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Post by nick8801 on Jul 9, 2021 17:51:21 GMT -6
It was eye opening for me when I recorded in bigger rooms back in the day. My home studio setup was pretty decent circa mid 2000’s but that hf stuff, yeah...always fought it. Tried tube mics, better preamps, room treatment, etc. When I finally got into some rooms with some good sounding space, and the mics could be placed with a little distance...whoa.
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Post by drsax on Jul 9, 2021 18:22:05 GMT -6
Had this problem when I had Antelope converters. Don’t have this problem any more with my UA Apollo MKII converters. Yes, Room and mics make a big difference, but if that’s not the issue, I’d look at your converters. Transparency is cool, but sometimes the more “transparent” converters are actually hyped in the high frequencies. 3kHz and the air frequencies are the areas where this buildup has been a real problem for me in the past with certain converters. You use Apollo AD? Johnkenn - Yeah, for multitrack sessions (drums, bands, etc...) and gear inserts, I use the UA mkII AD. For mono/stereo sessions (vocals, guitar, sax) I use my Burl Bomber. Previously had SSL and then Antelope converters, both of which had pretty noticeable HF buildup.
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Post by drsax on Jul 9, 2021 18:24:08 GMT -6
And yes, clock makes a big difference. When clocking from my Lynx Hilo, or my Burl, things sound noticeably better than when clocking from my mkII Apollo.
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Post by Johnkenn on Jul 9, 2021 20:25:13 GMT -6
And yes, clock makes a big difference. When clocking from my Lynx Hilo, or my Burl, things sound noticeably better than when clocking from my mkII Apollo. I’ve been considering a different AD…but I click the Apollo x with the Dangerous Convert DA - so I’m not really sure I would hear a big difference at all. Especially considering it’s just for vocals and overdubs.
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Post by rowmat on Jul 9, 2021 20:56:29 GMT -6
Small rooms with reflective surfaces combined with bright mics with shite off axis response will introduce far more garbage to the recorded sound than a $50 micpre or a $100 convertor.
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Post by drsax on Jul 10, 2021 0:38:09 GMT -6
And yes, clock makes a big difference. When clocking from my Lynx Hilo, or my Burl, things sound noticeably better than when clocking from my mkII Apollo. I’ve been considering a different AD…but I click the Apollo x with the Dangerous Convert DA - so I’m not really sure I would hear a big difference at all. Especially considering it’s just for vocals and overdubs. Dangerous Convert clocking an Apollo X is a fine setup. I’d gladly use that rig
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Post by Guitar on Jul 10, 2021 1:39:15 GMT -6
It was eye opening for me when I recorded in bigger rooms back in the day. My home studio setup was pretty decent circa mid 2000’s but that hf stuff, yeah...always fought it. Tried tube mics, better preamps, room treatment, etc. When I finally got into some rooms with some good sounding space, and the mics could be placed with a little distance...whoa. +1 I've had similar experiences, either going from a crap room to a professionally built out studio. Or also, starting in a crap room and adding significant, heavy acoustic treatment (massive fiberglass panels, etc.) That's the first thing you notice that goes away, all that HF stuff that makes you scared and lonely. Plus the weird reflections and so on.
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Post by gwlee7 on Jul 10, 2021 6:56:20 GMT -6
The best answers here have been given by some of my closest REP friends on this site. I'll just add one more thing I learned from Puig: Don't be afraid to LPF at 16khz or lower - they can't hear above that anyhow, and most don't want to. And gently slope your 2-buss EQ on the top end from 4khz up anyhow. Softens the brittleness, tames the zing, saves your ears and makes for better more natural sound.What type of eq are you using to accomplish this?
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Post by bgrotto on Jul 10, 2021 9:57:50 GMT -6
It was eye opening for me when I recorded in bigger rooms back in the day. My home studio setup was pretty decent circa mid 2000’s but that hf stuff, yeah...always fought it. Tried tube mics, better preamps, room treatment, etc. When I finally got into some rooms with some good sounding space, and the mics could be placed with a little distance...whoa. Yep.
