Hello Bob (may I call you Bob?),

I recently picked-up your mastering book from Amazon, and am so E X C I T E D! I am a budding drummer/home recording enthusiast, and cannot sing enough praises about your book and website. Both are impressive to the extreme, and I will be spending massive amounts of time with each...thank you so much! What you have to offer is truly invaluable. The coolest part, perhaps, is that I discovered I live approximately 2 miles from Digital Domain! I have an excellent musician friend that has enough original material for me to record his first solo piano album...he is truly gifted...and we have already decided that we want you to master it...more on that later! I know that you are busy, so on to my question:

I would very much appreciate your opinion of the following recording set-up:

Rhode NT1-A mics (2), into Presonus Bluetube mic pre (2 channel), into Korg MR-1000 recorder (2 channel) @ 1 bit/5.6 MHz, convert to wav via (Korg Audiogate) software to 24/96Hz, load to ProTools for mixing/mastering, send via main line-outs from interface to analogue summing mixer (for color), then back into Korg for 2-track final print, again @ 1bit/5.6MHz (which would be down-converted to another SR, depending on the need/destination). If more than 2 orginal tracks, I would either skip the mixer in the mixdown from PT, and go (2 track) main outs from the interface directly to the Korg, or, not skip the mixer, but send each track out individually to a mixer line-in (might have to group some), convert to 24/96 again, master in PT, then add/not add the mixer before final print back into the Korg. I'm not sure if adding the analogue "color" twice is necessary. Maybe just during the final step is best, or would it be better to do them individually in the mixdown to 2 tracks, and skip it in the final print step? I have not tried this yet, as it will be several more months before I attain the rest of my gear. I realize that this equipment (hopefully with the exception of the Korg) is consumer level, but I am attempting to achieve good/excellent results at the front end, if for archiving purposes at the minimum. Does the signal chain look solid to you?

Thanks Bob,

Scot Collins