I'm afraid not. Anyway, I don't understand why you're bothering with that ancient piece of gear. The Masterlink so inconvenient to use and has no advantage I can think of over mixing to a DAW as a medium.

BK

Hey Bob, my MasterStink is basically just running a hard drive… using my SLAM AtoD converters

My multi-track program (Digital Performer) is being used in a simple ‘reproducer’ capacity… from there it’s going to my 24 channels of Mytek DACs ( 3 – 8x192’s) through my big Tonelux rig, using all my out-board Eqs, dynamics and other various junk… while I’m manually on the faders working my magic cranking out various mixes.

My mastering’s going to be done ‘going analog’ by Chris Bellman. When I take my ‘2-tracks’ down… It’ll be my Masterlink (loaded with rock hits) and my SLAM… using the SLAM DACs and going into Chris’s analog desk…

I’ve been happy (and saving money!) with the Masterlink, UNTIL I had to splice together a few different sections of various 2-track ‘takes’. My problem now is getting my FINAL spliced 24/96 2-track back to the Masterstink.

As of right now I do have to agree that the Masterlink is indeed an “ancient piece of gear”

So my 2 options seem to be… run BOOTCAMP, and then convert my 24/96 AIFF files to get into my Masterlink OR pick up a Tascam DV-RA1000HD


BTW, I've bought 4 copies of Mastering Audio over the years, for me personally and as gifts for friends!


- ALLEN

I LOVE my masterlink for 2 reasons:

1) I can set my Lavry Blue at 24/88.2 and connect via AES and instantly capture very complex mixes coming off of my analog console WITHOUT the need for a separate DAW. I still run PT MIX, and my sessions are all at 24/44.1 so I cannot route back to 2 tracks of the DAW at anything higher than 44.1 -- which would be a DRAG !!!!!!

2) when i want reference CDs of my mixes to listen to in the car or boom box, ALL I have to do is hit ONE BUTTON (redbook CD) and it does EVERYTHING for me. I can sit back and smoke a cigarette in the other room and play my guitar while I wait for the CD. What other box does that for you without having to "think about it" a little ? This feature alone makes it worth every penny to me.

The Masterlink kicks ass for me!
Convienient piece of gear, perfect for my needs.
I also monitor through it, leaving it on Pause/record. The Masterlink level meters are large, right in front of me, and when it's time to mixdown the burn to Masterlink harddrive sounds exactly the same on playback as it did while monitoring....no level changes, all good.
Very easy to arrange the order of songs, and automatically puts in a nice 2 second space between tracks by default.
Simple scrub for fast cropping the beginning and end of each song.
Just hit red book creation, and wait for the cookie to pop out of the oven....easy!

I run my mix out of the console > 1960 > apogee rosetta> L2 hardware> Masterlink (pause/record while monitoring).
When a project is going to be sent to a ME, I keep everything at 24 bit into the Masterlink. If it's not going to be mastered, I usually bring it in at 16 bit. I don't screw with the onboard eq and comp. settings, I take it on faith that they will suck, so I use my outboard gear.


Well, time to get back to my fax machine and VCR.

You use the Masterlink to play demos of your best music on your stereo, right? Don't you dream of a network connection for it so you can play what's on your hard drives? That's what I used the Masterlink for. When clients sent me Masterlink discs (haven't seen one in a long time) I'd transfer them directly into my DAW, not play them back on the Masterlink. Most times they do get played back from there into a superior DAC...

For demo playback, when I heard about the Slim Devices Transporter... I never looked back.

BK

I've had my Masterlink for a month now. Great for capturing OTB mixes to 96/24.

I tried the limiter and compressor tools and I was hoping that they'd be useful, but alas... I immediately concluded after a few tests that the DSP functions should be avoided. DO NOT USE the Compressor and Limiter functions!

I also bemoan the lack of USB/firewire connection. Wouldn't it be great to mount the Masterlink HD on your Mac/PC and drag the mix files to your DAW? But heck no, I had to build AES cables to capture mixes back to DAW.

I certainly wouldn't use the DSP in ANY recording device, be it the Masterlink, TASCAM DV-RA1000HD or anything else of the sort. I really wish people would stop trying to make lower end recording devices the end-all swiss army knives they think they are. It's the fastest way to turn a promising piece of machinery into useless junk. Though the RA1000HD is a decent recording device, I'd rather they shave $10 off of the price tag and lose all the DSP functions.
Though that brings up an interesting point. Why would somebody want to record at 44.1KHz but mix to an 88.2KHz medium? Most of the sonic quality is lost during the first conversion so if anything, I'd rather track at 88.2Khz and mix to 44.1KHz.

Better yet, get yourself an Otari MX-55 for $500 and have a REALLY cool machine for recording mixes.

I still use my Masterlink most days, but essentially for playback only. I have a few hours of music on it pointing up various aspects: loud, bass, acoustic, good, not-so-good etc. The ML plays back through the same converters as my workstation so its easy to do a comparison between it and work in progress if required. I like the convenience of being able to load tracks from CD easily without tying up the DAW, and there's also the possibility (haven't done this for a while though) of taking the ML and a good AD to capture from analogue at a client's studio.

Mine sees duty as a headphone amp for producers. That's the only time it's turned on.

I loved my Masterlink for a couple of years. So simple to use. But......since I've switched to Reaper and the computer....I haven't given it the love I use too.

It still works great, looks great, ..... but it just sits there, and I'm too lazy to try to sell it.

Should someone that wants one, wants to make me a realistic offer, and promises to love it.....(or...to just pay me the money and beat the shit out of it, which would be okay too)........feel free to let me know.

I had three at one time, 8 years ago for a tape transfer project. Record one tape to one while burning from the other, really sped up my workflow before I had four Mac systems... Sold one to a musician for his home mixdown deck to go with his ancient Roland multitracker.

Now one of mine is a digital out CD player, and the other serves to copy cassettes to so I can give my transcription partner a CD to transcribe from. Or any time I need to copy from cassette to CDR

There was a day when I carried an ML with small mixer in a rack case for live recording on my live gigs. Now it only takes a little bag to carry a much better recorder (SD744T).

Still useful, just not for originals or masters.

L

I've got a Tascam DV-RA1000HD on the way... now to switch to BWF...


- ALLEN