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Post by andersmv on Sept 25, 2023 10:54:39 GMT -6
I would love some feedback on this idea from everyone, still not sure how I want to do this moving forward. I cover a lot of this in the video, it's a lot of talking for most of the video explaining all of this... I took a long break (6 months) from music and recording at the beginning of the year, I'm just now starting to get back into things. There were some exceptions, but really didn't even listen to music at all during that stretch. Coming back to things, it's was amazing how differently I heard everything with a kind of "reset" perspective. Almost everything sounded way over compressed, distorted and crazy to me, even albums I loved and knew really well. It was really bad when I went back and listened to stuff I had recorded, it all sounded like garbage. Long story short, I want to do some sort of side project/video series where I keep things really simple and not overdo anything. I need it just to stay sane more than anything.
First thing before starting the project, get a pair of the best preamps in the world. I tried a lot of things the last few months, the Coil Audio preamps were the winner by a wide margin. The runner up's were surprisingly my AEA TRP preamps, between those two that should keep me covered for a really good, simple signal chain. I don't want to compress or EQ going in on any of this. Second thing, record at super high quality at 192k 24 bit. I've never really worked this high up on anything, might as well "because I can". Next thing, I want to keep everything in the "Pure" series at 8 total tracks at the most. No shenanigans as far as summing channels on the way in or anything like that, 8 total mics or line inputs. I think it's a healthy track count, while at the same time will force people to decide what's really important. At the same time, for simple songs it gives us room to have some fun and create some space.
As far as mixing, keep things stupid simple and not overdo anything. I definitely give no craps about making this stuff loud, there's going to be some healthy dynamic and head room if the song allows it. I think I'm going to adopt the LUFS standard for streaming just to keep this all uniform. Sticking to around -14 LUFs as a rough target will let me keep a lot of headroom and dynamic in there without having to do anything remotely close to "let's destroy this to make it competitive". No bullshit processing or mastering, no "I can't hear that on a cellphone" crap... I'm targeting people with nice setups and speakers that know how to turn their volume knob up.
I went ahead and did a song myself just to give the concept a go and see how things went. This is one of the biggest things I want feedback on: I would love to avoid YouTube compression and have a way for people to download the 192k file and play it in the background of the video montage so we're not dealing with YouTube compression. I've figured out a way to do that to where there's a "sync" countdown. I run through it in the video before the montage at the end, but basically you have a countdown and you press play on the downloaded file in the background and it should sync up with the video. That might be way too much extra crap for everyone to deal with. If you would rather just watch the video with YouTube audio and then download the full file to listen to later, I need to hear that feedback! I was going to just leave the audio out of the YouTube video to force people to download the file and sync it, but I've left it in there so you all have a choice.
At the end of the day, I don't really care about trying to market this and make it popular. This is a passion project, but it would be nice to do it in a way that more people want to come along for the ride. I don't want to annoy everyone with the structure and whole sync audio concept, so I'm open to ditching that. Since this is more geared towards audiophiles and engineers, would you like the videos to cover the recording process a bit and go through mics and stuff? Maybe talk a little bit about why we made the decisions we did to stay in the 8 track count limitation? I'm happy to talk about it more in this thread for my song I did, but all the video I took shows the mic choices and setups.
Anyway, here's the video. Feedback appreciated! If you're burnt out and want to come out here and do a song with me for this, let me know. Like I said in the video, I don't want to turn this into a studio service. This is a side project to keep me sane and let me do stuff every once in a while the way I would like to...
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Post by robo on Sept 25, 2023 14:48:56 GMT -6
I’d check out the videos, but honestly can’t imagine doing the sync thing. In my experience, higher quality YouTube streaming is close enough to hear differences in gear and recording techniques, which would be my main interest as a viewer. If I loved a song, I’d just check out the artist’s work or maybe download the full-res version separately.
As far as your ear break revelations, I wonder if you’ve just realized that you enjoy more organic music? I can relate, but you can’t get away with 8 tracks in a modern pop production (I wish). That said, I think there’s a lot of cool minimal music being made right now in less commercial genres.
Good luck with the series. I enjoy your videos!
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Post by mcirish on Sept 25, 2023 15:45:12 GMT -6
I'd be interested in checking out the videos as you produce them. I too probably wouldn't be interested in trying to do a sync with hi-res audio and youtube. But, If I really liked it, I would seek out the high res version.
