"Harvey Gerst" wrote in message
...
"Preben Friis" wrote:

This is rec.audio.pro as in "recreational.audio.production" ... You
don't
have to be payed to be here..

Preben,

For the millionth time, here is the start of the FAQ for this group.
Please note
the absence of the word "production":

Ya got me curious. I looked up the Feb 1992 charter. Under reference
entry, the official listing for the newsgroup is "rec.audio.pro
Professional audio gear, production and studio engineering".

The intended audience was...

- Broadcast and studio engineers
- Those with interests in production and engineering
- Musicians and recording hobbyists

Feels a little like quoting scripture.

dt king

I fall into the recordin hobbyist group. So what is the issue. I am the
person being recorded.

Bob
"dt king" wrote in message
news:BPv_c.38037$_g7.18561@attbi_s52...
"Harvey Gerst" wrote in message
...
"Preben Friis" wrote:

This is rec.audio.pro as in "recreational.audio.production" ... You
don't
have to be payed to be here..

Preben,

For the millionth time, here is the start of the FAQ for this group.
Please note
the absence of the word "production":

Ya got me curious. I looked up the Feb 1992 charter. Under reference
entry, the official listing for the newsgroup is "rec.audio.pro
Professional audio gear, production and studio engineering".

The intended audience was...

- Broadcast and studio engineers
- Those with interests in production and engineering
- Musicians and recording hobbyists

Feels a little like quoting scripture.

dt king

I fall into the recordin hobbyist group. So what is the issue. I am the
person being recorded.

Bob
"dt king" wrote in message
news:BPv_c.38037$_g7.18561@attbi_s52...
"Harvey Gerst" wrote in message
...
"Preben Friis" wrote:

This is rec.audio.pro as in "recreational.audio.production" ... You
don't
have to be payed to be here..

Preben,

For the millionth time, here is the start of the FAQ for this group.
Please note
the absence of the word "production":

Ya got me curious. I looked up the Feb 1992 charter. Under reference
entry, the official listing for the newsgroup is "rec.audio.pro
Professional audio gear, production and studio engineering".

The intended audience was...

- Broadcast and studio engineers
- Those with interests in production and engineering
- Musicians and recording hobbyists

Feels a little like quoting scripture.

dt king

"Ted Lachance" wrote in message news:Nhn_c.290329$eM2.10508@attbi_s51...
Excellent post, and one question:

What are the special problems of digital you are referring to?


First and most obviously, the problem of setting levels without
clipping or, at the other extreme, wasting bits and getting a grainy
result. Learning to judge according to source how much compression is
the right amount to offset those difficulties without creating further
problems. Then, maintaining a proper gain structure within the digital
domain. It's all more critical than analogue; even brief peak
overloads are ruinous.

Second, the rather audible degradation that results when you first go
berserk with plugins and other digital processing in the naive belief
that "there's no quality loss with digital". The rounding/truncation
errors, I suppose they are, become troublesome surprisingly quickly,
especially with dodgy software. I sprung for the Waves plugins and
moved to 24-bit recording a couple of years ago and this problem has
largely gone away, even with fairly heavy processing. But I've been
meaning to run some 16-bit/24-bit tests to see whether the 24-bit part
of the solution is just superstition.

Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

Finally, and related, the lack of flattery of the source produced by
grimly accurate recordings. Microphone choice becomes more important,
I think.

Another poster has mentioned that one shortcoming of cheap gear is an
additive brightness/brittleness. This is true, to a degree, but it
depends on your choices of gear. Which is one reason I rather like my
cheap Chinese dbx compressor: it has the opposite effect.

Raglan

"Ted Lachance" wrote in message news:Nhn_c.290329$eM2.10508@attbi_s51...
Excellent post, and one question:

What are the special problems of digital you are referring to?


First and most obviously, the problem of setting levels without
clipping or, at the other extreme, wasting bits and getting a grainy
result. Learning to judge according to source how much compression is
the right amount to offset those difficulties without creating further
problems. Then, maintaining a proper gain structure within the digital
domain. It's all more critical than analogue; even brief peak
overloads are ruinous.

Second, the rather audible degradation that results when you first go
berserk with plugins and other digital processing in the naive belief
that "there's no quality loss with digital". The rounding/truncation
errors, I suppose they are, become troublesome surprisingly quickly,
especially with dodgy software. I sprung for the Waves plugins and
moved to 24-bit recording a couple of years ago and this problem has
largely gone away, even with fairly heavy processing. But I've been
meaning to run some 16-bit/24-bit tests to see whether the 24-bit part
of the solution is just superstition.

Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

Finally, and related, the lack of flattery of the source produced by
grimly accurate recordings. Microphone choice becomes more important,
I think.

Another poster has mentioned that one shortcoming of cheap gear is an
additive brightness/brittleness. This is true, to a degree, but it
depends on your choices of gear. Which is one reason I rather like my
cheap Chinese dbx compressor: it has the opposite effect.

Raglan

"J&L" wrote in message news:0Cm_c.144652$Lj.74165@fed1read03...
This thread is horse ****.

[snip]

The review compareing a MXL gibson mic to a u87.. Nuff said..

Now for some U87 heresy. I've never had a chance to tinker with such a
mic, but I suspect the situation is similar to the reverence that many
electric guitarists have for the holy Gibson PAF pickup.

There's nothing intrinsically great about a PAF. It's just that the
sound of the PAF has become a familiar defining characteristic of a
certain style of music, a certain guitar tone.

But you don't actually need a vintage PAF to get that tone, or so
close that it doesn't matter. A cheap copy, like a Duncan
whatever-it-is or an Ibanez Super-58, will do the trick. There are
more variances in guitars, amplifiers etc than there are between those
two pickups.

