Mp3 Compression

Mp3 Compression

I often argue with people about the audibility quality of music. I prefer when possible to listen to stuff at cd quality, when its not possible i have my ipod music at 320kbps mp3.( By comparison cd is around about 1140 kbps :) ) People often ask why i bother with cds at all. A large collection of music at a low bit rate seems to be the norm for most of my non-musical friends.

For this post i have taken a 15 second sample recording of a piece of music i recorded last year and have converted into many mp3 bit rates ranging from 8-320 kbps. For simplicity they have all been put into a single soundcloud file. The "obvious edits" are where the next sample starts, i did the chop together in logic fairly quickly :L

Analysis:

Its clear from the very first sample that it sounds shit, A bit of geeky analysis is needed.

Geeky Analysis:

As the bit rate drops the sample rate does also, the direct result of this is less high frequency response. Because the lowest bit rates of 8 & 16 only have a re-sample rate of 8khz, any thing above 4 khz will be UN-audible. The fluttering is audio being rapped around. (see the nyquist theory! )

As the bit rate increases, we start to hear more high frequencies still sounds a bit like a 50s sci-fi film. though pay close attention as the cymbals will sound washy for a while yet.  

As 50 seconds rolls around the sample rate changes and suddenly we hear some guitar. There is still what sounds like a low pass filter going on.

At 1:36 another clear jump can be heard, the audio is now at around 56kbps.

2:54 the audio is now at 128 kbps, this is a common format for most mp3s. This would have been the norm for older iTunes downloads and what spotify streams at when on a basic account.


The second from last sample is what iTunes music is at. (256 kbps ) though that is using a different audio format (aac).

Finally the last sample is at 320kbps mp3, the only format i like to use :L hahaha.

Feel free to comment on either soundcloud or this blog should you notice anything you wish to mention. 

Thats it for now folks!

Recording Holding Tides Part 1

Recording Holding Tides Part 1

Hi Folks! This is a one of a two part post regarding my latest recording of the band Holding Tides! Since i took my camera this time, i took a fair few photos so decided to break it up into 2 posts allowing me to cram lots in!

Background!

Through word and mouth i was recommended to the band as a recordists after the Slow Down World project. The band where looking too lay down some Rock & Roll, using primary live takes! Despite anticipation the studio was good to me and there was a fair amount of microphones in stock for me play with!

Set up!

Drums:

Snare: An AKG C451b and a Senhiser dynamic clip on mic (no idea of model number!). The Akg
was pointed at the rim with the senhiser more towards the middle.

Kick Drum: Akg d112 directly in the middle of the kick drum.

Toms: Both Beyer Dynamic m201s

(Pictures dont show the position very well! )

Overheads-Close Pair: A matched pair of earthworks Er30s.

Overheads-far pair: A matched pair of AKG C414s

 Guitars.

After raising the amps of the deck, a shure sm57 and a shure sm57 beta were used respectively on a Kustom Quad channel and a line 6 spider.


The sm57



Bass Guitar.

Dident have a bass amp this time so resorted back to a Di Box.

Still thought i should include a photo :L

Results

Using a condenser the top of the snare did provide me with a different sound. Some what boxy with a little more treble. Combing the 2 microphones together did provide a better result. Though im interested to see what would happen on final mix! Having paper on the snare drum very much changed the sound. It acted a bit like moon gel, but gave the snare a sound found in those old 70s queen recordings!


That's it for now. Will be back with part 2 in the near future! I will leave you with a time lapse video from the session!

Stepping back to 2010

Stepping back to 2010

Its not this just this last year i have been recording songs, in fact i was half way through recording my own little album in the summer of 2010. I Ended up with around 5-6 original songs and one cover. The recording setup was very simple and used only basic equipment. 

Instruments

Guitar wise i used a Epiphone Flying V and a cheap honer strat copy into a line 6 spider 2x12. Very little of this was a mic setup, i ran a lead straight into the mixing desk from the line out.

Some of the bass parts ( teenage kicks & all i need) was done with a bass amp and cheap zoom distortian pedal through the line out. The rest was done either through midi or i played it on my keyboard live ( Riding out til the end).

All the keyboard sounds were played on a yammah bog standard keyboard, some of which was run through my guitar amp to use the in build effects (reverb mainly ).

Drums were midi, and where pre loaded onto my Yamaha digital drum kit, before hiting playback ;)

I had only one microphone for the album, which was a behringer c1. Which i used for all vocals and the guitar solo in All i need is you. Using my brother for the vocals i built a small matress booth in my house to contain him in. I had no pop filter, and he held the microphone sat down :L

Software

For recording most the songs, i used abelton live lite. Sadly i could only have 4 tracks at a time. So after laying down the drums and rhtyum guitar i bounced out the individual tracks, before recording the next layers. what had been done already was merged into a guide track. Its worth mentioning that alot  of the reverb and delay and was done as the signal was being recorded meaning it could not be removed :(

 
Kristal DAW (windows only )

The songs where mixed and edited in audacity and some of the material was mixed in the krystal open source daw. I new very little about eq or compression. Instead i just boosted levels and panned the instrument to gain a "mix" . I splashed everything with reverb and lots of it :L. The best song in terms of audio quailty would be riding out to the end. I did some clever guitar work in the intro (listen hard)


I would like to return to the songs one day and finish that album with a host of different singers :L, but for now here are the recordings minus 2 which i may upload and include at a later date!