Recording stuff revisited

Kymeia · Post by **Kymeia** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 5:32 am

I've made a few projects to enable me to record using ASIO devices (and Wav ones) but I'm still wondering if I'd get better quality using a Creamware plugin like VDat or one of their Tripledat or Easy Cut range - particularly as I'm still prone to pops and clicks occasinally using ASIO to record Scope synths.

Which would be the best for my purposes? Or is there a free/cheaper device that can just record (I can edit elsewhere)

[ This Message was edited by: Kymeia on 2005-02-23 05:32 ]

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:05 am

Mm, I've never ever had clicks recording thru ASIO (and I have gigs of recordings lying around.) Tried ASIO2? You'll get exactly the same quality from VDAT as anything else, as recording quality is determined by the analog/digital converters.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:36 am

On 2005-02-23 09:05, symbiote wrote:
Mm, I've never ever had clicks recording thru ASIO (and I have gigs of recordings lying around.) Tried ASIO2? You'll get exactly the same quality from VDAT as anything else, as recording quality is determined by the analog/digital converters.

I disagree VDAT has different more direct routong signal compared with Native sequencers and drivers.

Wouldnt go for TripleDAT because its only 16Bit at moment..
Haven't tried Easycut.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:38 am

On 2005-02-23 05:32, Kymeia wrote:
I've made a few projects to enable me to record using ASIO devices (and Wav ones) but I'm still wondering if I'd get better quality using a Creamware plugin like VDat or one of their Tripledat or Easy Cut range - particularly as I'm still prone to pops and clicks occasinally using ASIO to record Scope synths.

Clicks are due to your buffer,ULLI settings,maybe MOBO etc

Which would be the best for my purposes? Or is there a free/cheaper device that can just record (I can edit elsewhere)

[ This Message was edited by: Kymeia on 2005-02-23 05:32 ]

alfonso · Post by **alfonso** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 10:58 am

I suggest VDAT, as it can record in all the linear formats, 16, 24, 32 bits, and seems to me the better performer in terms of track number and cpu lightness.

It doesn't have editor though, so you need an audio multitrack app to arrange tracks, and like all cw recording stuff doesn't have any of the floating point formats for recording or opening, so if you want to use the highest format of 32 linear, it won't be open by steinberg apps.

The new Triple stuff doesn't have midi sync, metronome or other features that make it a better recorder, it has to be considered as an editor for purposes a bit different of a music production.

On the other side there is a cool freeware device made by ReD_MuZe that connected to the VCR controller for the VDAT gives full options metronome (you can even load your preferred sounds) and outputs a Ramp to sync all FleXor sequencer modules, everything tight as hell as usual, as it is all in audiorate clock timing and not MIDI.

http://www.planetz.com/forums/viewtopic ... orum=16&14

spiderman · Post by **spiderman** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:30 am

strange I use samplitude and I never complains about click , pop or audio quality ? I don't understand why you said VDAT has a better quality ? why it's more direct ? i would agree if you record with FX directly to VDAT as VDAT is 32bit integer and scope plug ins are in 32 bit integer . but the signal that comes from adat in are in 24 bit integer and remains 24bit interger into the VDAT or in a native software (samplitude ) . so I don't understand well ? is someone can give me a definitive explanation ? or it remains a kind of black magic something ?

[ This Message was edited by: spiderman on 2005-02-23 11:42 ]

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:43 am

On 2005-02-23 10:36, Music Manic wrote:
I disagree VDAT has different more direct routong signal compared with Native sequencers and drivers.

While it's true that VDAT has a more direct access to the signal compared to native apps, once the signal is converted to digital (and isn't run thru FX), it'll be exactly the same wether it is recorded in VDAT or a native sequencer/application (try it if you don't believe me =P). That's the *whole point* of digital audio. The conversion to digital is 100% dependant on the analog/digital converter. If a driver changes the digitally sampled signal, then that driver is nothing short of broken (I wouldn't be surprised if this happened with a few vendors *cough*creative*cough*

.)

The only exception to this would be in the case of the application doing some samplerate conversion and/or bit reduction/augmentation, then the quality would also depend on the algorithm used.

