Digital Distortion in WWS???

RSR

maybe the master limiter was reversed a bit for the LP?

RSR

For the record, if anyone cares/is listening, most digital gear (especially the home studio stuff) is designed to run at 0dBU which is around -18dBFS - it's here that you will get the most clarity and depth out of a recording-in-the-making - and it will absolutely ensure that you won't clip your digital gear during the recording process

0.2 cents

RSR

whats one of the first acts of rebellion a child makes when he's coming into his own,an act that leads to years of hassles between the child and his parental unit?

cranking the stereo.

lol - so true

harrisonmerwin

just my advice

whenever recording (digitally) allways pre-set the volumes at minus 10db below unity. This gives you excellent headroom, and if you have a good strong signal going in, when you mix it all, your loudest peak shouldnt be past +2 or +3 unity. This makes for a foolproof method to avoid clipping and causing digidistortion. Its real easy in protools, just open the mix window, arm the tracks, and drag the level down to -10 prior recording.

enharmonic

BinFrog wrote:

The best example of clipping on the new album is the first few measures of Marker In The Sand. The final mixdown engineer for that song should be arrested.

Its not the mix. It's the mastering.

harrisonmerwin

enharmonic wrote:

Its not the mix. It's the mastering.

its the recording, they were excited and didnt check there hot levels, its where clipping occours, or...they recorded the stuff WAY low and when they turned it up the digital "ghost" came out of them. Either way, fairly amatuer moves so im suspecting it was most likely on purpose. notice its only the guitars and voice. the drums dont sound like they have been tampered with, but another reason is that drum levels are crucial and very closely monitored. Couldve been that the practise takes were the best takes (which happens) and the levels werent properly adjusted. thats another explanation. im gonna go with that one.

enharmonic

harrisonmerwin wrote:

its the recording, they were excited and didnt check there hot levels, its where clipping occours, or...they recorded the stuff WAY low and when they turned it up the digital "ghost" came out of them. Either way, fairly amatuer moves so im suspecting it was most likely on purpose. notice its only the guitars and voice. the drums dont sound like they have been tampered with, but another reason is that drum levels are crucial and very closely monitored. Couldve been that the practise takes were the best takes (which happens) and the levels werent properly adjusted. thats another explanation. im gonna go with that one.

I seriously doubt it was the recording. These guys have been recording for nearly 20 years. We're not talking about some garage band from Iowa here.

The album was produced and mixed by Adam Kasper and Pearl Jam at Studio X in Seattle, Washington. That's an SSL 4000 room with Studer machines if memory serves. No digital crunchies there.

acutejam

Well, Rush has been recording for 30+ years and it totally happened to them, but they claimed "Practice Sessions were best takes" and they recorded Vapor Trails over a 18 month period. They totally acknowledged that it happened, that they were heartsick at it, and just couldn't bring themselves to do anything about it after nearly 2 years in the making.

hey! It's even in Wiki! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapor_Trails

Eh, the boots are sweet so no biggie really, but it's a shame. I'm waiting for an interviewer to ask 'em about it!

enharmonic

acutejam wrote:

Well, Rush has been recording for 30+ years and it totally happened to them, but they claimed "Practice Sessions were best takes" and they recorded Vapor Trails over a 2-year period. They totally acknowledged that it happened, that they were heartsick at it, and just couldn't bring themselves to do anything about it after 2.5 years in the making.

Eh, the boots are sweet so no biggie really, but it's a shame. I'm waiting for an interviewer to ask 'em about it!

That's because Geddy Lee recorded it, and he's got a tin ear. funny, so many people buy a protools rig and suddenly believe themselves to be capable of making a record. There's a big difference between being an amazing musician, and a competent recording engineer.

Adam Kaspar > Geddy Lee behind a console...any hour...any day.

harrisonmerwin

enharmonic wrote:

I seriously doubt it was the recording. These guys have been recording for nearly 20 years. We're not talking about some garage band from Iowa here.

The album was produced and mixed by Adam Kasper and Pearl Jam at Studio X in Seattle, Washington. That's an SSL 4000 room with Studer machines if memory serves. No digital crunchies there.

duh! excuse my ignorance

pearl jam would have recorded to tape, then taken it from tape to digital for the editing/mastering process, in which case the digi-distortion would have fall in between the data conversion (analog>digital) and the final mastering. So chances are they could reproduce the record assumign the tape files are fine. I believe they keep there stuff on beta-8'?