Raglan

"J&L" wrote in message news:0Cm_c.144652$Lj.74165@fed1read03...
This thread is horse ****.

[snip]

The review compareing a MXL gibson mic to a u87.. Nuff said..

Now for some U87 heresy. I've never had a chance to tinker with such a
mic, but I suspect the situation is similar to the reverence that many
electric guitarists have for the holy Gibson PAF pickup.

There's nothing intrinsically great about a PAF. It's just that the
sound of the PAF has become a familiar defining characteristic of a
certain style of music, a certain guitar tone.

But you don't actually need a vintage PAF to get that tone, or so
close that it doesn't matter. A cheap copy, like a Duncan
whatever-it-is or an Ibanez Super-58, will do the trick. There are
more variances in guitars, amplifiers etc than there are between those
two pickups.

Raglan

I've been home recording for about 20 years. (whatever than
means) Cheap gear is pretty good these days and is a lot
better and cheaper than it used to be. One can make some
good sounding recordings with it. A few years ago i bought
some higher quality gear i.e mic amps, mics, monitors and
converters. There is no question that the higher end stuff
is both easier to use and sounds far better. If you have the
money, the skills and a decent room, good gear can be a very
positive benifit.

Gregg
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Visit my website: http://www.greggjonesmusic.com

I've been home recording for about 20 years. (whatever than
means) Cheap gear is pretty good these days and is a lot
better and cheaper than it used to be. One can make some
good sounding recordings with it. A few years ago i bought
some higher quality gear i.e mic amps, mics, monitors and
converters. There is no question that the higher end stuff
is both easier to use and sounds far better. If you have the
money, the skills and a decent room, good gear can be a very
positive benifit.

Gregg
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Visit my website: http://www.greggjonesmusic.com

"sycochkn" wrote in message
k.net...
A parametric equalizer on each mic before conversion would probably be a
good idea.

It'd help out the peakiness of the microphone, but not the high-frequency
distortion, which is where some of the harshness comes from, and which
stimulates more misbehavior down the line.

Peace,
Paul

"sycochkn" wrote in message
k.net...
A parametric equalizer on each mic before conversion would probably be a
good idea.

It'd help out the peakiness of the microphone, but not the high-frequency
distortion, which is where some of the harshness comes from, and which
stimulates more misbehavior down the line.

Peace,
Paul

Paul Stamler wrote:

"sycochkn" wrote in message
k.net...

A parametric equalizer on each mic before conversion would probably be a
good idea.


It'd help out the peakiness of the microphone, but not the high-frequency
distortion, which is where some of the harshness comes from, and which
stimulates more misbehavior down the line.

How do you define high frequency distortion? Technically, I
mean, not how it sounds.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

Paul Stamler wrote:

"sycochkn" wrote in message
k.net...

A parametric equalizer on each mic before conversion would probably be a
good idea.


It'd help out the peakiness of the microphone, but not the high-frequency
distortion, which is where some of the harshness comes from, and which
stimulates more misbehavior down the line.

How do you define high frequency distortion? Technically, I
mean, not how it sounds.


Bob
--

"Things should be described as simply as possible, but no
simpler."

A. Einstein

"Raglan" wrote in message
m


The way I see the state of prosumer audio at the moment is a bit like
the state of desktop publishing around 1990. (My job is in publishing,
so I was there.) The analogy isn't perfect, but it's instructive.

Before the advent of DTP, "professional-looking" documents could only
be produced on specialised equipment by skilled operators at vast
expense. When DTP came along, the skilled operators pooh-poohed it. At
first, they were right. But any fool could see that the potential was
there.

As DTP advanced, they resorted to special-case arguments, such as
saying it would never be possible to produce a multi-edition
broadsheet newspaper using the new technology. But of course it was,
soon enough.

Nowadays, any fool with a small amount of capital can set up DTP
workstations and an imagesetter and produce the best possible quality
of output for printing. Technically speaking, that is. The fact
remains that without a solid grounding in design principles,
lithographic printing techniques, colour theory and so on, all this
cheap but nevertheless state-of-the-art equipment will only produce
garbage. Which is why specialised repro houses are still in business.

And so it is with audio. Instead of dissing the cheap gear to maintain
their competitive advantage, I suggest the pros should consider
embracing it, while emphasising what is their real selling point --
the skill and experience they bring to operating it.

At the present time, the audio pros seem to be where the print
compositors were in 1990 -- arguing endlessly about how many angels
could dance on a 1200dpi imagesetter.

There very much might be something to this thing that you are saying here,
Raglan.

"Raglan" wrote in message
m


The way I see the state of prosumer audio at the moment is a bit like
the state of desktop publishing around 1990. (My job is in publishing,
so I was there.) The analogy isn't perfect, but it's instructive.

Before the advent of DTP, "professional-looking" documents could only
be produced on specialised equipment by skilled operators at vast
expense. When DTP came along, the skilled operators pooh-poohed it. At
first, they were right. But any fool could see that the potential was
there.

As DTP advanced, they resorted to special-case arguments, such as
saying it would never be possible to produce a multi-edition
broadsheet newspaper using the new technology. But of course it was,
soon enough.

Nowadays, any fool with a small amount of capital can set up DTP
workstations and an imagesetter and produce the best possible quality
of output for printing. Technically speaking, that is. The fact
remains that without a solid grounding in design principles,
lithographic printing techniques, colour theory and so on, all this
cheap but nevertheless state-of-the-art equipment will only produce
garbage. Which is why specialised repro houses are still in business.

And so it is with audio. Instead of dissing the cheap gear to maintain
their competitive advantage, I suggest the pros should consider
embracing it, while emphasising what is their real selling point --
the skill and experience they bring to operating it.

