studiotech said:
Im up in Gainesville. No time these days to even tweek any more, new baby coming...family everywhere!!
John @ AE is now building TDs with the RAAL ribbons, performance gains over even the Neopro5i was noticeable to him. John also has designed a new 6.5" Driver to match his other Lambda set so maybe that is a good choice? Its almost ready (I think).
Time to read about the DCX mods or find another used option to hear the difference.
digital doesn't suck, but analogue is much more mature. people's hearing hasn't changed since the very first recording was made (well, other than that there's a lot more hearing damage going around today).
to me, philosophy is as important, or more important, than specs. that's why i try not to EQ anything unless it really needs it.
as noted earlier, there are those who hype the sound, and those who like it flat and accurate, count me closer to the latter. hyped sound can sound really great on crappy systems, but all the inherent quirks of the processors used to hype it can become quite ugly on accurate systems.
call me crazy, but i like a mix you don't have to touch. you set it up right, and all the instruments can just breathe freely in there own private spaces. the tendency to 'correct' pitch and timing issues of a performance often sterilizes the music, and the tendency to try and put EVERYTHING up front with massive compression and EQ tends to suck the life and the magic out of the recording, imo.
i agree about the latency issue. you may not 'hear' it, directly, but it is one of those things that when it's not there anymore, you notice an improvement.
i think, like anything else, studios that are selling off the old standby analogue standards at bargain basement prices will be buying them back at a premium some day, much like what happened with tubes and solid state.
back to philosophy:
in my personal world of duke dogma, there is nothing like the colours of the analogue rainbow. sure it takes longer, and you can't call up the mix verbatim, later, but there's a lot more art involved, and, to me, that is reflected in the final product. it is more artful.
although it is possible to make awesome digital recordings, i find engineers tend to overuse the tools jsut because they can leading to many digital recordings end up sounding 'clinical' and lifeless.
analogue is dead. long live analogue.
to me, philosophy is as important, or more important, than specs. that's why i try not to EQ anything unless it really needs it.
as noted earlier, there are those who hype the sound, and those who like it flat and accurate, count me closer to the latter. hyped sound can sound really great on crappy systems, but all the inherent quirks of the processors used to hype it can become quite ugly on accurate systems.
call me crazy, but i like a mix you don't have to touch. you set it up right, and all the instruments can just breathe freely in there own private spaces. the tendency to 'correct' pitch and timing issues of a performance often sterilizes the music, and the tendency to try and put EVERYTHING up front with massive compression and EQ tends to suck the life and the magic out of the recording, imo.
i agree about the latency issue. you may not 'hear' it, directly, but it is one of those things that when it's not there anymore, you notice an improvement.
i think, like anything else, studios that are selling off the old standby analogue standards at bargain basement prices will be buying them back at a premium some day, much like what happened with tubes and solid state.
back to philosophy:
in my personal world of duke dogma, there is nothing like the colours of the analogue rainbow. sure it takes longer, and you can't call up the mix verbatim, later, but there's a lot more art involved, and, to me, that is reflected in the final product. it is more artful.
although it is possible to make awesome digital recordings, i find engineers tend to overuse the tools jsut because they can leading to many digital recordings end up sounding 'clinical' and lifeless.
analogue is dead. long live analogue.
dukeoyork said:
I couldn't agree more. When we are not able to use the Studer, we still tend to run a hybrid approach to tracking and mixing. Track into ProTools with the best possible convertors, treating it only as a tape machine, not as a mixer or processor. Then mix back out through the API console(which is all discrete analogue, not even any IC's in the signal path) with real outboard gear, not plug-ins in the box. Still not as nice as tape the whole way, but superior an in-the-box mix. Always comes away with more 'color' and depth.
Actually we've done a few sessions lately where tracking was done to tape and then transfered into Protools for minor editing and "polishing" only to be mixed back out through the console. Works out really well....but I'm biased(pun intended) because I taught tape machine calibration at FullSail recording arts school for several years.
Greg
pdc said:
Brett, do you have this (or any alternative that can measure delay??)
I'm going nuts trying to get my sub to 'play in time'. It always seems to be behind the mains. And it is not supposed to be audible too. grrr
So I'd like to use physical placement to 'time align' the subs (seperately eq'd and crossed by a dcx by using y-splitters off the deqx bass output)
pdc said:
I guess it's time to throw away me deqx then. damn, what a waste.
right on, brutha.
why build a (crappy) 'saturator' plug-in, when you can just run the bloody audio through a real tape machine, and get the real magic. quick and dirty plug-ins are okay for grist mills, but not cool for people who still believe in quality.
i wish i had room for a studer. you can get one for a song (pun intended) these days.
i do the same thing. i treat logic like a tape machine, and run all the tracks through a mackie (not awesome by any stretch, but harmless) with real tubes and transistors on the inserts. i barely touch the built in logic plug ins. i can't afford API or neve or tubetech, 'cause it's not my main gig, but the results i get are much warmer and fatter than i hear from the pro tools crowd. i'm just using drawmer and 'fatman' and TLA stuff for compressors, but, as you know, it's the man, not the machine that makes the sound.