-14LUFS is really low. I know that's what streaming platforms say they shoot for but I'm not sure that really works. In the mixing stage, I'm just going for the particular sound I want and then the mastering engineer can get it to the level that is competitive. I find my mixes coming in around -10LUFS for what I want to hear. Most often mastering pushes it a few dB further.
Anyway, I think this is a cool idea and I applaud you for giving it a shot and doing something for sanity.
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Post by drbill on Sept 25, 2023 17:47:02 GMT -6
-14LUFS is really low. I know that's what streaming platforms say they shoot for but I'm not sure that really works. Agreed, but I'm mastering everything now to -13-14 LUFS. I've been very happy with the sound while I'm mastering, and very happy with the sound on the streaming services. Of course, there is always someone gaming the system, but that's what the streamers want so.... |
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Post by wiz on Sept 25, 2023 19:42:45 GMT -6
I am -14 too
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Post by Deleted on Sept 25, 2023 19:51:57 GMT -6
I master to the best sound and only limit transients now in mastering. Unless the reference is mega loud. I still get mix references to the L2 on everything era so I must do stupid things to get stupid loud.
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Post by copperx on Sept 25, 2023 23:59:03 GMT -6
"I am -14 too, and this is deep"
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Post by enlav on Sept 26, 2023 6:12:10 GMT -6
While it may not get you to 192k PCM or lossless - there has to be a video host or site that allows for less audio artifacts/compression than youtube, no?
I understand though wanting to stay on one platform or specifically youtube of course, but now I'm wondering if a competitor out there exists in this vein.
Once upon a time, I think it was Vimeo(?) that many of colleagues preferred due to it having less compression artifacts on the visual front than youtube, but I don't know if that still applies today.
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Post by mcirish on Sept 26, 2023 8:18:39 GMT -6
-14LUFS is really low. I know that's what streaming platforms say they shoot for but I'm not sure that really works. Agreed, but I'm mastering everything now to -13-14 LUFS. I've been very happy with the sound while I'm mastering, and very happy with the sound on the streaming services. Of course, there is always someone gaming the system, but that's what the streamers want so.... Hmmm. I don't master that much of my own stuff but I do master for some clients. Everyone I work with still wants it "stupid" loud. I would agree that -12 to -14 sounds nice and open, but I can't get away with that yet. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 26, 2023 16:32:40 GMT -6
I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet but I love the idea.
EDIT: Although I also am unlikely to sync a YouTube video. I wish that weren't true but it is.
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Post by andersmv on Sept 27, 2023 10:26:20 GMT -6
Thank you all for the feedback. At the very least, it seems to be an overwhelming "no" on the sync thing  . That's fine, I totally get it (and it's why I left the audio in the video montage). I constantly see people on forums talking about how "useless" shootouts are on YouTube with the audio compression and what not, yet everyone still watches them religiously. At the same time, when you put things on a better platform like Vimeo, no one watches it. Kind of confirms a lot of my suspicions that although we all talk a big game when it comes to "quality", we're all whores to convenience when it really comes down to it. That's not me saying this in an "old man yells at the clouds" tone, it just is what it is and I understand. This was the only way I could think to "compromise" doing this right, at the end of the day it sounds like most people are going to be happy just watching the video and downloading the full 192 file after. Again, not really surprising. For most of my videos, I spend just as much time making full session files that are level matched and organized for people to download after watching the videos. I've got like tens of thousands of views on my API vs UAD video series, and the session files have still been accessed less than 100 times after being up for almost a year. We're all lazy... I'm surprised to hear that some of you are able to keep clients happy and master at reasonable levels. It's gotten worse for me, especially with more folk rock/americana albums from artists like Brandie Carlile hitting in the -4 LUFS range in some singles. I'm really about to loose my f***ing mind some days with references I get, thus why I'm doing this. I hate to rant more, but I reached out to a few people that come here a lot about doing a song for this series. Although everyone loves the idea, the end of the conversation kept getting the "can we do a separate mix and master of the song as well to release?". I think this is going to be harder than I thought. I swear, I thought this would be fun, but it's making me more frustrated trying to convince everyone else. Old man rant over... I'll be ditching the sync idea, I appreciate the honest feedback in that regard! |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 27, 2023 12:47:08 GMT -6
