Some board recordings

[RoadRanger]

https://soundcloud.com/dragonflydiversion
The most recent ones are from an outdoor gig last Wednesday, recorded using Voice Record Pro 160kbps/24b . The 'verb is the large plate preset, no EQ except for HPFs. I think they normalized the raw recordings and maybe added a touch of compression?

[Keyboard Magic]

Just listened to a few of them with my studio phones. I presume since you posted this here that they were done on the DL? (just in case  ) They sound very clean indeed. Nice  I've done a few experimental recordings on the DL and they always came out well, which can always easily be polished to make final tracks.

[RoadRanger]

Yup, on the DL with the app I mentioned.

[WK154]

Caution on all this. It may have been recorded at 160kbps and 24 bits but what you're hearing from the site most likely is not. Like so many other sites they will convert to what they can handle for replay. Most are at 128kbps 16 bits. I found no information about their play specs on the site.

[Keyboard Magic]

Of course, higher resolution recordings would eat up a lot of space. But even at 128kbps 16 bit doesn't sound too bad though. Not audiophile quality, but still listenable. Having said that, I still look for up to 320kbps mp3s (just my own preference) to download for school dances, even though it's not necessary. Most kids wouldn't notice as long as its loud.  Can't always find them at that resolution though.

[RoadRanger]

Caution on all this. It may have been recorded at 160kbps and 24 bits but what you hearing from the site most likely is not. Like so many other sites they will convert to what they can handle for replay. Most are at 128kbps 16 bits. I found no information about their play specs on the site.

I guess I wasn't clear - that's what I recorded them at (MP4/AAC) and I suspect the  "owner" of the recordings converted them to a 16 bit MP3 of some bitrate with the volume normalized and/or compressed. What I ripped from their site is 128/16 MP3 but I don't know if that's what plays off the site or if the ripper I used did another conversion...

[WK154]

Yeah that's a lot like which cup is the pea under. This brings me to another point, if 128kbps @16 bits sounds good enough that's two channels worth, then 16 channels should be 8x 128kbps or 1024kbps (that's 1.024 mbps). Yah think a 10/100 mbps connection (Ethernet) could handle that 98 times over? Is that enough margin? I had that discussion with BenO and they'll look into that!    You might even bump up the quality a bit.  AAC would be the tool of choice since it's in the infrastructure and can handle up to 48 channels.

[RoadRanger]

16 channels of AAC would be fine by me - but most boards do WAV and I suspect using a compressed format would be objectionable to many. The iPad itself can handle quite a few WAV channels through its connector, the Auria app can do 24 on a newer iPad...

[Keyboard Magic]

To quote WK, "I had that discussion with BenO and they'll look into that! "  As long as we don't have to "pea in the cup"    ( I know pretty bad!!!)  to get some more badly needed little features and fixes that shouldn't be tooooooo hard to implement.

[RoadRanger]

Oh, and it just occurred to me that the hardware AAC support is in the iPad - not the DL - so it'd still be raw WAV data going over the connector .

[WK154]

Oh, and it just occurred to me that the hardware AAC support is in the iPad - not the DL - so it'd still be raw WAV data going over the connector .

Not so, what's to stop the DL from dealing with compressed data (Analog Devices already has the routines as do many other public domain programs in C). You certainly don't want to send WAV data around although you could. I don't hear complaints about Airplay quality (compressed audio). Funny you should mention objections to compressed data as opposed to WAV data, BenO's argument. Too bad that there is a multi-billion dollar industry quite happy with MP3 (judged by many as the equivalent of CD WAV at 128kbps @16 bits). AAC (MP4) is the improved version of MP3. The DL is not a tool any studio would use for quality recording to produce a CD/DVD/Blue-ray. So lets match the tool to the job.

[Keyboard Magic]

"The DL is not a tool any studio would use for quality recording to produce a CD/DVD/Blue-ray. So lets match the tool to the job."

Amen to that!  Couldn't agree more. 

[RoadRanger]

The DL is certainly good enough to track with live (if it could). I suspect that trying to compress 16 tracks of audio in real time would more than max out the on-board DSP . The iPad has hardware AAC compression so it doesn't load down the iPad's processor.

[WK154]

The iPad hardware codecs is limited to two channels and is troublesome at best. Most using it have had to switch to the software version to bypass the problems. Nice job Fruit, it's not their favorite thing to do, comply with standards. You need a solid software codecs like Fraunhofer IIS to make this work. Even sending the file to the DL via loss-less compression is quite feasible data rate wise. I doubt that you'll stress the Blackfin ARM  which would be doing most of the heavy lifting.

[WK154]

I'm interested in the usages for individual recording. Here are the one's that have come up in the past.
1. Post processing for better balance in post or keep as a record, maybe even cut demos.
2. Virtual sound check.
3. For posting on the Internet for different formats and quality.
Any other uses?