offline or while playing?
I have found the ‘mix down while playing’ to be a handy feature. I tend to use it all the time now so I can start the drums when I require and change beat patterns on the fly to make things more interesting. Being able to stop the recording when you want to as well as also changing channel volume levels as I go if needed.
I wondered if others do this as well?
The other question is what format do you use to mix down to write to CD? To my ears and my cheap monitors the wav files sound better than when in MP3 format. They seem to loose a little warmth and body to the sound.
A couple of thoughts spring to mind…
Mixing in Real-time is how things needed to be done years ago - a bunch of guys huddled over the faders bringing things up and down at appropriate times in the song. Nowadays we have automation to help us and I use that exclusively. That way I can re-create a mix as many times as I want with small tweaks without having to worry about going through the whole mix again. It’s also quicker (on my pc at least) to mixdown off line.
Automation takes a little while to get used to but will save you a heck of a lot of time once you’re sussed it.
As for CD formats… the native cd format is 16 bit 44.1kHz wav. Any other format will require conversion when it gets written to the cd. mp3 is a lossy format - that means that the process throws away audio information to make the file sizes smaller. There is no need to mix to mp3 if you are going burn to cd.
Hope this helps
Yes its a learning curve as the program has miles more features than I can use at present. I’m a hands on learner, I learn while I’m doing and simply reading a manual doesn’t do it for me.
I will make sure I write the wav file straight to CD format from now on.
Don’t forget, mp3 is “lossy,” which in technical terms means “sucky,” IIRC.
If your mp3 versions sounded better I’d be worried.
As far as compressed formats go, at least to my ears, WMA is a little better than mp3. Unfortunately, Apple and Microsnot don’t like cooperating and WMA won’t play on Apples iPods. I have one of those little 8GB models and I wish I could load WMA on it natively. I don’t really like any of the compressed formats other than WavPack which is can be full fidelity and results in 30 to 70% smaller files but as far as I know, n-Track doesn’t support WavPack. (Feature request time maybe?) It’s a great option for laptops with smaller hard disks and such.
Anybody know what compression algorithm Flavio uses for “Packed Song Files”?
D
Quote: (Diogenes @ Jun. 10 2008, 8:18 AM)
Anybody know what compression algorithm Flavio uses for "Packed Song Files"?
Ogg Vorbis, or at least, that's what it used to be. I don't have the latest version of N.
Quote: (Diogenes @ Jun. 10 2008, 8:18 AM)
I don't really like any of the compressed formats other than WavPack which is can be full fidelity and results in 30 to 70% smaller files but as far as I know, n-Track doesn't support WavPack.
All lossless compressions sound the same, so why do you prefer this one?
I like Monkey's Audio, since it's (a) fast, (b) compresses well, and ( c) supported by my favorite little format conversion tool, dBPowerAmp (google to find it).
For a typical 16-bit stereo mix, it compresses to about 40% of the original.
For a 16-bit bass track, it compresses to the theoretical optimum of 25%.
FLAC has an advantage for acrhives in that if you lose a block due to media corruption, it can recover and pick up with the next block, so you only get a dropout rather than losing the whole rest of the track.
But it's slower and you get less compression than MA.
RAR has an error-recovery encoding, which allows considerable data loss before the track is corrupted.
I haven't used it, so I don't know how it compares for efficiency.
All of these methods are significantly less effective for 24 bit tracks, because most of the low-order bits are pure noise, which cannot be losslessly compressed.
Quote:
In the default lossless mode WavPack acts just like a WinZip compressor for audio files. However, unlike MP3 or WMA encoding which can affect the sound quality, not a single bit of the original information is lost, so there's no chance of degradation. This makes lossless mode ideal for archiving audio material or any other situation where quality is paramount. The compression ratio depends on the source material, but generally is between 30% and 70%.
WavPack is the shizzle IMO. Monkey's is nice as well for all the reasons you mentioned.
D
Re-read your post LearJeff. I mainly like WavPack because it is supported natively in ‘R’. No extra time spent converting files. I agree, all lossless compressors should sound the same. If they don’t… sumpin’ is broke.
D
PS Coming to ‘R’ in the next release… writing of the BWF chunk for files in WavPack format. Great for laptoppers with smaller HD’s. You can keep full fidelity, small file sizes and just drop bits on the timeline and have them position themselves. Scha-wing!