Topic: Please critique my first recording

[fmaderjr]

If I ever need to make a DVD-Audio disc I'll convert my saved 16/44.1 flac files (that I downsampled from my edited 24/44.1 recording) and I won't hear a difference. It's just a hobby. We can all do what we're comfortable with.

[Dede2002]

OK, thanks for the advice.

So, the CA-9100, is it a battery box if the knob is just barely turned on, or is it a battery box if the knob is at 11:00?

Also, I'm sure I'll usually have the CA-9100, but if for whatever reason I don't, I can plug the CA-14's directly into the R-09HR's mic in, right?  I think I read that it has a decent pre-amp?

BTW, Chris, thanks for building and getting me the equipment quickly before my international trip at the end of last year.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the show that I really wanted to record due to wife veto.    So this concert was its maiden voyage, and I was really happy with the results. 

Yes, 11:00 is where your can set your preamp to perform like a regular bb.
The R-09HR has a nice preamp. I was under the impression that, yes, you could plug your mics directly into Mic In (plug in power). But CC says it's not a good idea.

[Church-Audio]

OK, thanks for the advice.

So, the CA-9100, is it a battery box if the knob is just barely turned on, or is it a battery box if the knob is at 11:00?

Also, I'm sure I'll usually have the CA-9100, but if for whatever reason I don't, I can plug the CA-14's directly into the R-09HR's mic in, right?  I think I read that it has a decent pre-amp?

BTW, Chris, thanks for building and getting me the equipment quickly before my international trip at the end of last year.  Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the show that I really wanted to record due to wife veto.    So this concert was its maiden voyage, and I was really happy with the results. 

Yes, 11:00 is where your can set your preamp to perform like a regular bb.
The R-09HR has a nice preamp. I was under the impression that, yes, you could plug your mics directly into Mic In (plug in power). But CC says it's not a good idea.

There are two versions of my mics one with a 2.4k resistor mod that can be used directly with the HR and R-09 and do not need a battery box with these two recorders or there is my 4.7k mod that must be run with a battery box or a preamp/battery box. You have to special order the mics with the 2.4k mod in order to get it.

[su6oxone]

Hi, this is my first recording ever.  I tried to read up a lot on these boards before buying and taping, but some of what you guys talk about is greek to me.

Anyway, I would appreciate any advice, suggestions, and feedback about the recording.

Wow... this is a great first effort!  Sounds really good, and at least in this sample it sounds like you had a good location without loud people right next to you.  Not boomy at all, and not distant or tinny or anything.  Sounds like you were in the 'sweet spot.'  Well done. 

[TheBang]

OK, well, I guess it doesn't matter since I'll always have the 9100 with the mics.

Thanks for the answers and advice and feedback.  If anyone's interested in the whole show, I'll be putting it up on Dime by the end of the week.

[OFOTD]

If I ever need to make a DVD-Audio disc I'll convert my saved 16/44.1 flac files (that I downsampled from my edited 24/44.1 recording) and I won't hear a difference. It's just a hobby. We can all do what we're comfortable with.

Too bad that some folks take this kind of attitude.  Especially one who has a DSD recorder in their gear bag it appears.

Yet one more show I won't download due to the pool being pissed in with an upsampled recording because i'm guessing the taper is too lazy to deal with a 24 bit file.  You know I've always taken the attitude that if you can put up with all the b.s. taping incurs during a show then why then half ass it in post?   

[fmaderjr]

If I ever need to make a DVD-Audio disc I'll convert my saved 16/44.1 flac files (that I downsampled from my edited 24/44.1 recording) and I won't hear a difference. It's just a hobby. We can all do what we're comfortable with.

Too bad that some folks take this kind of attitude.  Especially one who has a DSD recorder in their gear bag it appears.
Yet one more show I won't download due to the pool being pissed in with an upsampled recording because i'm guessing the taper is too lazy to deal with a 24 bit file.  You know I've always taken the attitude that if you can put up with all the b.s. taping incurs during a show then why then half ass it in post?   

I'm truly perplexed by your "my way or the highway" attitude. Especially for calling me lazy for enjoying a hobby the way I want to enjoy it.

