Questions on audio set up

[jozz]

I'd like to understand why its a bad idea. Why won't the camera use the external sound signal as is?

the H6 has excellent pre-amps, thus is not the bottleneck
capturing sound with H6 to your phone through a digital connection, and then replaying it over your Bose should sound close to the same as directly from your accordion
but I suppose you are connecting with an analog line
how exactly are you connecting it to the phone?

 

[dak]

the H6 has excellent pre-amps, thus is not the bottleneck
capturing sound with H6 to your phone through a digital connection, and then replaying it over your Bose should sound close to the same as directly from your accordion
but I suppose you are connecting with an analog line
how exactly are you connecting it to the phone?

Uh, I would assume that he already answered that?

What is a recording configuration? I use my H6 as a audio interface and connect it directly to my phone. I choose the H6 as the external microphone source in my Phone's camera while I record the video.

It doesn't tell us what audio interface settings he uses on the phone (to which I assume he is connected via USB), and what codec and other options for the phone recording application. But it does sound like his system is set up in a manner where one would not need to touch the hardware.

 

[breezybellows]

Uh, I would assume that he already answered that?

It doesn't tell us what audio interface settings he uses on the phone (to which I assume he is connected via USB), and what codec and other options for the phone recording application. But it does sound like his system is set up in a manner where one would not need to touch the hardware.

Yes, I used the USB cable to connect the H6 to the phone as an audio interface. Then I go to the stock camera application on my phone and choose external microphone as the audio source.

 

[breezybellows]

I'm suspecting it's not just the audio quality issue of connecting the interface directly to the phone's camera. I believe the bigger issue is actually the latency that might be added in the monitoring headphone output of the H6. I kept making too many mistakes, especially in sections that are faster. I think that could be because of the delayed feedback that I'm getting because of the latency to. Next time I'll try plugging into the headphone jack of my accordion when I'm recording using the setup. That way I can see if latency is an issue. To be honest, the audio quality only sounded terrible through the headphone connected to the monitoring jack. When I listen to the YouTube video through my car stereo are nice speakers, It actually doesn't sound bad at all

 

[dak]

I'm suspecting it's not just the audio quality issue of connecting the interface directly to the phone's camera. I believe the bigger issue is actually the latency that might be added in the monitoring headphone output of the H6. I kept making too many mistakes, especially in sections that are faster. I think that could be because of the delayed feedback that I'm getting because of the latency to. Next time I'll try plugging into the headphone jack of my accordion when I'm recording using the setup. That way I can see if latency is an issue. To be honest, the audio quality only sounded terrible through the headphone connected to the monitoring jack. When I listen to the YouTube video through my car stereo are nice speakers, It actually doesn't sound bad at all

When you are playing live with others, hearing your own latency in relation to the total mix is a good idea so that you may learn to compensate for it. When you are just recording, latency is an unnecessary distraction. No point in "off-the-tape monitoring".

 

[JerryPH]

Why are you needing a headset when recording? Is the sound not coming from the speakers at the time you are recording? No latency when hearing the box directly.

 

[breezybellows]

Why are you needing a headset when recording? Is the sound not coming from the speakers at the time you are recording? No latency when hearing the box directly.

I usually record at night when my wife and kids are sleeping.

 

[kep]

My Tascam DR-40X records at 96kHz/24bit and that's about the highest you can get.

My Sony PCM-D100 records PCM 192kHz/24bit or DSD 2.8MHz/1bit, but that's not the point.
As far as I understand, internal recorder gets the digital stream before it goes to DAC. Any other way to record is DAC/ADC conversion.
Side note: if original sound is 48kHz, recording it at 96 or 192kHz hardly adds anything to the quality.

 

[Wheezer]

That's still a bad idea. You should record the audio on the H6 and the video on the phone, and then bring the two together on the computer: the audio recording from the H6 and the video minus audio from the phone. This way you can get a good video with good sound. A "simple" computer program like iMovie will do the trick.

 

[JerryPH]

I usually record at night when my wife and kids are sleeping.

Thats the 2nd best reason (happy wife, happy life!)... lol
The first *might* be that you are playing a backing track but recording on an acoustic and don't want the backng track to be "heard" by the microphones.

 

[debra]

My Sony PCM-D100 records PCM 192kHz/24bit or DSD 2.8MHz/1bit, but that's not the point.
As far as I understand, internal recorder gets the digital stream before it goes to DAC. Any other way to record is DAC/ADC conversion.
Side note: if original sound is 48kHz, recording it at 96 or 192kHz hardly adds anything to the quality.

True. What I am recording is analog (from mics) to begin with. It only becomes digital while recording on the Tascam.
Recording from a digital like the Korg can be done directly on USB stick. So no need for any external recorder at all.

 

[breezybellows]

True. What I am recording is analog (from mics) to begin with. It only becomes digital while recording on the Tascam.
Recording from a digital like the Korg can be done directly on USB stick. So no need for any external recorder at all.

There's another inconvenience in recording audio and video separately. For every single take, I'll have to start and stop recording on two different devices. Then I'll have to delete the bad takes (unless I want to deal with a matching problem with 20 videos and 20 audio files).

Another alternative is to film a play along video later. That's also a lot of work.

If there's a smartphone optimized for pro audio, I'd totally buy that.