At the present time, the audio pros seem to be where the print
compositors were in 1990 -- arguing endlessly about how many angels
could dance on a 1200dpi imagesetter.

There very much might be something to this thing that you are saying here,
Raglan.

On 4 Sep 2004 14:50:27 -0400, (Mike Rivers) wrote:

I'm not sure what the point of that would be other than as an
experiment. High end gear is used for high end projects involving high
end musicians, high end engineers, and high end producers. While some
of the High End Engineers or Producers use an M-box on their laptop at
home or on an airplane to edit and do some rough mixes, that's not the
final product, ever, unless it's one of those "the music is just so
good we had to release it for the publicity" stunts.

Low end gear is usually used by people without a lot of experience,
recording people who don't have a lot of experience. You never get
past the "it sounds fine, but I sure wish they played better" stage.

It's mostly people who have low end gear and little experience who
think that it's the gear that's keeping their project from sounding
like a commercial recording. Then they get more expensive gear and ask
if they need better cables, or a master word clock, or new monitors.

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians. I guess this could be true, if
you're coming from the direction of wannabee recording engineers
looking for "work".

What about professional musicians looking for an affordable way of
recording their experimental projects? That's the direction some of
us came from. Our primary consideration is the musical product.
We'll buy as many boxes with knobs and switches as are necessary, but
we're not gear-heads.

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

On 4 Sep 2004 14:50:27 -0400, (Mike Rivers) wrote:

I'm not sure what the point of that would be other than as an
experiment. High end gear is used for high end projects involving high
end musicians, high end engineers, and high end producers. While some
of the High End Engineers or Producers use an M-box on their laptop at
home or on an airplane to edit and do some rough mixes, that's not the
final product, ever, unless it's one of those "the music is just so
good we had to release it for the publicity" stunts.

Low end gear is usually used by people without a lot of experience,
recording people who don't have a lot of experience. You never get
past the "it sounds fine, but I sure wish they played better" stage.

It's mostly people who have low end gear and little experience who
think that it's the gear that's keeping their project from sounding
like a commercial recording. Then they get more expensive gear and ask
if they need better cables, or a master word clock, or new monitors.

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians. I guess this could be true, if
you're coming from the direction of wannabee recording engineers
looking for "work".

What about professional musicians looking for an affordable way of
recording their experimental projects? That's the direction some of
us came from. Our primary consideration is the musical product.
We'll buy as many boxes with knobs and switches as are necessary, but
we're not gear-heads.

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:57:57 GMT, "sycochkn"
wrote:

The setup is almost good enough for that purpose. Now I need to convert my
spare room to a little studio suitable for a very small group of musicians.

Suggestion. Don't beat yourself up trying to make a small room sound
adequate. You probably have a space in your house that sounds better
- a bigger space with carpets, soft furnishings, curtains etc. Buy
some long cables and use this space for recording. It's only for one
afternoon, now and again. Your family won't play power games over
that, will they?

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 00:57:57 GMT, "sycochkn"
wrote:

The setup is almost good enough for that purpose. Now I need to convert my
spare room to a little studio suitable for a very small group of musicians.

Suggestion. Don't beat yourself up trying to make a small room sound
adequate. You probably have a space in your house that sounds better
- a bigger space with carpets, soft furnishings, curtains etc. Buy
some long cables and use this space for recording. It's only for one
afternoon, now and again. Your family won't play power games over
that, will they?

CubaseFAQ www.laurencepayne.co.uk/CubaseFAQ.htm
"Possibly the world's least impressive web site": George Perfect

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians.

IME the effects of somehow breaking that mold and getting some really good
musicans to record is like totally incredible.

Every once in a while my church lucks out and gets someone really good
playing, or one of the usual suspects has a good day.

The effect on my recordings is generally stunning. It seems like the cheap
CAD, Shure and Marshall mics become expensive German mics in Shanghi cases,
the Mackie mic preamps transform themselves into Great Rivers in a Mackie
console shell, the Delta 1010 box is suddenly infested by two stealthy Lynx
Studio 2As that burrow inside when nobody is looking, and Adobe Audition
suddenly becomes one of the high end versions of Nuendo.

"Laurence Payne" wrote in
message

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians.

IME the effects of somehow breaking that mold and getting some really good
musicans to record is like totally incredible.

Every once in a while my church lucks out and gets someone really good
playing, or one of the usual suspects has a good day.

The effect on my recordings is generally stunning. It seems like the cheap
CAD, Shure and Marshall mics become expensive German mics in Shanghi cases,
the Mackie mic preamps transform themselves into Great Rivers in a Mackie
console shell, the Delta 1010 box is suddenly infested by two stealthy Lynx
Studio 2As that burrow inside when nobody is looking, and Adobe Audition
suddenly becomes one of the high end versions of Nuendo.

In article writes:

The way I see the state of prosumer audio at the moment is a bit like
the state of desktop publishing around 1990. (My job is in publishing,
so I was there.) The analogy isn't perfect, but it's instructive.

Before the advent of DTP, "professional-looking" documents could only
be produced on specialised equipment by skilled operators at vast
expense. When DTP came along, the skilled operators pooh-poohed it. At
first, they were right. But any fool could see that the potential was
there.

The problem was that people who had no experience with graphic design
or layout started making flyers with every font in the list on them.
They had the tools and learned to use them fairly quickly, but didn't
know the principles that made those tools necessary. Today people list
microphones and software that they have, and, although they've been
playing music for years, have "only just" started recording. But with
all of those great tools, surely their recordings ought to sound
better.