Thank you all for the feedback. At the very least, it seems to be an overwhelming "no" on the sync thing . That's fine, I totally get it (and it's why I left the audio in the video montage). I constantly see people on forums talking about how "useless" shootouts are on YouTube with the audio compression and what not, yet everyone still watches them religiously. At the same time, when you put things on a better platform like Vimeo, no one watches it. Kind of confirms a lot of my suspicions that although we all talk a big game when it comes to "quality", we're all whores to convenience when it really comes down to it. That's not me saying this in an "old man yells at the clouds" tone, it just is what it is and I understand. This was the only way I could think to "compromise" doing this right, at the end of the day it sounds like most people are going to be happy just watching the video and downloading the full 192 file after. Again, not really surprising. For most of my videos, I spend just as much time making full session files that are level matched and organized for people to download after watching the videos. I've got like tens of thousands of views on my API vs UAD video series, and the session files have still been accessed less than 100 times after being up for almost a year. We're all lazy... I'm surprised to hear that some of you are able to keep clients happy and master at reasonable levels. It's gotten worse for me, especially with more folk rock/americana albums from artists like Brandie Carlile hitting in the -4 LUFS range in some singles. I'm really about to loose my f***ing mind some days with references I get, thus why I'm doing this. I hate to rant more, but I reached out to a few people that come here a lot about doing a song for this series. Although everyone loves the idea, the end of the conversation kept getting the "can we do a separate mix and master of the song as well to release?". I think this is going to be harder than I thought. I swear, I thought this would be fun, but it's making me more frustrated trying to convince everyone else. Old man rant over... I'll be ditching the sync idea, I appreciate the honest feedback in that regard! Are you inviting people to do the series in exchange for free time or are they expected to pay the studio fee as well? (Trying to phrase that in a way that doens't sound like a challenge, oh well... not meant that way.) |
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Post by andersmv on Sept 27, 2023 12:56:48 GMT -6
Thank you all for the feedback. At the very least, it seems to be an overwhelming "no" on the sync thing . That's fine, I totally get it (and it's why I left the audio in the video montage). I constantly see people on forums talking about how "useless" shootouts are on YouTube with the audio compression and what not, yet everyone still watches them religiously. At the same time, when you put things on a better platform like Vimeo, no one watches it. Kind of confirms a lot of my suspicions that although we all talk a big game when it comes to "quality", we're all whores to convenience when it really comes down to it. That's not me saying this in an "old man yells at the clouds" tone, it just is what it is and I understand. This was the only way I could think to "compromise" doing this right, at the end of the day it sounds like most people are going to be happy just watching the video and downloading the full 192 file after. Again, not really surprising. For most of my videos, I spend just as much time making full session files that are level matched and organized for people to download after watching the videos. I've got like tens of thousands of views on my API vs UAD video series, and the session files have still been accessed less than 100 times after being up for almost a year. We're all lazy... I'm surprised to hear that some of you are able to keep clients happy and master at reasonable levels. It's gotten worse for me, especially with more folk rock/americana albums from artists like Brandie Carlile hitting in the -4 LUFS range in some singles. I'm really about to loose my f***ing mind some days with references I get, thus why I'm doing this. I hate to rant more, but I reached out to a few people that come here a lot about doing a song for this series. Although everyone loves the idea, the end of the conversation kept getting the "can we do a separate mix and master of the song as well to release?". I think this is going to be harder than I thought. I swear, I thought this would be fun, but it's making me more frustrated trying to convince everyone else. Old man rant over... I'll be ditching the sync idea, I appreciate the honest feedback in that regard! Are you inviting people to do the series in exchange for free time or are they expected to pay the studio fee as well? (Trying to phrase that in a way that doens't sound like a challenge, oh well... not meant that way.) All good. It’s just something I’m doing for fun and not charging for. For some people, they’ve already booked time and will be here. “If you can spend an extra day here, we’ll do this thing and you’ll get a free video out of it”. I don’t blame people, but the concern is that they want to “release” it as well and a lot of people don’t really understand the concept from a technical standpoint. “Can’t we just master it and release it on Spotify too?”. Again, this was supposed to be a fun thing for everyone involved where we don’t give a crap about “marketing” any of this and just make some good music for the sake of creating. I don’t need any other side projects to figure out how to monetize, my life’s messy enough as is right now 😂 I do my own music on the side every once in a while just as a creative outlet. I have no desire to make money off my music. I’m trying to do the same thing with this series as an engineer. It’s a fun project where I get to be creative as an engineer and do it exactly how I would like creatively. This is my outlet as an engineer. |
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Post by skav on Sept 27, 2023 13:07:34 GMT -6
Im curious what your experience is with recording and working with 192khz sample rate? I haven't done any work from start-finish in 192khz.
