Hey Folks,
I'm producing a final mix of 20 audio tracks which I want to send to external gear via Spdif (TC Electronics Finalizer) for processing and back into Sonar.  There are many suggestions on this process but wondering whats the best practice to keep signal integrity?
Being digital perhaps it doesn't matter as much as long as I keep levels at an optimum...?
 
One easy option is to bounce all tracks to a single stereo track, then Spdif loop-in the Finalizer and record that to "master" track.
Then export the master track to wav, mp3, etc.
But theres also external effect insert, etc.
 
Being new to the latest version of Sonar Producer I appreciate any suggestions on a best practices approach.
Thx much!
Kent 
 
Sonar Producer
Windows 7
M-Audio Project Mix I/O
 
 

kentearl
Hey Folks,
I'm producing a final mix of 20 audio tracks which I want to send to external gear via Spdif (TC Electronics Finalizer) for processing and back into Sonar.  There are many suggestions on this process but wondering whats the best practice to keep signal integrity?
Being digital perhaps it doesn't matter as much as long as I keep levels at an optimum...?
 
One easy option is to bounce all tracks to a single stereo track, then Spdif loop-in the Finalizer and record that to "master" track.
Then export the master track to wav, mp3, etc.
 

 
That should work.
If you don't want to bounce all tracks to a new one, you could create a new bus (SPDIF Output, which goes to SPDIF Out of your audio interface) and use a Send from the Master Bus to the SPDIF Output bus (assuming all your tracks are routed to a Master Bus).
 

kentearl
But theres also external effect insert, etc.

I don't think you need an External Insert, because there's no DA/AD conversion when you use SDPIF out and back in, so no additional latency introduced.

But I would still recommend doing a loop-back test because there might be a negative offset of a few samples necessary to keep everything in sync.
 

Thanks Klaus!