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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 14:22:03 GMT -6
I just checked Reverb - it seems that during the pandemic prices on KM84s have gone through the roof! I wonder if, after the pendemic, prices will come back down.... Glad I got #2 when I did - a lot of the asking prices now are $2,000!!! Wonder how many of those sell?
Funny. I had assumed that studio closing sales would drive the price DOWN....
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 14:16:53 GMT -6
I’ll wager 99% of the actual “clock issues” out there are actually termination issues on large systems, or clock cable issues. Yes. One thing I learned from video is that if you clock over cable all the cables MUST be the same length.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 14:12:58 GMT -6
Or hard solder. Really not that much more inconvenient than Elco/EDACs, really, especially on Switchcraft bays with easily removeable (one screw) jacks. Well...Elco's ARE hard soldered at the jacks. But when it comes to changing things, moving racks or bays, reconfiguring your gear, hard soldered snakes are HUGELY more inconvenient. Of course. But who recofigures their studio very often? Besides remote guys, of course. If you do a lot of remote it makes perfect sense.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 14:10:16 GMT -6
I have an old RME ADi2 that I love. I even dropped it twice and was able to find the parts from Synthax in FL and have my local repair shop repair it cheaply. I don't like all-in-one type of gear (interface with AD converters and preamp, or more, built-in). I see no reason to buy an interface with preamps. The preamps (from anyone) are never as good as good outboards.
$9K for a 64 channel interface? NO. That's 3x what their 32 goes for - doesn't make sense.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 13:54:40 GMT -6
Over $1,500, I'd have to either hear the mic or have someone I know vouch for the mic and the seller. I could never think of spending big bucks on a rare mic blind. My buddy has a pair of Neumann KM84's. One sounds better, the other's a little thinner. If he sold the thinner one, you wouldn't be ripped off, but you wouldn't necessarily know it's not the best example of the 84 sound. Hence the practicality of buying good used KM85's for around 50-60% the cost of KM84's and fitting new KK84 capsules. Well, I don't pay more than $1200 for an 84, anyway. It it's dodgy maybe $600-$700. There was a guy on Reverb recently who was selling a beat 84 for around $1200-$1300 than had the serial ground off. Just for giggles I offered $700 and he went ballistic. I almost reported him for selling hot mechandise and probably should have. Among other thing he said was "I AM A PROFESSIONAL MIC DEALER". My answer was that a professional dealer would not touch a mic with a ground off serial with a 10 foot pole.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 13:38:12 GMT -6
Could be. Could also be that you're not entirely understanding me. I tend to dislike mixes where the individual elements distract from the music as a whole. The flue is important.
There are a few records where the recording sounds pretty bad to me, but the final effect is strangely great. The Misfits first (I think) album would be a good example - "Last Caress"... It's basically just a roar with little definition, but it's a GREAT roar!
Having two diffrent examples would enlighten the topic. Werll, right now I'm not going to get into it that much and most are a good deal more subtle than The Misfits. I just use them because it's a record where the first time I heard it my reaction was "this is a really bad recording - I could do better in my sleep" which changed to "This recording is PERFECT - for the song!".
There are STACKS of older records that illustrate my point - you have to LISTEN to make out some of the parts. Many of The Beatles original mixes are like that. People are still arguing about "The Chord" in "Day in the Life".
It's a main reason the Giles Martin Beatle remixes are regarded as being so sucky, at least by upper tier pro engineers (or which I am NOT one, but I listen to them a lot at places like PRW.)
Music should be first about emotional effect. Often (usually?) when everything is so detailed that every track is individually clear it diminishes that impact.
I HATE most "modern pop" mixes - they don't glue.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 13:25:10 GMT -6
Personally, the amount of time and effort in implementing a solid patch bay system leaves me with only one option : TT bays with Elco Connects on the rear. But that's me. I've probably spent a year out of my life configuring multiple patch bay systems. Life is too short to scrimp. Or hard solder. Really not that much more inconvenient than Elco/EDACs, really, especially on Switchcraft bays with easily removeable (one screw) jacks.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 13:18:47 GMT -6
My only question would be that my patchbay is prosumer. But I’d be really surprised if recording a single channel vocal would be any different at all with a more professional patchbay. I’m sure there are Tonycamps of the world that claim they hear a difference, but jeesh - it’s the source and performance before anything. I will add, however, that I stopped sweating the small stuff only when I had the sum of a lot of quality parts...e.g. great mics, great pres, great comps, good enough AD and fantastic DA and monitoring. Well, I can be pretty picky but I really don't hear any difference unless the contacts are dirty or the bay is so cheap that they lose spring tension.
