Vocals and downsampling

Mmmm, here comes the scores :

Mac vs PC : the winner is PC (374,000,000 results against 202,000,000)
Analog Recording vs Digital Recording : the winner is digital (883,000 results against 67,800)
Pro Tools vs Digital Performer : the winner is Pro Tools (845,000 results against 167,000)
Andy Sneap vs Fredrik Nordström : the winner is (damn that was close !) Andy Sneap (10,400 results vs 9,880)
Chicken vs Egg : the winner is chicken (31,000,000 results against 20,800,000)
Batman vs Superman : the winner is Batman (10,900,000 results against 5,230,000)
Homer Simpson vs Eric Cartman : the winner is Homer (woohoo !) (1,310,000 vs 67,300)

Sources : Googlefight

How useful was this post to you ? ;)
 
Moonlapse said:
Ah James, the Opeth thing piqued my interest. What aspect of their new album are you getting involved in? Mind sharing how far the guys are into their session? There's a whole slew of fans down on their forum who are dying of curiosity.

(sorry to go off on a tangent here)
Click to expand...
i'm not involved in the new Opeth at all.. i'm here recording 3 of the guys for the Death tribute CD i've been working on, which is why i was at Andy LaRoque's a few days back and then at In Flames' studio right after that. not to mention being for 2 weeks at Mr Sneap's studio where for the very same project i have recorded guys from both Carcass and Napalm Death. i will be returning to Backstage right after i leave here actually in order to mix ( with andy's help) the project for Andy's old Sabbat singer, Martin Walkyier, that i tracked the majority of the vocals for when i was just recently there.

sorry, no Opeth "studio" reports from me, that would be a "party foul"... you'll have to wait to get it from them.. i will tell you though that it's sounding great!
 
Where did you get that info about ATR?![/QUOTE]

http://www.atrmagnetics.com
http://www.tapeop.com is a pretty cool message board too, lots of analogue gear enthusiasts as well as Digital.


And James, I have gone out and recoded the same material simeltaneously Analogue and Digital. While Digital sounds good and is perfectly acceptable on it's own, when I switch over to listen to the Analogue tape playing in sync it's a whole different world. There's lots of other nit picky reasons I like Analogue better such as file corruption which I wont get into.

It just comes down to personal preference, just because it's sitting collecting dust in some good studios doesn't mean digital is better.
Studios are also in the business to make money, and digital is much more cost effective in many areas: price of storage medium and time for calibration, maintenence of the tape machine, you actually have to rewind/ff etc (time).
 
James Murphy said:
Blacksugar, am i to understand that you convert to 16 bits and then dither? maybe you just wrote that unclearly... if not, let me say that you will have far better results by converting with dither. for instance if you bounce your mix to disc (whether by doing it with all your tracks or by doing it with a stereo mix you've recorded by bussing all you tracks to a new stereo track) keep your session file 24 bits... but put your dither plug as the very last insert on your master bus and set it to 16 bit with whatever noise shaping you prefer. after the bounce your file will be 16 bit.... dithered to 16 bit... and after that you should not run anymore processes at all, because it could cause the dither noise to be revealed..just take it from there to your CD compiling software. thus, be sure to sample rate convert prior to dithering using the best (and usually slowest) setting your software provides.... or better yet, record at CD rate to begin with and avoid dodgey SR conversions.... you're not hearing the "improvements" of the higher sample rates anyway... fooling yourself if you think you are. maybe with a small acoustic jazz trio or a string quartet, but not metal. you'll hear the effects of bad SR conversion though.. bet on that.
Click to expand...

James,

Yeah, I had the steps backward. Posting before coffee bad.

I can totally see how recording and mixing at 16/44.1 is beneficial in many ways as you pointed out, and the proof is in the proverbial pudding with Andy's work... but I feel that 24/48 sounds more "open" (and a few other b.s. audio adjectives) for some reason.

I'm very accepting of the fact that it's probably audio placebo, though. Hey, it's my hard drive. I can clutter it up with unneccesary shit if it makes me feel better.

I'm actually gonna be in Orlando next Monday on a work trip, so I'll take the Pepsi challenge at your studio! Hah. I'll bring the beer and pizza, you bring the SRC.


Dude, Candlemass? Doom ain't dead!
 
black sugar said:
James,

Yeah, I had the steps backward. Posting before coffee bad.

I can totally see how recording and mixing at 16/44.1 is beneficial in many ways as you pointed out, and the proof is in the proverbial pudding with Andy's work... but I feel that 24/48 sounds more "open" (and a few other b.s. audio adjectives) for some reason.

I'm very accepting of the fact that it's probably audio placebo, though. Hey, it's my hard drive. I can clutter it up with unneccesary shit if it makes me feel better.

I'm actually gonna be in Orlando next Monday on a work trip, so I'll take the Pepsi challenge at your studio! Hah. I'll bring the beer and pizza, you bring the SRC.


