Just bought a pair of Sennheiser HD 600 headphones.
FWIW: I like them better for checking mixes than the Focal Spirit Pro's I bought last year. When I go from my Adam A7X's to the Sennheiser's, I don't feel like I'm stepping into a different mix.
to be blunt. if a business is not making money then the business is not working. we can point our fingers at many things or we can change the business model.
the industry has moved on. it is not what it was. not because its broken but because things evolve.
I'm going to comment on this because I also own part of a business that manufactures $40M worth of shower doors. We also own a glass business. So, we sell very expensive frameless luxury shower doors to wealthy people and less expensive framed doors to hotels and other commercial enterprises.
If the government allowed our shower door business to (a) have it's products stolen by individual with no consequences and (b) allow other companies to let others use our product without consequences our business would be dead.
This "evolved" idea is bullshit. It's government sanctioned theft.
You want to pay for the best frameless shower door? Pay us upfront. Otherwise go to Lowes and install it yourself. Oh yeah, Lowes isn't giving it away either. They're not "evolved" and either are we. Marriot wants 150 of our shower doors so that their guests can take a shower? They pay us upfront for the door and then pay for the installation. And guess what? We pay the installers. We're not able to make them do work for free. They' haven't "evolved" either. The business won't "evolve" like the music business because the government won't allow it.
Here's my view, which is a macroeconomic view: As we approach an increasined welfare state due to technological advances that are destrying the labor market, the government realized that the masses needed some basic things to be cheap and/or free. So, music is almost entirely free, food for the masses is cheap and cheap street drugs are available. This is not capitalism, it's palliative social planning for those who have no capital and no opportunity to have stainable capital. In my view, it's technological driven devolution, not evolution, and the people will either be palliated or not.
Most likely something in maestro. Maestro alone is enough for me to swear off Apogee.
Good news for people that dislike Maestro. According to Apogee when they release their software update for Symphony I/O MkII- which will offer "standalone routing - people with be able to use cards like my RME AES 32 and Totalmix instead of Maestro. Of course, people hate Totalmix too. LOL
I like the more heavily mastered version better. It glued together the intro better, giving it more immediate tension, which matched the vibe of the lyric and mood of the song imo. The less glued intro version felt sing songy to me.
I have a Smart C2. Always on the mix bus. It is a very even compressor tone wise. I also like that it has a sidechain option, which I use, and the option for it to be dual mono or stereo.
I use an API 2500 for drums, mostly in parallel.
If I only had one two channel compressor, it would be the Smart, not the API.
Last Edit: Feb 20, 2017 8:20:29 GMT -6 by swurveman
Does anybody here get texts from your girlfriend/wife that say, "Maybe finish your song tonight?;-)"?
I get shouts from upstairs from my girlfriend saying things like, "When are you going to turn that goddamned amp off and stop playing that annoying lead guitar part over and over again? Or, "honey how soon are they going to leave so I can run the washing machine?"
Maybe hipster's have nice girlfriends. I don't know. Maybe if I get a pony tail and a ISOVOX I'll get a kindler, gentler girlfriend. LOL.
Here's how I set it up. By "->" I mean output. In Cubase they're called Groups:
top/bottom snare mic-> mono snare bus-> Stereo Drum Bus in/out kicks mics->mono kick bus-> Stereo Drum Bus L/R overhead -> Stereo OH bus-> Stereo Drum Bus ambience mics-> Stereo ambience bus-> Stereo Drum Bus
I also set up a stereo parallel compression bus (API 2500) and two mono parallel compressor bus's using Distressors. I use the "send" feature, like you'd send to a reverb for example. These parallel compressor groups output to the Stereo Drum bus.
Last Edit: Feb 18, 2017 8:35:37 GMT -6 by swurveman
Frank, which version is "right?" I kinda like the one that sounds like James Taylor better. (Higher pitch and tempo.)
Me too Don. I hope he chooses to capo up and sing higher. It was one of those "happy accidents", but it's up to the client. Always kind of weird when you have strong feeling of what is better, but have to wait and see what they think.
If the pool in Cubase says the files are 44.1, they are. Whether they were tracked at 44.1 or resampled by mistake to 44.1, they're NOW 44.1....and should be played back at 44.1 if accurate playback is the goal. If you just LIKE how it sounds to playback the 44 files at 48, you need to take the ANALOG output of that DAC you're listening to....into the ANALOG input of a second recorder running WTFever sample rate....and record it while the "tape" is sped up.
The sped up tape is a good analogy. I simply must have recorded it at 44.1, since I didn't resample.
The tracks were us just trying to get a guide vocal and get a tempo that worked for the song for the recording session to come. I emailed the guy and asked him to listen to the sped up version. It's his call.
I've been down the the elastic audio rabbit hole before. Thankfully this is just a setup session, though it's been fruitful to hear the speeded up audio.
Thanks for explaining this. It's always something new...
Yes, you're not "upsampling". You're playing back a 44.1 sampled audio at the rate of 48khz. If that's how you want it to sound, you need to capture it with a second system via analog connection.
Thanks popmann.
Here's a video of what it sounds like when the files are played back at 48 and 44.1. The first shows my RME interface showing 48K, with Cubase at 44.1. The second shows RME at 44.1 and Cubase at 44.1.
