k2doggo@dorsai (jim chapman) (05/07/91)
Could anybody familiar with AMS Audiofile or other tapeless studio devices that cost a bloody fortune comment on the usability of the upcoming Sunrize card that's supposed to let you save CD-quality stereo to your (big) hard drive and do digital editing with time code present? We have an AMS in the studio I work at, but I'd love to get them to run out and buy ten Amigas...
kcampbel@uafhp.uark.edu (Keith Alan Campbell) (05/08/91)
As the co-designer of the SunRize AD1016 (the 16 bit card), I can assure you that I am familiar with the workings of the AMS, Studer, SoundDroid, digidesign, and other sound editing and manipulating workstations. The internals of the SunRize card are (in the digital domain) at least as good as the popular workstations popular these days. The current limiting factor would be the signal-to-noise ratio for the internal A/D converters. We decided to compromise somewhat on the initial signal-to-noise ratio in favor of adding ease of use for the initial customer. Onboard signal-to-noise will be on the order of 85 db on the analog inputs. We opted, however, to add full digital I/O on the card, so that anyone with professional or consumer CD's or DAT's can take advantage of noiseless digital transfer. If you have a DAT with superior signal-to-noise or if you like its sound, the data can be transferred to HD to be edited/filtered/manipulated at will. Software will be somewhat weak at the beginning. I have been spending quite a bit of time writing letters and trying to convince major software houses already doing this stuff on the Mac to port their applications over. I assure you that the DSP part of any port would be a breeze. I've had some response, but it will ultimately be up to the users to demand state-of-the art software from developers. Since I don't write software (yet!) I can't do anything but describe my own wants and needs to SunRize and others. I am considering the development of a mail-order business entirely around "the Amiga as audio workstation" concept. We have a clause in our agreement with SunRize that allows us the right to sell the card with an Amiga as a workstation. One of my first intentions is to add JL Cooper's control spinner to allow mouse-free editing... Don Kennedy Vision Quest Systems and maybe "Concept Digital Audio"...