All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols.
All rights reserved. Permission for personal reference only, and may not
be reproduced by any method without written permission.
Doing real work with a DAW
by Roger Nichols
So, aah... Here we are at the soon-to-be famous DAW issue of EQ. I hope
you can figure out the right system to buy, then let me know. There is so
much to choose from, and every system performs the same basic tasks in a
different way. Also each camp has its "I'd rather push a Chevy then
drive a Ford" sales staff ready to pounce on any unsuspecting potential
purchaser. Just like buying your first car, you will probably know which
system to buy when looking for your third system. Kick the tires hard and
watch to see if the doors fall off.
Digital Audio Workstations have been around for 5 to 8 years, depending
on who you ask. If you ask me, I had a system in 1981 based on a Compupro
S-100 8mHz 80286 powered computer with a 32 megabyte eight inch Micropolis
hard disk with a digital I/O that plugged right in to the 3M 32 track digital
machine. It used a DEC Vt-100 terminal with Retro-Graphics for waveform
editing. (There will be a quiz.) I used it to fly guitars, pianos, vocals,
bass parts, drum licks, and whatever else you could imagine, from place
to place on Donald Fagen's "Night Fly" album. In 1985 when Compaq
introduced the 386 based IBM PC compatible, I ported the program over to
that platform. It had mouse controlled scrubbing of audio for finding edit
points, and would perform non-destructive edits and fades. Included here
is a screen capture of hard disk recording and editing circa 1985. I showed
it to Sony and Mitsubishi, but they both said that no one would be interested
because of the lack of storage time (80 megabyte hard disks were about the
biggest available) and the time it would take to back-up the audio. (Sony
F-1, Mitsubishi X-80, 3M four track and Sony 1610 were the only choices.)
The big guys like Lucas had the Sound Droid, which not only editid audio
to picture, but performed noise reduction for noisey film sound tracks.
I approached Andy Morer about licensing the noise reduction software to
clean up old masters for record companies. CDs were still new, and the record
companies did not yet realize the value of their old catalogs (and I am
finding out that they still don't). Andy Morer and Bob Doris went on to
form Sonic Solutions and offer No-Noise software that runs on a Mac based
DSP card. The rest is history.
Today's DAWs include a plethora of systems based on stand alone, Mac and
PC platforms. The least expensive systems use the computer for all of the
processing and require a minimum or no additional hardware to operate. The
most expensive systems have cards containing DSPs, SCSI hard disk interfaces,
MIDI and SMPTE I/O, and only need the computer for the display and user
interface. An advantage to stand alone systems is that you can use your
computer for other applications while performing digital audio tasks. The
Akai DD-1000 records two tracks at a time and plays back four at a time
from optical disk. The Akai DR-4 and DR-8 record and edit four and eight
tracks on internal hard disks. Otari's Radar is a 24 track system that operates
a lot like a linear tape machine, but just press a couple of buttons and
random access editing is at your fingertips. Roland, E-mu, Fostex, Fairlight,
Dyaxis, Neve, and SSL have multi-track hard disk systems as well, not to
mention probably a dozen others that I have forgotten to mention. (I am
sure I will get letters reminding me about that and my English.)
I don't do much Audio Post, except for some Multimedia things that I am
playing around with, so my basic use of DAWs falls into a few narrow areas.
First: I use a DAW to edit samples for drum loops that are played back by
triggering from sequencers or audio triggers. The samples are initially
recorded on DAT or the Sony 48 track digital, and then transferred to the
computer for editing. Most of the samples are in stereo and recorded at
48kHz. Some of them were recorded on the 3M 32 track and have a sample rate
of 50kHz. After the samples are edited, they are stored away for future
use. Some of them end up in the new Akai MPC-3000 drum machine slash MIDI
sequencer, others are played back from Digidesign SampleCell, some are triggered
directly out of Studio Vision from Opcode, and some end up in Wendeljr cartridges.
The editing program of choice has been Sound Designer II from Digidesign,
although on occasion I have used Alchemy for editing.
Second: I quite often have to "fly" parts from one part of a tune
to another part of the same tune. I used Pro Tools, Sound Designer, and
Deck II for these tasks with no problems.
Third: I use a DAW for cleaning up tracks that I have recorded on the Sony
48 track. I transfer the entire track to the computer, straighten out timing
mistakes, remove clicks, remove hiss and hum, and then put the track back
on the 48 track, all without leaving the digital domain. For noise cleanup
I use Sound Designer II with the DINR noise reduction Plug-in and the Q-10
equalizer Plug-in. For timing correction I used Deck II and Pro Tools.
Fourth: I use DAWs to compile tunes to make CDs. Sometimes they are pre-masters
for CD production, and sometimes they are just for my car. SADiE and Sonic
Solutions allow you to cut CDs without leaving the editor. Sound Designer
and Pro Tools users must load another program called CD MasterList to cut
the CD. Deck II files must be written to CD using third party CD-R software.
SADiE was by far the fastest way to get from finished mixes to CD. Assembly
and editing that took 20 minutes in SADiE required hours or couldn't even
be done with other systems.
Fifth: Mixing to 20 bit converters. There are not very many places to store
20 bit mixes. I record them to hard disk and then back them up to EXABYTE
or removable Syquest cartridges. Sound Designer II software will allow 20
bit recording using Pro Tools 442 Nubus card only from the Pro Master 20
interface. The files recorded on disk are 24 bit files. Pro Tools III hardware
will not support more than 16 bit audio. Pro Tools software will not support
more than 16 bit. Deck II is limited to 16 bit.
Outa Here
Well, there you have it. I hope you are as frustrated about DAWs as I am.
Maybe by this time next year there will be one system that will let you
do what ever you want to do at a reasonable price. High density, high speed
optical disks that will let you record eight tracks at a time should be
here by the 1996 AES show. When that happens, you will be able to have the
modular recording of an ADAT or DA-88 with the reliability of optical media
and the random access editing of a DAW. And, of course, everything you own
now will be obsolete... again.
Return to EQ index