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Diference between mastering in hardware (tubes) or sofware.
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Spindrift
Spindrift
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33
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1560
Posted : Dec 13, 2006 22:53
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On 2006-12-13 22:17, ess765 wrote:
2 - when you talk about digital enviroment for headroom you just forgot the most important thing: the digital signal (no matter how many bits of resolution ) you ll need to be transduced to an electric signal so that can go through audio cards or whatever and then come back to regular SPL so that you can hear the sound waves out of the speakers.
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It seems to me like you are proposing using an all analogue signal path?
Sure converters might not have the same signal-to-noise ratio as top end analogue equipment, but tell me one analogue recording medium that has more dynamic range than a good converter.
Since digital recording is superior that has become the standard unless the distortion and limited dynamic range of analogue recording is desired as an effect.
I don't think many mastering studios use their 1/4 inch machines anymore, and the market for cassette and vinyl is pretty much extinct.
So you get the mix as a digital file and will send it to the press as a digital file.
If it's the maximum amount of headroom you want to achieve then that will be achieved by using digital mastering tools and never passing the signal into the analogue domain.
Sometimes thats not what you want, and high dynamic range is not necessarily a goal to make a mix sound as desired.
If you are mastering trance and can afford a setup of gear that is higher quality than really good software then good on you.
You are a rare breed and I'm sure you can make the track that little bit fatter when thats whats needed with a couple of strips on your $1 mill SSL or your Pulteks/Drawmers/Summits whatever.
But what you will not get is more dynamic range than if you keep the signal in the digital domain.
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Robin
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Posted : Dec 14, 2006 02:58
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On 2006-12-10 08:22, ess765 wrote:
Robin,
if should you read carefully what I said. I mentioned that all mastering process is related to marketing issues. So remastering PInk floyd is for the same reason. I never said that it sounds better because they are louder. Read again my post. I said that people usually think and perceive louder as better (that s proved by psychoacoustics scientific studies). Djs and radio station guys helped a lot on this concept.
About older processors such as Neve compressors and other hardware that engineers use a lot, you gotta understand that mastering harwdware are totally diferent from those pre amps/eqs/compressors and others that use to cost more as vintage devices.
For your knowledge, Rupert Neve s compressors and equipments are still being made, you can buy them easily. And their quality is still perfect, by the way.
If you read things better, You ll see that I m saying that hardware is far superior for mastering than software. That s the question about this topic. That s where you should keep your attention, and give your opinion to the guy who posted.
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tem calma this is called a DISCUSSION FORUM |
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Tomos
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Dec 14, 2006 03:16
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On 2006-12-14 02:58, Robin wrote:
Thats why lots of old records such as Pink Floyds or Beatles's are remastered for. When they were prroduced, the audio equipment didn t allow them into bigger headroom, that s why sometimes for our years they seem to sound much more poor than our days released tracks, It s not that the engineers were bad professional, but that era s equipment didn t allowed them to have ourdays results.
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What are you talking about? The dynamics were there and I still think the older stuff sounds fantastic, some even better than our modern overcompressed rubbish.
Good music recorded years ago has a less tiring aspect. My ears seem to wear out listening to all this bright perfectly balanced stuff. There doesn't seem to be any overall 'style' to a sound these days.
Damn I sound old. |
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ess765
IsraTrance Junior Member
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169
Posted : Dec 14, 2006 04:05
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Robin,
I m sorry if I sounded rude to you..he he..didn t mean it.
Tomos..
1 - you guys talk about digital domain as the music didn t needed to be converted to electric signal so that it can go to the speakers...come on...what s the point here??
2 - I think I din t make myself clear. I meat that Old records use to sound out of the market s standard this days...if you prefer like it was..it s up to you to change the world. But mastering is basicly a process to make traks fit into industry standards.
3 - About recording..it depends a lot.... I can tell you that a lot of top class studios worldwide still and will always use tape machines mainly for vocals and drums...it gives a "natural"tape compression that use to sound really great...
4 - Although I can t afford the expansive analog gears, that doesn t means that I d say digital plugins are better. There are a lot of people here trying to learn things...and I can t make them blind once they seek information for audio purposes.
I don t mean that the best studios worldwide don t use digital machines....but if you let me choose between a Manley compressor and any digital gear I d even let you finish that phrase.
One of the reasons that old records use to sound great (out of mastering point of view) is exactly that their analog equipment were fantastic...when people say here about limited marketing, I believe that those records were remastered only because they d sell more, otherwise I don t think the labels would loose their time.
