Appreciate the responses. I first want to give the USB Audio Recorder Pro guys some credit, i've sent a few emails trying to track down the source of the issue, and they have answered several emails promptly with actual attempts to get to the root of the issue on their part. Which is particularly noteworthy since he told me this morning no changes in usb audio recorder have happened since october 2021, since they have largely shifted development to their DAW, Evolution.
They say that USB Audio Recorder Pro, which is also the engine for their DAW's USB audio input, does no processing on the incoming usb signal beyond converting it to the selected codec type.
So unless Android is doing something horrible, that seems to rule out the recording app.
The USB Audio Recorder guy also said that RegForge II while it pretends to offer a negative gain control, actually all that does internally is drop the gain on the clipped signal, so it no longer appears to be going into the red, but it's not actually doing what it appears to be doing.
I found a way to test at adequate db levels (mics 1 foot from speaker cranked REALLY loud, lol), that gets me into clipping territory, am going to check.
One thing I can already say is that the Andrea Electronics USB Audio device is delivering FAR lower output levels than the Rode. I tested both just now at 0db gain with the same source at the same volume, and there was a large difference in levels between the two, so all is not as it appears here. I am afraid that the Rode may be applying some type of real processing internally to the signals, which would make it a huge no go for live recording.
This issue appeared because I am testing these mics:
MS-BMC-3 – Ultra-low noise Binaural microphones
Pickup Pattern: Omnidirectional
Frequency Range: 20 Hz – 20,000 Hz +/-1dB
Sensitivity: -32dB ±3dB @ 94dB SPL
S/N Ratio (1kHz, 94 dB input, A-weighted): 75dB
Self Noise: 19 dB SPL
Maximum SPL at 12vdc: 120dB
Dynamic Range: 119dB, 1 kHz at Max SPL
Impedance: 2.2 kOhms
Voltage range – 2vdc – 12vdc (48v on XLR version)
Current draw: 500 µA
Which are a big jump in sensitivity and s/n ratio, and dynamic range.
Signal To Noise Ratio: 60 dB, kHz at Pa
– Dynamic Range: 81dB
– Frequency Response: 20- 20,000 Hz
– Open Circuit Sensitivity: -42 dB (5.6 mV) re 1V at Pa
– Maximum Input Sound Level: 110 dB SPL, kHz at 1% T.H.D.
– Flat frequency response
– Omni-directional pickup pattern
those SP-BMC-12 mics did not cause any issues with the Rode and levels in a live setting, but they are much less sensitive so I assume the voltages are simply lower. I wanted something that could handle higher sound pressure levels due to some issues I had recently where the club levels were simply radically too high (deaf sound engineer issue, too loud almost always means they are losing their hearing)
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DavidPuddy I was actually going to ask for suggestions of other recorder apps to try, all the ones I tried are absolutely awful . Apogee appears to be IOS only however. But it sounds roughly similar to USB Audio Recorder Pro, but if they aren't developing usb audio recorder pro any longer that suggests a worrying prospect that there might not be any usable alternatives for Android, unless someone can suggest one? Testing these things is really time consuming, and it's very hard to hit the actual sound pressure levels of a club in a home system, so I can only approach the levels, I can't quite hit them. Can you generate clipped master audio file, wav or flac, recording from the Rode? Particularly massively clipped/red lined.
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grawk, no the recordings is totally failed, something simply flattened the clipping, it sounds horrible, and the only logical suspect is the Rode unfortunately at this point since USB Audio Recorder Pro confirms they are not doing any active processing on the incoming usb stream. it was absolutely flatlining in the red during the recording, and the audio should have appeared as almost all red in Audacity, for example, that is, clipped, but it was totally flattened, which means I couldn't even readily see it was clipped then pushed down probably .1 or .2 db to be just under 0. This is how I tend to fix mild clipping too, but I don't want unknown circuits of unknown quality running inside unknown software to be making this decision for me, it's almost by definition going to be doing a worse job than any real audio program would do in post.
I could see it right away on the wave forms, they were massively flattened, as a recording, it's what I would call 'for completists only'.
Any hint on the pad approach?
Currently I do not trust the Rode, at least not until I can really pin this down.
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This failure is very difficult to track down.
One of the set of questions I did NOT get an answer to from Rode was specifically about what is running in their usb device and what is not, that is ambiguous, it might be running some effects, or those might be running in their recording app, they didn't answer that question so it's uncertain. I asked twice, and that's enough.
I think because there are too many variables, I may need to go another local live show, ideally loud, and try this again with the Andrea USB device, and see if the problem persists, including deliberately clipping a section so I can see what happened to the wave form.
The only positive was I was really just going to record this show to test the new gear, and I didn't like the bands that much anyway, so it wasn't a loss like losing a real band I really want to capture, but it did send huge red flags up for me that something is not what it appears.
The problem seems to be that a lot of these devices are aiming at non audio types, podcasters/youtubers seems to the target market, so they are really dumbing down their docs and their interfaces, to a somewhat absurd level in my opinion. Which makes it really difficult to figure out what is going on.
My fear is that the Rode is actually compressing the signal, not just limiting it, which actually would be what many youtubers would want, but not as a default you can't switch off.
But I am mystified, because every time I've pushed usb audio recorder pro into the red, it's resulted in clipping on the master audio file, but this time it was smashed against the red max line, and the audio is totally unclipped, but massively compressed.