I really don't understand the relationship between Sample Rate and tempo and pitch. The weird thing is, I swear I recorded at 48 and that the first audio in the video is what it sounded like live. Is there something that Cubase could have done to downsample the file?
Last Edit: Feb 16, 2017 12:07:50 GMT -6 by swurveman
As an aside, I mixed something that was in 96 last night and it really sounded great. I have been avoiding going 96 because my Hearback is connected via adat and it screws with the channel count and routing. Might just have to del with it.
Any idea about the pitch sounding different?
I've done things at 96 as well. I stopped due to the hassles of downsampling and going back and forth changing the SR at the converter/interface. However, I just got something from that was recorded at FAME at 48 and thought I'd try it.
Last night I recorded a guy at 44.1 even though my intention was to record him at 48. I could have sworn I set the converter to 48, but apparently I didn't. Anyway, when I went to mixdown the song, I set the sample rate to 48 on the converter and the song sounded great on playback in Cubase. The pitch was higher and it felt livelier. When I mixed it down, both at 44.1 and 48, it didn't sound as good. The pitch was lower again.
So, not knowing enough about sample rate theory, was the converter upsampling the files? If so, why didn't it bounce to the same pitch?
Thanks to anybody with experience with this who weighs in on the subject.
You'll be able to if your interface has ADAT ports.
Correct instead of strictly TB or HD
It gets better: I asked Apogee about Symphony and my PC. This was their response:
"Thanks so much for reaching out. Yes, next month we will release a software update for Symphony I/O MkII which will offer "standalone routing" meaning you can direct the Analog inputs directly to the digital outputs and vise versa. If you wish to have 16X16 in this configuration you will need to purchase a Symphony I/O MkII 8X8 with an additional 8X8 MkII card for 16 channels of analog and digital.
Based on your existing rig you should be able to keep your RME AES cards.
The new MkII software/firmware will be released and included in shipping units starting in Mid-late march.Please let us know if you have any additional questions!
I wasn't expecting to be able to keep my RME AES32 cards. It will be interesting to see what the cost will be.
I know there's a lot of theory about gain staging at a lower dbfs level itb, but has their been a blind A/B test of mixes where people overwhelmingly preferred the lower channel level mix, as opposed to a mix pulling down the master fader in a 32 float system?
Note: I would assume that in the 32 bit float blind A/B test that plugins with a volume control would be used so that the plugins would not be clipping.
Last Edit: Feb 15, 2017 16:41:57 GMT -6 by swurveman
I Have gone over this before, to get consistent good pricing call your dealer, deal with the same person show them loyalty they will show you loyalty if they can over time.
Eric- It is B&H that has the deal.
And yes, I do deal with the same guy at another dealer when I'm buying in larger dollar amounts. I'm talking about these kind of commodity sales. The guy I deal with, who has given me large discounts, has the same listed price as Sweetwater. This B&H deal is 28% less right off the bat. I guess I could have called my guy and asked him to match it, but why bother? I just spent 4K with the guy. I'm not going to haggle about headphones, and I'm pretty sure my guy and Sweetwater buy by the pallet as well. It just seems strange to me, particularly when you Google what you want and you get a lot of the dealers prices. Perhaps B&H has an algorithm that- when they see a person that buys a lot of gear having an uptick in buying - they discount right away and get the sale. I don't know. whatever it was, it worked. I bought the headphones from B&H.
Last Edit: Feb 14, 2017 13:29:00 GMT -6 by swurveman
I wonder if he's got them aimed at the top left shoulder of the guitar. I know some aim at the bottom left shoulder. When I was trying this I swear the back of my fig 8 ribbon was slightly darker than the front. Got a better ribbon coming Wednesday so will have another go. There does seem a lot of proximity effect on the clip you posted - could it be something to do with the reflection from the guitar body?
EmRR had good advice about aim and finding the intermediate angle that gives the most centered sound .
I think the proximity is just that I was so close. Too close.
If you close your eyes and sit in front of a guitarist you get a lopsided sonic image. The body of the guitar is always on one side (because it's on one side!), unless you are 1) far enough away, or 2) shift to an intermediate angle. You have to listen for that intermediate angle that gives the most centered sound. I find this true with ANY stereo technique aimed at the body/neck joint. Angle with body further away and neck closer sometimes helps center, as it shifts the body more towards the middle of the pic.
I'm on laptop speakers, it still sounds tonally lopsided even there. I think it's probable that Bob doesn't have a ton of side image in the blend, but I haven't watched or listened to the whole thing. He may be tossing the lows from the side image to keep it more centered. Etc.
Why would up/down defeat a wide image? It rearranges whether you sense L/R hand relationship, but not ambient width. It swaps for a more distant set of problems, floor versus ceiling, while centering the instrument body. Sometimes it is the better solution.
Try a second stereo pair further out, and balance the close to the far through placement. Try keeping gain matched rather than shifting image with volume, it'll almost always work better in helping you find the sweet spot(s).
Thanks for your advice. I have an acoustic guitar recording session coming up. So, I'll be able to sit in front of the player and listen for the intermediate angle. I'll also do some tests alone with the mics farther away. I'll look at EQ as well on what I have.