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Post by sam on Jul 12, 2023 11:37:28 GMT -6
It's literally impossible to make a decent recording using a UA Arrow and a complete pipe dream to think you could do it on headphones. And wait... did I just read that you were using the stock headphone amp in your laptop? So you're not even using a dedicated headphone amp? What are you some kind of sorcerer or something?? I suppose next you're going to say that your arrangements are done by the reanimated corpse of George Martin. Yeah all true. But it’s not a race to the bottom is it? We could have a competition to see who can make a great sounding record on THE cheapest set-up. “I’ll raise you your Arrow interface, I made this track with a Behringer $40 interface …. and my cousin Jeff can’t tell the difference …. beat that” I don’t think it’s about Sam letting go, I think it’s about focus and ultimately budgets. If you want a decent budget set-up these days there’s great sound quality to be had and then rightly, focus on the music. And then there’s that other place to go where you’ve gone beyond that and you’ve had some budget available to explore the boutique gear and found there’s something special sonically to be gained that’s a thing in its own right and worthy of pursuit in the realms of mastery of sound. Personally, I don’t see any difference between my desire to own Crane Song converters and monitoring controllers and buying my first Martin D-18, Gibson Les Paul or Tone King Imperial Amp. In all my artistic endeavours, be it playing, writing or recording I’ve always tried to reach for the stars. Budget allowing. Just a different perspective. The crazy thing to me is it’s not even a budget thing. I owned a ton of outboard, solid clean conversion etc. When I moved to LA I slimmed down to an X6 and an Arrow. I’m slowly rebuying some key stuff but the quality of my work hasn’t dipped in the slightest. |
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Post by Martin John Butler on Jul 12, 2023 12:04:40 GMT -6
Since the Burl is a dedicated A/D converter that costs $2,700 new, it's not a fair comparison to a $2,000 interface. Comparing the conversion is of course an informative thing to do, it's important to see just how much you can get for the money in an Apollo.
It's also interesting to compare the Apollo to an interface on the level of the Apogee Symphony, even though a Symphony is more than twice the price.
If UAD made a new Apollo made to be paired with a separate UAD converter or a super high end Apollo with better conversion at the same price as a Symphony, then we'd know if the Symphony or the Burl actually make better converters. It would be a miracle if UAD's converters in their $2,000 interface equaled the Burl's A/D and a Burl D/A that would cost $5,000 and you'd still need an interface.
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Post by notneeson on Jul 12, 2023 12:17:53 GMT -6
Since the Burl is a dedicated A/D converter that costs $2,700 new, it's not a fair comparison to a $2,000 interface. Comparing the conversion is of course an informative thing to do, it's important to see just how much you can get for the money in an Apollo. It's also interesting to compare the Apollo to an interface on the level of the Apogee Symphony, even though a Symphony is more than twice the price. If UAD made a new Apollo made to be paired with a separate UAD converter or a super high end Apollo with better conversion at the same price as a Symphony, then we'd know if the Symphony or the Burl actually make better converters. It would be a miracle if UAD's converters in their $2,000 interface equaled the Burl's A/D and a Burl D/A that would cost $5,000 and you'd still need an interface. It’s in particular not a fair comparison because of the transformer balanced inputs on the Burl that are designed to change the sound positively. It’s much more “in lieu of a tape machine” than most other boxes. Been using Dangerous and Lynx N the last several weeks, and I’d be hard pressed to point to any major differences (not using the coloration options on the Dangerous). |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 12, 2023 12:34:34 GMT -6
Actually I think it would be a fun idea to try a "best recordings with the worst gear" competition. I'm being sarcastic in my previous post but I do agree that if there are things you can hear, it's kind of like getting that D-18 or the like. But I also agree that if you can't hear it, it's not sensible to pay for it. So, for example, does a Martin D-18 sound and play 10x better than a $250 guitar... I would say YES. Does [insert high end converter] sound 10x better than my Motu 828es? I don't know, if it does I sure can't hear it. To me converters hit diminishing returns really fast. Maybe one day I'll hear the difference but, as of now, once you get to the MOTU or RME level it's all the same to me. Hahaha, I assumed you were being sarcastic. Last thing I want to share is how I record most of my strummy acoustic parts with my iPhone these days 🫣 (I do, it’s great) You know what's hilarious? I was working on mixes for my younger brother and he kept saying "man, why doesn't my guitar sound as good as it does on my scratch pad tracks on my iPhone" and I'm like... shouldn't be too tough, let's listen. And sure enough, they did sound super cool for the genre (indie folk-ish). Threw a clipper on and made it way "too" aggressive and BOOM... instant iPhone compression. Happy (non paying in this case) client. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 12, 2023 12:39:57 GMT -6
