Recording Quality

Clay_Bass · #1 06-13-2006, 01:22 PM

You can hear my recordings on the myspace page in my sig. My question is that I use a mixing board then into my sound card. Ive talked to Jeff Schmidt about recording and he uses his boss me 6b straight into his soundcard. How come my recordings sound like crap and his dont. I dont have a ****ty bass or pickups. Is it my soundcard and what are some good soundcards that arent extremely expensive?

winston · #2 06-13-2006, 04:20 PM

I'm listening to your recording on MySpace right now and I don't think it sounds bad at all. Your gear list in your profile ain't too shabby either. If I were you I'd try recording from the GT-6B or Trace's DI instead of a mixing board. I've generally made my best-sounding recordings using a minimal signal path into my M-Audio Delta 1010L and Audiophile 24/96 soundcards.

Make sure you set your gain stages to maximize signal and minimize noise--this generally means get a full signal from your bass, set the gain of the preamp/mixer channel as high as it will go without clipping, and send it into the soundcard making sure that the loudest signal will not cause ugly digital clipping.

The Audiophile 24/96 is a great-sounding soundcard for $100. It all depends on your budget, but you won't get a pro-quality card for much less. There are some inexpensive USB interfaces like the Mackie Spike and DigiDesign MBox--these have a couple mic preamps and come bundled with software, but beware that USB usually has worse latency than PCI/FireWire.

Many cards/interfaces have a digital input so you could take the digital out right from the GT-6B. If I may make one observation about your recording, to my ears it sounds like you're plucking fairly hard. Paradoxically, I've found that a light right-hand touch results in a richer, fuller sound and better dynamics.

niftydog · #3 06-13-2006, 05:45 PM

IMO sound cards are bunk. Most home studio users are using external firewire or USB audio devices. They're generally cheaper, have more features and higher quality sound-bang-for-your-buck.

nowontonsforme · #4 06-13-2006, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by niftydog

IMO sound cards are bunk. Most home studio users are using external firewire or USB audio devices. They're generally cheaper, have more features and higher quality sound-bang-for-your-buck.

firewire and usb audio interfaces ARE soundcards... they just use that interface instead of a PCI slot. Infact, internally, usb slots and firewire slots usually run on the pci bus making them technically the same. Any PCI or firewire device is recommended over a USB device simply because of bandwidth.

firewire devices are largely used with laptops because of the inability to use a PCI device.

A PCI device with a breakout box is still the highest quality way to record on a computer at home, though the margin over firewire devices is shrinking, almost to the point that it wont matter in most circumstances.

niftydog · #5 06-13-2006, 08:22 PM

A soundcard is a soundcard. No ifs or buts. To me the term "audio device" implies more features such as mic preamps, on-board level controls, dedicated instrument inputs and/or headphone outputs. But I take your point about the PCI bus.

I stand by my statement that I've noticed better quality from a firewire audio deivice compared to a similarly priced soundcard. Plus, the ease of setup, portability and features of audio devices is a boon to us home-recording musos.

Hell, I'd love a ProTools system at home, but who here has $25,000 to get started building one?!

Quote:

Any PCI or firewire device is recommended over a USB device simply because of bandwidth.

Only if you're recording multiple channels simultaneously does this become an issue.

nowontonsforme · #6 06-13-2006, 09:22 PM

ok, it depends on what youre looking for. for quality of throughput, pci devices represent the shortest and cleanest signal chain from source to harddrive. Instead of using a cheap preamp loaded in a firewire device, id rather have a nice external preamp taking care of my sound. my preference is to have the audio interface take care of the a/d/a conversion and nothing else. if you want the other features, go firewire, by all means.

either way, the quality of the a/d/a converters is a MUCH bigger deal than pci vs firewire so this argument is almost moot.

pretaanluxis · #7 06-13-2006, 09:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by winston

Make sure you set your gain stages to maximize signal and minimize noise--this generally means get a full signal from your bass, set the gain of the preamp/mixer channel as high as it will go without clipping

I agree

niftydog · #8 06-13-2006, 10:52 PM

Quote:

either way, the quality of the a/d/a converters is a MUCH bigger deal than pci vs firewire so this argument is almost moot.

Granted. Start talking cutting edge quality ADAs and you're getting into "millionaires weekend away" kinda money! I guess I'm always thinking of the cost/benefit. Compromise and moderation are my mantras!

jeff schmidt · #9 06-14-2006, 12:19 AM

Hey Clay - I hope I didn't mislead you into thinking the sound on my recordings is ONLY from the GT-6B.

I record on a ProTools TDM system (the real deal- not mBox) and process tracks once they're recorded - compression, EQ, verb and other production techniques.

Your stuff sounds good for going straight in. I'd suggest you start learning about appropriate use of verbs, compression, EQ etc... once you get a grip on that stuff - your recordings will take on a new depth.

Clay_Bass · #10 06-14-2006, 08:24 AM

No Jeff I knew what you meant. I just dont have the money at this point to buy pro tools or to get a multi fx system. Im using audacity which is the best I could find for free but the effects on that are pretty bad. A friend of mine has adobe audition which is a hell of a lot better than audacity so I may have him burn me the program. But the Audiophile 24/96 sounds like it might be a good investment as Im just using the stock soundcard right now.

J_C_L · #11 06-14-2006, 08:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nowontonsforme

ok, it depends on what youre looking for. for quality of throughput, pci devices represent the shortest and cleanest signal chain from source to harddrive. Instead of using a cheap preamp loaded in a firewire device, id rather have a nice external preamp taking care of my sound. my preference is to have the audio interface take care of the a/d/a conversion and nothing else. if you want the other features, go firewire, by all means.

either way, the quality of the a/d/a converters is a MUCH bigger deal than pci vs firewire so this argument is almost moot.

Completely moot. The length of the audio signal chain is the distance to the A/D converter, not the distance to the hard drive. So the lenght of the USB/FW cable is irrelevent.

On potential advantage of USB/FW devices is noise. It should be easier to have a clean, low noise device outside of a PC box. The inside of a PC is noise hell from an electrical sense. There are all sorts of nasty switching noise inside the box. It should be easier to isolate the analog front end from this in an external enclosure.

But a PCI card with external preamp probably isn't too bad either.

These are generalities. Much more depends on the design and implamentation. This is probably an area where you get what you pay for.

nowontonsforme · #12 06-14-2006, 01:23 PM

I wasnt talking about the length of cable, i meant once a signal goes through the firewire into the pci bus, its slightly more travel than dumping straight into the pci. I'm also biased against firewire because of things like hot-plugging and the like.

I also stated earlier that a breakout box is the best option in any circumstance. I love my delta 44... besides.. who wants to bend down and mess with the back of the computer everytime you want to record something different?

J_C_L · #13 06-14-2006, 10:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nowontonsforme

I wasnt talking about the length of cable, i meant once a signal goes through the firewire into the pci bus, its slightly more travel than dumping straight into the pci. I'm also biased against firewire because of things like hot-plugging and the like.

I also stated earlier that a breakout box is the best option in any circumstance. I love my delta 44... besides.. who wants to bend down and mess with the back of the computer everytime you want to record something different?

Since that's all digital, it will have no effect on the sound quality. It could increase latency, but that only matters if you want to use the computer for live effects, not recording.

Digital signal paths lenghts can't matter from a audio quality perspective in a computer. If they did, then USB/FW external drives wouldn't work.

In fact, from a signal chain perspective, the external pre-amp has by far the longest path. But if well designed, even this should be irrelevant since it should be an actively driven signal at most a couple of feet long using a high quality cable.