Home Studio Cornerconverters | Home Studio Corner

Ask Joe #10 – Gear Rentals, Active vs Passive Studio Monitors, & Printing Instruments & Effects

Joe Gilder — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:00:30 +0000

Photo by takomabibelot

I had a nice handful of questions this week. Three to be exact. Let’s dive on in.

Question #1

Shawn wrote:

Hi Joe,
I am recording a instrumental jazz/bossa nova piece with classical guitar. I have a mbox2, AT 4033, MXLV69, AKG C1000S, and a Universal Audio 2610. Should I rent a mic or a to d conv and go digital in on the mbox. I have no space and like the acoustics of my bathroom. What would be the best option for the limited budget. A U87 is $30 a day. The rosetta I think 800 is $100 per day.
Thank you so much for your time.
Website: shawnfleming.com

Great question, Shawn. First of all, kudos on the Universal Audio 2610!! That’s a great preamp. While you have some nice microphones, I think it would make more sense to rent a really nice mic to go along with that really nice preamp. At $30/day, it wouldn’t be too hard to rent a pair of U87s and get a phenomenal recording.

I have to admit, I’m drooling a little at the thought of the U87 matched up with the 610 preamp. Great combination.

While there are better converters out there than what’s on the Mbox2, the Mbox converters aren’t bad. If it was me, I’d get the better microphone(s) first, then move my attention to converters.

Question #2

Krem Osle wrote:

Hello Joe,
I’m looking for a good pair of monitors based on what you recommend on your 12 studio necessities guide. However, as I was searching for a good brand and reviews and all that, I found out about passive and active monitors. I read that with passive I would need an AMP but actives do not need that since they supply their own power. Multiple sites mentioned that both are the “schnitzel” and I just gave up researching. Joe, what is YOUR recommendation?
k.
Website: http://kremstudios.com

Thanks Krem. Originally, all studio monitors were passive. You would buy a nice power amp, and run wires from the back of that into a pair of passive monitors.

Now, you’ll only find a handful of passive monitors. The overwhelming majority of studio monitors out there today are active, meaning (like you said) they have the power amp built in.

I prefer active monitors for three reasons:

Since almost all of the studio monitors are active, you have plenty of choices.
Since the amp is built-in, you know that it is matched perfectly with that speaker. You don’t have to worry about matching a power amp to a set of speakers.
They’re just easier to use – no need for an amp, speakers, and all the cables to connect them all to your recording equipment.

There’s nothing wrong with passive monitors. Pair them up with a good amp, and you’re in great shape. However, there just aren’t that many options. I can count on one hand the various passive models out there that I am aware of. However, I could go on for days listing out all the different active monitors.

Good luck, Krem!

Question #3

Gregory Marquez wrote:

I have a question about a set in protools. I have a track that I have been working on and I feel the track is progressing well. For the most part I have been successful introducing instrument tracks to the session and then selecting the RTAS to play. To be more efficient I convert the RTAS over to a wave file by creating a new audio track and then placing the instrument and audio track on solo and record the .wav version of the instrument thus saving computer cycles. For reason that are beyond my comprehension and for everything that is holy and good in the world my audio track will not pick up any of the instrument track even when putting them on solo. To add to this twisted mystery is the fact that when I select the audio track it plays the first instrument on the session however it will not record it. Either way ,, it is clear just by reviewing the session that what ever audio track I put in it will not pick up any internal RTAS players … it has no problem picking up my Korg Triton when i hit the local
control. To check my systems I opened a new session to check to see if the problem would resolve itself and it did. This tells me the set somewhere is wrong however I am unable to locate it. I have a finite amount of hair upstairs and this problem is putting me over budget. Any advice?????

Website: www.binge-records.com

Hi Gregory. That sounds like a headache for sure. To summarize, you’re trying to record an instrument track to an audio track, so you can then deactivate the instrument track and save on the extra computer processing it takes to play back the instrument. Am I right? If not, leave a comment, and we’ll discuss it further. Otherwise, I’ll go ahead and answer, since this is a great topic.