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Post by svart on Jul 12, 2021 10:35:12 GMT -6
Yet another thread about smoothing out the top end, but this time, let's discuss ideas/techniques/gear that can be used while recording, NOT plugins or post-processing. - Different converters/clock (thinking about ditching my Aurora/Apollo setup) - High end power conditioner/UPS - Hospital grade receptacles - Ferrite beads for various cables Try something with more jitter. Jitter usually makes things smoother to the point of being blurred, not crispy and noisy. Power conditioners typically only *filter* higher frequency components from line AC. They make zero difference on anything containing a switching power supply. They typically make little difference on anything with linear supplies due to the rectification and bulk decoupling. More insertion pressure helps with power transfer, but won't change the noise profiles if any noise is authentically coming from the outlet. Ferrites are somewhat of a misapplied catch all. Most wall-wart/line-lump supplies that have ferrites have them to pass FCC/CE and nothing more. While they might reduce the transfer of switching noise from the supply to the device, they can also block noise from exiting the device to a low impedance ground, which can lead to increased chances for ground loops. I'm going to go ahead and say it.. There's no shortcut to fixing noise issues. You have to find the source of the problem and fix it. These things that are proposed as "solutions" are rarely more than band-aids and cover-ups for noise.
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 12, 2021 19:25:07 GMT -6
Yet another thread about smoothing out the top end, but this time, let's discuss ideas/techniques/gear that can be used while recording, NOT plugins or post-processing. - Different converters/clock (thinking about ditching my Aurora/Apollo setup) - High end power conditioner/UPS - Hospital grade receptacles - Ferrite beads for various cables Try something with more jitter. Jitter usually makes things smoother to the point of being blurred, not crispy and noisy. Power conditioners typically only *filter* higher frequency components from line AC. They make zero difference on anything containing a switching power supply. They typically make little difference on anything with linear supplies due to the rectification and bulk decoupling. More insertion pressure helps with power transfer, but won't change the noise profiles if any noise is authentically coming from the outlet. Ferrites are somewhat of a misapplied catch all. Most wall-wart/line-lump supplies that have ferrites have them to pass FCC/CE and nothing more. While they might reduce the transfer of switching noise from the supply to the device, they can also block noise from exiting the device to a low impedance ground, which can lead to increased chances for ground loops. I'm going to go ahead and say it.. There's no shortcut to fixing noise issues. You have to find the source of the problem and fix it. These things that are proposed as "solutions" are rarely more than band-aids and cover-ups for noise. Great post! Lots of valuable insight as always. A high end power conditioner is definitely a distant afterthought right now. I'd only delve into that when I have loads of disposable income, and after I've exhausted all other possible options. What would be your recommendation for a clock or A/D? At the moment, I've been looking at all of the following: - Antelope OCX (the guy at the studio I mentioned earlier has the whole Trinity/10M system and it sounds godly) - Apogee AD16x - Prism Lyra - Lucid 88192 - Lavry AD11 or 4496-4 FWIW, I've talked to/been reading a bunch of posts from Stephen Hawkes (user 'shelterr' over at GS). He does killer work and his posts have been pretty eye-opening when it comes to the sonics of converters. His description of the old Aurora is scarily close to how I'd describe my Apollo & Aurora.
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ericn
Temp
Balance Engineer
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Post by ericn on Jul 12, 2021 20:58:19 GMT -6
Try something with more jitter. Jitter usually makes things smoother to the point of being blurred, not crispy and noisy. Power conditioners typically only *filter* higher frequency components from line AC. They make zero difference on anything containing a switching power supply. They typically make little difference on anything with linear supplies due to the rectification and bulk decoupling. More insertion pressure helps with power transfer, but won't change the noise profiles if any noise is authentically coming from the outlet. Ferrites are somewhat of a misapplied catch all. Most wall-wart/line-lump supplies that have ferrites have them to pass FCC/CE and nothing more. While they might reduce the transfer of switching noise from the supply to the device, they can also block noise from exiting the device to a low impedance ground, which can lead to increased chances for ground loops. I'm going to go ahead and say it.. There's no shortcut to fixing noise issues. You have to find the source of the problem and fix it. These things that are proposed as "solutions" are rarely more than band-aids and cover-ups for noise. Great post! Lots of valuable insight as always. A high end power conditioner is definitely a distant afterthought right now. I'd only delve into that when I have loads of disposable income, and after I've exhausted all other possible options. What would be your recommendation for a clock or A/D? At the moment, I've been looking at all of the following: - Antelope OCX (the guy at the studio I mentioned earlier has the whole Trinity/10M system and it sounds godly) - Apogee AD16x - Prism Lyra - Lucid 88192 - Lavry AD11 or 4496-4 FWIW, I've talked to/been reading a bunch of posts from Stephen Hawkes (user 'shelterr' over at GS). He does killer work and his posts have been pretty eye-opening when it comes to the sonics of converters. His description of the old Aurora is scarily close to how I'd describe my Apollo & Aurora. The problem with highend power conditioners is 99% of what you are told is complete BS! Power conditioning is probably the number one reason I learned the basics of reading a schematic! If you decide to go down the power rabbit hole do research, real research, not just reading ad copy. Ask SAvart, BradM Matt questions! Look the years of needing Voltage regulation in Galveston taught me power is important but knowing what I really needed was what solved the problems.
