I’m liking it!
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Another improvement in the studio
Got the new desk in. Still having wiring and bass traps to do:
New madtheory
We haven’t had one of these in a while! Why Toast Tastes So Good.
New track
Today we worked on a new track, it’s about Chernobyl. It came together very quickly, Ken has a strong concept for it.
We used the newly acquired Nord Lead 2x, and it did everything we needed it to do. It’s pretty much the perfect subtractive synth, very easy to use and it sounds really good.
Studio design
I’ve designed a custom “composers desk” for the studio. Here’s a Google Sketch drawing of it:
New Pictures
I’ve uploaded a new gallery to the images page, it’s Gallery 5. Enjoy 🙂
My view on the mic pre debate
guitarsandsynths wrote:I would say that you can get better results with a good preamp and a cheap mic than with a expensive mic and cheap preamp.
It depends on what you mean by “cheap” and “expensive”. It actually costs very little to build a good mic pre, compared to building a good mic. Electronics manufacturing is a very advanced area, because electronics is a huge market, so the technology is extremely well researched. Microphones for audio (particularly the diaphragms) are a minority sport in comparison, with far fewer people applying their minds to it. Consequently, most of your budget goes on the mic.
When testing mic pres, you’ll notice the biggest difference with mics that have a passive output, especially those with cheap transformers like the majority of dynamics, and older ribbon designs. A good transformer can cost over €100, so would be a significant part of the cost.
Condensers have an active buffered output, so are less prone to being adversely loaded by the mic pre.
My advice would be- spend as much as you can on the mics. A pair of Audio Technica 4050 would be a superb investment. Excellent sounding mic. They’re able to make them that cheap because it’s an electret, not a condenser. This means that the capsule will probably die in 40/ 50 years. These mics can hold their heads up next to the classic Neumann U87, a true condenser costing twice as much. (I use the 87 at work, but I’ve bought the ATs for my own use).
A pair of 4050s would allow you to experiment with almost all of the stereo miking methods, and it’s a mic that will capture pretty much every source accurately.
For a mic pre amp, I would recommend something from Focusrite. Very clean, low noise, and great value for money. For funky fun, the little ART tube pres are superb and very affordable. I haven’t heard the UAD. I have heard the SPL Gold pre, and IMO it’s not worth the money, it’s kinda noisy, and the tone is nothing special given the price.
Finally, the widest variation in tone would be with mics. Pre amps are way down the scale, and if you’re room is not acoustically treated, there’s no way you’ll accurately hear a difference in mic pres. What you will hear is a different room mode when you move your head by one inch 
Philips DCC
Back in 1996, I bought a Philips DCC600 to mix onto. It was cheaper and better sounding than Sony Minidisc at the time. It was one of those typical technology battles, with the lesser quality but more convenient format winning. A bit like the 8 track cartridge. These used wider tape than a cassette so sounded far better. The proof is that they were still used in radio broadcasting up to ten years ago, long after the format had died in the domestic market.
Then I moved over to recording in the computer. I transferred some stuff from DCC in 16 bit. Along the way, I acquired a free Philips DCC730. A few months ago I transferred some of my old tapes (you can hear these old tracks on the music page). Turns out that the DCC730 puts out 18 bits via S/Pdif, so I set the DAW to record 24 bit. I use the TobyBear Bit Viewer plugin to measure that. In a direct comparison, these transfers have much more depth than the previous 16 bit ones. Comparing the two, the 16 bit transfers from DCC600 show all the hallmarks of quantising distortion.
This is interesting because DCC uses PASC, basically mpeg layer 1 audio compression. So the converter outputs an 18 bit digital word, even though most of the stuff was recorded via the 16 bit converter on the DCC600 (with its DC offset), or the 18 bit converter on the DCC730. Those extra bits seem to mitigate the ADPCM compression, somewhat.
With careful attention to harmonics and imaging in the mastering, the DCC recordings can sound really good.
Hopefully, this info will be useful to anyone out there with this old technology. Interestingly, the technology developed for DCC is now used in hard drives, and beer filtering systems! 🙂
Making Pictures
I’ve remixed some of the music from this film I did with Declan O’Mahony nearly two years ago. He’s a visual artist, and it’s about his creative process. We collaborated on the music.
You can see the remixed film segment on my music page.
Just one synth, and a garden
After work, I can recommend two ways to relax-
1. Gardening: digging, planting, pruning. Even when you’re tired, go gardening. You’ll find that you spend an hour when you planned 30 minutes, and your energy flows again.
2. Improvising- For the last while I’ve just had a Casio CZ-1 and nothing else. Most evenings I’d spend an hour or so playing around with layering and tuning, and coming up with music that sounds very different to what I’ve written before. It’s liberating not to have any expectations on the outcome. It’s a challenge to capture this stuff though! Just pressing record can set up an expectation.