Cheap recorder that doesn't compromise

[Noiz2]

Assuming we're discussing filmmaking as usual, then no professional soundie is commonly recording 16bit.

And not even amateurs who have a clue will be doing 16bit.

Plus we should do everything we can to encourage people to embrace 24bit as the standard it is! Rather than ever ever suggesting capturing in 16bit

Well first off no professional sound person is going to take kindly to being referred to as a "soundie" by a "imageie?".

Second 24 bit is not "the" standard. The standard varies depending on what you are doing. Probably 60% of all sound FX have been recorded at 16 or analog (eight years ago I would have put that number at 80%).

So I recommend 24 bit when you can but is by no means a universal standard. 48k is a standard but a lot of FX are being recorded at 96 or higher these days. For FX 24 bit is essentially standard but not necessarily for production.

That will probably change as things stay in 24 bit farther down the chain, but last I looked it hasn't gotten there yet.

And while this group is primarily filmmakers that also includes a lot of folks doing video and if they are delivering for broadcast they need to deal with their specs. I did production on a broadcast show last summer and they specified production at 48/16. This was a network show with a decent budget shooting on $100k cameras so it wasn't low budget misinformation (though one could probably argue big budget misinformation...).

Point is you work at what the job requires. You can get on a soapbox and insist they bend to your will but then you just don't work.

AND sound folks rarely restrict them selves to only doing film work. Unless you happen to be in a few key locations it's pretty hard making rent if you are not willing and able to do other media, and a lot of them are not at 48/24. If you never use 16 then you may have some issues when you are required to because you just have to more careful with levels at 16.

 

[IronFilm]

Yes, there will always be exceptions when production instructs otherwise (and even then, I would assume a very large number of those instructions are coming from ignorant producers...).

But you shouldn't ever be using that as default approach, as your default approach should be the best you can do for the shoot, or be recommending to others that is their appropriate course of action to take by default.

makes forums like these just full of mis information.

As a videographer / cameraman focused forum I do indeed find a lot of misinformation on dvxuser in general about sound.

I do dare you (or Noiz2?) to try and go over to http://jwsoundgroup.net and tell them that they should all be recording location sound as 44.1khz 16bit MP3s!

Well first off no professional sound person is going to take kindly to being referred to as a "soundie" by a "imageie?".

I feel that a few old time sound snobs get their noses out of joints over a simple word, but most honestly don't see it has a big deal
(again, if we were to use jwsound as a reference point, you can see that term has been used hundreds and hundreds of times there)

 

[Noiz2]

But you shouldn't ever be using that as default approach, as your default approach should be the best you can do for the shoot, or be recommending to others that is their appropriate course of action to take by default.

Well if I read in any of the posts that people should by default to 44.1/16 or MP3 (as you say later) you would have a point. What people HAVE said is having to record at 48/16 is not a killer or deal breaker.

As a videographer / cameraman focused forum I do indeed find a lot of misinformation on dvxuser in general about sound.

Um excuse me this is the sound forum not the videographer or camera sections. Videographers are often the ones asking questions here but its sound people mostly answering them. If this was a videographer/ cameraman forum I would not be here.

I do dare you (or Noiz2?) to try and go over to http://jwsoundgroup.net and tell them that they should all be recording location sound as 44.1khz 16bit MP3s!

Aside from the fact that nobody in this thread ever suggested the above, I have been a member over at JWsound from shortly after it was first started, and I actually know Jeff. We were at the same table at the CAS awards a few years back.

I feel that a few old time sound snobs get their noses out of joints over a simple word, but most honestly don't see it has a big deal
(again, if we were to use jwsound as a reference point, you can see that term has been used hundreds and hundreds of times there)

Sorry again but since you seem to like the forum you should go over the JWSound and try this argument, that would be a fun thread to watch.

"Soundie", is very disrespectful and totally inaccurate. It has nothing to do with being a "snob". A production mixer is a very different job than an FX editor, or Rerecording Mixer, or Foley artist, or ADR editor. People have worked hard to earn those titles and don't take being dismissed as a "...ie" lightly. I know production mixers who would probably deck you if you referred to them as a "soundie". If you have spent any time at sites like JWsound then you would know how bent out of shape the community as a whole gets when they get slighted, as often happens at the Oscars.

Now maybe down under the down under that is not so much true, though I kind of doubt it. I know much of the crew from the LOTR and none of them would be OK with the term, though a bunch of them are not actually from NZ so?

 

[Noiz2]

OT but related...

"Soundies" can be considered the precursors to music videos. Produced during the years 1940 to 1946, "Soundies" were made to be seen on self-contained, coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines called Panorams located in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and other public places.

 

[GaryNattrass]

I personally don't mind being called a SOUND-E as it stands for Sound Engineer in my mind.

Have to laugh though that most production just call us SOUND as they never have the courtesy to remember our names. We do tend to swap around a lot though so it is quite understandable.

 

[Noiz2]

When I start seeing it show up in the credits... Well I will probably be dead by then and Mad Max will be remembered as an optimistic film ;~)

 

[Felipe Henao]

24 bit has more information, allowing better post process, 16 wave can be worked but not as much.
Even the first thing Audition does when a file is imported IS TO CONVERT IT TO 32 BIT.
NOW THE MOST EXPENSIVE GEAR IS HUMAN KNOWLEDGE!!

