CD Quality?

[Brian Link]

Making a move up from my minidisc recording setup. I'm going to record
onto my laptop. I'm picking up an M-Audio MobilePre from EBay, and if
it's in one piece I'll be set for a decent DSP to go digitally into my
laptop.

I'm curious about my setup after that. I have an AudioTechnica 822
stereo mic that I've been using up til now. The strategy will be to
take the AT into the MobilePre, then onto my laptop where I'll be
using Sound Forge to master the final product.

My goal is to create a home-made CD of pieces by my trio which
consists of me singing plus a viola da gamba and a lute. I'd like to
make a CDR master, send it off to a dupe company and get back a pack
of CDs that I can bring down to the local record stores (we have nice
locals that stock local musicians pretty liberally) and send off with
press packets when we're scoping out tours.

So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?

To my ears the microphone sounds great. Of course, I don't have
top-quality monitor speakers, and I also have a touch of tinnitus
which screws with my upper-frequency listening. Aside from that
though...

I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks again.

BLink
Brian Link in St. Paul
----------------------
"Just because we have chiseled abs and stunning features,
doesn't mean that we too can't not die in a freak gasoline fight
accident."

[David Satz]

Brian Link wrote:

> I have an AudioTechnica 822 stereo mic that I've been using up til
> now. [ ... ] My goal is to create a home-made CD of pieces by my
> trio which consists of me singing plus a viola da gamba and a lute.
> [D]o you think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for
> most listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?

That microphone is frankly borderline in my opinion. But small ensembles
are somewhat forgiving sonically, so you can succeed with it if you use
it to its best advantage. The room or hall in which you record, and the
way in which you use its acoustics, will be bigger factors and can offset
the deficiencies of the microphone to a considerable extent.

I'm also not generally a fan of groups recording themselves simply because
there's so much that needs paying attention to. I feel you ought to let
someone else take notes on what music is "covered" in which take, and be
free to focus on your performing. Also someone needs to decide whether
in the last take you recorded, the cell phone that went off in the next
room or the airplane that flew over got onto the recording or not--and if
you're one of the performers, you probably can't know unless you play back
each take after you finish it. That slows down the session to a crawl.

However, this is not true for everyone by a long shot, so by all means
give it an informal try some time--hold a "dress rehearsal for the
recording" in which you try everything out, but don't expect to get
usable results that day. Of course if you do get something usable, so
much the better but don't budget your time on the assumption that all
the variables will be under control on your first attempt.

--You probably already have some kind of adapter from the microphone's
unbalanced (XLR-3M) stereo cable to two separate mono output plugs.
Be very aware, please, that an AT 822 can be damaged if you plug its
stereo cable directly into a phantom powered XLR-3F socket such as the
M Audio preamp will have. It costs about $40 plus shipping to fix the
damage, as I know because my wife's voice teacher uses that microphone.

Other obvious but important tips: Make sure that you change the
microphone's battery to a known good one before recording anything
serious with it (once a month is not a bad idea with that model); don't
push the recording levels too close to the 0 dB limit, since that won't
earn you any benefit and will only tend to expose the noise of the
microphone more; make sure that you have a few seconds of good "room tone"
before and after each movement of what you're recording, and at some
point in the session record maybe 20 seconds of additional "room tone"
to use for editing purposes later on.


> To my ears the microphone sounds great. Of course, I don't have
> top-quality monitor speakers, and I also have a touch of tinnitus
> which screws with my upper-frequency listening. Aside from that
> though...

Most of us engineers are also working with some degree of tinnitus and
outright high frequency hearing loss. It's an occupational hazard.
Heck, it's a hazard of modern living.

[Ty Ford]

In Article >, Brian Link
> wrote:
>Making a move up from my minidisc recording setup. I'm going to record
>onto my laptop. I'm picking up an M-Audio MobilePre from EBay, and if
>it's in one piece I'll be set for a decent DSP to go digitally into my
>laptop.
>
>I'm curious about my setup after that. I have an AudioTechnica 822
>stereo mic that I've been using up til now. The strategy will be to
>take the AT into the MobilePre, then onto my laptop where I'll be
>using Sound Forge to master the final product.
>
>My goal is to create a home-made CD of pieces by my trio which
>consists of me singing plus a viola da gamba and a lute. I'd like to
>make a CDR master, send it off to a dupe company and get back a pack
>of CDs that I can bring down to the local record stores (we have nice
>locals that stock local musicians pretty liberally) and send off with
>press packets when we're scoping out tours.
>
>So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
>think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
>listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?
>
>To my ears the microphone sounds great. Of course, I don't have
>top-quality monitor speakers, and I also have a touch of tinnitus
>which screws with my upper-frequency listening. Aside from that
>though...
>
>I'd appreciate any feedback. Thanks again.
>
>BLink
>Brian Link in St. Paul

Better than a sharp stick in the eye! Try it and see what you get. That's
the unbalanced version. The 825 is balanced. Mics and preamps both make a
difference.