Nowadays, any fool with a small amount of capital can set up DTP
workstations and an imagesetter and produce the best possible quality
of output for printing. Technically speaking, that is. The fact
remains that without a solid grounding in design principles,
lithographic printing techniques, colour theory and so on, all this
cheap but nevertheless state-of-the-art equipment will only produce
garbage. Which is why specialised repro houses are still in business.

Yup. I have a friend who's a music copyist for a living. She was
concerned that she'd lose business with the notation tools that go
along with just about every MIDI program these days, but she's still
going at it. Seems that they aren't quite as smart or artistic as a
real live copyist, and the people using them don't read music at all
or if they do, aren't sensitive to the subtlties that make the
difference between a technically accurate job and a craftsman's job.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

The way I see the state of prosumer audio at the moment is a bit like
the state of desktop publishing around 1990. (My job is in publishing,
so I was there.) The analogy isn't perfect, but it's instructive.

Before the advent of DTP, "professional-looking" documents could only
be produced on specialised equipment by skilled operators at vast
expense. When DTP came along, the skilled operators pooh-poohed it. At
first, they were right. But any fool could see that the potential was
there.

The problem was that people who had no experience with graphic design
or layout started making flyers with every font in the list on them.
They had the tools and learned to use them fairly quickly, but didn't
know the principles that made those tools necessary. Today people list
microphones and software that they have, and, although they've been
playing music for years, have "only just" started recording. But with
all of those great tools, surely their recordings ought to sound
better.

Nowadays, any fool with a small amount of capital can set up DTP
workstations and an imagesetter and produce the best possible quality
of output for printing. Technically speaking, that is. The fact
remains that without a solid grounding in design principles,
lithographic printing techniques, colour theory and so on, all this
cheap but nevertheless state-of-the-art equipment will only produce
garbage. Which is why specialised repro houses are still in business.

Yup. I have a friend who's a music copyist for a living. She was
concerned that she'd lose business with the notation tools that go
along with just about every MIDI program these days, but she's still
going at it. Seems that they aren't quite as smart or artistic as a
real live copyist, and the people using them don't read music at all
or if they do, aren't sensitive to the subtlties that make the
difference between a technically accurate job and a craftsman's job.


--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article lahblah writes:

High end gear is used for high end projects involving high
end musicians, high end engineers, and high end producers.

Mike... I guess you haven't flipped on top 40 radion in the last 10 years!

If that's "radio" it's been at least 40 years. But occasonally
something slips through. And some of it is pretty good.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article lahblah writes:

High end gear is used for high end projects involving high
end musicians, high end engineers, and high end producers.

Mike... I guess you haven't flipped on top 40 radion in the last 10 years!

If that's "radio" it's been at least 40 years. But occasonally
something slips through. And some of it is pretty good.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Harvey Gerst" wrote in message
...
For the millionth time, here is the start of the FAQ for this group.
Please note
the absence of the word "production":

According to Google you are far from a million yet... - but I stand
corrected.

*bows to the pope*

/Preben Friis

"Harvey Gerst" wrote in message
...
For the millionth time, here is the start of the FAQ for this group.
Please note
the absence of the word "production":

According to Google you are far from a million yet... - but I stand
corrected.

*bows to the pope*

/Preben Friis

Mike,

The problem was that people who had no experience with graphic design or
layout started making flyers with every font in the list on them.

Yes. I agree with Raglan's analogy, but you really nailed it. An amateur
trying to produce a professional looking brochure or magazine ad and an
amateur trying to produce a great recording is an exact parallel. Which
further proves the notion that it's not the tools but the operator's talent.

I have a friend who's a music copyist for a living.

I fully expected that story to end "so now she's using Sibelius and making
even more money because she's more productive." But your ending is good too.
Even with Finale's fancy fonts, it's not the same as what a good copyist
does. Or a good draftsman or any other good artist. The key word being
"art."

--Ethan

Mike,

The problem was that people who had no experience with graphic design or
layout started making flyers with every font in the list on them.

Yes. I agree with Raglan's analogy, but you really nailed it. An amateur
trying to produce a professional looking brochure or magazine ad and an
amateur trying to produce a great recording is an exact parallel. Which
further proves the notion that it's not the tools but the operator's talent.

I have a friend who's a music copyist for a living.

I fully expected that story to end "so now she's using Sibelius and making
even more money because she's more productive." But your ending is good too.
Even with Finale's fancy fonts, it's not the same as what a good copyist
does. Or a good draftsman or any other good artist. The key word being
"art."

--Ethan

Raglan,

the problem of setting levels without clipping or, at the other extreme,
wasting bits and getting a grainy result. ... The rounding/truncation errors
.... Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem

I have to disagree with this. Modern digital does not have to be dirty or
grainy on soft passages, and it's no big deal to set levels properly at the
other extreme. I never felt that digital was "brittle" with the sound card I
use (Delta 66). Yes, digital is unforgiving if you go over hard zero. So you
learn to work the tools. Analog is not so forgiving either. Yes, it doesn't
hard clip right at zero, but the distortion rises a lot. And it's the IM
distortion that kills you after just one or two generations of slamming the
tape - much more so than THD which is the spec more often quoted.

If you want to experiment on your own, take the best sounding CD you own and
record it via analog from your CD player to your sound card. Now run Arny's
ABX test on a Wave file extracted from the original CD versus your
recording. Is one more brittle than the other? Can you even hear any
difference?

--Ethan

Raglan,

the problem of setting levels without clipping or, at the other extreme,
wasting bits and getting a grainy result. ... The rounding/truncation errors
.... Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem

I have to disagree with this. Modern digital does not have to be dirty or
grainy on soft passages, and it's no big deal to set levels properly at the
other extreme. I never felt that digital was "brittle" with the sound card I
use (Delta 66). Yes, digital is unforgiving if you go over hard zero. So you
learn to work the tools. Analog is not so forgiving either. Yes, it doesn't
hard clip right at zero, but the distortion rises a lot. And it's the IM
distortion that kills you after just one or two generations of slamming the
tape - much more so than THD which is the spec more often quoted.

