ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

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Stackatrack
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Stackatrack » Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:28 pm

Hi,
I've got thousands wrapped up in a PT HD system and it's good...but this little app is great !
The only issue I'm concerned with is external storage....when you're at the gig recording, you really do need a live way to move the files to an external HD IMHO.
Given that my iPad is home to all sorts of large video files, I'd prefer to park live recordings to an external drive.
Not sure a wi fi drive is gonna hold up to transfer rates of a 16-24 track live recording.
firewire was marginal in a PT plus system I used a few years ago.....In any event, I'm sure I could get through a few multitrack sessions on the ipad before stopping to go back home and copy to the Mac Pro or iMac I have there.
If there's no way presently to change that....it's still all good considering what it costs and what it does....I think it's just amazing.

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Anthony Alves
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Anthony Alves » Tue Mar 26, 2013 12:00 pm

Hi Stackatrack, currently the only solution is the new iPad 128gb model. You could also back-up everything on your iPad and go into the recording session with an empty iPad just loaded with Auria and the basics. Cheers.~~_/)~~~

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by supanorton » Sun Apr 07, 2013 1:31 pm

I've been trying to get a good mix with Auria since its release with less than stellar results. I have no background with mixing/engineering/producing. In my band days, I wasn't interested in much that was happening in the control room.

After tracking, I'm only EQing slightly to get the sound I want for each instrument. After that, I tweak the individual tracks EQ, pan, and level so that I can hear them nicely in the mix. My mixes sound pretty good on my monitors, but are terribly boomy, muddy, and harsh on the system in my car. My monitors are a pair of inexpensive M-Audio BX5a deluxe speakers. Pretty good sounding speakers, but I think they accentuate the highs and hide the lows. They are what they are and what I can afford.

I think EQ is my main nemesis and am trying something new to get a better sound. I've inserted a Tom Petty track on my project in Auria and set up Pro Q as an insert with channel strip bypassed. I've been trying to roughly create the same spectrum in my project's master Pro-Q insert as the one on the Tom Petty track. I'm getting close, but not there yet. I do think my mix sounds a lot better, but that's without doing a mixdown and testing it on other speakers.

To the experts: does this sound like a useful approach to achieving a better mix as far as EQ is concerned? I'm using similar instruments and I love the overall sound of the mix I'm attempting to emulate.

Any suggestions with regard to EQ would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Artie

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Phil999 » Sun Apr 07, 2013 4:23 pm

it's not a bad idea, but an audio spectrum can only be a rough indication of a mix. Investing in a decent pair of speakers and room treatment is always the best thing you can do.

I bought a pair of Dynaudio BM5A mkII a year ago, and this changed everything. All my mixes I've previously done in Cubase or on a desk are bad. Now I know why. I didn't hear what I was doing.

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Checkrath » Mon Apr 08, 2013 3:57 pm

Now that Auria's Audiobus integration is sorted in 1.7, it's meeting almost all of my daw needs beautifully .

The one problem I have is when I want to sequence a virtual midi track(s) along side some audio. Currently, I bounce down the audio and copy paste to Beatmaker2 (urghh..) to sequence my track, then copy paste the resulting audio back to Auria.

This process is a little painful. Any suggestions for sequencing against audio tracks?

I have also used Nanostudio in the past but the audio track needs to be triggered I.e. I can't start playback half way through the song. I have considered buying cubasis for this but it feels a bit pricy to just use as a sequencer.

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by supanorton » Mon Apr 08, 2013 7:56 pm

Phil999 wrote:it's not a bad idea, but an audio spectrum can only be a rough indication of a mix. Investing in a decent pair of speakers and room treatment is always the best thing you can do.

I bought a pair of Dynaudio BM5A mkII a year ago, and this changed everything. All my mixes I've previously done in Cubase or on a desk are bad. Now I know why. I didn't hear what I was doing.
@Phil999
Thank you. I was afraid that someone would tell me that. I know I'll eventually have to spend serious money on monitors, better mics, etc. I will say that the comparative spectrum analysis has definitely helped get me a lot closer, and I have to make do with what I've got for now. I appreciate you taking the time to answer my question.