Thast being said (and I really don't want to get into yet another discussion of this) I am of the school that mics should never run through a TRS/TT bay because sooner or later somebody will make a mistake with phantom. I have XLR patch panels (input only) for that.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 13:07:33 GMT -6
I disagree, in that I have never heard a digital recording that "glues" like a record tracked to tape. It just doesn't. Part of this may be due to the quest for "separation" between parts in a modern recording, which to me is analagous to baking a cake where the taste of the individual ingredients overshadows the taste of the cake itself. I want to listen to the SONG, not the individual parts.
Interestingly enough, quite a few of the best engineers/producers I'm in contact with are also excellent chefs. I don't think this is accidental. (Since most of these guys are top commercial engineers they do not work exclusively to tape simply because in commercial production it's not financially practical these days. That doen't mean it's not something to strive for.)
UR misunderstanding my opinion.
I meant we can create something we like without tape.
I don't doubt the fact that real tape sounds different...
I said this now several times...
Could be. Could also be that you're not entirely understanding me. I tend to dislike mixes where the individual elements distract from the music as a whole. The flow is important.
There are a few records where the recording sounds pretty bad to me, but the final effect is strangely great. The Misfits first (I think) album would be a good example - "Last Caress"... It's basically just a roar with little definition, but it's a GREAT roar!
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 12:54:01 GMT -6
I prefer to buy mics from people on the smaller and more professional forums, where people make their identities known, or from/through people I know. That's not to say I always do, but it's my preference. I also do not pay "market value" on stuff I don't know.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 20, 2020 12:30:44 GMT -6
The biggest?
By weight or by physical dimensions?
The former would be the Studer A800. The latter would be the Soundcraft DC2020 console. (yes, it's a pun, but also true.)
This might surprise some people, but the third would be the Antelope Orion 32, which gave me the ability to not use the Studer, which I didn't have with my previous converters, which were capable of taking anything and "converting" it to somerthing audibly less. Some people have problems with the Antelope stuff, but it's been 100% solid for me and sounds great. And now I have the same number channels of conversion as I do in my console.
For mics, probably my first Pearlman TM1, which I prefer to my older U87Ai, which is itself a fine mic. And, of course, my first KM84, which is, well, a KM84.(so is the second...)
And there's the Latch Lake 2200 stand, which beats the pants off my Atlas studio stands. The Latch Lake DOES NOT droop. Haven't tried it, but I swear I could probaly hang my 234 pounds off the boom. It might tip, but I doubt it would droop.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2020 13:06:30 GMT -6
In case you were wondering, it is best to wait and call your phlebotomist a leech after he or she has taken your blood. Before is not good. When I was still in SF a large number of the phlebotomists at my local Kaiser were, oddly enough, from Transylvania. All the best ones were, which was important to me, as I have really bad veins.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2020 12:59:01 GMT -6
Yup. If you gotta do it, best to hit tape first, transfer to digital second. That's what we do here - track to tape, then dump it to digital for mixing. MUCH easier and faster. Mixing is still done analog, but the actual source for it is a digital transfer of the original.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2020 12:52:41 GMT -6
I also feel that the "sound of tape" could rightly be called the sound of analogue. When I went to tape, it was through a Trident board or an API or Neve board. The bass through a Trident board to a 2" 16 Tk was unbeatable. So the "tape sound" most people speak of is more likely the combination of analogue factors. The only way to properly compare tape sims is to have the same tape machine calibrated perfectly, then to the plug-in with the calibration matched as well as can be. The UAD ATR-102 has never left my 2 bus. I could do an album with nothing but that on the 2 bus and still get a great sound. But.. my ears were only fooled once by a tape sim, and that was UAD's Oxide. That was strange because I believe Oxide is jut a simplified version of one of their other tape sims. Even with Oxide, it never happened again. Listening back in a studio from a 24 tk machine to a recording done there on one of those boards was common then, but unforgettable now.
