[MacDV] ADVC 110 and music?

[Granville Kennedy]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


On Dec 26, 2005, at 3:57 PM, Lanny Cotler wrote:

> But I want to add my own voice as segues sometimes. The audio input  
> on my G4 desktop doesn't work with a mic/headset I bought at (and  
> returned to) Radioshack. In fact, I can't get a mic to work in the  
> audio input jack on my Mac. Why not? Impedance mismatch? I dunno.
>
> And I, too, have a lot of audio cassettes, 7-inch reel-to-reel  
> tapes, and vinyl records that I would like to transfer to CDs.  
> What's the best way to do it?
>
> I will look into the hardware and software that Ray is using. But I  
> could use a short tutorial on the general subject. Can anyone  
> help...or point me to such?

Okay, this is a re-try.  My first attempt got bounced by the  
listserver for being too long!

In previous posts you mentioned having a MDD G4.  So do I.  I haven't  
tried using the audio input jack on the back, so I can't answer your  
question there.  If you can get it to work it might be okay for doing  
voice-over in iMovie, but as far as any more demanding audio work  
goes, don't even try it.  The built-in audio is 16bit- 44.1kHz, the  
standard used in CD audio format (Red Book, I believe.)  This means  
it samples the sound in 16 bit pieces 44,100 times per second.  But  
it relies on the clock on the motherboard, which is, to be polite,  
crap for quality audio work.  Ever wonder why your Mac can't even  
keep good time and needs to check the NTP servers to keep the proper  
time?  Cheap crystals in the clock oscillators.  The other reason  
using the built-in audio is unsatisfactory is the sample rate is to  
low to give an adequate sample for use with audio processing  
software.  I've tried running files from cassettes through noise  
reduction software, and it ends up sounding like chunks of the music  
are missing.

If you can use the RCA left and right inputs in the ADVC-110 to input  
sound into iMovie, then all you need to do is connect a line out from  
your receiver into them and then you can use any analog device that  
you can connect to the receiver.  But I don't know the sample size  
and rate the ADVC-110 will give you.  I suspect it's something that  
conforms to the DV standard, whatever that is.  Pretty sure most  
cameras use 16-bit sound, I do know audio sync get fouled up if you  
opt for 12-bit sound.  But again this may be a problem when trying to  
reduce the noise inherent in cassettes and LP's.

My advice is to get either a PCI card to handle audio, or a USB or  
Firewire solution.  I have the M-Audio 2496 Audiophile card in a PCI  
slot and the M-Audio MobilePre in a USB port.  The Audiophile card  
samples at 24 bit-96 kHz max, which is what I use with my bootleg  
cassettes.  It has RCA ins and outs in stereo.  Newer cards even  
support 5.1 surround sound, which is more than I care to deal with,  
but does have its uses in the movies :-)  THe MobilePre is a  
microphone preamp that has two XLR mic jacks, one 1/8" stereo jack  
for a stereo mic, and two 1/4" line level inputs for instruments.  It  
can only provide two channels of input to the Mac over the USB, but  
that's plenty for me.

You should also look into the mic/headset combos that plug into the  
USB - that might be a quick and easy solution.  I talk about software  
in the next post, so as not to get bounced again :-)

Regards,
			Joey Kennedy.


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP Desktop 9.0.3 (Build 2932)

iQA/AwUBQ7CXGFLszf0/NU4NEQLh0QCffuYra8QTedNsplxRd3d1VSN360MAn3dh
zxgTTrmeYwcdEYRCD0ySfyIJ
=ucQ+
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----