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#1
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CD Quality?
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." |
#2
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CD Quality?
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. |
#3
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CD Quality?
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 |
#4
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CD Quality?
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. |
#5
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CD Quality?
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. |
#6
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CD Quality?
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 |
#7
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CD Quality?
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 |
#8
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CD Quality?
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. |
#9
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CD Quality?
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#10
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CD Quality?
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). |
#11
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CD Quality?
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... |
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