192 & 2" Transfer Test Ideas aka: Return Of The PT Jedi

[JasonWorrel]

Dave, maybe do 4 passes. 2 on PT and 2 on RADAR. That way people would have to blindly identify the 2 that were done on PT to validate the test. This way if someone chooses 1 PT and 1 RADAR as different than the other 2, they are full of it. This also makes sure that people can't claim that there were differences in each pass. See what I'm saying?

[waterboy]

johnyv made a good point about the need for concurrent A/Bing.

This could be handled by importing the tracks into the DAW of your choice and A/Bing that way. Intuitively, I would say that the DB Tech would have the best dithering algo and that this is the point in the chain to produce a 16bit file.

For myself, I'm looking for gross qualitative differences. Something that consecutive comparison would certainly reveal.

I skimmed some of this thread so if somebody already offered this solution, my apologies.

At the risk of clouding the waters, DC, if you have the time, I'd love to hear a second pass made to the 192 at 176.4khz and then SRC'd using the Best or Tweakhead setting to 44.1 before sending that to the DB Tech. Maybe you could post that file after evaluations are complete. Or, at your discretion, just ignore this as it is certainly tangential at best to the discussion here.

[Bushpig]

Dave Carlock,

Soldier on mate!! I cannot count the hours I've spent trouble shooting for Digidesign and writing elaborate reports to prove my findings. I setup the first SoundTools (way back) and ProTools hire rigs available in London back in the early 90's and can you imagine how much of a minefield it was in the early days. Anyone remember ProMix and ProEdit (the two main pages of PT) being seperate programs written by two different companies!!!

Anyway Dave, the point is I have chugged my way through a few of these types of issues up against popular (ie: Digidesign's) opinion and on all issues I had to put in maximum effort on my own and then practically threaten whoever I could get hold of deep within Digi, once I was convinced I was right, to get a fix but to be fair, the fixes did eventually come. Aanyone familiar with the dialogue box that says timecode can not be output by PT with a session start time of 00:00:00.00?? That was one of mine and a bastard it was too. The SSD used to send out an offset code position of about 8 frames difference depending on whether it was chasing incoming code or generating code from PT playback, hence you can't use start time 00:00:00.00 'cause you can't generate code 8 frames before someone pushes the spacebar, know what I mean?) Also anyone remember the sudden appearance of the USD outputting cycled positional timecode for post production guys to spot to the current location. My sequencer would sit there freaking out trying to loop half a second of repeating frame numbers. This little beauty just appeared in a firmware version somewhere along the line 'cause those high budget film guys appear to have a lot of sway with Digi. I had to hassle like FxxK to get an on/off option written in for this, but it did come.

So I know how you feel, and you have my solidarity brother!! Just do it. I'll still respect you in the morning.

I like the idea of 4 passes, 2 from each digital machine. That would add a certain amount of that "c'mon then, prove your ears are working golden boy" that we're proposing to avoid, but not too much, as long as we know which is the "original" 2" tape pass.

As far as a carrier format for the final results goes, surely as long as it's consistent it is less of an issue. Certainly, as I've said earlier, I am looking for a "differential" comparison between what I had and what I get out the other side of the digital recorder and I am less concerned about the "sonic wonderment" in the 2 track carrier format.

Another Ha'penny sixpence from Bushy.

Cheers all.

Steve Bush

PS: The only one I still haven't been able to shame Digi into fixing is the ability for "their" software to talk to "their" USD/Sync IO over "their" serial port! What a joke!

[johnnyv]

I also like the idea of 4 passes...2 on each. Good idea.

Also, what do people think of taking some excellent drum samples and programming a little pattern? You could do this as a bonus to your original idea of real drums. The samples are there for drumming consistancy. It's sometimes difficult to compare formats when each hit of a real drummer is different!

J

[shaggy]

My vote: Upload the 24/96k originals too. Don't label the source either.

Almost everyone has a Superdrive these days.

Panasonic now has 192k DVD mash players. Etronics sells this unit and the 96k Sony- @350

The second step in a two step program.

And I'll second that idea about the 176.4 file. Then both POW-R dither & Tweakhead dither 16/44.1 results? Against a Radar Nyquest original 16/44.1 etc. That'll make for one interesting (blind) test.

Or, are there too many cooks spicin the broth? If so, kindly ignore. I've got a sunny spot on the road to go lie down ...

[DaveCarlock]

Shaggy et al,

No time to respond right now other than to say:

Keep those ideas comin! Not too many chefs. We'll narrow it down in the end, just rough it out first--edit later.

DC

[loudist]

Dave,

You are doing an exemplary job of figureing out how to set up an accurate A/B.
The Radar setup calabration someone mentioned... a flag went up with me on this... please notate the level differences in different cal paths/methods suggested, for curiosity sake.
I have a feeling that this is key.
Thanks again!

[Mixerman]

Originally posted by DaveCarlock:
So the upcoming test as it stands now is this:
=================
2" transferred directly, without a console, to RADAR and HD w/a 192.

***The RADAR and HD sessions will be striped with 29.97FPS TC and the 2" will be slaved to each machine during transfers to allow for sample accurate waveform analysis.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You can't be locked to positional reference it changes the sound. This needs to be transferred as if the 2" was the band, not as if it's a locked slave.

It's pretty typical for me to put the analog information into Pro Tools without a positional reference, as once information goes into the digital domain, it never goes back to tape as a master track any more.

Mixerman

[The Eggman]

[quote]Originally posted by Mixerman@PSW:

You can't be locked to positional reference it changes the sound. This needs to be transferred as if the 2" was the band, not as if it's a locked slave.

Mixerman

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well, I'm not sure exactly what you're saying here. However, surely you must make the digital systems the "masters" and the 2" the "slave". One would never want the digital systems chasing the analog...

[Rail Jon Rogut]

You can't be locked to positional reference it changes the sound. This needs to be transferred as if the 2" was the band, not as if it's a locked slave.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Uh... how does it change the sound having the 2" chase SMPTE? Do you meen the pitch changes? Or are you claiming some other type of quality loss?

I'd also like to know what kind of loss you believe you get when using an external converter to record AES into PT without applying any DSP, gain or pan changes?

BTW by doing simultaneous transfer from the 2" to both medium as I've suggested in this thread, and in off-DUC email, would still allow for the digital files to be lined up later - and the 2" would be able to run free.

Rail