Not all computers are created equal. Some of us can play back seemingly endless tracks with hundreds of plugins. Some of us can’t get more than 4 instruments playing at once.

For those of us with slower computers, you’ll need to “print” your instruments and effects. In other words, you need to record these instruments and effects to a new audio track. That way you can turn off the processor-intensive plugins and simply play back the audio (which is much easier on your computer).

To do this, simply set the output of the first track to a bus, something like “Bus 1″ or “Bus 17-18.” Then, set the input of your new audio track to the same bus. Record-enable the new track and start recording! That’s it.

Gregory, I’m not sure why you’re soloing the track. I think perhaps you don’t have things routed properly. If you route it like I described above, you won’t need to solo anything, because only one track will be feeding that bus, and only one audio track will be “listening to” that bus.

As always, thank you all for your questions. If you have a question, you can submit it via the Ask Joe form. Also, if you have additional suggestions, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

Sample Rates: Just Marketing Hype?

Joe Gilder — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:04:54 +0000

I come across a lot of people who are confused when it comes to sample rates. They see a box that goes up to 192 kHz, and they instinctively think it must be better.

Bigger is better, right? Or is it?

First off, a CD is at a 44.1 kHz sample rate, which means it can reproduce up to around 22.05 kHz. Human hearing caps at 20 kHz, and most of us can’t hear much past 16 kHz anyway. So this should be fine, right?

Well now we have interfaces and converters going all the way up to 192 kHz. These can theoretically capture sounds up to 96 kHz.

Can we hear a difference?

That’s the question. I’m not doubting that 192 kHz is a higher resolution, meaning that it captures much more information, but can we hear a difference down in the 20 Hz – 20 kHz range? I’m doubtful.

I think we’re at the point of splitting hairs. There are engineers and scientists out there who are much smarter than I am who can show me on paper how the higher sample rates are theoretically superior. They talk about how there are lower harmonics of the higher frequency content that occur in the audible range, and that these harmonics are necessary for accurately capturing and reproducing sound.

Again, that’s all good, but I have to still ask can we hear a difference?

I’m not going to say definitively that there is no benefit from recording at 192 kHz. I simply want to make the point that when you’re deciding on an audio interface or converter, you shouldn’t place unnecessary importance on whether or not the device goes up to 192 k.

A cheap converter at 192 kHz won’t sound nearly as good as a good converter at 44.1 kHz. The sample rate is just one part of the equation. The analog components of the converter have just as much (if not more) influence on the sound quality as the digital converters themselves.

To top that off, if you’re reading this, then chances are you have a home studio. We home studio folks are focused on making great recordings on a budget. If you focus all your attention on using a high sample rate, then you use a $40 microphone, $50 preamp and $100 speakers…I don’t think that high sample rate is going to help you.

If I had to choose between good analog components – microphones, preamps, acoustic treatment, studio monitors – and a converter that goes up to 192 kHz, I’d go with the analog gear every time.

Why? Because I haven’t heard a remarkable difference at higher samples rates. Perhaps if I had a multi-million-dollar facility I would have the setup to be able to hear the difference, but I don’t. And the people who will be listening to the albums I produce won’t be listening on super high-end equipment either. They’ll be listening to it as an mp3 on their iPod.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t focus on creating great-sounding recordings. I’m simply saying that I don’t think using a super-high sample rate is a prerequisite for making good recordings.

Don’t blindly take my word for it. If you have an interface that does 44.1, 48, 88.1, 96, and 192 kHz, spend an afternoon recording the same thing at the different sample rates. My guess is you won’t be able to hear the difference. If you can, great!

In addition to potentially not being able to hear the differences, you also have to deal with the fact that recording at 192 kHz:

takes 4 times the amount of CPU to handle the audio. You can record 4 tracks at 44.1 kHz and use the same amount of CPU that it would take for you to record one track at 192 kHz.
takes up 4 times the amount of space on your hard drive. I don’t know about you, but I have a hard enough time with filling up my hard drive too quickly, and I do everything at 44.1 kHz. I can’t imagine filling up my drives 4 times as fast.

