recording hot

  • Thread starter Thread starter daveblue222
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soundchaser59 said:
Well, I certainly cant explain it in technical terms as well as Massive can, but I just swallowed my pride and decided to take his word for it and just try it.........just TRY it.......

And I am glad I did. I dont know why, I understand his explanation well enough, but when I started recording with averages around -20 and transient peaks around -10, never any instantaneous max peaks over -6, my mixes started sounding waaaaaaaayyyyyyy better! Much easier to work with.

Sometimes you just hire somebody who knows and you put your faith in their work and just try it. I tried it. It works! Massive is giving you the straight poop.... :cool:

I did the same thing and now my mixes are turning into something worth listening to!
 
rgraves said:
Hey, a lot of pro studios nowadays track all the way up to +2 or 3dBFS to get that sweet sounding digital distortion. You don't even need a marshall anymore when you track this way, the sweet warm digital distortion works it's magic. Also, you don't have to worry about losing any of those precious bits either. I do it this way every time.

do you have any samples we can listen to??


i really don't think its a good idea

i heard you could do it with tape, but in digital you would just get clipping

i am no expert but experience has taught me not to record that hot
 
rgraves said:
Hey, a lot of pro studios nowadays track all the way up to +2 or 3dBFS to get that sweet sounding digital distortion. You don't even need a marshall anymore when you track this way, the sweet warm digital distortion works it's magic. Also, you don't have to worry about losing any of those precious bits either. I do it this way every time.

LOL, that's hilarious. I think we need a "tongue in cheek" emoticon around here :D
 
MemoGtr said:
do you have any samples we can listen to??


i really don't think its a good idea

i heard you could do it with tape, but in digital you would just get clipping

i am no expert but experience has taught me not to record that hot
um....it's called sarcasm.
 
MemoGtr said:
do you have any samples we can listen to??


i really don't think its a good idea

i heard you could do it with tape, but in digital you would just get clipping

i am no expert but experience has taught me not to record that hot

The best part is, there is always someone who just doesn't get it. :D
 
hahahahaha dang it
first post in years and i look like an idiot
 
MemoGtr said:
hahahahaha dang it
first post in years and i look like an idiot
Don't worry about it. If you only look like an idiot every 5 years, you're doing fine. :D
 
rgraves said:
Hey, a lot of pro studios nowadays track all the way up to +2 or 3dBFS to get that sweet sounding digital distortion. You don't even need a marshall anymore when you track this way, the sweet warm digital distortion works it's magic. Also, you don't have to worry about losing any of those precious bits either. I do it this way every time.

So what am I going to do with all of my Marshalls? :o I mean shoot, now I can just track really hot and get great sounding guitar tracks? Anyone want an 18 watt Marshall? How about a JCM6100? a TSL601? an Artist 4203? :rolleyes:

C'mon we've all seen tracks that were recorded so conservatively that they sound bad. or am I the only one that has to mix poorly recorded garbage from another so called studio?
 
Micter said:
C'mon we've all seen tracks that were recorded so conservatively that they sound bad. or am I the only one that has to mix poorly recorded garbage from another so called studio?
If the recordings sounded bad because of improper levels, that would be an issue with improper miking technique and/or improper analog gain staging. The only "over-conservative" levels would be those where the analog signal were so low that the dynamic range was limiting - i.e. the signal was too close to the analog noise floor. Arguably this low of a signal could also cause some issues with not getting the optimum sound out of some of the amalog gear because it's being underdriven.

But that *all* has to do with analog gain staging, from the mic pre through the mixer and to the converter. But by the time it gets to the converter, it's too late to apply any makeup gain. In other words, whether your digital signal is at -18dBFS or -0.1dBFS is irrelevant at that point; the damage has already been done.

And if everything ha been done correctly - at about 0VU - in the analog chain from the microphone to the converter, it will spit out on the digital side sounding just fine with bits to spare.

G.
 
Micter said:
So what am I going to do with all of my Marshalls? :o I mean shoot, now I can just track really hot and get great sounding guitar tracks? Anyone want an 18 watt Marshall? How about a JCM6100? a TSL601? an Artist 4203? :rolleyes:

C'mon we've all seen tracks that were recorded so conservatively that they sound bad. or am I the only one that has to mix poorly recorded garbage from another so called studio?

Man, you're really serious about this? I don't think i've ever received anything that was so low that it negatively affected the track...I've received lots of stuff where it was so high that you couldn't even add reverb to it without clipping though. Don't think many peeps get that low level tracking problem though...
 
