New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

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MacHound
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New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by MacHound » Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:19 pm

New Auria Pro owner x 4 weeks, Auria Discussion forums lurker x 6 weeks, and budding armchair sound engineer. First off I love Auria Pro! So glad I bought this app. It's very intuitive, even for someone new to all of this.

I am trying to make well-informed decisions before recording our youth strings group’s rehearsal tomorrow evening and also recording their 4.5 hour paid gig the following evening. The group purchased Allen & Heath’s Qu-Pac digital mixer two months ago and we're gaining experience with it. It is a wonderful device for running live shows from an iPad out in the audience area or walking around the performance untethered to a physical mixer. The Qu-Pac produces very clean 24 bit, 16 mono channel recordings to a USB stick (plus Qu stereo mixdown on channels 17 and 18). It seems rock-solid reliable. The Qu-Pac plays well together with Auria, though I haven’t done much recording that way. Despite its rich tube-like sound even at higher preamp gain levels, its internal 56 bit audio bus, five-core sound processor, etc., the Qu-Pac does not offer bitrates greater than 48 kHz. We are OK with that for our needs.

My question is about the optimal bitrate for mixing tracks in iOS. Qu-Pac options are 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz. Without getting into a holy war over which bitrate is acoustically superior, and from a practical standpoint of post-processing and mixing in iOS, I have been struggling with our group’s 48 kHz recordings. The problem is when I process tracks through JamUp Pro, Bias FX, Magellan synthesizer, or any of my other iOS sound apps, a double conversion from 48 -> 44.1 -> 48 kHz occurs. I must shut down Auria projects (48 kHz) to process sound files saved in AudioShare through Jampup Pro / Bias FX / Magellan / AudioBus 2 at 44.1 kHz back to AudioShare… then I must shut down the 44.1 kHz apps to work in Auria again at 48 kHz. This is not a good use of my time, and sound quality suffers.

This old thread summarizes the problem:

http://auriaapp.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... khz#p41568

My obvious workflow change is to make all future recordings at 44.1 kHz. I wonder about the wisdom of doing this re: future proofing. 44.1 kHz seems to be going the way of the dodo bird everywhere except in iOS.

Group recordings will be for web marketing and maybe some demo CDs for business owners, festival managers and for grandparents. We may try mixing A-V recordings for DVD distribution using Auria’s $5 Video Import Add-On.

We’ve already spent most of our budget on a nice digital mixer, multiple Radial Pro2 direct boxes, high quality instrument pickups & mics, quality XLR and guitar cables, stands, sheet music, etc., etc. Not many funds are leftover for gear purchases. That said, I plan on buying Kymatica’s $19 AUM multi-audio / MIDI mixer app. I will buy AudioBus 3 when it becomes available. Our keyboardist will begin recording MIDI-over-USB soon, which creates other opportunities and headaches.

I have been reading forums on all of the above listed apps and I am growing very tired. The Qu-Pac alone has a lengthy learning process. I have a full time day job and two kids to shuttle. Maybe we need a full-time sound pro to take over this youth strings group?

Side topic: Auria's Jamup plugin appears to grow old-in-the-tooth compared to other iOS apps I mentioned. Positive Grid seems to have removed it from their webpage which does not bode well for future updates.

Any advice from the experts on Auria / Bias FX / Magellan / DM1 workflow and integration, or about my 44.1 vs 48 kHz decision?

Thank you, and sorry about the length of this first post. You can see I've done my homework.

MacHound
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Re: New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by MacHound » Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:35 pm

P.S., I absolutely LOVE Auria Pro's transient markers and time-warping. It brings our kids' performances to life instead of ending up in the trash can because of minor mistakes. Bravo, Wave Machine Labs! This feature by itself justifies Auria Pro's purchase price.

Tovokas
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Re: New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by Tovokas » Fri Mar 17, 2017 4:29 am

I've always felt that 24/44.1 makes life easier in a dozen ways... the benefits certainly outweighing the (non-existent to my poor ears) sonic benefits of 48. If my workflow required staying in 48 I would, but that's never been my case. And as you've learned, doing a conversion dance in iOS is a particularly unpleasant proposition!

Welcome aboard, and good luck with your project: I'm sure your passion and energy will have a far bigger impact than bitrates, and any workflow adjustments that keep you from feeling like you're swimming in molasses will pay off in the end. :)

MacHound
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Re: New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by MacHound » Fri Mar 17, 2017 11:54 am

Thank you Tovokas.

Auria discussion board member Gary emailed me questioning whether my bitrate conversions related to AudioBus. I've been using AudioBus since version 1.0 and I don't believe AB version 2.3.9 is the source of my 44.1 kHz conversions. JamUp Pro no longer receives much love from PositiveGrid; it appears to be stuck at 44.1. I am not sure which bitrates are supported in Bias FX. Positive Grid doesn't talk about it in their product comparison chart:

https://help.positivegrid.com/hc/en-us/ ... duct-Chart

So, long story short, I am going down to 44.1 kHz on future recordings. I have a sizable investment in iOS sound processing software and if 44.1 is the defacto standard that's what I will be using.

Any thoughts about how Jonatan Liljedahl's AUM is likely to make my life better? AudioBus 3.0 is poised to bring MIDI routing, so I am wondering what AUM does in the context of Auria Pro that I really need? It's not the $19 that bothers me but time spent learning yet another music connectivity app instead of making music with the kids.

http://kymatica.com/Software/AUM

MacHound
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Re: New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by MacHound » Fri Mar 17, 2017 12:06 pm

Youtube is my friend (sometimes) — regarding AUM:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmMt-cbsZLY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL8lBrru-y8

So I am sold on AUM. Question is how well it plays together with Auria Pro? It's got to put some serious strain on my iPad Air2 running all of these apps together.

MacHound
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Posts: 10
Joined: Thu Mar 16, 2017 2:59 pm

Re: New Auria owner struggling with bitrate decision & IAA

Post by MacHound » Wed Mar 22, 2017 1:06 pm

Follow-up: I misunderstood the Qu-Pac mixer's user guide. 44.1 kHz is only an option on stereo playback, not on multichannel recording or playback. It looks like we're stuck with bitrate conversions until PositiveGrid and others get their apps running reliably at 48 kHz, or until we abandon iPad mixing. For now we will stick with Auria Pro and its work-arounds which are documented here.

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