If you want to experiment on your own, take the best sounding CD you own and
record it via analog from your CD player to your sound card. Now run Arny's
ABX test on a Wave file extracted from the original CD versus your
recording. Is one more brittle than the other? Can you even hear any
difference?

--Ethan

In article writes:

What are the special problems of digital you are referring to?

First and most obviously, the problem of setting levels without
clipping

This is easy to do. Just play your instrument, sing, and watch the
meters. If they go too high, turn it down. If they don't go high
enough, turn it up. Your judgement (and this is what isn't automatic
and why things don't sound too good when you try to make it automatic
and not pay attention) is the hard part here. It's what takes time to
learn what's acceptable and what's not. There is no clear dividing
line between right and wrong when the target is always moving.

or, at the other extreme, wasting bits and getting a grainy
result.

This just doesn't happen unless you're using really poor (like 15 year
old) A/D converters, don't pay any attention to recording levels at
all, or have mismatched interfaces so you can't record at an
acceptable level.

Second, the rather audible degradation that results when you first go
berserk with plugins and other digital processing in the naive belief
that "there's no quality loss with digital".

It's so easy to think that a plug-in will fix what you think is wrong
with a recording when you don't really know what's wrong. This is
another place where experience is most important - if it's wrong going
in, that's the time to fix it.

Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

Distortion is distortion, and unless you're after a specific effect,
none is better than some. The "brittleness" comes from the trend that
developed in marketing with the home recording boom. People got
enthused about "bright" and "airy" and everything is too bright and
airy. If you want something that sounds normal (which in isolation,
we've become trained to think sounds dull) you have to pay more money
for it.

Finally, and related, the lack of flattery of the source produced by
grimly accurate recordings. Microphone choice becomes more important,
I think.

Not nearly as important as the choice of what goes into the
microphone. How many times have you read "I have a really thin voice
and I want it to sound full and warm. What EQ and compressor should I
buy and how should I set it?" A thin voice will always sound thin. If
you have a great song, get someone else who has the right voice to put
it over to do your vocals. If you're a fitness model looking for a
record deal, the label will buy you singing lessons.

Another poster has mentioned that one shortcoming of cheap gear is an
additive brightness/brittleness. This is true, to a degree, but it
depends on your choices of gear.

The problem is that there aren't a lot of different choices, and a
beginner has neither the judgement nor the facilities ("There are no
music stores within fifty feet of my house so I have to mail-order.")
to make choices. If you buy what everyone else buys, with the same
defects, your recordings can't help but sound a bit like everyone
else's, with the same defects.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

What are the special problems of digital you are referring to?

First and most obviously, the problem of setting levels without
clipping

This is easy to do. Just play your instrument, sing, and watch the
meters. If they go too high, turn it down. If they don't go high
enough, turn it up. Your judgement (and this is what isn't automatic
and why things don't sound too good when you try to make it automatic
and not pay attention) is the hard part here. It's what takes time to
learn what's acceptable and what's not. There is no clear dividing
line between right and wrong when the target is always moving.

or, at the other extreme, wasting bits and getting a grainy
result.

This just doesn't happen unless you're using really poor (like 15 year
old) A/D converters, don't pay any attention to recording levels at
all, or have mismatched interfaces so you can't record at an
acceptable level.

Second, the rather audible degradation that results when you first go
berserk with plugins and other digital processing in the naive belief
that "there's no quality loss with digital".

It's so easy to think that a plug-in will fix what you think is wrong
with a recording when you don't really know what's wrong. This is
another place where experience is most important - if it's wrong going
in, that's the time to fix it.

Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

Distortion is distortion, and unless you're after a specific effect,
none is better than some. The "brittleness" comes from the trend that
developed in marketing with the home recording boom. People got
enthused about "bright" and "airy" and everything is too bright and
airy. If you want something that sounds normal (which in isolation,
we've become trained to think sounds dull) you have to pay more money
for it.

Finally, and related, the lack of flattery of the source produced by
grimly accurate recordings. Microphone choice becomes more important,
I think.

Not nearly as important as the choice of what goes into the
microphone. How many times have you read "I have a really thin voice
and I want it to sound full and warm. What EQ and compressor should I
buy and how should I set it?" A thin voice will always sound thin. If
you have a great song, get someone else who has the right voice to put
it over to do your vocals. If you're a fitness model looking for a
record deal, the label will buy you singing lessons.

Another poster has mentioned that one shortcoming of cheap gear is an
additive brightness/brittleness. This is true, to a degree, but it
depends on your choices of gear.

The problem is that there aren't a lot of different choices, and a
beginner has neither the judgement nor the facilities ("There are no
music stores within fifty feet of my house so I have to mail-order.")
to make choices. If you buy what everyone else buys, with the same
defects, your recordings can't help but sound a bit like everyone
else's, with the same defects.

--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians. I guess this could be true, if
you're coming from the direction of wannabee recording engineers
looking for "work".

Or wannabe musicians wanting to record because they keep a band
together, can't get gigs, and don't know how to sell their songs. So
you have a wannabe engineer recording a wannabe musician and each one
(of the split personalities) is concentrating so hard on what he's
doing that the other one suffers.

This is not to say that I have never heard a musician who can
successfully record himself, but they're few and far beteween, and
most of them have started out with solid studio experience, either as
engineers or as musicians with someone else doing the engineering.