 

[GaryNattrass]

And there lies the audio bulls*%t..... it is not converting anything to 32 bit as that is just a bandwidth window and final cut pro has the same floating point

I used to work for AMS Neve and there was all the same bulls*%t about 24 bit but if you record pro AES 24 bit you are not getting 24 bits at all.

Check the spec and you will find it is actually 20 bits of audio data with four left over for user bits and other data.

If you load a 16 bit file into audition you will get 16 bits out and 16 bits of nothing so no conversion is happening at all and you just wasted a load of your time and energy.

Too much mis information as I said about several posts ago and to add to that your apple mac or whatever is doing far more to your audio to mess it up than any location recorded 48k 16 bit file.

Now back to why everyone is moaning on about too much noise in their recordings as if you try to use cheap 24 bit recording that is what you will get as it is resolving more noise than you actually need for your signal to noise ratio, so recording good 16 bit 48k on budget gear will actually help you with your cheap mics and other bits of kit as it is optimising what you have and not just recording bandwidth that you will never ever need. I go back to my comment that most of my sound effects that I use were done on mini disc and fit wonderful when I dub most things as I actually then don't have to re-compress them to limit their dynamics.

Audio is not like pictures and sometimes less can be more in real terms when the final job is done.

Don't get me wrong I do use 24 bit but in the post stage when I am needing to sum lots of sources internally but I then deliver in 16 bit 48k as per the delivery spec for most of what I do.

 

[DPStewart]

24-bit capture? Oh for Pete's sake. No, it makes nearly zero difference. 16-bit PCM supersedes almost all adults limits of hearing already.
No. Played back to back from the same recording instance, you cannot hear the difference between 16-bit and 24-bit in nearly all cases, especially if the sound in question is the human voice.
I have worked as a professional audio engineer since before digital even hit and I've used every variety of it since.
Anyone who says a sound recordist who captures in 16-bit PCM is an amateur or doesn't know what they are doing tells me that they don't understand audio AT ALL. Sorry.

Sure 24-bit 'can' allow for greater amounts of CHANGING your audio track with massive amounts of EQ and/or compression or whatever in post, but unless you're making scary monster voices you're NEVER EVER pushing voice tracks around that much. And certainly not environmental ambiance tracks either. Not if you want any degree of realism in your final result.
And if you're using compressors and limiters on a regular basis on your tracks then don't talk about being devoted to "greater dynamic range" because you're using those tools to KILL dynamic range. And YES, almost all mixed and finished voice tracks on TV, commercials, and movies are compressed/limited significantly.

The argument that DAW's use 32-bit or even 64-bit does not apply to the logic of capturing in greater than 16-bit AT ALL because they do it fundamentally for a different reason. They do it because of the huge amount of sound sources that will be COMBINED INTERNALLY and because popular music production almost always involves FAR FAR greater "screwing with" and pushing of the audio tracks than will almost EVER be done with audio for film/video purposes. DAW's use greater bit-rates INTERNALLY mainly so they don't overload/distort when sources are combined and processed internally.

Sorry to rant, but I couldn't let so much misinformation go on here without speaking up.

 

[Felipe Henao]

Is easier to go from more to less than from less to more, Even a modern laptop can handle with pride a 32 bit floating file.

 

[GaryNattrass]

Thank you DPStewart and at AMS Neve we had high end DFC consoles going beyond 42 bit with huge dynamic range but that was for all the reasons you quite rightly have stated and all the incoming audio was 16 bit 48k.

As I also stated the spec for AES 24 bit actually only had 20 bits of audio data and certainly at SKY once it all goes to Dolby E it is compressed just like any other audio file that most consumers listen to everyday on i-toons etc.

 

[DPStewart]

Is easier to go from more to less than from less to more, Even a modern laptop can handle with pride a 32 bit floating file.

And that still has nothing to do with capture bit rates.
16-bit PCM supersedes adult hearing thresholds. You can't get better than 100%. No one can hear it. And as soon as you load the tracks into any DAW they are converted to a higher bit-depth for the reasons I listed above, INTERNAL DATA PROCESSING HEADROOM, not because it "sounds better". Those are two separate functions, and the source track's bit-depth and the DAW's internal mixing and processing bit depth do not need to be the same.

 

[GaryNattrass]

Is easier to go from more to less than from less to more, Even a modern laptop can handle with pride a 32 bit floating file.

But if you put 16 in you will still only get 16 out and doing 24 (20) bit will only just increase your dynamic range and not the real quality of what you are recording.

 

[GaryNattrass]

Felipe I just played your Vimeo video clip and I could not tell if it was 8, 16, or 24 bit but it does sound like a cheap lav mic recorded on cheap recorder with little mid range content. I would guess it's a rode lav ? it also sounds quite peaky at the top end and needs some compression.

 

[Felipe Henao]

Shure you can not tell, because it was rendered for vimeo as an acc codec, however thanks to being recorded on a Tascam DR07 with an Azden $ 20
I was able to give it presence,
As you can tell you are all wrong=you know nothing.
So long Gary Nothing!!

