Thoughts for the bedroom recordist

thanks! Yes, your not the first person to say that. Almost unanimously people say "oh the converters aren't that important." And to some extent it's true. However improvements to a startup room are a sum of the parts, and depending on your setup, your converters can be one of the cornerstones to build your setup on. No one piece of gear will make a monumental difference in your sound, unless you jump from an entry level price point to a pro price point overnight.

So no... converters are not going to make a massively huge difference to the sound, I agree... at least not until you get up to the world of your $3k-$10k converters. But i noticed that when i went from an entry level box to a "pro" A/D box, my mixes had a little more openness, a slightly broader soundstage, more articulation and more detail in the high end. It is subtile yes. Professionals will talk about how better converters amount to less bit errors, better "math", less artifacts, etc. But for the home recordist, these are things that don't really need to dealt with too rigorously. thanks for the response!
 
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RAMI said:
I'm sorry, but there is a lot of bad advice in this post. I know.....I know....I'm going to get attacked for not "encouraging" a new poster, but this isn't as helpful as it's meant to be, and I acknowledge it was typed with the best intentions.
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thanks for your input rami. Your obviously someone who is very particular about semantics, and your right i was not as precise as I probably should have been about the particulars of treating/placing a room. Making a distinction between "foam" and "treatment" and "sound proofing" and "sound control" is a question of generalization. No, I was not particularly specific in my descriptions and i apologize for that but I don't know that I would go so far as to say this is bad information.

Also, For some bedroom recordists "treatment" could just be foam, or a blanket thrown over a window, depending on your budget or lack of. When i started out, i used sofa padding to "treat" my room. was it right? no. Was it better than nothing, yes. The fact that Auralex isn't "foam" wasn't really the point so much as the idea that some kind of "bass trap" and "splash mitigation" might be a good place to start.

As you can tell from the post, it was intended to put a LOT of general concepts down in one concise-ish post and not just focus on one particular consideration. Things that, looking back, i wish I had thought about pertaining to gear and overall sound. But you are correct, I didn't include a few points that are probably pretty important.

If you feel i am being too general here, I encourage you to write a post specifically on the correct ways to control sound in a room. Lord know's it is a subject that could benefit from elaboration and it's clearly something you feel pretty strongly about. Thanks for your comments.
 
and yes and no, rami. I did copy and paste it from Gearslutz, BUT i'm the one that wrote it on gearslutz initially AND I edited it a bit for this particular forum. I think that it is perfectly relevant for this audience, regardless of where i initially posted it.
 
Semantics are important though. When people read foam, and you mean bass traps, people will understand it as.....foam. And foam/Auralex/whatever you want to call it doesn't do much good at all. You will want to emphasis the construction of proper bass traps.

Reminds me of the old saying. Grammar is the difference between "I helped my uncle, Jack, off a horse" and "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse." Semantics can be *very* important, even if its just a minor thing.
 
I've emailed the moderator to pull this thread until such time as i can go in and rework it to be more specific.
 
I read the initial post. I find it good that you took the time to try to capture everything in one post. It's a big task. I have been wanting to do something similar, but just don't have the time.

I don't think this thread should be removed or deleted. Finish your rewrite and edit it back into your initial post. Lots of room for debate and discussion. That's what we're here for. :)
 
Chili, yes that's the plan. Might be awhile. Like you I don't have a lot of spare time. One of the reasons the initial post was a little generalized. When I have time I'll rework and repost.
 
Okay, you know what, I just stop by, poked my head in, thought I'd share some ideas. It's not my intention to bullshit anyone. While I'm open to constructive criticism clearly there is some need to be aggressive in addition to critical. If this is how new members are invited into the group, to be frank I'd rather just spend my time making music. I don't spend a lot of time in these venues and I'm not going to waste it defending myself debating whether I'm making an assault on someone's intelligence. I am sorry I wasted your time I think I'll just make myself scarce from this forum. thanks anyway.
 
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I did not see the original post but I think I get the gist!

Now, dieties know, Rami and I have had, shall we say, "differences" and he DOES have a rather direct way of putting things! But in respect of the words people use and the constructions they make with them he is bang on.

Sometimes the errors are obvious to most of us that have been around sound gear and read widely. The sound "proofing" gaff instead of sound "treatment". But sometimes the error is subtle and one has to decide whether to keep one's council (or look a bigger, pedantic ***t than you are already thought to be!) . This depends, for me, on the level of expertise the writer is claiming or suggesting.
An example: Most of you will know most of the words used to describe the sounds of an overdriven guitar amplifier. One very common one is "Saturation".

Now virtually every time I see that word used in an amplifier context I let it go because it has worked its way into the vocabulary and "everyone knows what it means". However the word saturation has a specific meaning when applied to a valve and in fact no valve in any guitar amp ever gets or got "saturated" and if it did it would die PDQ!

So, when I saw what purported to be a "learned" article about OD valve stages in another forum I picked it up since the guy was clearly NOT as clued up as he was making out.

Now I have infinite patience, borne of 20years of teaching the Public to use ever more complex TVs and VCRs! I will happily break down any technical jargon and work with anyone until I get them to understand the basics of electronics as it applies to sound equipment. But what DOES annoy me is the "back of hand on forehead" and the cry "Oh! That's TECHINICAL! I just want to make beautiful music".

My view is, the people in the Newb section are not children. I refuse to believe that an adult who can read and write (by deff!) use a computer, probably drive a car, cannot grasp the basics of Ohm's Law and basic electrical circuitry (Ohms Law is just MPG or MPH. Pick the quantity you want to find) Decibels are a bit tougher, logs anthat, but you don't need much decibabble anyway.

Sorry for the rant and ramble, getting late here, but accuracy IS important...***T! Do folks KNOW the precision needed to build a Strat?!!

Dave.
 
I will say myself that accurate information is a must on a forum meant to teach and learn from others. If there is a language issue or inaccurate facts in a post, it must be corrected as soon as possible by whomever sees the flaw first.

None of us wish to have misinformation. However that is done, is in the way the one who caught it deals with it. It is an open forum and so is life.

@Terra; don't be offended by RAMI just because he stated that there were wrong terms or direction in your post. He was correct. Just learn from that, edit your post to be more accurate, and move on. Nobody is going to forever remember this thread. It is all about learning man.

I myself have said some things that were not correct in the past. Hell, I might be right now. I would expect for someone to enlighten me if I were wrong. It is all in the name of accurately helping others and learning from their mistakes - as well as our own.

Cheers
 
I will personally rework this whole thread when you rewrite your post. It was fairly concise, it just had some flaws in the terms and delivery.

I look forward to reading the updated version.

Welcome to the forum terraamb. :D
 
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