What about professional musicians looking for an affordable way of
recording their experimental projects?

This is what home recording is good for, as long as the projects
remain "experimental." When they've devloped the concept, then they go
into a studio and let someone else worry about the gear and the sound
so they can bring the music out. Or they've been working the other
side long enough so that their recording skills develop along with
their musical skills. Basic home recording gear is wonderful for
putting together songs, experimenting with arrangements, getting ideas
for sounds and so on. But you need to recognize where the wall between
"work in progress" and "the real thing" is.

Our primary consideration is the musical product.
We'll buy as many boxes with knobs and switches as are necessary, but
we're not gear-heads.

The problem is that some people think that boxes with knobs (or
software) is what's necessary in order to make something better.
Sometimes that's the case, but often it isn't. And it's so easy to go
so far down the wrong path when you have all of that power that you
don't realize that you're making things worse until you find that the
pieces still don't fit together.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

In article writes:

The only point I can unravel from the above is that owners of low end
gear tend to record poor musicians. I guess this could be true, if
you're coming from the direction of wannabee recording engineers
looking for "work".

Or wannabe musicians wanting to record because they keep a band
together, can't get gigs, and don't know how to sell their songs. So
you have a wannabe engineer recording a wannabe musician and each one
(of the split personalities) is concentrating so hard on what he's
doing that the other one suffers.

This is not to say that I have never heard a musician who can
successfully record himself, but they're few and far beteween, and
most of them have started out with solid studio experience, either as
engineers or as musicians with someone else doing the engineering.

What about professional musicians looking for an affordable way of
recording their experimental projects?

This is what home recording is good for, as long as the projects
remain "experimental." When they've devloped the concept, then they go
into a studio and let someone else worry about the gear and the sound
so they can bring the music out. Or they've been working the other
side long enough so that their recording skills develop along with
their musical skills. Basic home recording gear is wonderful for
putting together songs, experimenting with arrangements, getting ideas
for sounds and so on. But you need to recognize where the wall between
"work in progress" and "the real thing" is.

Our primary consideration is the musical product.
We'll buy as many boxes with knobs and switches as are necessary, but
we're not gear-heads.

The problem is that some people think that boxes with knobs (or
software) is what's necessary in order to make something better.
Sometimes that's the case, but often it isn't. And it's so easy to go
so far down the wrong path when you have all of that power that you
don't realize that you're making things worse until you find that the
pieces still don't fit together.



--
I'm really Mike Rivers )
However, until the spam goes away or Hell freezes over,
lots of IP addresses are blocked from this system. If
you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring
and reach me he double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

"Raglan" wrote in message
m...
"Ted Lachance" wrote in message
news:Nhn_c.290329$eM2.10508@attbi_s51...
...Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

This is bullcrap. Cheezey analog tape recorders had the same problem, wimpy
power supplies that crap out when hit with high powered low frequency
signals such as kick drums. There's also a problem with cheezy digital
converters that create artifacts that sound like a buzzsaw when you apply
any high frequency eq. Adding "warmth" only adds to the mud. --
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

"Raglan" wrote in message
m...
"Ted Lachance" wrote in message
news:Nhn_c.290329$eM2.10508@attbi_s51...
...Then there's the famous "brittleness" problem, which is at least
partly just the lack of warmth produced by a recording medium lacking
the pleasant distortions of tape.

This is bullcrap. Cheezey analog tape recorders had the same problem, wimpy
power supplies that crap out when hit with high powered low frequency
signals such as kick drums. There's also a problem with cheezy digital
converters that create artifacts that sound like a buzzsaw when you apply
any high frequency eq. Adding "warmth" only adds to the mud. --
Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN
Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control
Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined!
615.385.8051 http://www.hyperback.com

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 05:04:02 -0700, Raglan wrote:

If you're a home recordist, I have a suggestion -- stop stressing out
about your gear. It's probably fine. The signal path is more than
likely capable of getting fairly close to megastudio quality even if
all your equipment is just prosumer-level stuff. If your recordings
sound crap, the reason is probably your technique, not the
shortcomings of the gear.

Yes, this is meant to be provocative. No, it's not meant as a troll.
It seems to me that the gear obsession that drives much of the
discussion in rec.audio.pro is misplaced. Many overenthusiastic
amateurs like me are being stampeded by "pro" advice into buying stuff
that they don't need and won't do them any good.

Even the best gear in the world won't make up for the acoustic
shortcomings of typical home studios. And even low-end gear won't
usually make them audibly worse.

Two theoretical exceptions may seem to be microphones and monitors,
which are highly coloured compared with solid-state electronics. But
you can get decent enough mics cheaply -- look no further than the
SM57 or condensers like the Oktavas, Rodes and MXLs. And
cheap-and-nasty monitors can do a good enough job. You've just got to
learn them. Look at the ubiquitous NS10. Hell, some hi-fi speakers
will do just fine. (Oh yes they will.) No one pair of monitors will
tell you everything, anyway.

Cheap modern solid-state audio gear, even some of the worst of it, is
actually not bad. Signal-to-noise and distortion figures are fantastic
by the standards of a few decades ago. Never before has it been
possible to buy so much transparency for so little money. On top of
that, most home studio work these days is done in the digital domain.
How much seriously audible damage can be done to a signal that is
subjected to no more than preamplification, mild compression and A/D
conversion before it enters -- and stays in -- the digital domain?

Before you flame me, take note that I'm saying "good enough", not
"stellar". So how good is good enough?

I reckon the judgment lies with the lay listener. If my girlfriend
can't tell the difference, then there is no difference -- for all
practical purposes. And if my hi-fi crazed friend (whose listening
gear costs a lot more than the entire contents of my home studio)
reckons that some of my output compares sonically with less exacting
commercial releases, then I consider my hobby well worth carrying on
with. I think you should do the same.