I understand doing some nostalgic gymnastics is good. But is not the goal to create something your ear likes in the end. I think its possible even pure ITB which is pain to do it this way....
I disagree, in that I have never heard a digital recording that "glues" like a record tracked to tape. It just doesn't. Part of this may be due to the quest for "separation" between parts in a modern recording, which to me is analagous to baking a cake where the taste of the individual ingredients overshadows the taste of the cake itself. I want to listen to the SONG, not the individual parts.
Interestingly enough, quite a few of the best engineers/producers I'm in contact with are also excellent chefs. I don't think this is accidental. (Since most of these guys are top commercial engineers they do not work exclusively to tape simply because in commercial production it's not financially practical these days. That doen't mean it's not something to strive for.)
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2020 12:38:43 GMT -6
Agreed, I liked both just was pleasantly surprised at how much glue the real ampex imparted and this was while I was also using 2 ssl g clone comps. Yes! To me the "glue" is the most important thing about real tape and the thing that sims don't really get.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 19, 2020 12:30:03 GMT -6
I'm this case you're wrong. And I never want to mess with a tape machine ever again. I'm looking a these as effects devices that I can apply to sources when I want them, not as some BS magic cure-all, or even the assumption they sound like someone's definition of a "tape sound". Yeah. To me, the “tape sound” we are wanting is an effect to be used like all other effects. To taste. I'm inclined to agree. And I'm not saying that such effects are not useful.
What I AM saying is that if it doesn't sound like tape it shouldn't be called a "tape sim". Because it doesn't "simulate tape". I get the same kind of crap at GS from people who believe that their amp sims sound like real amps, often from people who play types of music whose high amounts of (intentional) distortion totally obliterate the things that I (and many others who don't play high gain/distortion music) listen for.
(Note that I'm NOT saying that there are no amp sims that sound like real amps - after a quarter century of development we've finally reached the point where (a few) being there to the point that they do work for many, if not most, purposes.)
I also agree that the actual "sound of tape" is due to a complex number of components and varies with the machine (both type and condition), tape, and setup.
And I also agree that, generally speaking, dealing with a real tape machine is a big PITA. I'm quite aware of this, I own a Studer A800, which is a constant maintenance project.
What I don't understand is the degree of hostility I get from people when I try to make these points. I guess it's to be expected at a place like GS that has a large proportion of amateur/ "prosumer" users, but I'd expect a more enlightened and open minded attitude from people around here.
There's a guy over at PRW who has assembled a high quality 3 track studio, with period gear, lovingly restored at significant cost. I shudder to think of what his reception would be here. This guy is NOT a dilettante or hobbyist by any means. He is, in fact, a mid tier mastering engineer who has assembled this studio as a pet project.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 20:21:03 GMT -6
Hey svart and matt@IAA , this makes my burning question burn even harder in my brain . . . why are console inserts unblanaced? They don't balance at the sends and returns and then run unbalanced (normal operation) internally. They send unbalanced, they process balanced? and then they return unbalanced. Always bothered me. I thought some are? Didn't SSL use differential inserts on the 4k, 6k and 9k? I think the need for differential signals is mostly overrated unless the noise ingress is high. I'd think that room auditory noise is much higher than electrical EMI that might get on mic cables, so having mic cables with crazy "star-quad" and double shields and such seems like overkill, especially when you have highly sensitive coils mostly exposed at their ends.. Just sayin'. I guess that unless you have an environment full of EMI/RFI noise, plain unbalanced shielding is fine. Nobody is clamoring for differential guitar cables, although humbuckers to work on a similar principle. Anyway, on a related note, one thing that JohnE is overlooking in his opinionated "nothing is ever as good as the old things that I understand" diatribe is that transformers are inherently poor at rejection of EMI. The shields are typically only good for about 20dB of isolation, but large coils are nothing but antennas. Electrical interfaces are far less likely to pick up EMI than transformers. Besides being lighter, cheaper, smaller and having much better impedance flatness and frequency bandwidths, their supposed drawbacks are much smaller than most unfairly claim. A lot of modern amplifiers can have noisefigures only a few times higher than the resistors used to set their feedbacks, which means they aren't appreciable sources for "noise". Large format mixers full of thousands of amplifiers can have noise floors lower than the ambient stage noise during a quiet violin solo at the orchestra but folks like JohnE would have you think that one amplifier's noise would drown out jet engines given half the chance.. Well, it depends on the quality of the trannie. If your transformers have double mu-metal shields that are correctly designed and configured their noise rejection can be pretty damn good. But that's expensive. And remember, transformers themselves do not generate noise unless they're broken in some way. And if we're going to talk about outliers (as you are at least verging on) I've heard solid state circuits that would make pretty good transistor radios. Every active circuit produces at least some noise. And you are grossly exaggerating my position in the sentence where you (mis)used my name.
