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Gear / Technical Help => Ask The Tapers => Topic started by: HealthCov Chris on March 06, 2017, 11:41:39 PM
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I will be taping at several festivals this summer. All of them will allow setup next to the soundboard, and I regularly get sbd patches for those bands that allow it. However, many of the more established bands no longer allow the sbd. Thus, I will have a full mic rig sit up for those instances. So, I have a Tascam DR680mkii that will potentially have hypers in DINa, Cards in something else (NOS, AB, etc.), and split omni's. That takes up channels 1-6. Is there any way to get a typical soundboard patch (xlr, 1/4") to work into the S/PDIF on the DR680?
I realize there are several other solutions that involve changing the mic configuration like a single center hyper, etc. But I am specifically curious about the sbd to S/PDIF. Thanks
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Just put a pre-amp in the chain. UA-5s are cheap, if you can find one, but anything that provides an ADC, and has the right inputs/outputs should work.
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There's a ua-5 on eBay for 35 bucks. Just mod it and your good.
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You go from 6 analog channels into the DR680 to 8 channels in by using an external ADC with a coax SPDIF output. Those extra two channels get recorded to the stereo channel. If only using it for SBD patches you only really need the ADC part and not a preamp/adc, but it's helpful if it at least provides gain adjustment as no gain adjustment is available for SPDIF on the DR680. A UA-5 provides that as well as phantom power if you want to run extra mics.
You're probably mixing on the computer, so it won't matter, but you can only playback channels 1-6 OR the stereo channel from the DR680. You can't playback all 8 channels simultaneously, nor make an 8 channel > 2 channel mix on the recorder itself.
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There's a ua-5 on eBay for 35 bucks. Just mod it and your good.
Thanks. Do they need a mod? Who does that?
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You go from 6 analog channels into the DR680 to 8 channels in by using an external ADC with a coax SPDIF output.
Any recommendations? I don't know much about this.
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You set the stereo channel to DIN (digital input) instead of MIX (an internal mix of the 6 analog input channels).
You set the recorders rate (44.1/48/96) to match the rate of the external ADC.
Whenever the recorder senses a digital signal on the input, it locks it's clock to that of the input.
You arm whatever channels you want recorded (1-6 as well as stereo DIN) and the machine records the SPDIF stream from the external ADC along with your analog inputs.
Alternately you can set the recorder to record the digital input to channels 5&6 instead of to the stereo channel. The only reason I can think of for doing that is if you wanted to be able to play back the digital input channels along with the analog inputs to channels 1-4 from the machine itself.
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Yes, they need, at least, a digi-mod to run standalone, not connected to a computer.
http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=14389.0
(http://taperssection.com/index.php?topic=14389.0)
Any one for sale here, will most likely be modded. If you post an ISO in the Yard Sale, you will probably find someone with one sitting around collecting dust.
The mod is supposedly trivial, but I cannot say from experience. If you are not comfortable with soldering, you probably do not want to try it yourself though.
Thanks. Do they need a mod? Who does that?
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I did it to a brand new one I found at a music store in PA for 30 bucks. Took 30 mins. Mostly just the unscrewing. Follow the instruction in the ua-5 Digi mod archive thread. It's so easy and so cheap. It's like 2 solder points and removing a resistor. The thing sounds great.
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I did it to a brand new one I found at a music store in PA for 30 bucks. Took 30 mins. Mostly just the unscrewing. Follow the instruction in the ua-5 Digi mod archive thread. It's so easy and so cheap. It's like 2 solder points and removing a resistor. The thing sounds great.
The Digi-Mod UA-5 was the poor man's V3 for a long time... Not sure why it fell off the radar - it is so cheap and useful... There are a ton of Oade Mod and Bus Mod UA5s out there just collecting dust... They need to come out of hiding!!!
I totally regret selling mine, though I don't regret spending the money on my HD-P2!
Terry
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I did it to a brand new one I found at a music store in PA for 30 bucks. Took 30 mins. Mostly just the unscrewing. Follow the instruction in the ua-5 Digi mod archive thread. It's so easy and so cheap. It's like 2 solder points and removing a resistor. The thing sounds great.
The Digi-Mod UA-5 was the poor man's V3 for a long time... Not sure why it fell off the radar - it is so cheap and useful... There are a ton of Oade Mod and Bus Mod UA5s out there just collecting dust... They need to come out of hiding!!!
I totally regret selling mine, though I don't regret spending the money on my HD-P2!
Terry
I love having an R4 now but the UA-5 is a ton of bang for your buck and I know the busman mod sounds great.
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I did it to a brand new one I found at a music store in PA for 30 bucks. Took 30 mins. Mostly just the unscrewing. Follow the instruction in the ua-5 Digi mod archive thread. It's so easy and so cheap. It's like 2 solder points and removing a resistor. The thing sounds great.
The Digi-Mod UA-5 was the poor man's V3 for a long time... Not sure why it fell off the radar - it is so cheap and useful... There are a ton of Oade Mod and Bus Mod UA5s out there just collecting dust... They need to come out of hiding!!!
I totally regret selling mine, though I don't regret spending the money on my HD-P2!
Terry
I know exactly why the UA-5 fell out of favor. It was determined that it only outputs a 24-bit digital signal, and this was discovered at a time when there weren't any 24-bit portable recorders. Feed that signal to a JB3 or a Sony portable DAT, and you got a truncated 24-bit signal into a 16-bit device.
Eventually there was the MT 2496 and a few other recorders, but then you had incompatibilities with certain recorders, mostly Sony, not recognizing the S/PDIF signal. Caveat emptor - do your research before buying. See if you can borrow one or check the DR-680 threads to see if there have been problems reported. I haven't kept up with that recorder.