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Anthony Alves
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Anthony Alves » Wed Apr 10, 2013 1:35 pm

supanorton wrote:I've been trying to get a good mix with Auria since its release with less than stellar results. I have no background with mixing/engineering/producing. In my band days, I wasn't interested in much that was happening in the control room.

After tracking, I'm only EQing slightly to get the sound I want for each instrument. After that, I tweak the individual tracks EQ, pan, and level so that I can hear them nicely in the mix. My mixes sound pretty good on my monitors, but are terribly boomy, muddy, and harsh on the system in my car. My monitors are a pair of inexpensive M-Audio BX5a deluxe speakers. Pretty good sounding speakers, but I think they accentuate the highs and hide the lows. They are what they are and what I can afford.

I think EQ is my main nemesis and am trying something new to get a better sound. I've inserted a Tom Petty track on my project in Auria and set up Pro Q as an insert with channel strip bypassed. I've been trying to roughly create the same spectrum in my project's master Pro-Q insert as the one on the Tom Petty track. I'm getting close, but not there yet. I do think my mix sounds a lot better, but that's without doing a mixdown and testing it on other speakers.

To the experts: does this sound like a useful approach to achieving a better mix as far as EQ is concerned? I'm using similar instruments and I love the overall sound of the mix I'm attempting to emulate.

Any suggestions with regard to EQ would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Artie
This is a common problem when mixing to small speakers even if the speaker is of high quality it still will not represent a frequency that it can not produce so the mix engineer thinks the bottom end is under control when in fact they are not and all he low frequencies are still too loud. To cure this matter simple set a LowCut filter in ProQ and dial it to 25Hz to 30Hz essentially removing any frequencies in the lower sub bass range that truly affects the muddiness of the mix. Then set the ProQ to midside mode and select another LowCut filter and set the frequency to 90 Hz in the side channel (select the S to the right of the sizers) and this eliminates any subharmonic frequencies and most subwoofers are crossed over at 100Hz. This will fix your problem forever and no matter what speakers you play your track on the bottom end still sounds under control. there are of course variations on this method but as a general rule this works. cheers

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sch
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by sch » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:01 pm

Anthony Alves wrote:To cure this matter simple set a LowCut filter in ProQ and dial it to 25Hz to 30Hz essentially removing any frequencies in the lower sub bass range that truly affects the muddiness of the mix. Then set the ProQ to midside mode and select another LowCut filter and set the frequency to 90 Hz in the side channel (select the S to the right of the sizers) and this eliminates any subharmonic frequencies and most subwoofers are crossed over at 100Hz. This will fix your problem forever and no matter what speakers you play your track on the bottom end still sounds under control. there are of course variations on this method but as a general rule this works. cheers
Anthony, you do this on all channels (presumably other than the bass)? Or is this a Sub or Master treatment?

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Anthony Alves
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Anthony Alves » Wed Apr 10, 2013 2:13 pm

sch wrote:
Anthony Alves wrote:To cure this matter simple set a LowCut filter in ProQ and dial it to 25Hz to 30Hz essentially removing any frequencies in the lower sub bass range that truly affects the muddiness of the mix. Then set the ProQ to midside mode and select another LowCut filter and set the frequency to 90 Hz in the side channel (select the S to the right of the sizers) and this eliminates any subharmonic frequencies and most subwoofers are crossed over at 100Hz. This will fix your problem forever and no matter what speakers you play your track on the bottom end still sounds under control. there are of course variations on this method but as a general rule this works. cheers
Anthony, you do this on all channels (presumably other than the bass)? Or is this a Sub or Master treatment?
You can do this to any channel or Master channel. It is more drastic when applied to a full mix but was commonly used on records to stop the needle from bouncing on the disk due to the low frequency pump so many of our most loved albums were done this way. It works good at taming the bottom end of Low sub kick drums and low frequency bass. If you apply this technique to the individual low frequency tracks then you wont find the problem at the mixdown stage but you can still apply some of the low cut just not as low. For House or deep bass wobble effects then a lower sub may be desired but it's best to mix that on a sub woofer so that you can eq the sub bass to taste and actually hear it. Feel free to experiment with frequencies around those frequency target. eg 22Hz LowCut or 80Hz midside. cheers.

