>On the subject of building your own mixing system for MD, what do you find
>lacking in commercially available mixers that would prompt you want to build
>your own? I can see that battery power and small size could be requirements
>not met by many mixers.
In addition to the requirements you mention above:
1. Plug-in power for inexpensive, high quality electret microphones.
2. Reduced number of physical controls through software. (Use a few rotary
encoders to replace a lot of potentiometers.)
3. Adjust levels *before* the A/D to prevent overload while maximizing dynamic
range. Most modern MD recorders have fixed gain *berfore* the A/D; not a
good thing!
>Also, why add the A/D? Are MD's converters lacking? (Or is it that the
>digital out is an advantage if it results in the automatic level control
>being bypassed.)
The extremely low voltages and long battery endurance of modern portable
MD players must be made at a trade-off to audio quality. Also, their small size
makes proper shilelding and isolation of the analog section difficult.
One other advantage of one of the Crystal Seminconductor A/D chips I've
been looking at is that it incorporates a metering circuit that gives an accurate
digital readout in 1 dB steps down to -70 dB. While working on a unrelated
project a few years ago, I used a 16 character x 2 line LCD as a high resoltion
analog bar-graph meter with software controlled ballistics, as well as for its normal
text display function.
> What other features for MD would you look for in a mixer
>design?
Since the proposed design would be software controlled, it could adjust the
channel level trim automatically for optimum performance. The design would
sort of be like a modern point-and-shoot auto-focus camera.
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