By the way..I m as poor as most of you guys and use digital domain most of the time...but I work at a studio that has some great anaog devices that really change the final quality of recorded signals as well as their final processed results in a mix.
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UnderTow
Started Topics :
9
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1448
Posted : Dec 15, 2006 03:06
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On 2006-12-13 22:17, ess765 wrote:
Undertown,
1 - those analog extra class gears cost more because their electronic equipments are really more expansive than cheap gears components. If you take a single resistence or capacitor, you ll find price/quality range so wide that yo d be amazed. When you open up those expansive devices you ll see its resistences and capacitors visual look making them to belong to a really special quality level. They use to use separate colors for some qualities ranges, so that when you open up those devices you can know what kind of electronics did yhe engineer used on them.
The fact that the market is limited is not a main issue here. The main consequence for a product on a narrow market, is that few people will be interested in producing them as they d have few consumers. Lots of companies like SSL make real expansive gear for limited market and they still make a nice money ( the SSL9000 console cost U$1.000.000,00). You can have limited market for really cheap products. I m sorry but you re point is not correct. But if you analize all the mics pre amps, compressors etc inside its channels you ll see why is it so
expansive.
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Sorry but ... no. Limited market is the primary reason for the high prices.
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2 - when you talk about digital enviroment for headroom you just forgot the most important thing:
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No you didn't read properly. I wrote: "Of course, before we can hear anything, the signal has to be translated back to fixed point audio for our soundcards and converters to use but that is irrelevant to the actual processing headroom."
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the digital signal (no matter how many bits of resolution ) you ll need to be transduced to an electric signal so that can go through audio cards or whatever
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Huh? It is the soundcard's converters (or outbard converters) that convert the digital signal to an analogue signal.
Btw, those are not trancducers, they are converters. A transducer converts a signal in one type of energy into an analoguous signal in another type of energy. For instance electrical to magnetic or air pressure to electrical.
An AD/DA converter converts an electrical signal into a mathematical representation of that signal.
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and then come back to regular SPL so that you can hear the sound waves out of the speakers.
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SPL stands for Sound Pressure Level. So a converter does not convert into SPL. It converts into an electrical signal which in turn can be conterted into air pressure waves by a trancduer like a speaker.
You obviously don't know too much about this subject judging by your erronous use of the nomenclature.
I am not forgetting anything. I am talking about compression in particular. This happens at a much higher bit-depth than your soundcard and that is what counts. There is much more dynamic range for the actual compression process in the digital realm than in the analogue realm. But that is not the most important issue. The main issue is that compression is a non-linear process which is problematic in the digital realm.
See previous posts.
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And what really limited and still limits the headroom for the digital mastering process, is exactly their lower capability regarding headroom compared to analog equipments that are state of the art.
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Here are some specs for an SSL X-Logic Compressor (As your brought up SSL):
Dynamic Range +- 110dB
Noise <-85dBu (-90dBu typical)
THD+N% < 0.004% at +6dBu 1kHz
And here are some specs for a Lavry Gold converter:
True -127dB noise floor
0.00005% Total Harmonic Distortion + Noise
So you see, even if you forget the fact that the actual compression within a digital system does not envolve converters, what you say is wrong.
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You can use Pulteks wonderfull compressors or Drawmers (available for the TDM users) on plugins also. They sound real nice. But they don t have the same "touch" as the analog ones.
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You won't get anywhere near the dynamic range quoted above with a Pultec (with a c) compressor. That is not the reason people like or use them.
Please do some research before posting about technical subjects. There is allready enough misinformation about audio on the Internet.
UnderTow |
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UnderTow
Started Topics :
9
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1448
Posted : Dec 15, 2006 03:16
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On 2006-12-14 04:05, ess765 wrote:
if you let me choose between a Manley compressor and any digital gear I d even let you finish that phrase.
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Frankly if I was allowed only one compressor, I would not get a Manley as it colours the sound too much which doesn't fit all purpouses. I would prefer a Weiss DS1 or a TC M6000 system.
And even if I got an analogue compressor, a Manley wouldn't be my first choice for a single go-to compressor.
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One of the reasons that old records use to sound great (out of mastering point of view) is exactly that their analog equipment were fantastic...
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The main reason is because they were not crushed to death. At least if you are talking about the mastering process alone.
Anyway, you are contradicting yourself now. You said they didn't sound that great. 
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By the way..I m as poor as most of you guys and use digital domain most of the time...but I work at a studio that has some great anaog devices that really change the final quality of recorded signals as well as their final processed results in a mix.
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I work at six studios at the moment and I can tell you that analogue isn't always the best way to go. It depends on what you want to do ...
