|
Post by svart on Jul 6, 2022 7:42:35 GMT -6
Happy 4th, if you plan on using fireworks just remember that if you do get hurt it might just be that residents first week in the ER! And what do burn docs call the 4th of July? A new Porsche! What do they call a person who graduates medical school with a D average? Doctor.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jul 4, 2022 9:58:59 GMT -6
1176. Or Arouser.
1176 can add considerable transients if you quicken the attack a little and really nail the release down.
Arouser has a transient adjustment that really pops.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jul 2, 2022 16:58:31 GMT -6
I ordered the suggested camera. There are CAT-6 cables in the walls between the rooms. Is there a way to use the CAT-6 cables as HDMI from the camera to the monitor? Maybe something like this? HDMI to Ethernet Over CAT6/CAT7 by OREI Extender RJ45 Upto 130 Feet - 1080P Full HD POC Transmitter & Receiver (EX-130C) a.co/d/he9EfAc
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jul 2, 2022 12:03:20 GMT -6
Cheap camera like this: MOKOSE 12MP HDMI Camera 1080P USB HD Streaming Webcam, Recording 4K@30FPS Industry C/CS-Mount Camera with 3.2mm No Distortion Manual Lens a.co/d/dDjNqN9And a cheap TV. HDMI between rooms. It's real time, so no latency.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jul 1, 2022 6:50:04 GMT -6
There was once (ages ago) this massive GS thread with a certain room treatment guru and AES presenter (I won’t name) who made the controversial assertion that there was virtually no difference worth worrying about between an M Audio interface and high end converters like Prism or Lavry. Omg …. this thread went on for miles until at about page 154 …. I thought, I wonder if anyone has asked him what he’s monitoring on. So I asked. He said, some JBL PA speakers with horns LOL …. still makes me smile to this day, it might of been a useful first question. The way Ethan could go on and on and on and on.. Even as a first question it probably wouldn't have changed the thread one bit, lol.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 15:50:22 GMT -6
Is this where someone comes in and says “it all doesn’t matter if you don’t have a good song…” NO! This is where we ask if the OP has a treated room... "Just use your ears"
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 8:36:29 GMT -6
Maybe it's me (which is generally the case) but for years I've avoided this debate as it's really not that important to me. I have an RND 5060 Centerpiece for many years at this point. I dig it. Like the workflow, like what it does to my mixes. Could I live without it? Sure. I can't live without water, food or shelter. I respect everyone that can get this technical. It's fascinating and I applaud you. ITB, OTB, hybrid.....whatever works and whatever keeps you coming back to do it again. I don't think anyone is arguing not to use what you want. Just trying to reign in some of the popular myths associated with audio production.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 8:34:20 GMT -6
For the couple of noisier pieces I have(Yamaha SPX 90 comes to mind) I just throw an instance of iZotope RX after it and it's no problem. The noisiest mixes I ever heard were a bunch of waves plugins that had the "analog" options turned on LOL. This is true. I noticed a high noise floor in a mix I was working on and found one of the waves 1176's had the analog option on that I missed turning off. It just seems to add a bunch of hiss and hum. Uggh.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 8:22:01 GMT -6
Also, I should note that the residual power supply hum/buzz we hear in the video is one of the biggest reasons I went mostly digital. My mixing console and all the outboard gear, preamps, effects, etc, might have had noise floors in the -80dB to -90dB range, but since most of it was powered from the same AC circuit, a lot of the rectified buzz was correlated. You sum a dozen outboard units, all with analog power supplies and you start to get noise floors in the -65dB range. Add in the audio tracks with their noise floors, add some compression and all the other fun stuff you do to mixes and suddenly you can sometimes hear the buzzing at -45dB to -50dB on your final mix down track. I've fought like hell to get noise down every where I can, but, like you say, there still is residual noise buildup when you connect a bunch of analog gear together. Some of that shit will drive you mad. It's certainly one of the things that tempts me to go more ITB, but I doubt I'll ever go fully. I actually like a slight amount of hiss, like you'd get from a tape machine, so I just cover up low level hums/buzzes in that! I still use a bunch of hardware on the way in during tracking. I've gotten a lot more confident about using it this way and during editing I can get a lot of the hiss and buzz edited out. It's a win-win for me.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 8:01:05 GMT -6
Super tempting. Anyone know of pics of the internals?