Of course, both my friend and my girlfriend are wrong, in the sense
that I can tell the difference and the little flaws leap out at me.
Pro engineers might spot the difference on a boom box. But that's not
the point. We make music for ourselves and for the listener, not the
anal perfectionists in the industry.

I've been doing this home-reccing thing for nearly 20 years, mostly as
an aid to songwriting and arrangement for various bands. My sound
sucked for the first 15 years, when I was using four-track cassette,
but I learnt a lot of techniques and workarounds. Then I got a DAW,
and my sound still sucked because I didn't understand the special
problems of digital. The past five years have been a period of
learning and slow improvement and I'm now confident of being able to
make recordings -- musical content aside -- that the average listener
cannot tell from a commercial release on an average playback system.
And I use equipment that would be panned in this forum.

Having said all this, I have to add that gear quality is not
*entirely* irrelevant. Some stuff will do obvious harm to your
recordings -- those starved-plate preamps spring to mind. Horrible
microphones are not a good idea. And decent sources -- good-sounding
instruments and amplifiers, and guitars with newish strings -- make a
big difference.

Certainly a home-reccer should avoid the very worst gear, but there is
hardly any point in aspiring to the best. You're just wasting your
money.

Raglan

PS. What inspired this posting was a bout of gear-insecurity that I
recently suffered, specifically about my audio card, a Delta 44. How
much fidelity did the converters lose, I worried. Well, I took a fine
recording with lots of detail (track 2 on Bela Bela La Habana by
Chucho Valdes) and ran it through the sound card six times. After that
amount of generation loss, flaws should be strikingly apparent. And
they are. But guess what? Not so bad, actually..... and my girlfriend
mistakes the seventh-generation copy for the original if I trick her
with an extra couple of dB on the copy.

This whole thread has been very interesting for me, as I,
(after working for most of my life in other peoples studios, PA, as a
recording artist, and my own modest studio), am about to open a 'real'
studio. It's still going to be fairly low end to begin with, but provide
'pro' enough equipment and experience to take on most projects.

Rather than thinking of home studios as competition though, I have been
thinking about how to integrate what I can offer with the way people work
at home. Namely, doing what is impractical for them.

These are - recording drum kits, recording live bands playing all
together, providing instruments like real piano, hammond, rhodes,
different snares etc for kit, having a good sounding live room and a
flattish control room. The cost of the studio has mainly been in
constructing this space so far.

The way I see recording going is that production is going to be split
between the 'studio' and the 'home'. More and more I get work where a lot
of the production is already done. The loops, sounds etc are already
chosen and there is no point in trying to recreate them again as the sound
is as much part of the track as the notes. What generally does not cut
it are recordings of real instruments/vocals etc and the final mix.

As long as the parts are played well and the sound is right for the track,
there is zero difference between them plugging a keyboard into my DAW and
A/Ds and doing it at home. If it's not the right sound, then the midi
is already there.. It's rare for me nowadays to come across a keyboard
player that does not have a computer and know how to use it.

There is no point for a band to pay for studio time while they
hunt for sounds or picks samples, write parts, edit and mess around. If
they want to do that to begin with, the chances are they are pretty good
at it, and it's an integral part of their sound that has got them this
far. Like it or not, a lot of pop music is getting written by messing
about trying things out, whether on a computer or not.
Quite of lot of keyboard musicians simply cannot play their instruments
properly, so without a sequencer they are totally lost.

The computer has become an instrument that is played by the artists, and
they use it to create their music, and they don't want to pay to do that
in a studio..... But they do want their mix sorted, analsyed by someone
who knows what they are doing, and world class drum/guitar/vocal sounds.

Most of the bigger studios where I live are closing down, but yet there is
more music being made and recorded than ever before, and the most
successful bands+artists are all computer savvy and do much of the
production themselves. It's sink or swim for a studio, and I think the
mistake the larger ones have made is not recognising and adapting to to
the way music production is changing.

Not everyone works like this of course, I reackon about 40% of bands at
the moment would benefit from combining what a 'real' studio offers to
what they already do at home, there is a big market for those who wish
to tap it.

I don't want to spend all my time working on half finished demos, but the
standard of what people are doing in 'home' studios is getting so high
that I don't find that the case. I also prefer to work an album from the
very first note to the final mix, so there is consistency and quality
throughout. It's just that not every band wants to work like that
nowadays.

On Sat, 04 Sep 2004 05:04:02 -0700, Raglan wrote:

If you're a home recordist, I have a suggestion -- stop stressing out
about your gear. It's probably fine. The signal path is more than
likely capable of getting fairly close to megastudio quality even if
all your equipment is just prosumer-level stuff. If your recordings
sound crap, the reason is probably your technique, not the
shortcomings of the gear.

Yes, this is meant to be provocative. No, it's not meant as a troll.
It seems to me that the gear obsession that drives much of the
discussion in rec.audio.pro is misplaced. Many overenthusiastic
amateurs like me are being stampeded by "pro" advice into buying stuff
that they don't need and won't do them any good.

Even the best gear in the world won't make up for the acoustic
shortcomings of typical home studios. And even low-end gear won't
usually make them audibly worse.

Two theoretical exceptions may seem to be microphones and monitors,
which are highly coloured compared with solid-state electronics. But
you can get decent enough mics cheaply -- look no further than the
SM57 or condensers like the Oktavas, Rodes and MXLs. And
cheap-and-nasty monitors can do a good enough job. You've just got to
learn them. Look at the ubiquitous NS10. Hell, some hi-fi speakers
will do just fine. (Oh yes they will.) No one pair of monitors will
tell you everything, anyway.