Dude, Candlemass? Doom ain't dead!
Click to expand...
yeah, i just mean Rate.. not Format.. i record at 44.1/24.. many, many reasons to record at 24.. and this is where you hear most of your "open"-ness in my opinion.. you have more headroom with 24, among other things.

sadly for you.. but happily for me... i will be at Backstage with Andy on next monday. i leave Örebro, Sweden tonight to head to Göthenburg to catch my plane back to the UK tomorrow.. another time... pics of the new place to some soon though.. \m/
 
SPLASTiK said:
just because it's sitting collecting dust in some good studios doesn't mean digital is better.
Click to expand...
i didn't say that.. didn't even imply it.. you inferred it.

SPLASTiK said:
Studios are also in the business to make money, and digital is much more cost effective in many areas: price of storage medium and time for calibration, maintenence of the tape machine, you actually have to rewind/ff etc (time).
Click to expand...
exactly... i agree.. some of the many reasons i use digital. hey, did you ever hear about the shoot out in FL where PT HD and a Studer went head to head in blind listening tests with top "golden ears" producers and engineers? guess how many couldn't accurately tell which was which. let's just say it was a veritable "who's who" of the Engineering and Production elite... and more than one left with looks of surprise on their faces. as Nelson, the bully kid from The Simpsons tv show loves to say, "HA ha"
 
nelson.jpg


Damn it, my posts are really useless these days... Shoud I shut up ? :dopey:
 
James Murphy said:
i didn't say that.. didn't even imply it.. you inferred it.
Click to expand...
Kind of sounded implied, you made it sound like it's the equivalent of a paperweight. It just sits there with a bunch of stuff piled on top. But ok.

exactly... i agree.. some of the many reasons i use digital. hey, did you ever hear about the shoot out in FL where PT HD and a Studer went head to head in blind listening tests with top "golden ears" producers and engineers? guess how many couldn't accurately tell which was which. let's just say it was a veritable "who's who" of the Engineering and Production elite... and more than one left with looks of surprise on their faces. as Nelson, the bully kid from The Simpsons tv show loves to say, "HA ha"
Click to expand...

Didn't hear about it. Doesn't sound like it was widely published :D
P.S. When is Dekpaitator going to record a new album???? I loved We Will Destroy... Have the poster on the wall!
 
James Murphy said:
i'm not involved in the new Opeth at all.. i'm here recording 3 of the guys for the Death tribute CD i've been working on, which is why i was at Andy LaRoque's a few days back and then at In Flames' studio right after that. not to mention being for 2 weeks at Mr Sneap's studio where for the very same project i have recorded guys from both Carcass and Napalm Death. i will be returning to Backstage right after i leave here actually in order to mix the project for Andy's old Sabbat singer, Martin Walkyier, that i tracked the majority of the vocals for when i was just recently there.

sorry, no Opeth "studio" reports from me, that would be a "party foul"... you'll have to wait to get it from them.. i will tell you though that it's sounding great!
Click to expand...

Awesome, thanks. I just wish that being their forum's moderator that I'd be privvy to some of the details from the guys themselves :lol:. No matter.

From the amount of travelling you're doing alone, the Death tribute sounds like it will be one asskicking release. I'm really glad to hear In Flames mentioned as Jesper is probably the closest thing I have to a guitar idol.

Anyway, that's the end of my lil' tangent.
Cheers.
 
Brett - K A L I S I A said:
nelson.jpg


Damn it, my posts are really useless these days... Shoud I shut up ? :dopey:
Click to expand...

Hey Brett!
NO! you should keep them comin'!
Always refreshing! Specially after a full working day of recording!
I'm thinking about posting some jokes too! Just for fun and to step on some "not very nice comments" that sometimes people do. :)
This is a nice forum with nice people lets keep it like this! :headbang:
 
Tape my arse!!!
that hiss and lack of top end, great, that'll be warmth then. oh and don't forget to clean your heads and waste half the day rewinding. Isn't it highly toxic the manufacture of tape by the way??

While we're on the stereo buss issue , I use to notice a difference with the older PT rig when I was listening to the mixes in Waveburner, that drove me mad, couldn't put my finger on what was different though.
 
I'm definately agreeing that tape had more cons, though. One of the main reasons digital became the industry standard is because of practicality. I think alot of old hardasses would have loved a compromise between the sonic qualities of tape along with the efficiency of digital. Who knows, with the advent of better modelling technology, maybe they'll get it.
 
Moonlapse said:
I'm definately agreeing that tape had more cons, though. One of the main reasons digital became the industry standard is because of practicality. I think alot of old hardasses would have loved a compromise between the sonic qualities of tape along with the efficiency of digital. Who knows, with the advent of better modelling technology, maybe they'll get it.
Click to expand...

There are a lot of tape modelers on the market now... have you tried any of them? I haven't yet, it's not really been anything that interests me since I like the way my digital recordings sound, but there seem to be a lot of cool modelers out there now.
 
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