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 13, 2021 12:57:50 GMT -6
The problem with highend power conditioners is 99% of what you are told is complete BS! Power conditioning is probably the number one reason I learned the basics of reading a schematic! If you decide to go down the power rabbit hole do research, real research, not just reading ad copy. Ask SAvart, BradM Matt questions! Look the years of needing Voltage regulation in Galveston taught me power is important but knowing what I really needed was what solved the problems. I totally hear ya! I briefly tried one of the pricier Furmans a while back. Didn’t do a damn thing sonically. My take away was to hold off on power conditioning until I’m ready to spend Equitech kinda money. But like I mentioned, I’d much rather investigate everything else first.
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 28, 2021 13:41:38 GMT -6
OK, so a little update on this. Tried running my rig on a UPS, didn't hear much of a difference, which is great, because I'm now pretty confident it's not a power issue.
I've also tried a billion different settings across all of my gear, and this is the absolute best I've managed to make it sound:
https%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/upton-251-1-grace-only
https%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/upton-251-2-grace-la3a
#1 was tracked with light compression from my Grace M102, and #2 has both the Grace + a GAP Comp-3A.
Very gentle EQ on the way in, which on one hand does exacerbate the zingy/brittle thing, but also makes it WAY more manageable in the midrange and low end. I could never get away with EQing my M149. Any time I tried, it would just completely fall apart. The Upton does seem a touch more "pinched" in the upper mids, but I can live with that.
I still feel like there's room for improvement, though. To me, these recordings sound OK, but they're kind of washy/unfocused, and again, there's that crispy HF trash that I just can't get rid of...
I might pull the trigger on a new interface/ADC this week. Maybe a Lyra 1 or an old Apogee, Lucid, or Lavry. We'll see.
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Post by svart on Jul 28, 2021 14:01:45 GMT -6
OK, so a little update on this. Tried running my gear rig a UPS, didn't hear much of a difference, which is great, because I'm now pretty confident it's not a power issue. I've also tried a billion different settings across all of my gear, and this is the absolute best I've managed to make it sound: https%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/upton-251-1-grace-onlyhttps%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/upton-251-2-grace-la3a#1 was tracked with light compression from my Grace M102, and #2 has both the Grace + a GAP Comp-3A. Very gentle EQ on the way in, which on one hand does exacerbate the zingy/brittle thing, but also makes it WAY more manageable in the midrange and low end. I could never get away with EQing my M149. Any time I tried, it would just completely fall apart. The Upton does seem a touch more "pinched" in the upper mids, but I can live with that. I still feel like there's room for improvement, though. To me, these recordings sound OK, but they're kind of washy/unfocused, and again, there's that crispy HF trash that I just can't get rid of... I might pull the trigger on a new interface/ADC this week. Maybe a Lyra 1 or an old Apogee, Lucid, or Lavry. We'll see. So, I guess maybe I missed it, but have you posted a clip of the actual "high frequency garbage"? I listened to the clips and I don't hear anything out of the ordinary (besides a boat load of autotune..) and I certainly don't hear a bunch of high frequency noise. It actually sounds pretty clean. I also don't hear any "washy/unfocused" sound either. It sounds more clean and clear than a lot of stuff I get from other people and about on par with what I track myself. Are you certain it's not just your monitors/amp?
