Standalone Hardware Recording vs: DAW/Software Recording

[Arjan P]

Witness millenials playing $80 vinyl records on a $100 turntable thru a Bluetooth mono speaker or Apple earbuds....

Ha! Great observation!

It's a shame though, cause they simply don't know what they're missing. Had an old acquaintance and his 18 year old son over a few weeks ago and played him his favourite music on my studio system - he was blown away!

 

[Mark Richards]

https://hometheaterreview.com/what-audiophiles-dont-understand-about-millennials-or-music/
...spending an entire day with a large cross-section of music and vinyl lovers, a few things became immediately apparent.

One: the average age of the crowds hovered around twenty.

Two: there were a ton of young girls, teens, and women among the crowds--and, no, they weren't there because of their significant others.

Three: the excitement was palpable, the mood positive and familial.

Four: tons of money was spent (at one shop, the average was over $200 per person).

Lastly: there was virtually no specialty AV industry presence whatsoever [and] very few audiophiles.

I spent most of my afternoon talking with strangers in line at the shops or inside the shops themselves, and most admitted to listening to their records on budget turntables through headphones, or powered speakers with either phono or Bluetooth connectivity.

Few mentioned having setups beyond what you may be able to scratch together while at your local Best Buy.

The next generation of consumers longs for the sort of social experience that your typical audiophile shop hasn't had for a long time. It isn't just about listening to well recorded music by yourself in a dark room. It is different now.

So why isn't the audiophile industry tapping into that market and educating this new generation of music lovers ? IMO a huge missed opportunity for the industry and the music lover.

If you define an audiophile as someone who loves high-fidelity audio reproduction and cares about sound quality enough to make an effort to improve their audio experience within their budgets, then every music lover is a potential audiophile, they just don't know it.

 

[-mjk-]

Ha! Great observation!

It's a shame though, cause they simply don't know what they're missing. Had an old acquaintance and his 18 year old son over a few weeks ago and played him his favourite music on my studio system - he was blown away!

Oh yeah! Don't you love it when someone asks if you have a good stereo system? lol

 

[-mjk-]

So why isn't the audiophile industry tapping into that market and educating this new generation of music lovers ? IMO a huge missed opportunity for the industry and the music lover. Every music lover is an audiophile, they just don't know it.

Maybe because many of them are now running things and don't even see the opportunity.

 

[Arjan P]

If you define an audiophile as someone who loves high-fidelity audio reproduction and cares about sound quality enough to make an effort to improve their audio experience within their budgets, then every music lover is a potential audiophile, they just don't know it.

Exactly! Although - I'm not sure where this 'market' took place - when you have a vinyl record fair or market, you would expect that vendors would also have nice playback systems..

On a sidenote: I always get this somewhat negative vibe from the word 'audiophile', because although most of them are indeed music lovers, there are also quite a few that seem to care more about the fortune they spent on left-wound golden speaker cables - and a couple of them I know have a taste for music I simply don't get...

 

[Mark Richards]

Agree, Arjan. Unfortunately over time "audiophile" came to be equated with extravagance, snobbery and condescension toward lesser mortals who are restricted to reasonable budgets.

I'm old enough to know it wasn't always so. Whenever I've had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of that, I point the "audiophile" at Bob Katz's mastering house (Digital Domain) in Orlando FL. Now that's audiophile nirvana.

 

[Mark Richards]

To get somewhat back on point:

"It’s becoming easier and easier to produce a recording “in the box”. Affordable recording and mixing equipment is finally in reach of the average musician, and it no longer takes millions of dollars to produce a hit record."

"It seems that musicians are going to have to learn to be engineers! And they won’t become engineers or producers overnight, nor will all of them succeed."
Bob Katz
Grammy Award winning mixing/mastering engineer

 

[Mark Richards]

Since this is the Recording 101 forum, and this thread is about DAW v. Standalone, I offer an opportunity to test/learn:

If you go here, you will find:
* An unmastered final mix (which was mixed very well).
* The same final mix mastered by Bob Katz.
* The same final mix mastered by me.

Eventually, using a software solution, I was able to almost exactly match Bob Katz's master.
(See images in the pdf file. The different colors didn't translate so well. Green on Purple turned Light Blue.)

As y'all know, mastering is a different skill set. This was a good learning experience for me, so I hope others will try their hand at it.

I'll leave the files up for a while. Who else is up for trying to match Bob Katz's master using whatever platform and tools you choose?