some of the bigger budget recordings i recorded were mixed at larger facilities with SSL's and apogee convertors, and the final mix was always run through a studer.
same for guitars. you want it to sound like a marshall with an rca bk5a on it? plug it into a marshall and put a rca bk5a in front of it. a fender with an sm57? get a fender and and sm57. screw the modeled virtual amps and mics. they suck.
i remember hearing somewhere about someone asking bob clearmountain what the secret to his awesome drum sounds was. he said, get a good drummer, and some good drums, and put mics on them, and then hit record.
pure and simple is the way to the highest fidelity, imho. one of the best recordings i ever heard was louis armstrong recorded to tape with one microphone back in 1959, and played back on vinyl in the 80's (some fancy glass turntable, sumo amp, conrad johnson preamp and vandersteen speakers, ...nice). i'd like to know what the all the gear in the recording chain was, 'cause, DAMN!
want a good EQ? leave it flat, lol.
why build a (crappy) 'saturator' plug-in, when you can just run the bloody audio through a real tape machine, and get the real magic. quick and dirty plug-ins are okay for grist mills, but not cool for people who still believe in quality.
i wish i had room for a studer. you can get one for a song (pun intended) these days.
i do the same thing. i treat logic like a tape machine, and run all the tracks through a mackie (not awesome by any stretch, but harmless) with real tubes and transistors on the inserts. i barely touch the built in logic plug ins. i can't afford API or neve or tubetech, 'cause it's not my main gig, but the results i get are much warmer and fatter than i hear from the pro tools crowd. i'm just using drawmer and 'fatman' and TLA stuff for compressors, but, as you know, it's the man, not the machine that makes the sound.
some of the bigger budget recordings i recorded were mixed at larger facilities with SSL's and apogee convertors, and the final mix was always run through a studer.
same for guitars. you want it to sound like a marshall with an rca bk5a on it? plug it into a marshall and put a rca bk5a in front of it. a fender with an sm57? get a fender and and sm57. screw the modeled virtual amps and mics. they suck.
i remember hearing somewhere about someone asking bob clearmountain what the secret to his awesome drum sounds was. he said, get a good drummer, and some good drums, and put mics on them, and then hit record.
pure and simple is the way to the highest fidelity, imho. one of the best recordings i ever heard was louis armstrong recorded to tape with one microphone back in 1959, and played back on vinyl in the 80's (some fancy glass turntable, sumo amp, conrad johnson preamp and vandersteen speakers, ...nice). i'd like to know what the all the gear in the recording chain was, 'cause, DAMN!
want a good EQ? leave it flat, lol.
I couldn't find any reference on PSW or in a general google search, except for a mention on pre ringing that occurs in all FIR filters, analogue or digital.pdc said:
If you haven't measured and isolated it, how can you be sure this is what you are hearing?
I put no value in the comments of reviewers.
Yes.terry j said:
At a distance, and not knowing how/what you're using for LF, I'm only guessing what a solution might be.terry j said:
However, I seem to recall you mentioning in the past varying the delay over a large range and not being able to hear a difference, so this suggests it might be a function of the LF drivers/box.
If you throw it, I'll catch it.terry j said:
Brett said:
There, fixed your reply for you!!🙂
Thanks mate!! may as well wait till the whole shebang is finished, not too much longer.
Brett said:
Thought about it a bit more since I posted that. What I thought we could do was measure the impulse from the mains and subs, and then align the peaks. BUT, prob wrong wording, subs don't really have a sharply defined peak or impulse do they? Prob a lot to do with the 'snap' coming from way above the subs range and no doubt a bunch of other stuff.
So an idea that will probably not work.
that is the annoying and frustrating thing. Good recall. Same box and subs BTW, so what is going on. Yes, I did vary (to extremes) the delay thru the dcx to the subs, and could not detect many many metres of delay, tens of metres.
But that extreme sense of the 'thump' coming after the mains is back. grrr
Well admittedly any throw I do will be one of those fake rugby ones ya know? Sort of 1/2 inch in the air with the full intention of being the one to get it back myself.
But you're pretty big, maybe you could alligator wrestle it off me in that time frame? Hmm, better not to try and fake it even.
So it stays securely wired up in the rack.
studiotech said:
Oh, you're hurting me there! That takes me back 20 some years to a video-audio post production studio. Used a Studer 2" machine all the time for the video soundtrack work. Then along came Pro Tools. End of story.....
dukeoyork said:
Ah, so true. And I was mostly a live sound guy. There were depressing times when I thought I couldn't mix worth ****, only to get a great set of guys on stage and find out how easy it really was. Just bring up the fader. =)
Well of course I'll bring the PC out and measure it. Did I need to actually post that? Plus you get to come to the housewarming for my new Unit (condo for Yanks) and system and you had better bloody well say it's the best thing you've ever heard!terry j said:
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