Now playback is an almost entirely different matter =P.

nprime · Post by **nprime** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 12:35 pm

Audacity is a simple recording program, and it's free.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

R

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 2:18 pm

On 2005-02-23 11:43, symbiote wrote:
On 2005-02-23 10:36, Music Manic wrote:
I disagree VDAT has different more direct routong signal compared with Native sequencers and drivers.
While it's true that VDAT has a more direct access to the signal compared to native apps, once the signal is converted to digital (and isn't run thru FX), it'll be exactly the same wether it is recorded in VDAT or a native sequencer/application (try it if you don't believe me =P). That's the *whole point* of digital audio. The conversion to digital is 100% dependant on the analog/digital converter. If a driver changes the digitally sampled signal, then that driver is nothing short of broken (I wouldn't be surprised if this happened with a few vendors *cough*creative*cough* .)

The only exception to this would be in the case of the application doing some samplerate conversion and/or bit reduction/augmentation, then the quality would also depend on the algorithm used.

Now playback is an almost entirely different matter =P.

Again,thats like saying once your signal is in an analogue mixer it stays the same?
No.Resistors,capacitors etc will change quality of sound.
Digital analogy algorithms will change sound.I.E. Mixer builds audio engine,way it treats driver how it delivers audio etc.
If digital is all the same like you say,why do we have so many different type of plugins trying to emulate certain sounds.
You'll say it'll be good programming that makes difference.I'll say again that its the way programs deal with 0's and 1's.

Samplitude is superb but again Cubase is terrible.But I must be hearing things if they are all treated the same as you say.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 3:38 pm

Again,thats like saying once your signal is in an analogue mixer it stays the same?
No.Resistors,capacitors etc will change quality of sound.

Digital analogy algorithms will change sound.I.E. Mixer builds audio engine,way it treats driver how it delivers audio etc.
If digital is all the same like you say,why do we have so many different type of plugins trying to emulate certain sounds.

You'll say it'll be good programming that makes difference.I'll say again that its the way programs deal with 0's and 1's.

Samplitude is superb but again Cubase is terrible.But I must be hearing things if they are all treated the same as you say.

Err. I was talking strictly about recording. NOT plugins and mixers.

Yes, resistors and capacitors will change the quality of sound, Resistors and capacitors (and transistors) *IN THE A/D CONVERTER*.

Once it's 1s and 0s, it's 1s and 0s. If you don't apply processing to those 1s and 0s, the signal *will not change* whatever you chose to record.

Your Samplitude/Cubase comment applies to *playback*, NOT RECORDING! Which I mentionned in my post.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 7:34 pm

But VDAT doesn't use ASIO so it must be different to sequencers.
Have you tried recording same signal into sequencer and Vdat?

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:14 pm

If the sequencer makes no changes to the digital signal, which it won't unless it applies plugins/volume/pan/samplerate conversion, then it should be exactly the same as if it were recorded internally in Scope.

The only difference will be this: Scope is native 32-bit. Most sequencers are 24-bit, so there will be bit depth reduction. That probably will hardly make any difference, but if you're a fanatic, you'll want VDAT or TripleDAT LE that records in integer 32-bit.

Shayne

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 8:51 pm

24/32 bits won't make a difference at all if the converter doesn't go higher than 24 bits. It'll make a difference at processing and give you higher precision and headroom, but not for recording. Once the converter has translated the analog signal to a digital signal, resistances and capacitances and transistors won't affect the signal. 4.3V will be a 1, 5V will be a 1, 0V will be a 0, 1.5V will be a 0 (this is with high voltage = 1, since you can also have the opposite.)

You need a pretty large voltage drift to get a 1 corrupted into a 0. This very rarely happens with current technology and wire-based waveguide. It happens with wireless and deep-space communication given the pretty noisy medium, but not with computer hardware, unless your hardware is faulty or dates from before WWII =P. All electronic components at this point in time are built and tested with specs that allow for much larger drifts than happen in normal operation for most devices.

All ASIO does is forward the 1s and 0s to the sequencer, which will receive exactly the same thing as VDAT, albeit with a little delay.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:39 pm

I appreciate your comments symbiote but I can't truly belive its all that simple,with things going through PCI CPU chipsets etc.
I understand the 0's and 1s point but I argue the point because I used Cubase for 3 years and didn't feel it was right.I then tried samplitude and heard the difference straight away,and have argued this ever since.
What I hear in Samplitude is what has been burnt to disc.What i heard from Cubase was different to what I burnt on cd.
Cubase has been examined to have summing errors,which states its engine is faulty or not right.
I feel there are more attributes to just voltage discrepanies involved.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 9:39 pm