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 28, 2021 14:27:44 GMT -6
So, I guess maybe I missed it, but have you posted a clip of the actual "high frequency garbage"? I listened to the clips and I don't hear anything out of the ordinary (besides a boat load of autotune..) and I certainly don't hear a bunch of high frequency noise. It actually sounds pretty clean. I also don't hear any "washy/unfocused" sound either. It sounds more clean and clear than a lot of stuff I get from other people and about on par with what I track myself. Are you certain it's not just your monitors/amp? I'm definitely being a little over-the-top with how I'm describing this — it's really subtle for sure. When I say "high frequency garbage," I'm not talking about noise; it's more of a tone thing. To me, the high end sounds brittle, crispy, and kind of dirty (almost like a very subtle, gritty distortion). These recordings are certainly usable, but I'm chasing perfection over here... To provide a little context, here's a snippet I recorded with a fairly bigger name. This was an M149 in a walk-in closet with a couple tube traps. To me, this sounds damn near perfect, whereas my recordings are brittle/zingy and much less focused/tight in comparison. I could never make my M149 sound like that. Surprisingly, I can get closer with the Upton... but still not 100%. https%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/tv-culture-vocal
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Post by svart on Jul 28, 2021 14:36:30 GMT -6
So, I guess maybe I missed it, but have you posted a clip of the actual "high frequency garbage"? I listened to the clips and I don't hear anything out of the ordinary (besides a boat load of autotune..) and I certainly don't hear a bunch of high frequency noise. It actually sounds pretty clean. I also don't hear any "washy/unfocused" sound either. It sounds more clean and clear than a lot of stuff I get from other people and about on par with what I track myself. Are you certain it's not just your monitors/amp? I'm definitely being a little over-the-top with how I'm describing this — it's really subtle for sure. When I say "high frequency garbage," I'm not talking about noise; it's more of a tone thing. To me, the high end sounds brittle, crispy, and kind of dirty (almost like a very subtle, gritty distortion). These recordings are certainly usable, but I'm chasing perfection over here... To provide a little context, here's a snippet I recorded with a fairly bigger name. This was an M149 in a walk-in closet with a couple tube traps. To me, this sounds damn near perfect, whereas my recordings are brittle/zingy and much less focused/tight in comparison. I could never make my M149 sound like that. Surprisingly, I can get closer with the Upton... but still not 100%. https%3A//soundcloud.com/tkaitkai/tv-culture-vocalI'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't hear much difference at all. I can tell this one has a little bit less "top" but the overall tone is 98% the same to me. It even has similar "grit" to the treble IMHO. I dunno man, I think maybe you're over-analyzing a little. I've been there, trust me. I'm just not hearing enough difference between those tracks to agree that you have a problem. I think your earlier tracks sound just fine. What monitors and/or amp are you using? Maybe they're over-accentuating something?
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Post by bluegrassdan on Jul 28, 2021 14:54:41 GMT -6
You could always try a slower preamp. Graces can accentuate the high-frequency-ness you're describing. Something with transformers. Or try a mic that is less known for brightness.
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 28, 2021 16:02:47 GMT -6
You could always try a slower preamp. Graces can accentuate the high-frequency-ness you're describing. Something with transformers. Or try a mic that is less known for brightness. Oops, I should have clarified — the Grace is just a compressor. My mic pre + EQ is a Wunder PEQ2R. I've definitely got my eye on a few other mic pres (i.e. BAE 1073, Mercury M72), but I feel like that'll come at a later date... I've shot out a bunch of different stuff on my vocals (AMS Neve 1073, Vintech X73, Burl B1, Warm WA12, ART, Apollo, etc). and my Wunder always wins. On a related note, I'd totally love to try a DB mic pre sometime.
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 28, 2021 16:23:59 GMT -6
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't hear much difference at all. I can tell this one has a little bit less "top" but the overall tone is 98% the same to me. It even has similar "grit" to the treble IMHO. I dunno man, I think maybe you're over-analyzing a little. I've been there, trust me. I'm just not hearing enough difference between those tracks to agree that you have a problem. I think your earlier tracks sound just fine. What monitors and/or amp are you using? Maybe they're over-accentuating something? I think you hit the nail the on the head with the over-analyzing bit. I'm definitely being really nitpicky, but it's because I'm crazy and obsessive and sort of a diva. My monitoring situation is just kind of eh (Apollo DAC, LSR308s, Sonarworks, decent room) but I know my room/speakers like the back of my hand and I don't feel like they're exaggerating the issue. In fact, they tend to be way too forgiving/flattering — the issue is way more apparent on headphones. Overall, it probably has more to do with me hyper-focusing on minutiae. But again... crazy and obsessive.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 28, 2021 16:54:44 GMT -6
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't hear much difference at all. I can tell this one has a little bit less "top" but the overall tone is 98% the same to me. It even has similar "grit" to the treble IMHO. I dunno man, I think maybe you're over-analyzing a little. I've been there, trust me. I'm just not hearing enough difference between those tracks to agree that you have a problem. I think your earlier tracks sound just fine. What monitors and/or amp are you using? Maybe they're over-accentuating something? I think you hit the nail the on the head with the over-analyzing bit. I'm definitely being really nitpicky, but it's because I'm crazy and obsessive and sort of a diva. My monitoring situation is just kind of eh (Apollo DAC, LSR308s, Sonarworks, decent room) but I know my room/speakers like the back of my hand and I don't feel like they're exaggerating the issue. In fact, they tend to be way too forgiving/flattering — the issue is way more apparent on headphones. Overall, it probably has more to do with me hyper-focusing on minutiae. But again... crazy and obsessive. I also don't hear "high frequency garbage" here, I wonder if you're falling prey to the "solo" syndrome where you're listening to solo tracks and hearing things that aren't really natural because it's not a natural way to listen to music. Also, I listened to that second clip three times and I swear the singer is burping at around the 15 second mark. Am I losing my mind?
