Connecting SCA pres to a computer?

[SaLvAgEd]

Hey everyone... This is my first post, but I've been lurking for nearly a year. Sorry for my ignorance, but how are you guys connecting your SCA preamps to your computer?

Thanks!
-Matt

[DPLight]

I went through a bit of a learning curve as I was deciding how/where to connect the SCA preamps. I have 16 ch's of A/D converters going into Frontier Designs Dakota card. My first impulse was to connect the new pres into the line in of my mixer. Come to find out the balanced line ins on my mixer utilize the mic. pre of the mixer. Most low/mid level mixers work this way. The best way to connect to the PC was by connecting the pres directly to the A/D converter balanced line ins. I do it this way when I don't need to monitor the signal realtime. If I do need to monitor, such as when overdubbing, I run the SCA pre's through balanced tape inputs on the mixer. This way I'm not running through any high gain stages in the mixer.

[SaLvAgEd]

Hey, thanks for the reply. I have a Presonus Firestation (yeah, I know... but I DID finally get the drivers to work). Anyways, I did a little reading in the Presonus manual, and found out that I can use the unit as a stand-alone converter. I'm gonna try that and see what happens. I'd love to own an Appogee/Lynix converter or something, but the $2000-3000 price tag is a little out of reach for me... probably for a long time to come. One step at a time though, right?

[craigmorris74]

Just run you pres into the 1/4" jacks (they're line inputs and should give a more direct path to your converters) on the Firestation. You don't want to run the signal from your lovely SCAs into a second, mediocre mic pre, which is what would happen if you plugged into the XLR jacks.

[DPLight]

Do a bit of research to make sure that the line inputs don't utilize the mic. pre's of the firestation. I was a bit surprised to find out that it is a common thing for balanced line inputs on a lot of gear (with associated mic pres) are just be attenuated some and folded back to the mic pre. A give away would be a gain trim adjustment with a dual scale (mic/line) that is a single pot. (non-stacked pot.).

[craigmorris74]

It only has two mic pres, the rest are line input only. To be safe he could use those.