Klarinet Archive - Posting 000002.txt from 2000/08

From: "Benjamin Maas" <benmaas@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] RE: record yourself
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2000 01:42:22 -0400

> -----Original Message-----
>
> Gotta get my two cents in here. I wouldn't go with the minidisk system
> because I think that it has been bypassed by today's technology.

Minidisc was bypassed by today's technology the day it came out. As a
matter of fact, the early MD's used 32 kHz sampling and compressed...
Sounded like s--t. They have come a long way in the past few years.
However, it has been discussed as a replacement for cassette here. For that
is is qutie good.

> I salivated just thinking about the MD when it first came out, but I
> couldn't afford one so I waited around until PCs became fast enough, had
> good sound boards and had large enough fixed disk drives to be
> able to take
> a full CD worth of data at the standard sampling speed.

The first computer I used for doing sound editing was a 486DX 50!!! I used
a Digital Audio Labs CardD+ and I had a whopping 500 megs (not even a full
cd worth) of storage. I still use the card on my old (P233) machine and it
sounds quite decent. They came out with a program called Fast Edit that
worked using some DSP on the card.

> When I do a recording of myself I use the Voyetra Audioview 32 (not the
> Voyetra Recording Station). My software is now over 2 years old, so I'm
> sure it has been superceded by much neater stuff. I avoided the Voyetra
> Recording Station simply because it was too complicated for me. I still
> haven't completely figured it out, so my avoidance is not exactly
> connected
> with any software deficiency. The Audioview 32 allows one to see a
> sonogram of the recorded file and to do, if one is so inspired, a leetle
> bit of cutting and pasting to get rid of those annoying mistakes (!!) by
> using subsequently recorded mistake-free fragments.

These days, there is an incredible amount of power available for little
money... I just purchased a program that will enable me to edit multi-track
audio of DVD quality. It cost $450!!! In the 2-track realm, there is a lot
of easy to use, hip stuff out there. You might play around with Sound Forge
by Sonic Foundry. You can get the XP version for free with a lot of
multi-media programs and sound cards. Otherwise it might cost $100.

> I start out by defragmenting my fixed disk and I make sure that I have at
> least 700 Mbytes available free space. I use my laptop to play the MIDI
> accompaniment (my Gateway 2000 isn't fast enough to do that AND to carry
> out an analog to digital conversion from my microphone) and feed the audio
> through the line input of my mixer. I also feed the microphone output
> through the mixer and set my levels to what has worked in the
> past and then
> I do the recording and hope that the telephone doesn't ring (!)

If it isn't the phone, it's the refridgerator cycling on :-) Blasted things
have ruined many a take (when I have to record in somebody's house). Have
you thought about getting an extra hard drive? 700 megs can dissapear so
quickly. I am in a slightly different situation <g> but I have a dedicated
18 gig drive for sound only. That way, even with a slow system, the audio
stream to the drive is not interrupted... This has worked like a charm on
my P233 and even my Pentium 120 that I had a few years ago. Sort of a
divide and conquor thing.

> The output
> of my mixer goes into the line input of my Gateway sound board. Anyway,
> once the file(s) have been created, I do whatever cutting and pasting is
> necessary to bring my playing skill up to a world class level (!!) and I
> always burn an audio CD and then delete the master files (to get
> rid of the
> evidence).

That is the way CDs are made in the real world... Live Performances?
HA!!!! Never. More like a set of live performances spliced together with a
couple sessions to get the bad spots. If people really knew what went on in
many of the CDs out there, they'd be horrified. In the classical world, it
is not uncommon to have a CD with more than 1000 edits in it. There is a
recording of a Chopin Etude out there that is rumored to have a 1000 edits
in 1 piece (3 minutes long, one edit every couple notes).

You'd be amazed at the power of the dedicated editing workstations out
there. I cannot afford them, but I work on them at studios all the time.
$20,000 will get you something that will give you the power to edit inside
of notes with perfect accuracy. In spoken word stuff, I have pieced
together words from syllables of other words when somebody mis-spoke. It is
pretty scary to understand the level of manufacturing capable out there.

> From there I can record an audio cassette from the CD (and no
> one is the wiser -- ah, there's the rub). I must confess that I've only
> done about three sessions in the last year, but I wrote everything down so
> that I don't have to start at square one the next time. I love the
> technology and it gives me far more flexibility than I would have
> with MDs.
>
> Oliver

Well, you're doing it the "right" way. If it isn't the computer, you could
use DAT tape. Mini Disk is by no means a "master" quality medium. DAT is
perhaps, but today, not really.

The thing about MD, as I have mentioned before, is that it is a great
replacement for the cassette tape. If you cannot afford DAT tape machines,
it is a good alternative. The cheapest DAT setup will run close to $1000.

--Ben

Benjamin Maas
Fifth Circle Audio
Los Angeles, CA
http://www.fifthcircle.com
benmaas@-----.com

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org