 

[dak]

There's another inconvenience in recording audio and video separately. For every single take, I'll have to start and stop recording on two different devices. Then I'll have to delete the bad takes (unless I want to deal with a matching problem with 20 videos and 20 audio files).

Another alternative is to film a play along video later. That's also a lot of work.

If there's a smartphone optimized for pro audio, I'd totally buy that.

Just don't do takes. Record the whole session in one go. Then use a video editor to synchronize the video and audio session, and then cut out what is good. There is no point in fiddling with the equipment while a session is in progress. You can sort that out later.

 

[breezybellows]

Just don't do takes. Record the whole session in one go. Then use a video editor to synchronize the video and audio session, and then cut out what is good. There is no point in fiddling with the equipment while a session is in progress. You can sort that out later.

That's the only way. I'll have to the the session when I get the perfect take.

 

[JerryPH]

True. What I am recording is analog (from mics) to begin with. It only becomes digital while recording on the Tascam.
Recording from a digital like the Korg can be done directly on USB stick. So no need for any external recorder at all.

I cannot speak of the Korg, but I can about the 8X. Recording via USB is a PITA. You hit record and it doesn't start until you hit the first note. That means that you cannot use an external source to add secondary tracks or intro. Also, the act of recording uses processor power and if heavy UPGs are used, you will feel lags. Finally, the files recorded are 16-bit 48k files. A far cry from the 24-bit 96k I would like to record to (or higher).

Finally stopping the recording is not always instant, sometimes you get a nice empty part at the end of the file and sometimes not.

The only time I would ever consider using it was if I had no other choice and absolutely needed to record something, and never would it be a consideration to record something that I would publicly share. Also, there is a lot to be said about using the same basic system for all recordings, analog and digital (just route the outputs to the inputs on the recording device instead of capturing via microphone to recording device, all the rest of the process/equipment could be the same).

Anyway let's hope that the Fisa has improved in this area over the 8X.

 

[dak]

I cannot speak of the Korg, but I can about the 8X. Recording via USB is a PITA. You hit record and it doesn't start until you hit the first note. That means that you cannot use an external source to add secondary tracks or intro. Also, the act of recording uses processor power and if heavy UPGs are used, you will feel lags. Finally, the files recorded are 16-bit 48k files. A far cry from the 24-bit 96k I would like to record to (or higher).

Nope, 16bit 44.1kHz files. But it doesn't matter what you want to record. That is all the synthesized information from the 8x that is there. Making a 24-bit 96k recording from it is like making a high resolution photograph from your laptop screen and being proud how much higher the resolution is than when asking the computer for a screenshot with the PrtScr key. This isn't like with a direct-cut analog vinyl record from entirely analog sources: theoretically with better equipment you can draw back out better results, a bit more frequency content, a bit less of a noise floor.

But with digital, there is no way around the fact that you don't get anything better than those pristine 16bit 44.1kHz WAV files. If you want to make the most of it, you can switch off every kind of reverb and equalization and then add that in post-processing with 24bit 88.2kHz processing before sampling down to the final resolution. That may help in squeezing out a tiny bit more in dynamic range for the end result while still leaving you with digital-only processing. But it's pretty pointless in my book.

Finally stopping the recording is not always instant, sometimes you get a nice empty part at the end of the file and sometimes not.

The only time I would ever consider using it was if I had no other choice and absolutely needed to record something, and never would it be a consideration to record something that I would publicly share.

No idea why. You point out that Roland makes it inconvenient to produce digital recordings on the instrument. But the inconvenience does not rub off on the listeners.

Also, there is a lot to be said about using the same basic system for all recordings, analog and digital (just route the outputs to the inputs on the recording device instead of capturing via microphone to recording device, all the rest of the process/equipment could be the same).

Anyway let's hope that the Fisa has improved in this area over the 8X.

Well, one thing that would be interesting is what frequency their samples are. 44.1kHz is useful for producing CDs, but nobody does that anymore these days, and it is awkward to convert to the much more common 48kHz.

 

[kep]

You hit record and it doesn't start until you hit the first note.

Just a suggestion: what if you hit one of the 6 upper buttons on the left keyboard? They are reserved as switches, so don't produce sound.

 

[breezybellows]

the H6 has excellent pre-amps, thus is not the bottleneck
capturing sound with H6 to your phone through a digital connection, and then replaying it over your Bose should sound close to the same as directly from your accordion
but I suppose you are connecting with an analog line
how exactly are you connecting it to the phone?

I'm connecting my accordion to the H6 using an instrument cable.

 

[debra]

I'm connecting my accordion to the H6 using an instrument cable.

You mean an analog cable? That means the digital accordion first does Digital to Analog conversion and then the H6 does Analog to Digital... In each conversion you lose sound quality...

 

[debra]

I cannot speak of the Korg, but I can about the 8X. Recording via USB is a PITA. You hit record and it doesn't start until you hit the first note. That means that you cannot use an external source to add secondary tracks or intro. Also, the act of recording uses processor power and if heavy UPGs are used, you will feel lags. Finally, the files recorded are 16-bit 48k files. A far cry from the 24-bit 96k I would like to record to (or higher).
...

The manual for the Korg says "48 KHz, 32 bit, Stereo".