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 7:05:55 GMT -6
Also, I should note that the residual power supply hum/buzz we hear in the video is one of the biggest reasons I went mostly digital. My mixing console and all the outboard gear, preamps, effects, etc, might have had noise floors in the -80dB to -90dB range, but since most of it was powered from the same AC circuit, a lot of the rectified buzz was correlated. You sum a dozen outboard units, all with analog power supplies and you start to get noise floors in the -65dB range.
Add in the audio tracks with their noise floors, add some compression and all the other fun stuff you do to mixes and suddenly you can sometimes hear the buzzing at -45dB to -50dB on your final mix down track.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 6:55:29 GMT -6
Except noise and capacitive crosstalk and rf interference etc. nothing good generally! Not much of those happening with resistors. Resistors physically parallel wouldn't have much of an EMI field and they are much too short in physical length to be of any significant fractional wavelength of the audio band to be a good antenna. Traces probably have the worst effect on total noise ingress and crosstalk simply for being long and parallel to each other. The best rule of thumb for crosstalk is keep other traces at least 3x the width of your traces apart from each other. If you run ground between them, keep the traces at least 3x away from the ground and via the ground islands to the ground plane to short out the EMI fields. Wider traces might help a little since the resistance of the copper will be reduced and then dominate the RLC components. C might rise, but shouldn't be high enough to roll off audio, but it might actually help keep it a bit cleaner.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 30, 2022 6:42:14 GMT -6
Ok, I see what you mean. If you had one track of noise rendered but you duplicated it many times then yes, theoretically since they're now correlated, they should null same as a sine. A sine sweep would work like this as well. Sure. A sine sweep would work too. I did a little test with white noise. Made one track of white noise, duplicated it, flipped polarity and it nulled perfectly as expected due to the correlation. I also tried two channels of random uncorrelated white noise and flipping polarity did not do anything, as expected. For fun I wanted to see what kind of nulling would happen at various amplitude and phase mismatches. 0.01dB only nulled down to -65dB. 0.1dB only nulled down to -45dB. 1dB only nulled down to -25dB. 0.01 degrees nulled down to -80dB. 0.1 degrees nulled down to -60dB. 1 degree nulled down to -40dB. Which makes his nulling quite impressive since his noise floor is around -80 to -90dB. He does have some kind of signal around 15K-18K-ish which might be some nyquist noise from the converters folded over but I can't hear it.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 16:04:42 GMT -6
Won't work. By nature white noise is random so there would be no way to phase shift it 180 degrees to null because there would be no correlation. You need a repeating signal that can be correlated before polarity reversal can null it. I know you know more about this stuff than I, but if you recorded noise onto 16 tracks and used those tracks for all of your tests, random as the noise may or may not be, how is that any different than playing back actual music, for the purposes of such a test? It's still comparing two identical signals, (two identically random signals, if you will), but just 180 degrees out of phase from one another. The generator creating said noise might be random but, once it's recorded onto a track, it shouldn't matter what the signal even is beyond that point. All that should matter is that the return signal is phase flipped for the purposes of the test, no? In any case, it could be whatever kind of full frequency signal you wanted. I was just throwing it out there that it might not be unuseful to have something that is truly full frequency spectrum as a test signal. Also, to be clear, I actually think I tend to agree with your position that analog summing doesn't do much, if anything, in and of itself, and that it's the gain stages that are actually what makes people like analog summing. I'm mostly just discussing the topic out of curiosity and interest because it does seem to me that there could possibly be a better way to perform such a test than what was done in the video. Ok, I see what you mean. If you had one track of noise rendered but you duplicated it many times then yes, theoretically since they're now correlated, they should null same as a sine. A sine sweep would work like this as well.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 14:39:13 GMT -6