What do you think? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Let’s hear it. Leave a comment.

If you enjoyed this, you may also like...

Ask Joe #7 – Connecting an Apogee Rosetta 200 to Studio Monitors

Joe Gilder — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 14:00:19 +0000

This week I’ve just got one question. If you have any questions for me, please ask via the Ask Joe form.

Mike wrote:
Was thinking of getting an Apogee Rosetta 200 converter. Do my monitor speakers get connected to the outs on the converter?

Photo by Y0si

Thanks Mike. This is a great question. First of all, kudos on picking the Rosetta 200. I’m a big fan of Apogee, and I think you’ll love the sound of the Rosetta.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the Apogee Rosetta 200 is a two-channel converter from Apogee. It has two channels of analog-to-digital converters and two channels of digital-to-analog converters.

The Rosetta is a standalone converter, meaning that it doesn’t have any sort of direct connection to your computer (although they do offer an additional firewire option). In most cases, the Rosetta connects to your audio interface via either a S/PDIF, ADAT, or AES connections.

For example, if I was going to buy a Rosetta 200 for my Pro Tools system, I would connect it to the S/PDIF inputs and outputs on the back of my 003.

Why buy an external converter?

Before I answer Mike’s question, it’s important to address why one would even consider getting an external converter. After all, isn’t that what your audio interface is for?

Well, it’s true, an audio interface does handle A/D and D/A conversion, but high-end converters like the Rosetta 200 take your audio signal to the next level. They have tighter bass, more detail, and the stereo image of your recordings becomes much wider once you run it through a high-end converter.

Does everyone need a Rosetta 200? No. In fact, I would bet that the majority of people who buy a Rosetta 200 would be better suited by investing in better mics, preamps, monitors, or acoustic treatment first.

My general rule of thumb is that all of your equipment should makes sense together. You shouldn’t use a $3,000 microphone with a $90 mixer or an $1800 converter with $200 studio monitors, and you should always connect your equipment with good cables. Okay, sermon’s over. Assuming Mike already has a lot of nice equipment, let’s move on.

Connecting the Rosetta 200 to Studio Monitors

If you take a look at the back panel of the Rosetta 200, you’ll see that it has XLR analog outputs. These can certainly connect directly to your studio monitors, but…how do you control the volume? A glance at the front panel will show you that there’s no volume knob. What to do?

This is pretty standard with most standalone converters. They simply provide line inputs and outputs, no volume control. Typically in this situation you’ll want to consider also buying some sort of monitor management box. These will accept various inputs from converters, CD players, iPods, etc., and play them back through one or more pair of speakers. Most importantly, they allow for volume control.

A few options:

Mackie Big Knob – I owned this for a while – very cool box. It has a ton of input and output connections and lots of bells and whistles.
PreSonus Central Station – This is a bit more professional box, with a completely passive signal path. This allows the signal to pass through the box without being altered by op-amps, etc.

There are quite a few more options, from the fancy Dangerous Music Monitor ST to the ridiculously simple and inexpensive TC Electronic Level Pilot. Any of these would work well on the back end of the Rosetta.

What about adjusting the master fader?

In the early Pro Tools days, there really weren’t a lot of options for monitor management. Engineers had historically controlled monitor volume through the monitor section of a big ‘ol recording console.

With the advent of digital recording and Pro Tools, engineers realized that they could simply plug their converters directly into their studio monitors, bypassing the console entirely. However, they lost volume control, so they reverted to using the Master Fader in Pro Tools to control the volume.

This isn’t all that bad, except when you’re mixing, and you have a compressor or two instantiated on the master fader. Suddenly, if you turn down the master fader to listen at a lower volume, you completely change the level of signal hitting the compressor(s). This, in turn, changes the amount of compression, thus changing the sound of the entire mix.

This is why you need some sort of monitor management system.

I should note that my 003 has an “Aux Input” section that allows me to run a signal through the volume knob on the 003 itself. So, if you have a 003, you already have a little bit of monitor management built in.

Thanks for the question, Mike! I hope this helps. Anybody else have some advice? Please leave a comment.