What it all comes down to is quality. And remember, noise is cumulative.
One more point - we are discussing EXTERNAL CONNECTIONS, not internal circuitry. External connections are far more likely to pick up environmental noise that well designed internal circuits, be they part of the console or in a outboard chassis. And, BTW, most external processors are, in fact, internally unbalanced. But I'm sure you actually know that, you're just being deliberately confusing.
One more point about inserts - usually the cable runs are relatively short, at least compared to long runs from mics or to a machine room.
Somehow I doubt that you actually bothered to read my preceding post before slagging me.
And I understand new gear just as well as older gear. Nothing has really changed in (analog) audio in a very long time - it's just smaller.
BTW - do YOU use transformers with only 20 dB of rejection in your builds?
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 19:42:11 GMT -6
Not to nitpick your post in particular, but it does bring up something that warrants specific distinction.. What you describe, two signals out of polarity to be summed at the receiver to nullify common-mode noise ingress, is differential-mode transmission. The main advantage is that it doubles the voltage when inverting and summing the signals, which increases SNR by 6dB, but also makes the receiver immune to ground noise currents as a ground return is not required. "Balanced" is short for impedance balanced. Balanced transmission just needs a single hot signal with a matched impedance current return at the receiver to nullify common noise but does not increase SNR and still requires a ground return that can lead to ground loops. Differential-mode transmission is almost always inherently impedance balanced anyway, but balanced-mode transmission does not need to be differential although the same type of receiver is used so there is almost zero compelling reason to use balanced signals rather than differential signals. Hey svart and matt@IAA , this makes my burning question burn even harder in my brain . . . why are console inserts unblanaced? They don't balance at the sends and returns and then run unbalanced (normal operation) internally. They send unbalanced, they process balanced? and then they return unbalanced. Always bothered me. Some consoles do have balanced inserts. The thing is, it requires separate jacks for input and output. Nearly all less costly consoles use one TRS for both - saves a lot of money and room. So the answer, as with a lot of things, comes down to $$$. And the unbalanced circuitry itself is cheaper, so again $$$.
And most consoles do not process balanced internally.
One other thing - in most cases if something is Class A circuitry it's internally unbalanced.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 19:30:45 GMT -6
But it's still a good utility microphone and for only $1600? Come on, it's a no-brainer. Is it any better than my Pearlman TM1s though?
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 19:20:09 GMT -6
Bill makes a great point, but yeah I’ll admit there are things I miss about the sound of tape, just like if you made me go back to tape there are a hell of a lot of things I would miss about digital. This is the main problem with tape simulators, you can get the distortion of tape ( that’s really what they are all about) but you can’t get what tape did right and many find wrong with digital. Not saying these plugins and boxes are bad, distortion is what we are all about, just don’t call it the sound of tape. Of course go align and reset the cards on an MCI JH24 and tell me you miss tape😁
Another thing comes to my mind.
My mentor mixes his pop tunes -hybrid- without tape and it sounds 95% like his world hits in the 80s - with tape.
How "magical" was it? Maybe not magical at all? Let's tell the truth ... he was one of the first owners of digital tape machines in town, and he was happy about it.
Another truth was he could rent his digital tape machines because a lot of people were sick using real tape.
I love it when he realigns the perspective of the so-called glory days.
Digital tape machine = the worst features of tape combined with the worst features of digital.
Meh.