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 28, 2021 17:11:48 GMT -6
I think you hit the nail the on the head with the over-analyzing bit. I'm definitely being really nitpicky, but it's because I'm crazy and obsessive and sort of a diva. My monitoring situation is just kind of eh (Apollo DAC, LSR308s, Sonarworks, decent room) but I know my room/speakers like the back of my hand and I don't feel like they're exaggerating the issue. In fact, they tend to be way too forgiving/flattering — the issue is way more apparent on headphones. Overall, it probably has more to do with me hyper-focusing on minutiae. But again... crazy and obsessive. I also don't hear "high frequency garbage" here, I wonder if you're falling prey to the "solo" syndrome where you're listening to solo tracks and hearing things that aren't really natural because it's not a natural way to listen to music. Also, I listened to that second clip three times and I swear the singer is burping at around the 15 second mark. Am I losing my mind? Dude lmfaoooooo. That’s me singing, and it’s definitely not a burp (I’m saying the word “upending”), but now that you’ve said that, I can’t unhear it. It 100% sounds like a burp.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 28, 2021 17:48:27 GMT -6
I also don't hear "high frequency garbage" here, I wonder if you're falling prey to the "solo" syndrome where you're listening to solo tracks and hearing things that aren't really natural because it's not a natural way to listen to music. Also, I listened to that second clip three times and I swear the singer is burping at around the 15 second mark. Am I losing my mind? Dude lmfaoooooo. That’s me singing, and it’s definitely not a burp (I’m saying the word “upending”), but now that you’ve said that, I can’t unhear it. It 100% sounds like a burp. Right? I listened to it over and over. Burp. 100%. Haha
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 29, 2021 7:36:27 GMT -6
tkaitkai, I understand what you're going through, having been bugged by something similar since I began recording digitally.
First, and I hate to say it, if that is your voice, it has its own hashy edge. Don't get me wrong, so does mine, and it's hard to dial yourself out of your own recording, ha!
Now, of all the things I've tried as I struggled to get it better, I'd say the Pultec gave the most cream for the buck.
That said, I believe it's just the nature of being digital. I have to jump through hoops to get it to feel like what was effortless when recording analogue.
Besides studios work, I had my own home studio from 1983 to 1995, then had to sell it all off. I never once had an issue with high end harshness or any annoying frequency after recording at least 150 commercials that were broadcast and tons of my own songs. Back then, if you bought a U87, any decent compressor, (I had the DBX), a Lexicon reverb, and went through almost any board to tape, it sounded right from the get go. Room treatment would have been nice, but I didn't need it to compensate for some stinky tones.
As I've slowly evolved a digital technique, I'm still coping with digital harshness. Kcatthedog has a new Lynx, and it's the best sound he's ever gotten. He's had pretty much every basic converter there is. So, I'd guess it's not your converters.
It's just fucking digital. And plug-ins don't help the problem.
Best solution I've had is to find the more compatible mics, and use as much analogue hardware when tracking as possible. Print most everything with a Pultec and some smoothie compressor, and a tube preamp, and you'll feel much better, even if not completely satisfied. The Burl Bomber should have helped, I'm surprised it didn't.
Good luck, keep us posted on your progress.
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Post by the other mark williams on Jul 29, 2021 9:07:19 GMT -6
[...] As I've slowly evolved a digital technique, I'm still coping with digital harshness. Kcatthedog has a new Lynx, and it's the best sound he's ever gotten. He's had pretty much every basic converter there is. So, I'd guess it's not your converters. [...] Just to note, however, that kcat is using the newest generation of Aurora converters, whereas tkaitkai is using the older converters. So IMO it's worth it for him to try different converters just to see if it addresses what he's hearing. tkaitkai , it may or may not help, but if you don't try it, I suspect you'll always wonder.
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