HVX Mic vs. Tape Player

TRP

TRP

Member
DISCLAIMER: I am not a sound recordist, please excuse my ignorance.

I read that analog sound will always sound better than digital. If that's the case, would I do better to record sound on a tape player than I would using my HVX's mic?

*If I am recording an infomercial with only one person speaking.

Thanks
_Red
 
Are you going to play back the sound using your tape player when the movie is done?
 
TRP said:
DISCLAIMER: I am not a sound recordist, please excuse my ignorance.

I read that analog sound will always sound better than digital. If that's the case, would I do better to record sound on a tape player than I would using my HVX's mic?

*If I am recording an infomercial with only one person speaking.

Thanks
_Red
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When people say things like this, they are referring to extremely high quality analog gear, and generally the context is music not a VO. I think this advice is extremely dubious considering the application. Use your HVX
 
UNQUESTIONABLY use your HVX. The HVX will destroy an old-school audio casette.

If you're not sure, do a side-by-side comparison for yourself.

(Yes there are certainly analog recorders out there that will out-do the HVX, a basic cassette deck is NOT it though.)

-Kevin
 
The HVX quality will surpass any analog equipment that you could ever afford and then you would have to know how to use it well. I have a $3,000 reel to reel and would never use it compared to the quality that you will get out of the HVX. I would record digital every time and I love analog. The Tascam HD-P2 is 192k has time code and Xlr imputs and is only a $800 to $1200 and is much better than the HVX or any tape deck. That being said, it is knowing how to get good levels and what to do with the audio in an nle that will give you great audio for your project. Final Cut and Premire are both good audio editors and have lots of info to read about to give you some insight on how to treat your audio in post. Good luck.
 
Has anybody seen any analog $10000 Nagras on set lately? Analog better than digital is pure BS. Any mediocre digital recorder blows away all analog systems, even DVX100 and HVX (at least when you feed line signal from a good mixer).

There are still some analog believers out there, but so are flat-earthers.
 
100% behind you

i sold my in 94 , never looked back
yep , there are some cheap people who will run it until they squizz the last buck -:-)
 
Thanx for the input

Thanx for the input

I don't know why I never thought to just test it myself. And of course, you were all right. The HVX was MUCH better.
 
yes , if you r Jimmy Page :-), even he is about 60 these daysprobably using plug ins whic gives almost the same
thats not the preamp clipping but how the tape it self behave when it over biased .kind of bullshit if you recording dialog
 
Petrus said:
Has anybody seen any analog $10000 Nagras on set lately? Analog better than digital is pure BS. Any mediocre digital recorder blows away all analog systems, even DVX100 and HVX (at least when you feed line signal from a good mixer).

There are still some analog believers out there, but so are flat-earthers.
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You don't expect to express such a ridiculous thing and get away with it, do you?

If you do then you really know very little about audio recording and should be a bit more humble instead of saying such things.

The reason why analog recording passed out was mainly because it was very unpractical. We could say digital levelled things from below, that is most low quality audio stuff was instantly surpassed by CD to start with, and DAT might have done the same with tape recording if copyright problems wouldn't have killed it when it was growing.

DAT, as well as CD, was more practical than analog sources. But it's doubtful whether it was better quality wise. One thing digital did much better, which was speed, that affected other things. But the choice of bits and oversampling will have to get much better to equal what analog recorders got to do at their very end.

Of course we are talking 15ips and 30ips tape speeds here, which were the professional speeds.

Tests were done and published at American Cinematographer magazine, comparing Nagra 4-S recordings, at 15ips, and DAT with a Fostex, and Nagra was chosen the best. But at 15ips it was certainly not practical.

DAT was "good enough" to record dialogue, and even so Nagras continued to be used for many years yet. And not because there were "analogue believers" behind them, as you seem to believe, but because they thought it did sound better, in spite of all the extra hassle.

Higher bits, higher oversamplings and better technology continued to spread, until it became too difficult to justify using a Nagra recorder.

Which are the mediocre digital recorders that you are thinking as winners? If they are mediocre their mic/line inputs will also be, and that would be a very weak link. To compare to what? Nagras or Stellavoxes? Give me a break...

Of course I did embrace digital recording very early, mostly for practical reasons, but believe me when I say that we lost by doing so. Now I expect things to get better, as long as people don't record MPEG audio...
 
TRP said:
DISCLAIMER: I am not a sound recordist, please excuse my ignorance.
Click to expand...

We were all ignorants at some time of our life. Nothing to be ashamed of.

I read that analog sound will always sound better than digital. If that's the case, would I do better to record sound on a tape player than I would using my HVX's mic?

*If I am recording an infomercial with only one person speaking.
Click to expand...

You better stick to digital tools, because analog recorders needed a way to lock sync between audio and image. Digital recorders don't need that in shots up to 30 minutes long.

In any case I think you should first learn to get as much as possible from the HVX. Not recording uncompressed audio, a weak thing in HDV, is perhaps the one of the best things in the HVX200. So try to set levels well and/or use an external mixer/preamp to do that.

Remember that handling complex camera movements with complex audio setups will make you compromise on one or both, so try to keep things simple. If you want to "complicate" them, you better get a sound person.

Get a good microphone and go close to your subject. Never use the on-camera mic position except for ambiance.

And good luck!
 
Analog audio V's Digital audio is kind of like film V's Digital video. At the present time there is more latitude in analog audio. It is more forgiving than digital. As digital audio has improved and become more convenient over the years more people have embraced it as a means of recording sound. It doesn't necessarily mean it is better. Sound by it's very nature is an analog medium, so to record it digitally you have to have A to D converters and then to hear it back you have to have D to A converters. These converters are what makes the difference in whether or not digital sound, sounds good.
The recording medium (ie. DAT tape, hard disk, etc) itself doesn't have that much of an impact on the quality, after all it is just storing files of 1's and 0's. It is in the conversion, sampling rate and compression process that the difference is made.
So to say something like:
"Analog better than digital is pure BS. Any mediocre digital recorder blows away all analog systems"
is kind of like saying that any digital video camera will blow away all film cameras.
However living in the digital age where people are pluging an ipod, with mp3 recordings, into a home theater system and think they are getting hi-fi sound, I have come to realize that some peoples perception of "better" may not really be the same as mine.
 
ok , iam buying the 2 inch studder back and going multitrack over shoulder tomorrow:-)

if you in film business ,the word analog is something you have consider until A to D converter , over that barrier is completely meaningless.

about nagra sound -in some way there is misleading about the quality , the quality of the preamp was alwais superior to what fostex had to offer .so even these days i would be glad to have these in my analog stage .
so even sometimes i miss my 4/2 with full track and not 4s on gunshots sessions, i look at my 744 and say - never again :-)
the extra life of nagra in the 90 in our business where more or less extended by fear of the sound recordists and telecine houses, AND FOSTEX pd-2/4 F.U.C.K.UPS OF COURSE then the problematic of 16 bit .
so i also did my test in 96 or something when i recorded some test with nagra 4 s and nagra D - you can imagine what won the blind test it wasnt the analog thing (both recorders came directly from Swiss factory), eventually i bought hhb since it sounded on blind better then nagra ( with sqn in front) but worse then the D that didn't have enouth to take home ( 20000us in 96 incl tc card)
till someone introduce digital membrane ,the sound will be alwais analog but i doesnt mean we want to keep it on tape -at least not me .

never
 
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