One other thing - recording to tape is in no way the same as dumping a digital recording to tape. Digital does something that somehow sucks something out of the music that can't be replaced. What or why I don't know and neither does anyone I've discussed the subject with, but for a fair comparison you need to record the original tracks to both tape and digital simultaneously.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 18:58:07 GMT -6
drbill For those who used a lot of tape is not every setup sounding different? Meaning: Even if the tape sims are close, they all can be very different? What tape sound is for person A it is not for Person B? Most of the people making these judgements online (not necessarily here) have little or no experience with actual tape machines.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 18:53:55 GMT -6
I think a shootout like this will be useful for helping to show which of the hardware tape sims get closest to real tape. That being said, I doubt any of these are going to prove to be some sort of holy grail. I'd be happy to be proven wrong on that though. Either way, considering that "tape" sound means a ton of different things to a ton of different people, in no small part based on the fact that even real tape machines can sound very different from one another depending on model and calibration, I'm just hoping to see which of these hardware tape sims provide saturation and instantaneous compression in the most tape-like fashion. Those are the two things that appeal to me about tape the most, so I'm most interested in figuring out which of them do those two things the best. I don't necessarily need it to be a 100% spot on recreation of tape, though that would be cool if any of them were. Considering that the future of tape production is dubious, at best, and that nobody makes the machines anymore, I've pretty much moved on from that "ideal" and just want a hardware sim that does similar saturation and instantaneous compression. I'll say this, I'm liking what I'm hearing so far from the Bereich Density. If you're going to do this kind of shootout/comparison you should include at least one (preferably 2 or 3) real tape machines.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 18, 2020 1:47:53 GMT -6
Balanced means there are two audio cables carrying the signal, hot and cold, with the cold being inverted polarity (positive to negative on the voltage wave). You can do this with a transformer by taking the signal out of the secondary winding. Or with electronic components (for example, one op amp drives the hot, another inverting amp drives the cold). Transformers provide DC isolation and if they are well made they can be near invisible. Electronics can have situations they don’t work so well, but are also transparent. People like using transformers for subtle distortion / frequency response change / phase shift effects. Not to nitpick your post in particular, but it does bring up something that warrants specific distinction.. What you describe, two signals out of polarity to be summed at the receiver to nullify common-mode noise ingress, is differential-mode transmission. The main advantage is that it doubles the voltage when inverting and summing the signals, which increases SNR by 6dB, but also makes the receiver immune to ground noise currents as a ground return is not required. "Balanced" is short for impedance balanced. Balanced transmission just needs a single hot signal with a matched impedance current return at the receiver to nullify common noise but does not increase SNR and still requires a ground return that can lead to ground loops. Differential-mode transmission is almost always inherently impedance balanced anyway, but balanced-mode transmission does not need to be differential although the same type of receiver is used so there is almost zero compelling reason to use balanced signals rather than differential signals. That's actually a somewhat bogus description used by companies too damn cheap to do a real electronically balanced connection. A truly balanced connection cancels noise on both lines coming in. Your "balanced mode" connection (also known more accurately as "pseudo-balanced") does not do this, as there is no noise on the minus line to null noise on the hot. ( since the minus line is grounded on one end there is no noise to cancel.)
Usually there's no or little discernable difference UNLESS you're in a high noise environment, as many in residential studios are. That's why REAL pro gear does not use that, but "prosumer" gear often does.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 17, 2020 23:25:28 GMT -6
Most knowlegeable people I know say that the clocking in a modern converter is generally good enough so that external clocks are obsolete. I haven't used my Lucid Gen X 192 since I got my Antelope Orion32.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 17, 2020 23:17:40 GMT -6
Hey guys, I've been budgeting money away for some new purchases. One of those will be a flagship mic. A really nice tube mic, used primarily for acoustic guitar and vocals but that would sound good on other acoustic instruments. I've been reading up on Lawson mics (Someone here recommended one in another thread). They seem to be highly regarded. AND, there happens to be one at a killer price on ebay. I wasn't planning on spending the money so soon but I can afford this I really wanted to.
What the consensus on these? Any reason I shouldn't just shut up and buy it?
I mean someone here should buy it, it seems like such a great deal. If anyone wants to jump on this deal first you'd probably be doing me a favor.
Jump on it. I'm really tempted, but have been holding out for a Heiserman or a Flea. And the gold is a bit "loud" for my tastes.
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