Since the Burl is a dedicated A/D converter that costs $2,700 new, it's not a fair comparison to a $2,000 interface. Comparing the conversion is of course an informative thing to do, it's important to see just how much you can get for the money in an Apollo. It's also interesting to compare the Apollo to an interface on the level of the Apogee Symphony, even though a Symphony is more than twice the price. If UAD made a new Apollo made to be paired with a separate UAD converter or a super high end Apollo with better conversion at the same price as a Symphony, then we'd know if the Symphony or the Burl actually make better converters. It would be a miracle if UAD's converters in their $2,000 interface equaled the Burl's A/D and a Burl D/A that would cost $5,000 and you'd still need an interface. The 16x16 Symphony is actually in the range of the x16. Only $1k more and the only thing you're losing (that I would use) is monitor outs. So it's kind of like 14 out. Anyway, I like that Apogee box. If for no other reason than the bare bones industrial design really appeals to me. 16 in, 16 out, plain black face and a knob. Yes please! Now if only it had ADAT (also I don't need it at all). |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 12, 2023 14:25:06 GMT -6
Actually I think it would be a fun idea to try a "best recordings with the worst gear" competition. I've done it before, like $300.00 for an entire studio including instruments. What caused the most headaches were lack of tools, not so great monitors, really awful sounding distortion pedals and less than stellar VSTI's (this was well over a decade ago though). Given the option to buy the full suite of Tokyo Dawn plugs, maybe Ozone? Some Beyer headphones (like almost any of them) a half decent guitar amp (even a $200.00 amp would do) plus also having access to something like Superior Drummer or Slate 5 the results would have been entirely different.
I recon from my tribulations if you spent about $1500.00 for a full setup you could do it. If somehow one managed to create a competitive rock song with a $300.00 setup they would be a much better engineer than I am.
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Post by christophert on Jul 12, 2023 16:51:24 GMT -6
Hahaha, I assumed you were being sarcastic. Last thing I want to share is how I record most of my strummy acoustic parts with my iPhone these days 🫣 (I do, it’s great) You know what's hilarious? I was working on mixes for my younger brother and he kept saying "man, why doesn't my guitar sound as good as it does on my scratch pad tracks on my iPhone" and I'm like... shouldn't be too tough, let's listen. And sure enough, they did sound super cool for the genre (indie folk-ish). Threw a clipper on and made it way "too" aggressive and BOOM... instant iPhone compression. Happy (non paying in this case) client. Interesting. What clipper did you use for this? And are you using Audio Movers ilisten ?- or transferring mixes at various stages to the phone for listening? |
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Post by tkaitkai on Jul 12, 2023 17:21:54 GMT -6
Last thing I want to share is how I record most of my strummy acoustic parts with my iPhone these days 🫣 (I do, it’s great) I hate to admit it, but that stupid iPhone mic is literally perfect on acoustic guitar. It’s a bit noisy at times, but goddamnit, it has a friggin awesome vibe. I have several voice memos where I just captured some kind of magic and can’t duplicate it for the life of me. UGH. |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 12, 2023 17:35:19 GMT -6
Last thing I want to share is how I record most of my strummy acoustic parts with my iPhone these days 🫣 (I do, it’s great) I hate to admit it, but that stupid iPhone mic is literally perfect on acoustic guitar. It’s a bit noisy at times, but goddamnit, it has a friggin awesome vibe. I have several voice memos where I just captured some kind of magic and can’t duplicate it for the life of me. UGH. Dave Gilmour had an electric guitar part on one of his solo albums ("On an Island" IIRC) that it was captured on his iPhone and he used it because he couldn't recreate the vibe. Go figure. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Jul 12, 2023 17:56:02 GMT -6
You know what's hilarious? I was working on mixes for my younger brother and he kept saying "man, why doesn't my guitar sound as good as it does on my scratch pad tracks on my iPhone" and I'm like... shouldn't be too tough, let's listen. And sure enough, they did sound super cool for the genre (indie folk-ish). Threw a clipper on and made it way "too" aggressive and BOOM... instant iPhone compression. Happy (non paying in this case) client. Interesting. What clipper did you use for this? And are you using Audio Movers ilisten ?- or transferring mixes at various stages to the phone for listening? Just grabbed one of the default ones in Reaper and slid the threshold down. If you really wanted to nail it you'd compress the living hell out of it as well but the clipper got the gritty sound we wanted. |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 13, 2023 5:10:58 GMT -6
Yeah all true. If you want a decent budget set-up these days there’s great sound quality to be had and then rightly, focus on the music. Personally, I don’t see any difference between my desire to own Crane Song converters and monitoring controllers and buying my first Martin D-18, Gibson Les Paul or Tone King Imperial Amp. In all my artistic endeavours, be it playing, writing or recording I’ve always tried to reach for the stars. Budget allowing. Just a different perspective. I get the feeling Graves was being sarcastic. Personally I'm regressing again, I've mainly used headphones despite having a big ol' set of monitors in front of me. I've trimmed the excess in a lot of places, compared things to the nth degree and in the end it felt sort of meh. Sure there were variances between the end results but it's not like a certain chain train wrecked the track, they were just different.