I forgot to mention...I would prefer a test of this sort to include vocals in the song too. Might as well run full frequency spectrum (20 to 20) pink/white noise thru it as well. Won't work. By nature white noise is random so there would be no way to phase shift it 180 degrees to null because there would be no correlation. You need a repeating signal that can be correlated before polarity reversal can null it.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 14:34:50 GMT -6
Ok. It just seems like you're picking at small details that I don't believe would change the outcome at all. But one note.. "just that I don't think this is the best example to make a determination one way or the other" I don't know how much clearer it needs to be than totally nulling the audio. ANY small differences would not allow total nulling. Just a fraction of a dB of any frequency or a degree or two of phase difference and you'd ruin the nulling. I can't overstate how sensitive these null tests are to level and phase. Yeah I'm nitpicking and for what it's worth I do this to myself when I make a video. I think it's important, this is our industry, these are people's products and livelihood. In general I don't share the same skepticism that this snake oil brand of YouTubers do towards gear manufacturers and plug in developers, but I do have that skepticism towards them LOL. Why? Because I know exactly how much this stuff pays and it can be awfully tempting to stir the pot to make some quick cash..consequences be damned. Consider this, he admitted he ran the test before making the video and it didn't null. It didn't null again the 2nd time he tried(around the 8:50 mark). So to get it to finally null he starts soloing pairs(1-2, 3-4, etc..) and bouncing them one at a time(are we even summing at this point?). "I've just proved that analog summing makes no difference" he says. No, no you didn't. You proved that if you make a video with no actual footage of the unit you used, not showing any part of your calibration process(or recalibrating you did to finally make it null). Not even caring enough to have decent cabling...you can confirm the bias you came into it with. Sorry, there are just about a dozen times in this video that don't pass the smell test. I couldn't' care less if the next guy is mixing completely ITB or on a huge console. What I do care about is we seem to be going through the daytime talkshow/cable news era of YouTube content creators in our industry and it's annoying to me. Guys crapping all over plugins, gear, etc... not even reading manuals...not taking the time to do things the best way. Seemingly just interested in views and subcribers(aka money) not the actual truth. If nothing in this video stands out as odd to you, then so be it. I'm not trying to convince you that you need a summing mixer. Not at all! I'm sure you're just as happy with your set up as I am and that's all that matters in the end. While working on RF stuff here at work, we have this part that needs I/Q (complex) differential pairs feeding from a high speed DAC through low pass filters and finally into the part itself. The I/Q signal is in quadrature format so that we can use phase shifting and summation to nullify mix images that fold over from other frequency domains (such as negative frequencies) as well as use 0hz as a valid frequency (called baseband or zero-IF). This doubles the bandwidth over using the usual positive domain signals and allows you to use much lower frequency parts. It's also called single-sideband mixing which some ham radio folks might recognize. In any case, the complex signals are generated from a pair of DACs. The signals in this case are identical but one is shifted 90 degrees in phase (Q). The drawback to a signal like this is that if you generate a signal in the positive domain you'll get an "image" signal in the negative domain at the exact same offset. I.E., if you generate 10MHz, you'll get one at -10MHz as well. 5MHz will have -5MHz, etc. This ruins your ability to utilize full bandwidth around zero. Once through the anti-alias filters the Q signal is then shifted again 90 degrees. The Q signal is now 180 degrees out of phase from I and will null out when I and Q are summed. However, that's only the theory behind it. Nulling is never good enough without calibration due to physical attributes of the system. You need to be able to modify 3 main attributes: I/Q DC offset: DC offset and LO bleed-through will cause a spike at 0Hz. Equalizing the offset will null it out. I/Q amplitude: Amplitude needs to be matched