I'm taping for my own pleasure, not yours. My recordings sound great to me & my friends, so why do I have to do things the way you feel is the right way? It's a hobby! I'm having fun. Isn't that what it's all about?

The recordings the Korg makes in 24/44.1 sound great do me. Why should it piss you off if I don't choose to deal with making and archiving in DSD? I also feel free to compress the dynamic range of my recordings if necessary to keep me from having to play with the volume control when playing them back. Bet that would drive you crazy too.

I am not pissing in your precious download pool. I don't upload my recordings nor download those of others. I gathered in years past form reading posts in Datheads that nobody there would be interested in hearing my mini-disc recordings that I was very happy with. I do give my recordings to a couple of local bands that don't get taped by anyone else and they rave about the sound. I'm out to please myself and people like them. Not the 24/96 police!

[OFOTD]

I'm not pissed about anything.   

In your particular case you have the ability to make a high quality recording at high resolution.  Instead you decide to take the high resolution recording and turn into a lower resolution recording and then potentially pump it back up.  So instead of it then being a high resolution recording its just a fake resolution recording.

The mini-disc issue on DAT-Heads over the years was pretty simple to understand.   The vast majority of MD users up until the last 2-3 years recorded in a lossy compressed format.  Folks there were fighting the good fight to keep things lossless. 

So the statement that you have to please yourself is so true its just too bad that instead of doing things right the first time yuo've chosen to take lossy shortcuts when you don't have to in the first place.   You have the tools it just doesn't appear that you either 1. use them or 2. give a shit.

No sweat off my back.

[fmaderjr]

Just a couple things before I give up the fight. It obviously isn't worth continuing much longer.

My recordings do sound high quality to me & everyone who has heard them. I don't need 24/96 if I am not going to hear the difference.

You have extremely high quality microphones. Mine cost $100-$300. They sound great to me, but not as good as sample tracks I've downloaded that were made using mics like yours. Perhaps the fact that I don't have high dollar mics may be part of the reason I can't hear a difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. I do record in 24/44.1 to make boosting the gain in post as noise free as possible.

[OFOTD]

Just a couple things before I give up the fight. It obviously isn't worth continuing much longer.

My recordings do sound high quality to me & everyone who has heard them. I don't need 24/96 if I am not going to hear the difference.

You have extremely high quality microphones. Mine cost $100-$300. They sound great to me, but not as good as sample tracks I've downloaded that were made using mics like yours. Perhaps the fact that I don't have high dollar mics may be part of the reason I can't hear a difference between 16/44.1 and 24/96. I do record in 24/44.1 to make boosting the gain in post as noise free as possible.

I'm not trying to fight with you nor am I trying to tell you what does and does not sound good to your ears I promise. 

My point is that you have the ability to record and keep a very high resolution recording.   Be it from a $10 mic or a $10,000 mic.   The fact remains that it is of high resolution quality which will only diminish if you diminish it.   

Not hearing a difference between 24/96 and 16/44.1 is not to me a condition of how pricey your mics are but more of a question of what you're listening to those recordings on.   What you may listen to your recordings on now may change in a month or in a year where you can easily tell the differences between the two.  Then you'll kick yourself for not keeping a high quality version.   

Especially for someone with one of the Korg units.   Record in 1bit burn it off and dither to your hearts content.

Just a couple things. Some will disagree, but IMO its a complete waste of space to record at 96 Hz. To most people, there's no audible difference between 96 and 44.1, though some like to use 48. I assume you used 24 bit. That's important 'cause it allows you boost the volume in post without adding audible noise.

Back to the original statement here.  You're suggesting here that it shouldn't be recorded in highest quality because "to most people..."    Think of recording and backing up your high resolution recordings as future-proofing your tapes.  You can also dither/sample down with mimimal quality loss but you can't go back up without significant quality loss.

A good example is HDTV.   You watch a program where the content was filmed in 1080.  Flip the channel to a different HD channel and the program was filmed in SD but upsampled to HD.   "To most people...." they can tell a difference.  Same applies with recordings and the benefits that increased resolution provides.