 

[IronFilm]

Perhaps we are generally more laid back in NZ/Oz

When I start seeing it show up in the credits... Well I will probably be dead by then and Mad Max will be remembered as an optimistic film ;~)

Although yeah it might bug me a little if I saw it show up in a credit.

 

[Noiz2]

OK folks take a breath.

My point was 16 bit is not a killer.

I and the guy I worked with did a bunch of blind tests (not scientific but it was for us not a paper in Nature). We could both easily here the difference between 24 and 16 bit, which is why we switched do doing all FX recordings in 24 bit. 8 Bit is noticeable to even an untrained ear. If you can't tell the difference between 8 bit and 24 bit you may be in the wrong business. 8 Bit is "grainy" and sounds like 1980's video games.

If you record at low levels you can make 24 bit sound like 8 bit, but decently recorded 24 bit sounds better and holds up better than 16 bit. Badly recorded 24 bit is worse than well recorded 16 bit. 8 bit is just mostly trash, period.

You don't ever gain resolution. If you didn't record it it isn't there. BUT in post you do a fair amount of manipulation so 16 bit originals will fade smoother etc. if you work with them at 24 bit. The originals do not gain any resolution but your mixed tracks will benefit. Very few if any programs "convert" to 24 bit, they just add 8 bits of nothing. Working in post at 24 bits will fill up the "nothing" with stuff but it's smoother processing artifacts not more resolution from the original file.

Which is why IF you can record at 24 bit DO SO. Un like sample rate pretty much nothing cares about bit rate. Worst case you software tosses the extra info and you end up at 16 bit. Most will just work with whatever.

32 bit floating is a "trick" FCP and others used to make over loading "impossible" (they just keep changing "0" to make it work.

For R&G, hardly any post sound work, it is a plus because you can do really stupid things with the sound and it will never clip. Pro's generally hate it because, at lest in FX, we like to be able to clip things now and again. And we like to know where we are and not have software decide where we should be.

 

[Noiz2]

Shure you can not tell, because it was rendered for vimeo as an acc codec, however thanks to being recorded on a Tascam DR07 with an Azden $ 20
I was able to give it presence,
As you can tell you are all wrong=you know nothing.
So long Gary Nothing!!

chill.

If you recorded with that ... It kind of doesn't mater what you recorded at. Azden (all that I have head anyway) are noisy and just really low level stuff. DR07 should have been OK but if you feed it with a really crappy mic...

In all things the weakest link applies. A bad mic into a high end recorder sounds like a bad mic. A great mic into a crappy recorder sounds like a crappy recorder.

Gary and I have somewhat different perspectives since he is mainly British TV and I am mostly US Film. But just take the perspective into account when you read. Everyone works from their experience and generally they are not "wrong" though they may not be "right" for your situation.

This forum becomes really useful when you take into account "perspective" and not so much when you don't.

I will say that a lot of people do nasty things to audio in the name of "presence" ( I didn't listen to the clip so this is not a criticism but an observation). The biggest question in post "fixing" is "is it better or just different". A lot of times when the original is "bad" folks fall for "different" even if it's not actually better.

So you got an opinion from an experienced sound person (british broadcast). Take that and figure out if it is relevant to YOU. If you were doing broadcast in the UK I'm pretty sure it would be relevant. You are not so it may or may bot be, but that is really for you to figure out.

Instead of getting insulted take it as info to store away if you at some point have an opportunity to do UK broadcast.

With out hearing it I can say if Gary couldn't tell if it was 8 bit or 24 bit a US film production would not even consider it as acceptable.

Again it's standards and expectations. I have done work I know would be totally unacceptable on a big budget film on low/no budget films.

Context is everything.

 

[Noiz2]

Perhaps we are generally more laid back in NZ/Oz



Although yeah it might bug me a little if I saw it show up in a credit.

For pro's I think it comes down to credit/ respect and budget. How much does a "soundie" get paid? Not a lot. A sound recordist though gets $650 a day or so and basically double that for equipment. A sound Auxiliary is I think now about $27 USD an hour, base for an editor is about $30. Last day rate I worked at was $650.. Now a soundie works for food and milage and an IMDB credit... An exaggeration probably but if you are working in the industry titles have actual monetary connections. There is no union rate for a "soundie".

Personally I only get mildly irked because... It's like amature theatre folks always talk about all the non actors as "techies" , it is really insulting, but you roll with it and cash the check. That term is never uttered in professional theatre. The amatures don't know better and it's just a waste trying to educate.

 

[Felipe Henao]

With out hearing it I can say if Gary couldn't tell if it was 8 bit or 24 bit a US film production would not even consider it as acceptable.
Again it's standards and expectations. I have done work I know would be totally unacceptable on a big budget film on low/no budget films.
Context is everything.

Sound Ninja I appreciate your opinion, You seem to have the answer to everything, If you did not check the clip seems like that is all you have
answers to everything, now let's get away from your prodigious imagination and show a link to some job you have done so I could tell
I'm not talking to I know anything type of man.