MP3 demo section

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Author Message   Masterplan Username: Masterplan Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:14 am:    Hi guys, yet another newbie, Greatings from DUBAI no I dont want a valuation on my guitar,........... I have tralled through nearly every thread on this site and love it, you all seem to having it going on. Heres one for you Johns, there have been various discussions on pick up tone over the years, and everyone is using the same general terms: "got a great crunchy tone to bright tones useing this or that button/ selector/toggle" could we add an MP3 or sound section to this amazing site, so that we can actually hear and sample the various pups in these machines, (sound is the only way to describe sound). Bobzilla asked a few weeks ago, (Hi Zilla) "hey guys always wanted to ask what do you guys do?" NO ONE replied but I belive that the majority of us are musicians, In answer to zillas question we could reply with our own style of music and let everyone hear what we do. WHAT DO YOU THINK GUYS? I'm no computer geek, but know that it could be done, if you can post pictures (great gear by the way gentlemen, some very nice collections). The MP3 could also be used to showcase the various pedles and effects available. Well thats my say. hope that we can discuss this and invent a new and exciting catagory. regards Masterplan N.B. I take no responsability for my spelling   Masterplan Username: Masterplan Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:28 am:    Note the thread two down AR 100 pickups 58's V2s 37 hits and I still carn't hear the sound   Vintageboy Username: Vintageboy Registered: 02-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 3:00 pm:    hi Master Plan, I'll record some sounds today heopfully and then link the sounds into the thread from my webspace, but the thing is, is that i dont have a really good mic or recording program. For a living, i am an engineer, hopeing that my band can go full time though...its a dream. From times I've been in a studio, I can tell you that the microphone matters, the amp matters, and the cab speakers matter, and the micing technique really matters so that the pickups could sound a million different ways depending on those variables. I'm not sure how well people would be able to tell certain sounds unless people know how to mic their rig and fully explain how they miced it. Then i guess, i would think, the person on the listening end would have to know what the difference in sound is micing at a 45 degree angle versus straight on, and a speaker places at the cone versus along the outter edge, and then how far away its placed....i dunno. i'll try to get some sounds onm my thread though. Chris   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Wednesday, December 07, 2005 - 4:26 pm:    Great idea...but I wouldn't use MP3 as its frequencies are quite squashed when compared to other lossless file types in order to save space (e.g. wave, albeit huge files, are lossless). Much of the finer aspects of tone would be lossed.   Masterplan Username: Masterplan Registered: 12-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 1:32 am:    You are right about MP3 STRINGS,and thanks VINTAGEBOY. For me it was just an Idea that I think would be great for this site, as I am no techy I would not have the first idea how it would work ore how to set it up but think we could all have a lot of fun with it, playing with effects, and pickups. whilst showing off our skills,(not that I have any, it's you guys that are the pro's)the designers of this site should be able to give us some pointers and Ideas, maybe give us a seperate heading on the main file. Maximilian   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 10:24 am:    Strings: Not to be a party pooper, but I bet 95% of the people here do not recognize the difference between a 44.1/16 wav and a 192kbps mp3 with their current playback system. I think even a 160kbps (when encoded with a GOOD encoder) would easily be good enough to describe the differences in pickups, atleast when comparing to other pickups recorded with the same system. The frequency response is not severely limited until under 112kbps. And a guitar speaker barely produces frequencies above 6KHz. Dynamics and other encoding problems would be a lot worse than losing frequencies. I do think ogg and even wma are a lot better than mp3, but the differencies at 160kbps and above are minimal.   Strings Username: Strings Registered: 01-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 11:40 am:    Thanks Aki - I think I've (mistakenly) thrown MP3s into one category - crap - do to my experience with XM Radio...which is the only means for me to catch the Dead Hour here in MN. Digital effing radio and they were broadscasting some squashed or low-rate output...what's the point? It may not be XM...it could very well be Ganz offering up 96kpbs...I don't know. But now that you mention it, I have a great download of the famous Cornell 05/08/77 show that came in at 192 and it is awesome...other stuff at 96 is troublesome. Thanks for straightening me out Aki! EJ   Brentm Username: Brentm Registered: 03-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 1:52 pm:    Yeah, I was going to throw my 2 cents in on the mp3 debate. 192 is the defacto standard for mp3 converstions... which is pretty darn good. If quality were really an issue, the RIAA wouldn't have so much heartburn about the technology. And heck, with as much hearing loss as I'm sure I've sustained over the years, I'm just happy to be able to hear! I've even become that guy that puts in ear plugs at concerts..   