to tenths of a decibel to null. I/Q phase: Phase needs to be matched to tenths of a degree to null. All these things need to be balanced in a specific order and typically tweaked on the fly as temperature and power fluctuates. A few degrees of temperature change can render the calibration moot, so temperature compensation curves needed to be developed to keep the nulling within specs. Why do I mention these things? Because I spent a month working on this one circuit, taking data, testing calibration algorithms, perfecting the filters, the trace matching, the offset/amplitude/phase settings to get 80-90dBc of nulling across 50MHz of bandwidth. Every little nuance of nulling signals in a high-speed system was researched and tested. I just want folks to know that I'm not just stating an opinion without some kind of knowledge backing it up. I've seen first hand what signal nulling takes, and what doesn't matter. I know exactly the pitfalls the guy ran into with his 3 attempts because I ran into them as well, and have in audio nulling as well. I applaud him for continuing to persevere. Many would have stopped at the first try and either dropped it altogether or perhaps proclaimed that analog summing DID make a difference. All the folks who wanted a failure to null would have applauded and the ones who wanted the summing to null completely would have cried foul. The opposite of what's happing here. I think a lot of things in audio that are supposed to make huge differences don't actually make much difference at all. Working at much higher speeds has taught me what small differences really are. So while you see small things that could be done better because you think they'll change the outcome, I see small things that should have caused it to fail nullification but didn't, so they must not matter. Making attributes of his test better would only increase the nulling he's obtained, not reduce it. So the argument for "better testing" would only reinforce the current findings IMHO.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 13:14:20 GMT -6
You miss the point. The fact that it can null completely at any point is the takeaway. If it was different at all it would never null at any point under any test. Maybe I haven't spoken clearly enough here so I'll try again. I understand the point quite well and am open to the idea that he may in fact be 100% correct. I just contend that the methodology and the execution could have been better to the point of removing all doubt. A video that wouldn't require a bunch of disclaimers up front and after. That's all. Anyway...dead horse at this point but that's my gripe...not that I believe summing is doing something magical, just that I don't think this is the best example to make a determination one way or the other. I just want to see someone do it better and maybe they will? I would volunteer to do it but I don't know what brand he used since he didn't disclose it and I'm not aware of any summing mixers that advertise as being really transparent or clean. Ok. It just seems like you're picking at small details that I don't believe would change the outcome at all. But one note.. "just that I don't think this is the best example to make a determination one way or the other" I don't know how much clearer it needs to be than totally nulling the audio. ANY small differences would not allow total nulling. Just a fraction of a dB of any frequency or a degree or two of phase difference and you'd ruin the nulling. I can't overstate how sensitive these null tests are to level and phase.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 13:01:14 GMT -6
Yep, I still own mine. Still sounds great as described. 👍 PS, to be super clear, conversion is not relevant to the issue I was surfacing with older versions of PT HD, but maybe you’re just heaping scorn on Behringer, which I get. 😀 Not trying to rag too hard on Behringer at all(easy target I know)…but isn’t it a bit odd that the Behringer conversion supposedly didn’t alter the sound at all? Like completely crystal clear transparent…Behringer 😁 I dunno. Converter quality can have many different variables. Perhaps the power supply buzz we heard in the residual noise was actually from the DACs and not the summing unit? Perhaps it was a mix of both. Either way, the argument that behringer converters adds sound is valid, but how much would they add? It could be that they add less than the power supply noise, which did seem quite high. So still, nulling the audio down to below the power supply noise is significant. If you were suggesting shenanigans, then why is there only power supply noise left? Why not total silence and claim it was perfect?
