[geezer]

When I stopped off the summit of Medit and contemplated the void of other programs 6 or 7 years ago, I ran smack dab into the whole, knotty issue of both I/O hardware and computer integration.....There is, luckily, some forum, blog and FAQ kind of guidance for this sort of thing, because not a single company offers real support anymore for anything.

Seven years later, I would have to say that I have found a lot out, but do not feel that things are totally predictable and stable all the time. Some cards do seem to sound remarkably better than others, while many qualitative performance aspects seem to be simply a matter of the random combination of different elements in the system.

This phenomenon raises 2 very important issues:

1)Hardware compatabilty with native systems----Simple operational compatabilty is not enough. MTU will have to make sure that I/O cards operate with the right kind of audio integrity.

2)Instability of digital systems in general:

This kind of uncertainty is probably why some people opt for the expensive PT system, and it is certainly why I do not "mix in the box" for my multitrack projects.....Also, while this causes me to miss the reliability and simplicity of the pre-integrated MTU system, I don't think everything I am hearing is simply a result of bad integration.

When I upgraded to my DM2000 console, I started hearing things in the audio that I had never heard before when I made minor changes in installed cards or word clock syncing methodology. After literally months of A-B testing, I was able to prove to my vendor and Yamaha that certain issues existed with the console, which they repaired. Several years down the road, however, I have realized that the introduction of the console with its totally 96k capable audio path and converters was allowing me to hear a much better defined picture of what small amounts of jitter were doing when introduced into this complex, multipath digital audio situation.

Once I heard this, I could not stop hearing it. I have developed, as a result, a whole new set of working methods for I/O between my various pieces of gear, and a whole new set of rules for syncing. I have been told repeatedly that I am nuts about some of these rules, but I can prove, at least in my situation, that they make a difference......

What does this have to do with Microeditor? All I can say is that, when working constantly at high bit rates with converters attached that can convert high sampling rates, there is so much more detail available in the audio that one really has to pay attention to the integrity of syncing and the variations in jitter if one wants the audio to remain stable sonically.....We used to always say "once its digital, its digital", meaning that, if we kept it digital, we wouldn't have to worry about it any more. As far as I can tell, that is simply not true.

One of the implications, in fact, for this revelation is that a system with strong internal clocking and a totally analogue I/O can have some advantages these days!......I wish it was that simple, however. All I know is that I will go through checking multiple I/O and syncing methods at the start of any new multitrack mixing project before settling on which one "sounds best"........Perhaps this is why so many people are actually "mixing in the box"...They are keeping their situation stable by importing files and bypassing the I/O and syncing issues more or less completely....then just working with the same situation over and over......Too many possibilities and too much of a moving target are the real curses of the digital age.