I've only done quick tests and can hear the difference. Although slight, most audible is between 48-96khz to me. Latency is great 96-up,
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 27, 2023 13:48:20 GMT -6
I might be down to come out there and do some stuff with you if you just need test subjects. I don't really give a s@#@ about releasing stuff, I'll just write some songs specifically for the session.
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Post by andersmv on Sept 27, 2023 14:18:21 GMT -6
Im curious what your experience is with recording and working with 192khz sample rate? I haven't done any work from start-finish in 192khz. I've only done quick tests and can hear the difference. Although slight, most audible is between 48-96khz to me. Latency is great 96-up, I've never gone this high either, so it will be interesting. My philosophy in the past has been, if I'm going to "take the song out back and shoot it in the head" during mixing and mastering, I could care less about working in higher sample rates when you're going to put clippers and limiters at the end of the chain and kill the dynamic and any hint of a transient. Conceptually, I'm setting myself up to take advantage of all the dynamics and space the higher sample rates have to offer. Also curious to see if any plugins actually operate and sound different/better. That's a whole other can of worms and absolutely don't want to turn this into a sample rate "thing". I can, therefor I will. I'm not trying to prove a point doing it that way. I know with most stuff, I record at 48k24b because it's always served me well, keeps file sizes down, and I'm STILL on ADAT for 8 channels. I've also been concerned about computer power, but I just splurged on a Mac Studio M2 Ultra (mostly for video work side of things). I might actually ditch ADAT and get a second Apollo and start working at 88.2 or something. Most of the time, I send bands a wave file at 48k24b to upload on streaming and also give them a dithered mp3 bounce to pass around (they're going to do it anyway, might as well come from me). I honestly can NEVER tell a difference listening back to the mp3 and wave side by side once everything's mastered loudly. I know for the song I did for this Pure Series video, I can tell a massive difference between YouTube and the 192k bounce in frequency response and space/stereo image. I also bounced out a dithered mp3 to 48k and was able to pick it out blind every time. The difference wasn't as big as the YouTube comparison, but something always was a little "off" with the mp3. I went from closing my eyes and feeling like I was "inside" the recording at 192, to hearing something coming out of the speakers with the mp3. That was interesting... |
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Post by andersmv on Sept 27, 2023 14:19:42 GMT -6
I might be down to come out there and do some stuff with you if you just need test subjects. I don't really give a s@#@ about releasing stuff, I'll just write some songs specifically for the session. Contact me, let's make something happen. I would really be interested in doing these with other engineers more than anything. I want this to feel "artistic" on the recording side of things too, I think it would be a rewarding experience to have some fun and try things on the recording side. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 27, 2023 14:24:53 GMT -6
I might be down to come out there and do some stuff with you if you just need test subjects. I don't really give a s@#@ about releasing stuff, I'll just write some songs specifically for the session. Contact me, let's make something happen. I would really be interested in doing these with other engineers more than anything. I want this to feel "artistic" on the recording side of things too, I think it would be a rewarding experience to have some fun and try things on the recording side. I'll PM you later today when I can get to my computer. You're a bit of a haul from Austin but this seems fun and your place looks really cool. I bet I could talk some of my guys into it. |
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Post by Ward on Oct 4, 2023 6:21:53 GMT -6
What was wrong with -7LUFS?
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. That's fine, I totally get it (and it's why I left the audio in the video montage). I constantly see people on forums talking about how "useless" shootouts are on YouTube with the audio compression and what not, yet everyone still watches them religiously. At the same time, when you put things on a better platform like Vimeo, no one watches it. Kind of confirms a lot of my suspicions that although we all talk a big game when it comes to "quality", we're all whores to convenience when it really comes down to it. That's not me saying this in an "old man yells at the clouds" tone, it just is what it is and I understand. This was the only way I could think to "compromise" doing this right, at the end of the day it sounds like most people are going to be happy just watching the video and downloading the full 192 file after. Again, not really surprising. For most of my videos, I spend just as much time making full session files that are level matched and organized for people to download after watching the videos. I've got like tens of thousands of views on my API vs UAD video series, and the session files have still been accessed less than 100 times after being up for almost a year. We're all lazy... 
