apogee and then back to the MPC??

Most soundcards do have pretty sh*tty convertors! Dunno why this is as they are the most important thing on the card. RME has good ones, Yamaha to, Akai also (samplers, so I guess the soundcard has good ones too). But E-mu/ creative, Tascam, M-audio, Digidesign etc f*cks up your mix! Like Behringers. Muddy, muddy mix
You hardly hear this with just one take, however when you record every sound seperate, your mix is wasted.

yo,

what are you basing your judgment upon ?

I was thinking about a Tascam FW 1884 ( http://www.tascam.com/Products/FW-1884.html ), do you think its converters are wack ?

help me out

Peace

Vintech is the bomb. Damn near the real deal. Improved in some respects.