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 12:14:56 GMT -6
What's a high quality solution to bring line level down to mic level on the 2 bus. Would like to explore running a mix through a pair of tube preamps for "makeup gain". The preamps I have have a 20db pad, though I'm not sure that's enough padding...thoughts? Resistive pad. If you’re worried about absolute balance and noise rejection (theoretical) it points to precision metal film resistors, 1% or better through manual selection. You could go the other way and use carbon comp, would you tell a diff? Who knows. Probably not. I get away with the 20 dB pad all the time. Need more, Shure and others make line->mic pads in the 40-50dB range. There’s no particular “high quality” aspect to shop for. You can also do something like put a pair of 2k7-4k7 resistors in an in-line barrel and use it in combination with the 20dB pad, you’d simply be increasing the attenuation. Exact value to your needs. Punk rock version, dual 5k linear pot in combo with the 20 pad. You can also just lower your master into the 20 pad. Carbon composition resistors are another semi-myth. "Noisy", yes, but such noise is so low you only notice when amplified quite a lot. Biggest issue with carbon composition is that they drift with current/heat and tend to absorb water over time also causing drift.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 9:32:02 GMT -6
Bright. Light colored, preferably neutral colors. Lots of high CRI lights.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 6:31:56 GMT -6
He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video. I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. That's not what he's saying at all. He just wants to show that the action of analog summing doesn't add any of the mythical "betterness" that it's generally attributed. You can read the transcripts on YouTube if you don't want to watch through the video to understand that.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 29, 2022 6:27:54 GMT -6
I thought I was done talking about this 🤣 I do agree I don’t just grab a splitter wire from each output on an AD converter output and then record that on the AD. Why bother? I think that’s what he’s trying to prove? So why didn’t he just do that? It’s a deeper argument he’s trying to make: he’s trying to say a handbuilt device is snake oil, while a mass produced device like a Behringer converter will save you from being conned. It’s despicable, and gross. Besides the nulls don’t null. Show me when they can null no signal to the bit floor., then I’ll agree. It's not lost on me the fact that it didn't null the first time he tried. It would be interesting if someone took the time and proper effort to counter this test 🤔 You miss the point. The fact that it can null completely at any point is the takeaway. If it was different at all it would never null at any point under any test.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 28, 2022 20:34:43 GMT -6
"The unit is designed specifically to be clean and transparent..." That doesn't seem like a good idea for a summing mixer to me. "I've reused the mix from my omni channel review to test it, I've grouped this down to 8 stereo pairs to feed 16 inputs of the summing mixer." Ok...we have a problem here. If you want to let the summing mixer have the greatest effect possible, why not send each channel's output directly to the channels of the summing mixer? Why group them ITB(digitally summing) first? So, not only is he using a bland summing mixer, but he's only sending 8 stems through it. Oh by the way, the summing mixer had 32 inputs but he only had enough I/O for half the channels(and wasn't willing to spring for proper cabling so just went unbalanced). I appreciate the effort he put into it as I'm well aware that these kinds of tests and videos aren't easy to make. It could have been done much better though. If there's not a clear and obvious difference at 16 channels, I doubt very seriously that 32 channels will suddenly be very obvious. Again, if the summing made ANY difference, it would be clearly audible. Even if it left residuals at -90db they still wouldn't be audible or useful.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 28, 2022 19:28:07 GMT -6
It just seemed to me the video creator made up his mind and then picked the worst example of summing I can think of(passive) to prove said point. It's like if I said analog gear makes no difference and used all Behringer(no offense) to prove my point. Wouldn't the video be more interesting if you used something like a Burl Vancouver? Even then, you have to mix into it. If you just took an ITB mix and stemmed it out through the Burl, it might not be the right color but it certainly wouldn't null! Anyway...I have a Dangerous 2 Bus...I like it...I mix better/faster through it so... 🤷🏻♂️. He said he let the unit warm up. And you can clearly hear power supply noise in the residuals of the null. Pretty positive that it's an active summing unit. He did the test just fine. The summing portion doesn't add the mythical euphonics it's supposed to and his purpose was to debunk that. He said so in the video. He also said all bets were off if transformers were in the chain, etc. If you use transformers, or other distortion adding devices, of course it'll be different, I don't think there's any epiphanies there and I don't think it has anything to do with his video.
|
|
|
Post by svart on Jun 28, 2022 16:56:49 GMT -6
Is there anyone actually using just a passive summing mixer without some sort of color for make up gain? I appreciate the effort he put into it but I’m not sure anyone is summing that way…at least I’d hope not 🤣 I think the most common belief is that analog summing itself is superior due to an unquantifiable source of euphonics. A colored sounding makeup gain is no different than using a colored plug-in in rendering which makes it no different in overall comparison to using an uncolored makeup gain vs. clean digital rendering .
|
|