CeeDub wrote:

"

I see no reason why you shouldn't be able to do this from Cakewalk (or is it
Sonar?).

Both, actually. I've had SONAR for about a year now, but I'm still
getting used to it. I'm still more comfortable with Cakewalk 9, having worked
with it for the past 5 years or so. I'm dyslexic, and the SONAR screens are a
little too busy and cluttered for me, which confuse me, so I tend to gravitate
back to the simple plain interface screen of the Pro 9. Problem is, now that
I've got an XP, my old MOTU card won't allow me to record on PRO 9 anymore, so I
HAVE to record my new tracks on to Sonar. It gets tedius importing everything
back into Cakewalk 9. But I find it easier to do my edits, cuts and pastes, in
Pro 9. But the features on the SONAR are really killer, I'm getting more used to
it all the time, in spite of my visual problems scanning the screen shot.



I can certainly understand your rationale in
moving your mix out to the analog domain to sweeten it up with some good ol'
analog gear. I sometimes do the same, but typically take the final mix from
the mixer into a DAT (mine is still working!). Then I feed this back into my
computer for mastering work via an AES/EBU link to minimize further AD/DA
conversions.

I don't know what an AES/EBU link is, but unfortunately, I still have to go
thru the AD/DA conversions back
and forth at this point. I suppose my ears are fried after all these years of
playing loud music, (I'm 61), because I can't tell too much difference, even
after I go back and forth a few times.
I ran a series of personal listening tests through my EV SENTRY 500s,
while I was mixing down to 3 different sources at the same time, the old DAT
recorder, the old stand alone
CD burner (which has also died), as well as to my minidisc recorder. I managed
to sync them all up together during the playback, so I could instantly go back
and forth between all three of them. They all sounded about the same to me, with
slight differences in all of them, but none of them that bothered me much.While
the minidisc recorder sounded a tad lighter on the bottom responses, I
personally didn't hear any degradation of sound, or distortion chatter, in
spite of the much maligned compression system. Therefore, I would probably tend
to mix down to the minidisc recorder at this point, if it weren't for the fact
that virtually every pro engineer I know tells me that the compression on the
minidisc sucks big time and really screws up the sound, big time. So, I'll
assume that they're right, since I've been hearing that for years now. I'll try
to avoid doing my mixdowns to the minidisc, although I really love the format,
and simple editing and juggling features on a minidisc..
I ran another listening test by mixing down to the minidisc recorder and
my
old TASCAM 4 track (with built in DBX), at the same time. Personally, I thought
that the minidisc sounded much cleaner and truer to my source material than the
old Tascam did. But, it's only a 4 track. Also, mixing down to a FOSTEX half
track and minidisc at the same time showed what a piece of crap the Fostex
really was .
I did read that a Mickey Newberry Box set was mixed down from the old
analog tapes and mastered on to a minidisc recorder, and having heard it, I
think it sounds fine.Of course, the liner notes don't indicate that the
mastering was done on a minidisc recorder, but I tend to think that most of the
recording specs on a lot of commercial product isn't really ADD, as most often
purported.
Thanks for the input, it's appreciated.
Alan