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by supanorton » Thu Apr 11, 2013 5:26 am

Thank you, Anthony. I'll try experimenting with these suggestions.

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Shay » Thu Apr 11, 2013 8:15 am

Hi There Experts,

Does anybody know if there is a benefit from working with 96K projects?
If I paste sounds from other apps then Auria upgrades it to 96K, but there is no additional information to the source sound.
The question is if i record via Audiobus from other apps, can I get a 96K without converting?

Thanks,
Shay

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Anthony Alves
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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Anthony Alves » Thu Apr 11, 2013 12:26 pm

96k offers more information for the audio to be reproduced into the digital domain but the amount of stress it puts on your cpu makes it not the best choice. Some say that most can not hear the difference as well any track brought into Auria via audiobus is still the same quality . In simple terms there is no advantage to using 96k unless you can handle it on your recording device and the iPad's memory and cpu speed are not quite high enough yet to comfortably record at this sample rate and the difference you will hear will be very little to none. This sample rate has been known to even stall a MacBook Pro with lots of ram and cpu speed. Also remember that an audio file recorded at 24bit 96k uses 2x the drive space for wav files compared to 24bit 44.1k. As well problems can arise during the sample rate conversion if your going to use it on CD or DVD. The rule I follow is 24bit 48k for Rock and Pop music and video and 24bit 44.1 for CD mastering with 16 bit dither noise applied. If I'm just recording a single performer say acoustic guitar and vocal and my project is only about 3-4 tracks then I give it all I have for the clearest and pristine sound but only on very transparent tracks do I notice a better sheen on the high end and the bottom of the acoustic is well defined. In a full rock or pop mix or hip hop our house you will be pressed to notice any difference or just minor.
hope this helps and I think there was some good posts on this subject before so maybe do a search and you may find more info. As well the web has some great articles on the subject.cheers

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Shay » Thu Apr 11, 2013 2:08 pm

Thank you very much Anthony.
This information really help.
My 96K projects are too large for my poor 16GB iPad and I will use 48k or 44.1k in my next projects.

Regards

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by supanorton » Sun Apr 14, 2013 3:27 pm

To cure this matter simple set a LowCut filter in ProQ and dial it to 25Hz to 30Hz essentially removing any frequencies in the lower sub bass range that truly affects the muddiness of the mix. Then set the ProQ to midside mode and select another LowCut filter and set the frequency to 90 Hz in the side channel (select the S to the right of the sizers) and this eliminates any subharmonic frequencies and most subwoofers are crossed over at 100Hz. This will fix your problem forever and no matter what speakers you play your track on the bottom end still sounds under control. there are of course variations on this method but as a general rule this works. cheers

Anthony,
When you say, "then set ProQ to midside mode and select another LowCut filter and set the frequency to 90 Hz in the side channel (select the S to the right of the sizers) and this eliminates any subharmonic frequencies and most subwoofers are crossed over at 100Hz", do mean run two seperate inserts of ProQ in the master? I tried setting a second low cut and eliminated the first. Just want to make sure. Thanks.

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Re: ASK THE RECORDING EXPERTS

Post by Anthony Alves » Sun Apr 14, 2013 7:59 pm

no you just use one ProQ. You may have already selected this but Don't forget to select mid/side mode not L/R .Just double tap to create another dot on the frequency curve line. try to do it away from the last on that you did so as not to get them too close together so you can see it better. Now when you see the next new dot or marker as it were, touch the S to which stands for side the m is for middle. Now select your Lowcut filter and set the frequency to 90hz. you can keep doing this on the same ProQ up to 22 times. These are called instances but you can imagine each one being a slider on an eq. 22 to be exact. and each one you can dial in its frequency and gain of that frequency. Like as if each slider on the eq also contained a volume control as well as the ability to zero in on any frequency you wish each of the single 22 sliders to control. QWow. Let me know how you make out. You gotta watch Dan Worral on Fabfilter as he demonstrates the ProQ. The best tutorial video on that plugin. just go to Fabfilter.com.
cheers and hope this helped.

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