Vocals and downsampling

Andy Sneap said:
Mx80!!!, if you like that then you definately should be trying to pick up a studer at the mo, there's no comparison between those machines. Otari's worked ok (note: passed tense haha) While we're all bitching each other out over this on something we obviously won't agree on, I'm surprised you haven't mentioned ips, over biasing and dobly (sic) seeing as sample rate seems such a big issue. I forgot to mention bad batches of tape also in my cons list. Hey, remember not to print anything too loud on track 23, wouldn't want Mr Smpte to get upset would we.

Aaaahhh!
Well, Andy!
Always nice to hear comments fom a good analogue "conaisseur"!!!
Oh yeah! I know Studer is far better than the Otari Mx80, (had the pleasure to work with it at Area 51 rec Studios). Studer is The Machine! No MCI or Otari's MTR 90 can beat it, that's for sure!
Just for curiosity:
I always work at 30 ips (yesss! more highend!) and usually I don't use track 23; Mr Smpte is always recorded at a nice level
I record drums, bass, and guitars, on it mainly with gp9 Quantegy tape if possible. And as for editing I go for PT and then back to tape again. I don't even dare to try to slice tape (yyaaiks!)
I should mention that I don´t use it often lately, it depends on what I'm recording.
But... What can I say?! I love the sound of it! And I have the best of both worlds (well, not very true... with a Studer it will be the naked true!!!)
 
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral said:
I formatted my new NTFS drive around november.

To date 0% fragmentation.

Go figure haha
Ooohh!!!
I see!...
So please explain this: :err:

Code:
Disk Defragmenter overviewDisk Defragmenter analyzes local volumes and consolidates fragmented files and folders so that each occupies a single, contiguous space on the volume. As a result, your system can access files and folders and save new ones more efficiently. By consolidating your files and folders, Disk Defragmenter also consolidates a volume's free space, making it less likely that new files will be fragmented. The process of consolidating fragmented files and folders is called defragmentation.

The amount of time that defragmentation takes depends on several factors, including the size of the volume, the number and size of files on the volume, the amount of fragmentation, and the available local system resources. You can find all of the fragmented files and folders before defragmenting them by analyzing the volume first. You can then see how fragmented the volume is and decide whether you would benefit from defragmenting the volume. For step-by-step instructions describing how to analyze or defragment a volume, see To analyze a volume and To defragment a volume.

Disk Defragmenter can defragment volumes that are formatted with the file allocation table (FAT) file system, the FAT32 file system, [U]and the NTFS file system.[/U]
:err: :err: :err: :err: :err:
 
Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral said:
I formatted my new NTFS drive around november.

To date 0% fragmentation.

Go figure haha

But what about the drive you record on? Haha.

Seriously, I did drum tracks (eight tracks) and one guitar (two tracks) for five songs not too long ago and I had around 80% fragmentation. Hardly any punches or partial takes either, mostly straight through.

Oh, well. It's probably just Cubase S(u)X. I just exported the tracks to another drive and quick formatted the tracking drive. I'm using NTFS, for the record.

Honestly, I don't really understand how you wouldn't get fragmentation when recording a bunch of tracks at once. Lots of data coming in, and the computer's gotta put it somewhere in a hurry, right?
 
black sugar said:
But what about the drive you record on? Haha.

Seriously, I did drum tracks (eight tracks) and one guitar (two tracks) for five songs not too long ago and I had around 80% fragmentation. Hardly any punches or partial takes either, mostly straight through.

Oh, well. It's probably just Cubase S(u)X. I just exported the tracks to another drive and quick formatted the tracking drive. I'm using NTFS, for the record.

Honestly, I don't really understand how you wouldn't get fragmentation when recording a bunch of tracks at once. Lots of data coming in, and the computer's gotta put it somewhere in a hurry, right?

Yeah!?!?
Haha! Too!
:)
 
And say Haha to this too!

"Why volumes become fragmented?
Volumes become fragmented as users create and delete files and folders, install new software, or download files from the Internet. Computers typically save files in the first contiguous free space that is large enough for the file. If a large enough free space is not available, the computer saves as much of the file as possible in the largest available space and then saves the remaining data in the next available free space, and so on.

After a large portion of a volume has been used for file and folder storage, most of the new files are saved in pieces across the volume. When you delete files, the empty spaces left behind fill in randomly as you store new ones.

The more fragmented the volume is, the slower the computer's file input/output performance will be.
 
black sugar said:
But what about the drive you record on? Haha.

Seriously, I did drum tracks (eight tracks) and one guitar (two tracks) for five songs not too long ago and I had around 80% fragmentation. Hardly any punches or partial takes either, mostly straight through.

Oh, well. It's probably just Cubase S(u)X. I just exported the tracks to another drive and quick formatted the tracking drive. I'm using NTFS, for the record.

Honestly, I don't really understand how you wouldn't get fragmentation when recording a bunch of tracks at once. Lots of data coming in, and the computer's gotta put it somewhere in a hurry, right?

This ain't the recording drive, this is my general media drive... mp3s/movies etc (shush don't tell the RIAA!)
 
Well if the sound of tape really gets the old trouser snake twitching the best thing to do would be to record into Pro Tools at 96k (or higher), edit as you go then bounce to 2", so you are capturing the harmonics and squashing down everything above 20k, because in effect thats what tape does, as well as compress. It does pull everything together within a certain spectrum, secondry harmonics and all that bollocks. If you use that for "your sound" then I guess you would miss it, if I was doing more straight ahead rock stuff, yeah I could see its purpose. Then again, things like the Crane Song spider have a tape saturation emulator, which is subtle, but is pretty cool, and I'm definately digging it now I'm mixing. The whole "digital/analogue" arguement is a well vented debate by now, and one that doesn't hold as much weight now technology is getting better by the day.

OSX no optimising eh....mr Norton's still doing good business on my machines, my lap top was severe the otherday, seems to be running better now, though it's kinda like when you clean your car and it runs better haha.
 
Andy Sneap said:
OSX no optimising eh....mr Norton's still doing good business on my machines, my lap top was severe the otherday, seems to be running better now, though it's kinda like when you clean your car and it runs better haha.

Well you are making me reconsider then. Sometimes I do wonder if my recording drive is fragmented, considering how much data goes through it. Still, it's nothing like in the OS 9 days...
 
Kazrog said:
Well you are making me reconsider then. Sometimes I do wonder if my recording drive is fragmented, considering how much data goes through it. Still, it's nothing like in the OS 9 days...
yeah, i brought my Norton Disc with me to Andy's...i'm running OSX as well and i still defrag periodically. it's a computer thing.. not an OS thing.. but yeah, Macs running OSX can certainly handle a lot more severe fragmentation and still run fine than older Macs or any current PC i know of.
 
Nitronium Blood said:
ok..now you've done it... i was cool until that ":D"..... so, how many times have you had to defrag your PC in the last 2 years Nitro?... eh?... eh?

Andy's just egging it on you know... he loves it when i mow you PC pansies down with my Mac mayhem! \m/:yell:\m/
 
So all in all we've been through : realtime vs non-realtime mixdowns, 16 bits vs 24 bits, 44.100 vs 48.000, analog vs digital recording, tapes vs hard drives, NTFS vs Fat32, OS9 vs OSX, and now the ol' good PC vs Mac... And it all started because I felt that the vocals were suffering when I bounced my mixes... Sorry guys :)