Micter said:
There is a balance that needs to be found. Tracking too conservative leaves bits unused and will yield a lesser quality of recording. Tracking too hot will yield the dreaded digital distortion/clipping. I try to keep things around the
-6db range if you are tracking much lower than that it would not hurt to bump it up a bit.

Well, so far everyone else has pretty much been right. The biggest problem I see with people wanting to up their levels recently is that they are relying way to heavily on their digital converters. Using up those bits is certainly a good thing... if and ONLY if your analog front end will handle that kind of level. Since however there is not any gear like that (at least that I am aware of) it just does not make sense What people really should do is take care of their front end. Get proper levels coming from your analog front end and none of the digital levels will matter because they will just be right.

It really does not matter if your using old ADAT's, newer M audio cards, Radar, or Weiss converters. If you run your front end where it is designed to run, it will generally hit the "sweet spot" on your converters as well. Can you track higher up into the converters? Certainly. Will it then take advantage of those extra couple of bits? Certainly. Is quality difference between -18dbfs and -6dbfs going to be much? Nope. It will be VERY minimal if even detectable. So now you have seen the difference in how digital treats those different levels.

Now lets consider the analog realm... Run the output of your signal at 0dbVU, then run the same thing with an output 10db hotter (at +10 dbVU). Is their a quality difference between the two? Definately. Is it an immediately noticable difference? Assuming you have "decent" ears, then the answer is yes. Analog equipment changes its sound qualities by a considerable amount as you move through the different gain ranges, digital doesn't. When you start to drive your front end harder to acheive a hotter digital level than you start to lose a lot of the clarity, focus, depth and bandwidth of the front end.

In the end, by just tracking hotter what inevitably happens is you take advantage of a very small quality difference at the converter, but at the cost of losing a lot of quality at the front end. End result... slightly better representation of a much shittier signal. Track with proper analog levels (which will give any properly calibrated converter what professionals consider to also be a proper digital level) and you will get a SLIGHTLY less accurate version of a MUCH better sounding track.
 
rgraves said:
Man, you're really serious about this? I don't think i've ever received anything that was so low that it negatively affected the track...I've received lots of stuff where it was so high that you couldn't even add reverb to it without clipping though. Don't think many peeps get that low level tracking problem though...

No shit, seriously, where would the peaks be at on something tracked too low.-30, -40. :confused:
 
rgraves said:
Man, you're really serious about this? I don't think i've ever received anything that was so low that it negatively affected the track...I've received lots of stuff where it was so high that you couldn't even add reverb to it without clipping though. Don't think many peeps get that low level tracking problem though...


I'm telling ya, I have gotten tracks that are so low that they just sound horrid when I gain them up. If I'm the only one that's ever seen something like that, Oh well. Like I've maintained all along you should track high enough to use some of the bit rate available without getting the front end so hot it goes into distortion. I'm not saying track as hot as you can but as hot as you need to to get some resolution. There is a huge area of grace when it comes to digital recording and we should know where that is and stay within those boundaries. It isn't rocket surgery. Use the bits without distorting to a certain degree. What's the big deal?
 
I am beginning to think that you do not here the front end losing clarity if you are so insistant on tracking hot. If tracks are recorded so low that they do not sound good gained up, there is probably many other issues contributing to the problem at hand. If you track using an average of about -18dbfs (about 0dbVU) you will have the best of bost worlds. If ytou insist on changing that balance, then you will begin to make sacrifices which directly effect the outcome of your project, and almost always in a negative fashion. That all being said, that is the general rule for tracking, but not a law or anything. The occasional track pushed hard at the front end (and usually at the converter also as a result) is often very cool. Assuming of course you have a front end capable of that kind of push ( i.e... do not try this on a Mackie....)
 
Micter said:
Use the bits without distorting to a certain degree. What's the big deal?

I'm really not ganging up,as I was saying the same stuff about bits a couple years back, struggling with a Roland all-in-one.

If the ultra-quiet tracks sounded bad turned up, they were badly recorded. The "bit loss" didn't really enter into it, it's just that in addition to whatever other sonic injuries were inflicted by your aspiring Sir George Martian, they tracked really low.

I don't think anybody has spelled it out as clearly as this: your -6db is, in fact, +12dB in the analog olden days. Nobody ever routinely tracked at +12, maybe +6 at most, and that was to acheive heavy tape compression for effect. Obviously, there is no tape compression on a digital rig, and, furthermore, a -30dB signal has enough bits left over to provide more dynamic range than tape ever had. You are slamming your front end to provide a signal that is about three times louder than anyone actually needs.
 