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 4:47 pm:    I echo Brent's opinion on mp3. They are pretty darn good sounding when encoded with anything over 128kbps. I have gone entirely to hardrive with my music collection, which is all MP3 and M4A (Apple AAC) and it is very hard to hear any difference, using audiophile systems or the pro studio monitors driven by my computer. We did some comparisons on my friend's $40K stereo system, between 192kbps MP3, WAV (AIFF) and original CD, and there are differences, but you have to have a critical ear, and good system to hear them. On the average computer system, I'd challenge anyone to perceive a difference. It's probably not worth using 10 times the bandwidth to use a lossless format for something like this. And I would tend to stay away from proprietary formats that force users to install special software (or leave Apple users out entirely). -Sven   Agr Username: Agr Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 8:22 pm:    Forgive my ignorance but I would like to start recording on my computer hard drive and I have no idea where to start. Can someone point me in the right direction? The last time I recorded was on a reel to reel back in the 80s. I feel like a dinosaur. Do you recommend I stop by the local guitar center and ask them for advise or is that a waste of time? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.   Vintageboy Username: Vintageboy Registered: 02-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 8:43 pm:    You'll then need a recording program on yoru computer. There are several: sound forge, pro tools, cakewalk, peak....pro tools is anotehr standard, but its kinda expensive...if youre going to buy it. I happent o like protools, as you can get some really great sounds on there using their effects and such. Pro tools has built in effects like phasers, chorus, reverb, click track (metronome) so you shouldnt need to buy anything more than the program, peak is the same way, so is sound forge. a good instrument mic will set you up nicely, i would look at a sure sm57 or sure sm81, the 57 is more a standard i guess, and has an open sound with more trebble than the 81, while teh 81 is a more clsoed sound with more mid range (to me at least). i thinkt hats all, except youll need to figure out a way to hook the mix into the computer. that i dont know, but that should just be a connector piece from the mic cable to a mic input on your computer, or i think pro tools my have a card you put in your ocmputer or something. I dunno, im just recalling teh basics from teh place we record at...without the covnerters, preamps, the baord e.t.c. its a start - protools is probably the most used digital recording program...but cakewalk is cheaper. chris   Brentm Username: Brentm Registered: 03-2005 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 8:49 pm:    Yeah, I have Sonar 5 Producer Edition and really like it. I've used Sonar 4 also. I have a buddy that swears by Kristal... Freeware multitrack recording. Did I mention it's free? http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/index.php woot   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 9:05 pm:    Agr, Recording is a huge topic. There are some good online recording forums, like the one at Harmony-Central. It can be quite daunting at first. Briefly, there are 2 ways you can go: either direct, or by miking your speaker. Either way, you will need some kind of hardware interface, and some recording software, which often comes bundled with the interface. You can experament with your computers built in audio interface or audio card, but most likely you'll opt for some kind of dedicated outboard hardware solution like I did. Some of these boxes have MIDI interfaces as well. You'll want to pay attention to whether the box is for guitar (high-Z), microphone (low-Z), or both. Going direct, you may want to consider a Pod, or similar device, with built in amp modeling, and a USB output. People get very good results with them. It's pretty simple: guitar to POD to computer (no amp), tweak and record. The Pods are very popular. Yamaha makes a very nice little inexensive box called the Magic Stomp II. Then there is the $329 M-Audio Black Box, or the $79 Jam Lab, which is more of a software solution. And probably many others I didn't mention. I'm not sure if the POD comes with any software. You may need to buy, download or steal some software. If you want the warm sound that only a miked cab can produce. You'll need a guitar mike, and a direct box - a mike preamp with USB (or other) output. I'm partial to M-Audio. They have a whole range of boxes from about $40 up. And they come with recording software, which is pretty basic in some cases. -Sven   Bluesmeister Username: Bluesmeister Registered: 05-2004 Posted on Thursday, December 08, 2005 - 10:23 pm:    Currently I'm using Cakewalk Hone Studio 2004XL, although I recently upgraded to Sonar 5 PE but I haven't installed it yet. I want to do a complete reinstall of WinXP and all of my software first... That should be a breeze, right? My soundcard is a Terratec EWX 24/96, I have a Sennheiser e840 microphone and a really noisy 2-channel mixer. My amp is a Mesa/Boogie DC-2 that is fitted with a recording out socket. I patch this into the mixer, which in turn goes to the sound card. My system is a P4 2.4GHz, with 1GB RAM and a 120GB 7200rpm HDD My motherboard is an Asus P4PE For more information, there are myriad recording websites. Personally, I spend a lot of time at www.recordingproject.com where you can ask for, and receive, very useful help. Miking my DC-2 cabinet is something I haven't tried yet, but I'm aware that positioning of the mic is crucial to capture the best from the speaker. You need to place the mic off-axis and away from the grille, you'll have to experiment though to find the sweet-spot.   Agr Username: Agr Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 12:47 am:    Thanks for the info! One thing I'm a little confused on...If I would like to record guitar, drums, and bass all on the same file...I would need a mixer of some sort right? I'm interested in a putting together a little home studio...I'm assuming the pod would not be adequate for that? Again, showing my ignorance on this subject. Bluesmeister, thanks for the link. I'll try browsing tomorrow but it seems a little intimidating for a newbie. Thanks.   