I do have a specific taste in audio equipment and within reason budget just doesn't really factor into the equation. There's cheap and expensive stuff alike that works for me but there's also things I don't gel with at both sides of the extremes. I know "whatever works for you" is a tired old cliche but I'm starting to feel like I have the experience to say it without doubting and pondering over the next expensive compressor or audio interface.
Yeah, I realise he was having a bit of fun  My view is, whilst I can afford to keeping running my little boutique rig, I will. I can hear the difference - it greatly matters to me, and currently that's all the justification I need. But I agree with you, it’s whatever works for the individual, that’s all the matters. |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 13, 2023 6:16:06 GMT -6
Yeah, I realise he was having a bit of fun My view is, whilst I can afford to keeping running my little boutique rig, I will. I can hear the difference - it greatly matters to me, and currently that's all the justification I need. But I agree with you, it’s whatever works for the individual, that’s all the matters. It's not really about you or me per se, end of the day we do our own thing. If it greatly matters to you then there's no conversation to be had really, I'm rebuking the notion that you need a $200K+ setup or you're doomed to mediocrity, I've fallen into that way of thinking before and I'm far from the only one. From my experience if you can't create something competitive with an Apollo, UA plugs and a half decent set of mic's, monitors or even headphones there's something seriously wrong.
However I've invested in HW and there's several reasons for it, partially the sound in my head that most people really couldn't care less about. Although it makes me happy and it's my money so whatever.
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Post by svart on Jul 13, 2023 10:36:29 GMT -6
I hate to admit it, but that stupid iPhone mic is literally perfect on acoustic guitar. It’s a bit noisy at times, but goddamnit, it has a friggin awesome vibe. I have several voice memos where I just captured some kind of magic and can’t duplicate it for the life of me. UGH. Dave Gilmour had an electric guitar part on one of his solo albums ("On an Island" IIRC) that it was captured on his iPhone and he used it because he couldn't recreate the vibe. Go figure. SSL listen mic trick.. |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 13, 2023 11:29:05 GMT -6
Dave Gilmour had an electric guitar part on one of his solo albums ("On an Island" IIRC) that it was captured on his iPhone and he used it because he couldn't recreate the vibe. Go figure. SSL listen mic trick.. ? He didn't set out to use an iPhone recording - it was an idea he captured quickly and then found he couldn't recreate the sound and feel. It's happened to me before, and I've ended up using a demo vocal because I couldn't recapture a unique in the moment vibe. |
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Post by svart on Jul 13, 2023 11:56:44 GMT -6
? He didn't set out to use an iPhone recording - it was an idea he captured quickly and then found he couldn't recreate the sound and feel. It's happened to me before, and I've ended up using a demo vocal because I couldn't recapture a unique in the moment vibe. The SSL listen mic trick does what you're looking for here. The talkback mic on older SSL consoles has a ruthless compressor/limiter circuit built in and folks would use that mic to record parts and they even modified the consoles to have a switchable input for that circuit so they could use it with any mic. It's utterly crushed and somewhat distorted, very much like a phone mic would be. SSL even sells a plugin that recreates the overall tonality of it. |
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Post by thehightenor on Jul 13, 2023 12:49:00 GMT -6
? He didn't set out to use an iPhone recording - it was an idea he captured quickly and then found he couldn't recreate the sound and feel. It's happened to me before, and I've ended up using a demo vocal because I couldn't recapture a unique in the moment vibe. The SSL listen mic trick does what you're looking for here. The talkback mic on older SSL consoles has a ruthless compressor/limiter circuit built in and folks would use that mic to record parts and they even modified the consoles to have a switchable input for that circuit so they could use it with any mic. It's utterly crushed and somewhat distorted, very much like a phone mic would be. SSL even sells a plugin that recreates the overall tonality of it. I'm not looking for that sound on guitar - it sounded pretty crappy to my ears - it was just a comment Mr Gilmour used his iPhone recording because he couldn't recreate it. He said he tried to re-record it .... but it had a unique vibe rhythmically speaking, so he used it. I have that SSL plugin though, I occasionally used it when I want the Phil Collins gated room sound. Though since I bought the SD3 "Hit Factory" I don't need it anymore, as sadly I can't record real drums  |
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