 

[-mjk-]

I never tried to match mastering. Sounds interesting!

 

[Arjan P]

@Mark Richards Sounds interesting! I went through Bob's mastering book cover to cover and like his digido site (haven't been there for a while). If I find the time I'll try to give it a go, thanks for sharing!

 

[dctdct]

https://hometheaterreview.com/what-audiophiles-dont-understand-about-millennials-or-music/
...spending an entire day with a large cross-section of music and vinyl lovers, a few things became immediately apparent.
:
:
:
The next generation of consumers longs for the sort of social experience that your typical audiophile shop hasn't had for a long time. It isn't just about listening to well recorded music by yourself in a dark room. It is different now.

So why isn't the audiophile industry tapping into that market and educating this new generation of music lovers ? IMO a huge missed opportunity for the industry and the music lover.

I like the sidestream this thread took. Just dropping my thoughts on that, before I also revert back to the stand alone vs computer based topic:
In the last decades I somehow missed the course our younger music interested people are driving. You are right: There are still enough interested in good content and also good playback quality (audiophile). But what they are expecting from the market (and don't really get) are solutions, where they can share this experience with their relatives and friends. It was a long way for me to understand somehow this obsession about sharing of today's most active online people! I didn't get it until a few years go, I have to admit.
Yes, I'm an old fart sitting in my basement with my carefully selected 5.1 components listening mostly alone to DAT, CD, a few SACD and DVD-A, as well as concert recordings from DVD.
Nowadays I'm wondering too, why the playback device industry doesn't rush into this market of (meanwhile) wealthy new generation, waiting for online/sharing solutions at the high end level for audiophile music listening. All of this combined with the "together/friends" effect like all the actual squawky smartphone app solutions.

 

[-mjk-]

Years ago at an AES meeting in Boston, we were discussing how engineers work hard to design amplifiers with very low distortion, so the kid with a boom box can turn it up as loud as it goes and practically get square waves out of it.

 

[snafu]

Very interestign thread - a lot to read, but very fun and educational.

I benefit from the "mercy of a late birth" (well, that's very losely translated from german, though), meaning I benefit from growing up in a analog time that was very close to become digital, so I saw the ups and downs of both "worlds".

I started out with reels you had to put on a two track machine, and it was not until the early ninetys when I got my first PC (an old 486), and not until the late ninetys when I got my first serious PC buil which was capable or running a DAW (Samplitude at that time, way before Magix came into play).

To make this one short: I would never want to miss the flexibility and possibilities of using a DAW ever again, but when it comes to live situations and recording there is nothing like a console - though, I admit, the closest I got to one is my own DM3200.

Looking at my digital accessoirs I have about three or four EQ and compression plugins, two limiter, two delay and reverbs, and that's about it. I am more the "I record music - I mix music"-guy. I guess, when you're starting to be creative with sound, you might benefit from tons of other stuff.

The more advanced a piece of tech is, the more dependencies it requires. Quiet funny when you think about it, because usually it's been advertised as quiet the contrary: "look at all the freedom you gain" (asides from dongles, updates, licenses and subscription models, and...)

Lately microphones had their fair share of interesting innovations, but at the end of the day, they are still just sophisticated 'dynamics' or 'condenser'. If they really contribute to what I am doing - all the better

Oh - I just found out through this thread that Gibson (really?) now owns TEAC/Tascam. I am...surprised. I don't like how they approached the whole guitar issue ("play authentic"), because I think this is very narrow minded. But they have really capable people in developement - it's more the upper stories in this company that trouble me. We'll see ;-)

cheers
snafu

 

[dctdct]

Since this is the Recording 101 forum, and this thread is about DAW v. Standalone, I offer an opportunity to test/learn:

If you go here, you will find:
* An unmastered final mix (which was mixed very well).
* The same final mix mastered by Bob Katz.
* The same final mix mastered by me.

Eventually, using a software solution, I was able to almost exactly match Bob Katz's master.
(See images in the pdf file. The different colors didn't translate so well. Green on Purple turned Light Blue.)

As y'all know, mastering is a different skill set. This was a good learning experience for me, so I hope others will try their hand at it.

I'll leave the files up for a while. Who else is up for trying to match Bob Katz's master using whatever platform and tools you choose?