Cheap modern solid-state audio gear, even some of the worst of it, is
actually not bad. Signal-to-noise and distortion figures are fantastic
by the standards of a few decades ago. Never before has it been
possible to buy so much transparency for so little money. On top of
that, most home studio work these days is done in the digital domain.
How much seriously audible damage can be done to a signal that is
subjected to no more than preamplification, mild compression and A/D
conversion before it enters -- and stays in -- the digital domain?

Before you flame me, take note that I'm saying "good enough", not
"stellar". So how good is good enough?

I reckon the judgment lies with the lay listener. If my girlfriend
can't tell the difference, then there is no difference -- for all
practical purposes. And if my hi-fi crazed friend (whose listening
gear costs a lot more than the entire contents of my home studio)
reckons that some of my output compares sonically with less exacting
commercial releases, then I consider my hobby well worth carrying on
with. I think you should do the same.

Of course, both my friend and my girlfriend are wrong, in the sense
that I can tell the difference and the little flaws leap out at me.
Pro engineers might spot the difference on a boom box. But that's not
the point. We make music for ourselves and for the listener, not the
anal perfectionists in the industry.

I've been doing this home-reccing thing for nearly 20 years, mostly as
an aid to songwriting and arrangement for various bands. My sound
sucked for the first 15 years, when I was using four-track cassette,
but I learnt a lot of techniques and workarounds. Then I got a DAW,
and my sound still sucked because I didn't understand the special
problems of digital. The past five years have been a period of
learning and slow improvement and I'm now confident of being able to
make recordings -- musical content aside -- that the average listener
cannot tell from a commercial release on an average playback system.
And I use equipment that would be panned in this forum.

Having said all this, I have to add that gear quality is not
*entirely* irrelevant. Some stuff will do obvious harm to your
recordings -- those starved-plate preamps spring to mind. Horrible
microphones are not a good idea. And decent sources -- good-sounding
instruments and amplifiers, and guitars with newish strings -- make a
big difference.

Certainly a home-reccer should avoid the very worst gear, but there is
hardly any point in aspiring to the best. You're just wasting your
money.

Raglan

PS. What inspired this posting was a bout of gear-insecurity that I
recently suffered, specifically about my audio card, a Delta 44. How
much fidelity did the converters lose, I worried. Well, I took a fine
recording with lots of detail (track 2 on Bela Bela La Habana by
Chucho Valdes) and ran it through the sound card six times. After that
amount of generation loss, flaws should be strikingly apparent. And
they are. But guess what? Not so bad, actually..... and my girlfriend
mistakes the seventh-generation copy for the original if I trick her
with an extra couple of dB on the copy.

This whole thread has been very interesting for me, as I,
(after working for most of my life in other peoples studios, PA, as a
recording artist, and my own modest studio), am about to open a 'real'
studio. It's still going to be fairly low end to begin with, but provide
'pro' enough equipment and experience to take on most projects.

Rather than thinking of home studios as competition though, I have been
thinking about how to integrate what I can offer with the way people work
at home. Namely, doing what is impractical for them.

These are - recording drum kits, recording live bands playing all
together, providing instruments like real piano, hammond, rhodes,
different snares etc for kit, having a good sounding live room and a
flattish control room. The cost of the studio has mainly been in
constructing this space so far.

The way I see recording going is that production is going to be split
between the 'studio' and the 'home'. More and more I get work where a lot
of the production is already done. The loops, sounds etc are already
chosen and there is no point in trying to recreate them again as the sound
is as much part of the track as the notes. What generally does not cut
it are recordings of real instruments/vocals etc and the final mix.

As long as the parts are played well and the sound is right for the track,
there is zero difference between them plugging a keyboard into my DAW and
A/Ds and doing it at home. If it's not the right sound, then the midi
is already there.. It's rare for me nowadays to come across a keyboard
player that does not have a computer and know how to use it.

There is no point for a band to pay for studio time while they
hunt for sounds or picks samples, write parts, edit and mess around. If
they want to do that to begin with, the chances are they are pretty good
at it, and it's an integral part of their sound that has got them this
far. Like it or not, a lot of pop music is getting written by messing
about trying things out, whether on a computer or not.
Quite of lot of keyboard musicians simply cannot play their instruments
properly, so without a sequencer they are totally lost.

The computer has become an instrument that is played by the artists, and
they use it to create their music, and they don't want to pay to do that
in a studio..... But they do want their mix sorted, analsyed by someone
who knows what they are doing, and world class drum/guitar/vocal sounds.

Most of the bigger studios where I live are closing down, but yet there is
more music being made and recorded than ever before, and the most
successful bands+artists are all computer savvy and do much of the
production themselves. It's sink or swim for a studio, and I think the
mistake the larger ones have made is not recognising and adapting to to
the way music production is changing.

Not everyone works like this of course, I reackon about 40% of bands at
the moment would benefit from combining what a 'real' studio offers to
what they already do at home, there is a big market for those who wish
to tap it.

I don't want to spend all my time working on half finished demos, but the
standard of what people are doing in 'home' studios is getting so high
that I don't find that the case. I also prefer to work an album from the
very first note to the final mix, so there is consistency and quality
throughout. It's just that not every band wants to work like that
nowadays.

"philicorda" wrote in message
news
Rather than thinking of home studios as competition though, I have been
thinking about how to integrate what I can offer with the way people work
at home. Namely, doing what is impractical for them.

IMO that's a brilliant idea... you've probably heard the expression
"there's riches in niches", and if you can create that niche for yourself
in your area, you should do well.
--


Neil Henderson
Saqqara Records
http://www.saqqararecords.com


..