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 2:14 am:    Agr, the computer software will be your mixer. You can either lay down one track at a time, adding to the mix each time. Or you can record several tracks simultaneously, depending on how many inputs your interface has. Or maybe you will have a combination of real instruments and computer generated. You can manipulate the tracks, then mix them down into a single file if you want. -Sven   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 5:42 am:    A microphone needs a preamp. Sound card preamps suck, therefore a $30 mixer would be good. All sound cards can handle line level signal from the mixer quite well. Kristal = free multitracker software. Audacity = free multitracker software. Cubase SE = very good cheap multitracker Cakewalk Sonar Home = good cheap multitracker. Kjaerhusaudio.com = free plugins (compressor, reverb, etc) Tbtaudio.com = tubesound plugin. OR Get a $130 Line6 Toneport UX1 (Ableton Live included). It connect to USB, and You will never have to worry about low-quality mics, positioning them, and disturbing neighbours. Although you can, since the Toneport also has a mic preamp! Using mics is a good thing to learn, but TonePort/GuitarPort has made many lifes easier.   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Friday, December 09, 2005 - 6:17 pm:    Aki, maybe you meant $30 direct box? I guess you could use an outboard mixer, as Aki says, to record several instruments/tracks at once, but then you end up with a single track on your hardrive, and you have no way to work on individual tracks. If you want to record several tracks at once, I'd say it is better to get a direct box with multiple inputs, then you can edit the tracks and the mix on your computer. -Sven   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Saturday, December 10, 2005 - 7:02 pm:    Funkle, DI box doesn't serve at all when working with microphones. Every microphone/pickup needs a dedicated preamp. For a microphone, the cheapest sane pre is a Behringer mixer. A DI box only matches impedances, and therefore is usable only for keyboards and in some situations electric bass and amp line out. Recording a guitar to be used with amp simulator plugins is best made with a neutral preamp, DI box being a decent second. The point was not to record several tracks at once, but to get a useable sound from a mic or straight from the guitar. Two choices: 1) Mic > mixer (or only a preamp) > soundcard. 2) Line6 Toneport or similiar. Number two is sounding better and better to my ear. Ofcourse, amplifier can not be used, so You are "stuck" with Line6 or other plugin sounds.   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 1:29 am:    Aki, Maybe I'm misusing the term "direct box". A better term might be "recording interface", a device that takes an analog signal, or signals, and converts them to digital, and usually has a USB or Firewire output. It is possible to get an interface that will handle a microphone without any additional mic preamp. I have amassed a collection of about 4 of these boxes, and some are designed to work specifically with microphones (M-Audio USB Duo), some with high-Z instrument signals (BBE Di-100X), and some as both (Presonus Digitube). A box like the M-Audio Firewire 1814 has 8 line level inputs and 2 mic inputs. My point here is not to be a pain in the ••• but to point out to a computer recording newbie that you can get by with a single device, if you understand your options and make careful choices. -Sven   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Sunday, December 11, 2005 - 8:33 am:    Funkle, exactly. DI box is a dedicated box for impedance matching, not an interface. An audio interface often has a built-in mic preamp, as does a mixer, and as does the TonePort. Either of them would serve well. One gadget is definitely enough between a mic and a computer, or between guitar and a computer. Ofcourse, the gadget has to be the right one. I must have been unclear, but it is rather important to realize, that plugging a guitar to computer sound card (or mixer) will not give good results, no matter what plugins used. There is a bad impedance mismatch. Also, guitar speaker is a huge influence in electric guitar sound. When recording without a speaker, the speaker HAS to be simulated. All these things to take care of, TonePort knows how to deal with all of them.   Agr Username: Agr Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 12:24 am:    Thanks for the info guys. As far as the toneport goes...it sounds like you need a pretty high powered computer? I have a Pentium 4 that runs 1.6 Ghz and 512MB RAM. Do you feel this is adequate? The web site recommends 1 GB (or greater) of ram and with 2.5 Ghz or greater. I have about 7 GB available on my hard disk.   Johns Username: Johns Registered: 02-2001 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 10:53 am:    Guys: I've waited a little while to see what the response of the membership would be to the request of providing MP3 sample files. I'm glad to see that the challenge of the technical side of preparing comparision files has been explored. I'm concerned with 2 specific issues (if there are others I'm missing, please enlighten me): 1) Being able to compare apples to apples. What's a reasonable environment and parameters that will allow all to compare the various files fairly? 2) Amount of storage space necessary. File types and compression schemes have been mentioned. However, if there are any sound engineering pros who have already hit this wall and come up with a solution, please speak up with specific guidelines. If you'd rather do this via private email conversation, just click on my username to the left and send me an email. Thanks to all for the interest and suggestions!   