Thank you Mark for the examples and the challenge. As I'm abroad from home for the next couple of days, I have the lame excuse I cannot try another mastering myself

But I will comment on the two mastering approaches. The difference between the final mix without mastering and the other two is obvious. The loudness is way higher and the treble above 2kHz seems to be substantially enhanced in both the masterings. I also hear a tidy compression: Maybe too much for my taste, because I experienced some overdrive feelings in some stages of the two mastered tracks. But maybe it is just my simple notebook equipment!?
What leaps out at me is the kick drum. In Bob Katz' mastering slightly too much of a good thing. Doesn't it?

 

[Brett Peter Linn]

For this who have used the DP-24SD both as a standalone recorder/mixer, and have also transferred WAV tracks to DAW, do you have an opinion as to whether DP-24SD is truly capable of creating radio-ready mixes without relying on DAW? I do relatively straightforward singer/songwriter stuff without a lot of special effects etc., and will probably master using an online service (CloudBounce).

 

[JSchmo_Bass]

Hmm

The word on the forum here is that outcomes have as much or more to do with your skill than the equipment.

As a newbie I have to agree. I just got into this a few months ago, and definitely am on the steep part of the learning curve.

For me- and I kid you not - I am getting BETTER sounding results recently after switching to the DP24 from a DAW. Mind you the bar was set low. (I track my band live in a small room on a Model 16; there’s tons of bleed across the mics. I do scratch mixes of each band rehearsal on the Model 16...when we play a good take I copy the track files into a DAW or more recently DP24SD to try to make something at least kinda worthy of our website (www.hometownunknown.com)

I truly believe a big part of why the DP24 made my mixes better of late is because the DP24 workflow slowed me down and got me to start to focus and listen to how the tracks sound and go together. I stopped messing around with a bajillion plug ins, and just tried to get the mix right (because one is “semi-committing” to the effect while bouncing... not that you can’t go back and change it, but it costs time, the duration of your song, to re-bounce). And by the way - no crashes and instant boot up. so if I have 15 minutes break from work, I can listen to my mix and tweak it.

I’m sure the DP24 has its hard limits. Much of today’s top 40 is so ultra-produced as to defy my comprehension (and often defy my sense of what sounds good). So I don’t know about getting things to sound the way a lot of Radio play sounds... If you do a lot of electronic stuff, it must hit the wall a some point given no midi, and no Ableton style song-part blocking.

Other will weigh in with more wisdom than I.

 

[Brett Peter Linn]

Thanks for the reply. Being able to focus is a good point --- I find DAWs a bit dizzying and distracting, especially as I like the overall sound to be somewhat raw and straight-forward. I'll check out your website.

 

[JSchmo_Bass]

The most recent song added (Althea cover) was done on DP24.

The rest on a Model 12 or 16 and then to a DAW.

 

[Mark Richards]

For those who have used the DP-24SD both as a standalone recorder/mixer, and have also transferred WAV tracks to DAW, do you have an opinion as to whether DP-24SD is truly capable of creating radio-ready mixes without relying on DAW?

Welcome to the forums, Brett.

If you're new to the portastudios, there's a wealth of recording information in the sticky threads in the shaded area at the top of the 2488 and DP-24/32/SD forum. The first post in each sticky has an index:

• In the "Tutorial and Information Videos" sticky, Phil Tipping explains and demonstrates the ins and outs of DP-24/32/SD usage;
• The "Equipment Related Tips" sticky thread has technical info, and the "Production Tips" sticky thread has "how to" info.
• The "New Members" sticky has some important/critical information that will help keep you out of trouble.

To your question
Over the last 8 years I've used my DP-24 to track, mix and master completely in the box, with professional studio quality results.

My projects are usually very complex and regularly max out the 24 tracks of my portastudio. Over the last year, I've incorporated Mixbus6 D.A.W. and Finalizer mastering software into my workflow. My current SOP is tracking on my DP-24; mixing using Mixbus6; and mastering using Finalizer, mainly for the convenience - the same professional audio quality; more flexibility; and less work to get to the end product.

I do relatively straightforward singer/songwriter stuff without a lot of special effects etc., and will probably master using an online service...I like the overall sound to be somewhat raw and straight-forward

My advice: you very likely can get where you want to go working only with your portastudio.

 

[-mjk-]

@JSchmo_Bass Some of us have pretty sophisticated mixing studios. I would like to take a crack at mixing one of your tunes (for free of course) to see how it would sound mixed on a console with automation.