Regards,

Ty Ford

**Until the worm goes away, I have put "not" in front of my email address.
Please remove it if you want to email me directly.
For Ty Ford V/O demos, audio services and equipment reviews,
click on http://www.jagunet.com/~tford

[S O'Neill]

Brian Link wrote:

> So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
> think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
> listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?
>

I got one for Q&D location recording (to MD), and so far everyone
hearing themselves recorded with it loves it.

[Rob Adelman]

> Brian Link wrote:
>
>> So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
>> think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
>> listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?

AT822 for unbalanced inputs. Get the AT825 if it is going into balanced
inputs.

[normanstrong]

>
> So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
> think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
> listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?
>
> To my ears the microphone sounds great. Of course, I don't have
> top-quality monitor speakers, and I also have a touch of tinnitus
> which screws with my upper-frequency listening. Aside from that
> though...

If we restrict ourselves to the AT-822, or some other stereo mike
having a single cord, what are the other choices that one might
consider? I would guess that it would be either M-S or X-Y. Since
one can control the stereo angle with an M-S mike, I would generally
favor this type. If we stay below $500, what would you recommend?

Thanks,

Norm Strong

[jonas aras]

I've used the AT-822 countless times to record everything from jazz trios to
rock concerts and I consider it to be one of the best purchases I've ever
made.

I'd also invest in Izotope's Ozone 3 DX plug-in to master the file
(www.izotope.com). It's got a multiband expander (great for dealing with
low-level noise), mulitband compressor, loudness maximizer, mastering
reverb, "matching" eq and more. If you download the demo, you'll eventually
get an offer to buy it for $149.

I own the full suite of Waves plug-ins, and I have found Ozone's stuff to be
as good as theirs for the most part.

I'd be glad to send you some MP3 snippets of live recordings that I've made
with my mic, although I use a minidisc unit for live tracking. I think
you'll be impressed.

Cheers,
Jonas

[henryf]

Brian Link wrote:
> So, assuming that I'm not trying for a grammy or anything, do you
> think the AT822 would create an acceptable end-product for most
> listeners? Or would it be obviously cheapo?
>

I've recorded a live jazz band using an AT822 on a stand
plugged into a Canon GL-2 miniDV camcorder (48kHz, 16-bit
stereo, manual audio level controls), and transferred the
results digitally to a computer using Firewire/i-link/IEEE-1394.

In my case the result was excellent fidelity, and the factor
limiting the recording's quality was the musicianship of the
performers -- not the recording chain.

[Mike Rivers]

In article > writes:

> AT822 for unbalanced inputs. Get the AT825 if it is going into balanced
> inputs.

I think I'm in the right thread here. He already HAS an AT822 (because
he's been using it with a recorder with unbalanced inputs, in fact a
stereo mini jack (for which the AT822 comes with an adapter).

If he moves to a preamp with phantom power and XLR connectors, an
AT825 would be a small functional upgrade, and would still work just
like the mic with which he's familar. But getting some adapters is
cheaper and that will work, too, as long as he keeps the phantom power
off.

--
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 here: double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo

[David Satz]

Rob Adelman wrote:

> AT822 for unbalanced inputs. Get the AT825 if it is going into balanced
> inputs.

The 825 has considerably less peaky high frequency response than the 822
and, as you mention, balanced outputs. IIRC it is also a little quieter,
which would be nice.

But [a] this person likes the sound of the 822 and apparently has some
experience using it; a new microphone with different sound would require
a training period and [b] the 825 is still a fixed-pattern, fixed-angle
stereo microphone with two cardioids, which is the most primitive type of
stereo microphone there is.

Particularly since this is a small ensemble, and the music is most likely
of a type where a reverberant recording is generally desirable, there's the
opportunity to use a narrower directional pattern. This would give them a
better-defined stereo image, and the reverberance would be picked up more
from behind the microphone (thus longer delayed and more diffuse) via the
back lobes of the supercardioid or figure-8 pattern.

So I don't think that these people would experience the switch to an 825
as a cost-effective upgrade--maybe not even as an upgrade at all--even
though you and I might prefer the 825 over the 822 (just as we would
"prefer" being chased by a slower hungry predator rather than a faster one).

[Sugarite]

> I've recorded a live jazz band using an AT822 on a stand
> plugged into a Canon GL-2 miniDV camcorder (48kHz, 16-bit
> stereo, manual audio level controls), and transferred the
> results digitally to a computer using Firewire/i-link/IEEE-1394.
>
> In my case the result was excellent fidelity, and the factor
> limiting the recording's quality was the musicianship of the
> performers -- not the recording chain.

That cam records audio well? Does it have a line input that can be used
during filming or only a mic input? It would be so nice if DV cams had an
S/PDIF input for audio, and used hard drives instead of tapes, and...