[fmaderjr]

I agree with most all you've said in theory. It's just that in practice I really don't feel I can hear the difference. And if I can't hear the difference now, I don't think better playback equipment in the future will help.

I will go ahead and give the Korg a try in the next month or so and try recording in the 1 bit mode and see if my ears surprise me and are good enough to tell the difference..

[OFOTD]

I agree with most all you've said in theory. It's just that in practice I really don't feel I can hear the difference. And if I can't hear the difference now, I don't think better playback equipment in the future will help.

I will go ahead and give the Korg a try in the next month or so and try recording in the 1 bit mode and see if my ears surprise me and are good enough to tell the difference..

AWESOME!  Good to hear that you'll try it. 

Training yours ears takes a bit of time but is well worth it in the end.  Expensive playback or not.    For me what helped was not listening to just one song and making a conclusion but to listen to 20-30 minutes at a time.  It gives your ears time to adjust as well as lets your brain really focus on the instruments and whatnot.   Remember that if and when you do get to the point of being able to tell the difference you'll be happy that you saved the master hi-res file even if 90% of the time you listen to 16/44.1

Keep us posted on what you think/hear!

[fmaderjr]

Training yours ears takes a bit of time but is well worth it in the end.  Expensive playback or not.    For me what helped was not listening to just one song and making a conclusion but to listen to 20-30 minutes at a time.  It gives your ears time to adjust as well as lets your brain really focus on the instruments and whatnot. 

Do you record a lot of unamplified music? I can imagine the possibility of being able to train your ears to identify instruments in that. However a lot of the recordings I do are of bands in small bars playing though PA systems that are mediocre at best (and often in mono). There I'm pretty confident I wouldn't hear a difference, even if the recordings are technically more accurate.

If I record my typical fare in 1 bit and can't tell the difference, I'll break it out again the next time I record a friend who occasionally gives concerts as either a baritone or organist (He's great at both. Makes his living as a church & synagogue organist, but has a singing voice comparable IMO to major classical artists).

[Church-Audio]

Training yours ears takes a bit of time but is well worth it in the end.  Expensive playback or not.    For me what helped was not listening to just one song and making a conclusion but to listen to 20-30 minutes at a time.  It gives your ears time to adjust as well as lets your brain really focus on the instruments and whatnot. 

Do you record a lot of unamplified music? I can imagine the possibility of being able to train your ears to identify instruments in that. However a lot of the recordings I do are of bands in small bars playing though PA systems that are mediocre at best (and often in mono). There I'm pretty confident I wouldn't hear a difference, even if the recordings are technically more accurate.

If I record my typical fare in 1 bit and can't tell the difference, I'll break it out again the next time I record a friend who occasionally gives concerts as either a baritone or organist (He's great at both. Makes his living as a church & synagogue organist, but has a singing voice comparable IMO to major classical artists).

I personally do notice a difference between 16 bit and 24. But with the limitation of  most peoples playback gear I think that 48/24 is just fine. That being said if what your recording is very important to you 96/24 is the way to go one day soon we will be all listening to at least that resolution maybe higher as a standard sample rate as storage density increases and we find more convenient ways of delivering it and compressing if need be. And yes I realize that some of you are already doing that my own system is 192k 24bit. But its still along way off before we have a standardized playback machine with a super small disk and the ability to store that much data. I do think that a memory card based system is the way to go because its bullet proof but for now its still way to expensive remember cd's cost a record company like $.5 each.... We are a long way off before 2 gig memory cards are $.5 cents....

[OFOTD]

I personally do notice a difference between 16 bit and 24. But with the limitation of  most peoples playback gear I think that 48/24 is just fine. That being said if what your recording is very important to you 96/24 is the way to go one day soon we will be all listening to at least that resolution maybe higher as a standard sample rate as storage density increases and we find more convenient ways of delivering it and compressing if need be. And yes I realize that some of you are already doing that my own system is 192k 24bit. But its still along way off before we have a standardized playback machine with a super small disk and the ability to store that much data. I do think that a memory card based system is the way to go because its bullet proof but for now its still way to expensive remember cd's cost a record company like $.5 each.... We are a long way off before 2 gig memory cards are $.5 cents....

Good post.