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 11:21 am:    John, regarding your first point, I think it will be difficult to provide a truly realistic pickup comparison, by the time you factor in the amp, effects, recording interface and playing style. And on top of that, they all sound different depending on the guitar they are in. But I still think it could be a useful tool. If anything, it could be helpful to hear different guitars in the hands of one player. It would be interesting to hear a V2 vs. a Super 58 in a similar guitar like an AR. Or maybe a V2 equipped AR vs. a V2 equipped Sabre. Some aftermarket pickup comparisons could be helpful too. Aki, I checked out the toneport. Some of those models sound pretty good to me. For some reason I can't find the system requirements on the site. Will it run on a Mac? -Sven   Agr Username: Agr Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 1:21 pm:    Sven, Here is the link to system requirements for the toneport... http://line6.com/support/knowledgebase/toneporthelp/GearBoxRequirements.html   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 1:35 pm:    A few more thoughts regarding camparison environments: On the SD site, they play the same couple riffs for every pickup, and I find it very hard to hear the differenced between their pickups from their samples. They really sound pretty much alike to me - same player same guitar, same riffs. Since pickup comparison is a subjective thing to start with I find it more useful when the player attempts to bring out the characteristics and nuances of the pickup with what they play. This is the approach taken at http://www.kinman.com/html/mediaCentre/sounds.htm and Dimarzio.   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 1:43 pm:    Agr, Thanks for the link. They recommend a minimum of 1.2 GHZ, so I think you might be OK. I would consider adding RAM though. 512Mb is pretty low. Adding a GB or so would be an inexpensive way to boost the performance of your machine. I imagine that the more tracks or plugins you were using, the more demands you would make on your machine. Keeping things simple, you'll probably be fine. At $129 for the toneport, it's pretty hard to go wrong - you can always sell it on ebay.   Agr Username: Agr Registered: 10-2003 Posted on Monday, December 12, 2005 - 7:09 pm:    I'm with you Sven. $129 is a very inexpensive way for me to break into this digital recoding business. I think this will be a Christmas present to myself. Thanks for the help guys.   Bobzilla Username: Bobzilla Registered: 02-2005 Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 8:52 am:    Wouldn't the quality of any given speaker system anyone has set up on their computer greatly influence the sound of whatever folks record and post? For example.... If I had a great sounding guitar and you listened to it on lousy speakers.... wouldn't it sound lousy? In any event, it's a good idea basically.   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 9:56 am:    In my opinion the only way to make a comparison worth taking in consideration when choosing pickups would be when the exact same setup is used. This means that one person would have to have several pickups, and he/she should record the clips using the exact setup and settings. A relative comparison (trying to bring out the best out of each pickup) would give some idea of the sound, but different amps really do bring out the different natures of a pickup. I have made several microphone (and pickup) tests for myself in order to get familiar with my mics, and to bring out the differences in the individual mics. I noticed that even when using the exact same gear and same preset in Valvetronix, on different days they just sound different. Therefore I can only listen to samples seriously when they are made in the same session. I would be happy to participate and make sound clips of my different guitars in one session. The guitar and even strings do make a big difference, but the nature of different Ibanez pups do stay more or less the same, even in different guitars. If we get like 10 samples of a pickup, even from different users, it would be helpful for people who don't know what to expect. It would also be enlightening to hear what other users get out of theirs. Now we just need loads of web space. :oP   Guitaki Username: Guitaki Registered: 01-2002 Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 10:14 am:    About computer performance. 1.6GHz 512MB is quite a good balance, increasing the memory to 1.5GB would not necessarily bring that big of an increasement. When mixing multitrack with a lot of plugins, there are so many other things that make a big difference also. Motherboard's abilities, hard disk speed, setup and fragmentation, and most of all Windows tweaks. I'd say go for the Toneport as is, if You feel that Your PC is not up for it, then try tweaking and adding memory. If You do add memory, remember that 1GB of DDR400 is faster than 1.5GB running slower. (Meaning, if Your current memory is less than DDR400, don't use it with the new faster memory, or the new memory will also run slower.)   Funkle Username: Funkle Registered: 12-2001 Posted on Tuesday, December 13, 2005 - 12:03 pm:    Aki, Maybe it's not as big a deal with PCs, but when I upped my Mac from 512MB to 2.5GB it was like getting a new computer. When you have enough ram, your computer doesn't have to shuffle as much data around, and you get a lot less hangs. And hangs are not a good thing when recording. Regarding the TonePort, I checked out sound samples from many of the competing products, and the TonePort's were by far the best. This could just be the result of using top notch production techniques and software. I think I'll ask Santa for one -Sven

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