UnderTow |
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astrotec
Started Topics :
7
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193
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 12:36
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On 2006-12-09 03:19, ess765 wrote:
Serag, 90% of people here might not know what exactly mastering process is all about. So they think that using softwares or cheaper hardware they will get real pro results. So the answer for your question is very clear: no, never, impossible !!! Anyone who d try to tell you the oposite, that 100% software mastering can reach analog equipment results are totally ignorant( in the sense of not knowing this subject, I mean) about audio reinforcement.
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oh ok ok then Mr esssssoundengineer so that would be why i no of 4 or 5 sound engineers (1 of them who has engineered Pink fuckin Floyds Rig with ROBERT PLANT in the fuckin SAN SIRO 4 christs sake and is very very well knowledged about mastering and sound in general and has used analog equipment you probably havnt even heard of) that have traded all their analog gear in for protools + plugins. i always wondered why they did that.never heard of the digital explosion? this is when all the sound engineers/producers traded there stuff for digital. any1 whos says it can't be done digital is wrong. (UAD? Bombfactory? just 2 name a few) maybe its because you/they are not using the tools it correctly.you can achieve perfect mastering digitally. i've spoken to vibe tribe, i'm sure he'll back me up on this one.80% ess, of trance today is completely digitally mastered.does your analog equipment have a look ahead feature on it? i very much doubt lol.no thats impossible, analog look ahead lol. and you can b more precise with analog? i dont think so. in the end its all down to taste and flavour, but i won't have you poisoning peoples minds saying that digital can't do it when it can, IF the person using it can.and if u were going to do it analog, the engineer wouldnt recomend anything less than a SLL mixer which £16000 PER FUCKIN CHANNEL ess, and mark unicorn converters and mayb a real ORIGINAL Fairchild ($30,000) which he used a while back. top bollucks thousands upon thousands dollars worth, its not worth sending it out to anything less than that, either that or do it digitally.people dont realize that the bombfactory and uad emulations are much faster compressors than MOST outboard bottom end copys. if its done analog it has to be the best equipment out there otherwise there is just no point, betta off with digital.like its not worth sending it out if your D/A A/D converters are worth 50p each is it? more like £2000 per converter although focusrite 1s are not bad and even then you'd use a DAT tape recorder to record. i'm sorry if i sound arrogant its just i'd listen to the engineer before any1 else. |
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
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549
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 13:42
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Interesting topic with some interesting views. Since my technical knowledge about Solid State devices is shallow and I have very little experience with such devices I can only give you this interesting link. Article is worth reading and I would like to hear what you think about it.
http://www.theaudiocritic.com/downloads/article_1.pdf
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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astrotec
Started Topics :
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193
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 13:47
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shamantrixx that article hit the nail on the head.
quote 'the digital way is the better way'
thanks shaman that helps prove our point. |
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astrotec
Started Topics :
7
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193
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:24
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it also says about all those anti digital people out there that are telling blatant lies. |
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PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:35
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On 2007-04-29 12:36, astrotec wrote:
80% ess, of trance today is completely digitally mastered.
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and 80% of the psytranse realesed sound like crap |
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astrotec
Started Topics :
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193
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:37
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gd point, in my view 5 or 10% is outstanding, but i think theres definately some banging tunes out there in that 10% that have just digital mastering only. |
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PoM
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:38
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i agree yes |
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Seppa
Started Topics :
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485
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:39
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I'missed that topic , what a shame most has been said.
I have to agree with undertow here for most of the stuff that has been said....
just a quick word though I beleive for some task a digital device is often better often more precise....
but for flavouring means, a good old analogue gear whether solid state or tube is the way to go.
In a world where we are surrounded by digital, where everybody has a computer and plug in rtas tdm vst ..... a good old piece will definatly give your sound the edge .
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| those analog extra class gears cost more because their electronic equipments are really more expansive than cheap gears components. If you take a single resistence or capacitor, you ll find price/quality range so wide that yo d be amazed |
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True ! A friend and i Did build a valve preamp following schematics of an old mic preamp. and the price of the different components could range from cheap to very expensive . we went for real vintage valves ( we found them in super cool shop in paris retailing vintage components...) and it did cost us a fair amount but it did pay up.
Now it is true that the market is responsible for prices... but is in it always the case?!!!!!
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shamantrixx
Started Topics :
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549
Posted : Apr 29, 2007 14:39
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I find it quite convincing also. It is to expect that manufacturers of equipment will try to sell the story about hardware supremacy just to maintain the cash flow.
"It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception"
Albert Einstein, speaking about his theory of relativity |
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