I appreciate your comments symbiote but I can't truly belive its all that simple,with things going through PCI CPU chipsets etc.
I understand the 0's and 1s point but I argue the point because I used Cubase for 3 years and didn't feel it was right.I then tried samplitude and heard the difference straight away,and have argued this ever since.
What I hear in Samplitude is what has been burnt to disc.What i heard from Cubase was different to what I burnt on cd.
Cubase has been examined to have summing errors,which states its engine is faulty or not right.
I feel there are more attributes to just voltage discrepanies involved.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Wed Feb 23, 2005 11:17 pm

On 2005-02-23 21:39, Music Manic wrote:
I appreciate your comments symbiote but I can't truly belive its all that simple,with things going through PCI CPU chipsets etc.
I understand the 0's and 1s point but I argue the point because I used Cubase for 3 years and didn't feel it was right.I then tried samplitude and heard the difference straight away,and have argued this ever since.
What I hear in Samplitude is what has been burnt to disc.What i heard from Cubase was different to what I burnt on cd.
Cubase has been examined to have summing errors,which states its engine is faulty or not right.
I feel there are more attributes to just voltage discrepanies involved.

Like I mentionned many times, what you heard was a difference on *playback*. It's fairly public knowledge that Cubase had some sort of tape emulation thing going on in the mixer, in addition to having potentially dodgy mxing routines (like you mention, and I fully agree.) Also, remember that on playback, if the signal gets run into the mixer, some gain will probably be applied to it, which *counts as processing*.

You don't really have to believe me, digital technology pretty much has proven itself. If it didn't work that way, *there would be no point to using digital technology over analog* (not talking about just audio here.)

You can *easily* test everything I'm saying instead of relying on "belief". I've done 8 years of computer and electrical engineering (graduated too,) built (and fought with =P) analog and digital electronic circuits, wired a/d and d/a converters, hand-calculated countless fourier/laplace/z transforms, coded a fair bit of signal processing stuff (audio and non-audio error correcting stuff applied to telecomms, on PC and microcontrollers) made gigs and gigs of recordings using different hardware and software, so what I'm talking about is based on my own personal experience (and not just my own), not belief.

I *fully* agree with you that Samplitude has much tighter and higher quality mixing and playback routines than Cubase, but this has nothing to do with the recording part of things (again, assuming *no processing is applied to the signal*.)

Like I said, if you don't believe me, try it for yourself, load up Silent Bob (free) and Audacity (free) and Samplitude and Cubase and whatever else you have available, record something, and do a sample-to-sample comparison (not just listening to the output!) of the recordings.

If running data thru PCI and CPU and RAM and IDE interfaces would corrupt it, most of what is on your harddrive would be useless, your programs would stop working pretty fast, your documents would get corrupted, messages on this website would slowly phase out and change with time, and so on, and no one would use computers.

Music Manic · Post by **Music Manic** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 12:31 am

Now that's a good answer and I will test over the weekend in belief of you now.
If what you say is true(and I am taking your word for it.Honest)It will help me feel secure into using recordings now knowing my data is "safe".
I'm glad you've relieved my burden over Cubase because that's what's started me off.
So could you give advice on things like plugins and what type they emulate.For example filters compressors etc.
I am a digital freak because it's given me everything analogue couldn't(due to cost)in my early years.
So,by what your saying,is Creamware doomed?

valis · Post by **valis** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 3:06 am

No, he's saying that there is effectively no difference (using 16 or 24 bits) between recording VDAT and what gets recorded into any audio program. It should be noted that VDAT/Creamware cards use the same PCI bus and memory subsystem in your pc that an ASIO based application would. Also while SFP runs at a bit-depth of 32bit integer running that to 24bit ASIO1 or 2 destinations would apply the same dithering (in SFP) as recording into VDAT at 24bits.

Upon playback (summing/gain staging/effects processing) things do change depending on the algorithms used. This is independant of the recording process.

Now its possible that Cubase futher 'treats' the audio with their "Truetape" algorithm when recording from an input, but from what I recall Truetape simply applies a 'soft clipping' algorithm to audio that passes through the mixer preventing hard digital clipping. If you are recording at 24bits with no digital clips it shouldn't really alter the digital waveform, but that is also easily tested so don't take my word in it.

gedas · Post by **gedas** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:08 am

Actually I couldn't care less about the maths behind all this, but recordings made in VDAT and in Cubase do sound different according to my subjective ear. I've yet to decide which one I like better, but I find VDAT a tad on the bright side, and maybe a little more defined which may or may not be desirable.
My two cents.

symbiote · Post by **symbiote** » Thu Feb 24, 2005 10:53 am

If you are going to insist on doing listening tests, at least playback the recorded files in the same application. Otherwise, there's no way to know wether the difference you are hearing is something that happens on recording or on playback.