Micter said:
Like I've maintained all along you should track high enough to use some of the bit rate available without getting the front end so hot it goes into distortion. I'm not saying track as hot as you can but as hot as you need to to get some resolution.
Your idea is not disasterous, Micter, it's just based on a misunderstanding of what's actually happening. Getting the right level is not a result of how many bits you use, but rather of how hard you are or are not driving the analog side. You get your analog levels wrong and all the digital bits in the world aren't going to help you.

(And BTW, "bit rate" is something else altogether, not the same as "bit depth", which is what we're talking about here.)
Micter said:
There is a huge area of grace when it comes to digital recording and we should know where that is and stay within those boundaries.
The only "boundaries" on the digital side are to not limit the dynamic range of the recording by not using enough bits on the low side and not to clip by running out of bits on the high side. One can be *anywhere in between* and it will not make a difference. There is no advantage in digital tracking to pumping the level up to just below clipping, and there is no disadvantage to dropping the digital level down to the dynamic range of the analog signal it represents. There is otherwise no "sweet spot" for a digital signal.

Again, if you are running you analog in at 0VU or thereabouts, which is the "sweet spot" for analog, it will *by design* convert to about -18dBFS on the digital side with all digital faders set to unity (with a few peaks above that level that correspond to whatever peaks may have risen above 0VU on on the analog side beofe conversion). There is no advantage or need to pumping that up any more than it is when laying it to disc just to "fill in the bits". Those extra bits do nothing but cause the digial mixing engineer to have to lower the track gain that much more, that much faster when mxing multitracks together.

If you track too low on the analog side, then yeah, sure, you're probably comprimising the quality of the signal at which point the digital copy of it will be at low levels. But boosting the digital signal at that point will do nothing but make the lousy analog staging more audible.

This is, in fact, exactly what you are experiencing when you say
Micter said:
I have gotten tracks that are so low that they just sound horrid when I gain them up.
"Gaining them up" digitally upon play back is no different than "gaining them up digitally" upon recording, neither one helps the track sound better.

The problem with those tracks is not that there were not enough bits used on the digital side of the converter when they were tracked, it's that one or more preamps on the analog side were set too low. Increasing the bit usage would do nothing to correct that.

G.
 
First off the tracks I'm talking about didn't come from my engineering so I'm not 100% sure what the heck happened. I see the wave file in my software and it doesn't have very much on it and it sounds like crud. Whatever! it's not my doing. As far as me insisting on tracking "hot" that isn't the case at all. I know that I can get good results tracking in the middle of the road so to speak and that's what I try to do. That way if I do get a spike out of the ordinary it won't clip or distort. Pretty simple?
 
Micter said:
Pretty simple?
Yes. Jut not very accurate or useful until one takes it one step further and actually defines "middle of the road" and whether the road is digital or analog where you're looking at it. And it's really not any harder than what you say, just more accurate. "Middle of the road" is 0VU analog/-18dBFS digital.

There's nothing wrong with tracking at -6dbFS digital as you do as long as the reason it's that hot is because you prefer to push it there on the digital side of the converter. It's not doing you harm; it's just not doing you any good. If it's that high, however, because the analog levels going in to the converter are riding well above 0VU, then you probably are unknowingly doing at least a little harm to your mix.

That is not rocket surgery either, and is quite simple. Yet it's far more accurate and useful as it defines the real sweet spots as being on the analog side and also defines the number of "bits used" on the digital side as irrlelevant beyond those parameters.

An just because what you got from those other yahoos sounds like crap when you crank it doesn't necessarily mean that the levels themselves were the problem. I've gotten many tracks from others - in fact that's mostly what I do, I do far more mixing of other people's tracking than I do my own tracking - that look puny on the meters and the waveform display that sound great when boosted. OTOH, I've also gotten a LOT of louder tracks that sounded horrible. And vice vera. There's a million different ways to mess up tracking that have nothing to do with the resulting digital volume :).

G.
 
why would anyone want to risk digitatas style distortion when tracking?? If your worried about needing more level when your doing the mixdown, use the sub-busses.
Analog and digital are two seperate media, what works on analog is'nt suited for digital. don't worry about "tracking hot" , just get it clean and go from there.

enough already!!! :p :p

:D
 
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