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You can't gaffer-tape a Schoeps ORTF rig to a windmill (which I did with my Zoom).
You can't easily take a rig into a 1.66-mile underground abandoned train tunnel and record without getting water on your mics (which I did with my Zoom).
You can't set up your rig on an airplane to get captain announces or the seatbelt sign or the take-off and landing ...
7
I like to use a simple analogy to professional photographers. My Sound Devices and Schoeps MS kit is my Hasselblad, studio-grade camera. My Sony PCM D-1 is my point and shoot camera (albeit a nice point and shoot).
Ansel Adams lugged a heavy camera rig around (with the help of an assistant) and captured some brilliant and detailed images, often by waiting ...
7
The warnings from WLPhoenix and Josh are absolutely correct: most cable connections do never have a significant influence on the sound, regardless of the cable brand.
There is one important exception: guitar cables. Because most electric guitars have only primitive passive high-impedance electronics (the same applies to passive electric basses), supplied ...
5
Travis, you have, perhaps unwittingly, stumbled upon a question that has raged for quite some time. In short, there is no answer. Or more to the point, there is no agreed-upon answer. The Wikipedia entry on this is fairly concise for the tl;dr crowd...
There is debate among audiophiles surrounding the impact that high-end
cables have on audio systems ...
4
As the old saying goes... "nothing to it, but to do it"... I routinely check all my deliverables COMPLETELY before sending them out. Yes it's a pain, yes it takes time, but yes, it saves those annoying voicemails for the most part. Visually check all your waveforms, double check all your routings, if the program is long, at least do spot checks on all the ...
4
Use my H4N all the time... On the current TV show I'm doing (Les Bleus de Ramville for TFO here in the Great White North) all the BG's were recorded with it. As @Utopia said it's so small, and so stealthy I don't have issue carting it into places where bringing the full rig would bring undue attention - not from a legal perspective per se, but from curious ...
4
If the mix is not the final production stage, you should favor to preserve all information available and avoid introducing artifacts. So if you will master or further process the signal, sampling at 96k could help. Keep in mind the difference will often be imperceptible in simple cases, and the error would be very small if you are using ideal hardware and ...
4
Audio sampled at 44.1 kHz (like normal audio CDs) can in theory contain content up to the Nyquist limit of 22.05kHz. However, you need a filter to remove all content above that limit, otherwise it folds back into the hearable range: you hear this as aliasing.
A perfect, theoretical filter would remove all content above 22.05kHz and leave everything else ...
4
What you are asking is impossible to determine from a spectrogram. Spectrograms indicate frequencies present, not the quality of the audio. There may be loss of fine detail in one that would barely show up on a spectrogram at all or there could be noise and artifacts introduced that would make the spectrogram look more full.
Spectrograms do not ...
4
It depends what method is used.
If it's simply played back 'faster' without actually changing the data, then of course there is no lasting damage. This would be how a simple sampler would ordinarily do it, by changing the speed, ie data rate, of the playback.
If you resample so the same amount of audio plays back in half the time at the same sample rate - ...
3
I use a Sony PCM-D50 and have gotten all kinds of useful stuff I wouldn't have without it. It's definitely better for ambiences than point sounds, but I've used it for both. There have been times where I need some particular sounds, and the only stuff that matches were ones recorded with that little piece of gear. Worth 3 times its weight in gold.
3
First, lets start by clarifying that "volume" isn't a particularly technical concept. Most generally "volume" refers to SPL or sound pressure level which is the amount of pressure being exerted by sound waves and depends on the distance from a sound source.
Rather what we are talking about here is the impact of signal level. Within an analog system, the ...
3
That depends on what you mean by audible. You can invert the phase of one and add it back to the other and it will play only what the difference between the two is, however you will hear artifacts that might not have been detectable to normal hearing in the original file since they were previously buried underneath other sounds.
It is also important to ...
3
Audacity will happily output 8 bit wave files. Choose export > other uncompressed then MS wav and 8 bit unsigned.
2
All the time. My Sony M10 was, at one point, the only mic I had access to. It just meant I had to be a bit more creative with mic-ing and editing the end result.
2
I believe this article sums it up far better than I ever could. And I like it because it doesn't seem to lean to either side of the "sample rate war". I recommend everyone read it of you have the time.
http://www.trustmeimascientist.com/2013/02/04/the-science-of-sample-rates-when-higher-is-better-and-when-it-isnt/
From my personal experience, record at ...
2
I'm never without my M10. I've used my Zooms and M10 as supplemental recorders to get helo and combat sounds as well as ambiences in remote countries where a Sound Devices and mic might attract undue attention. Those sounds have all gotten a lot of use.
Even if a bunch of higher-end rigs are getting the bulk of your tracks, it's always nice to have some ...
2
Of course I use recordings I've made with my handheld(s), otherwise what's the point?
2
My Zoom is really the best piece of kit I own (I'm poor), but even if it wasn't I'd probably go to it A LOT. Because it's small enough to carry around in a large pocket, and it sounds decent. Finally, it's cheap enough that if it gets broken or stolen, I won't have to sell my car to get a new one.
You know what they say... the best camera you have is the ...
2
These may be helpful:
http://www.avisoft.com/recordertests.htm
http://www.wingfieldaudio.com/portable-recorder-noise.html#samples
I've been using an H4n for a while, and needless to say I'm not too much of a fan anymore (I'm on a the verge of shelling out for a FR2 LE box) - than again, I'm pushing the H4n well beyond it's "practical" limits with trying ...
2
I will second all of what Sonsey said above, especially owning up to mistakes and making them right no matter the cost (time or otherwise).
One additional tidbit would be, I am usually monitoring the return from tape, or if ITB the output of the record track, while doing my final laybacks. This means that if I am hearing something, then it exists. And I ...
2
Well, you will lose quality - there is no way to gain it back from 128kbps files. A simple filter can roll off your high pitched 'jangles' but because they have elements across multiple frequencies you aren't going to get rid of them all.
So give a low pass filter a try or use a treble reducer (similar effect in this type of scenario) and you might get a ...
2
The relevant question is what you're going to do with the mix yet. Distributing a final master at more than 48 kHz makes no sense whatsoever. The only reason it can be useful to record at higher rates is to avoid aliasing issues in any nonlinear effects plugins.
That certainly includes mastering compressors, so if your plan is to feed the digital mix to ...
2
As far as digits are concerned, you can multiply by any "gain" you wish, as long as you do not overflow (-127 to 128 for 8 bit; -32676 to +32678 for 16bit audio; ±8.3x106 for 24bit audio, and up to ±1.7×1038 for 32bit floating point). However, there will be some rounding involved, and the fewer the bits the more the rounding error.
Note that whatever the ...
2
Audible differences is something different than electrically measurable differences. The techniques mentioned (by computing the difference between the two signals) allow to measure differences between two signals but don't give real details about the perceived difference.
The correct way to evaluate audible differences is to setup a panel of listener, and ...
2
The biggest problem with combining your mixer and interface is that most of the cheaper options have sub-par pre-amps, which would definitely affect your quality. I would personally recommend investing in a quality audio interface (a great option would be focusrite) with solid pre-amps, and then later you could invest in a cheaper mixer.
2
Generally no, using multiple inputs shouldn't lower quality as long as the USB controllers still have sufficient bandwidth for the devices to function. If you use a hub to connect everything, then you may run in to data rate issues causing latency or outright failure, but in general, the data is digital and should get from point a to point b alright.
There ...
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