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I need HW Recording Tips

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vpo-organist

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I need HW Recording Tips

PostSun Apr 04, 2021 12:59 pm

Hello,

in a WhatsApp chat for a church, music is offered for church members. To have a reasonably good quality on a mobile phone, you might have to consider things that I don't know. I know it doesn't sound very good on mobile, but I want to do the maximum possible for it.

Do I need to set the output level to a low value to minimise the noise floor? When converting to mp3, I always used a compressor in Audacity to reduce the dynamics.

Who can give me some audio tips for recording so that I get a good sound quality? What settings do you use?
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IainStinson

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostMon Apr 05, 2021 3:41 am

Hello,
I have found the typically the level of output on the HW built-in recorder is a little low. In my audio presets I use a Master Mix Bus to only serve as a recording output, I don’t attach any physical outputs to this Master Mix bus. I feed this with all of the other outputs being generated. I am then able to adjust (increase) the level of the recorded output by adjusting the level of this master mix bus. The level of the recorded signal is still dependent on the HW audio trim and volume controls, but I am able to increase it to get a higher level of recorded signal without having to set the volume too high.

I normally take the .wav file into Audacity, I don’t compress the signal, (I want to keep the differences in the dynamics) but I sometimes use the amplifier effect to increase the level.

I try to remember to turn the blower sound off.

Iain
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IainStinson

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostTue Apr 06, 2021 5:19 am

To be clear, there is a level adjustment for the master mix bus and for the audio recorder. I have adjusted both.

I don’t know without testing if the recording level is dependent on both of these adjustments. (EER easy example/experiment for the reader.)

Iain
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Romanos

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostTue Apr 06, 2021 1:01 pm

The best sound you can possibly get is to use HW’s built in recorder. Use it, then simply convert to mp3 or whatever format you need. If it’s a particularly soft piece, you can adjust the gain (or even use the normalize function) but otherwise I wouldn’t mess with it too much. Compression is a tricky area... I’d personally avoid it. Organ through phone speakers will sound more/less like crap no matter what you do. If they use headphones, however, they will thank you for just taking it straight from HW as the quality will be best. If you use mp3 make sure to use the highest bit rate possible.
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vpo-organist

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostTue Apr 06, 2021 2:32 pm

Thank you for your tips!

I can not test this for a few days. I hope I can get this working with the Master Mix bus.

One scenario is also that the recording sounds good on a cell phone speaker. I might even have to reduce the quality for that. My experience has been that the cell phone speaker is a bit overwhelmed with a very good recording.
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randallschmid

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostTue Apr 06, 2021 3:47 pm

I suggest that you download a copy of Audacity. It is free. Once installed and running.

1. Import your HW produced wav file.
2. Press <ctrl> A to select the entire file.
3. Under the 'effect' tab, locate the high pass filter which is found on sub-menu "Plug-in 1 to 6".
4. Set the frequency to 120 and roll-off db per octave to 12 dB. Click OK

This will reduce the low frequencies that low-end speakers and cell phones cannot reproduce. You will be amazed now this immediately cleans up the sound on these types of speakers.

If you don't like the effect, you can use <Ctrl> Z to undo, <Ctrl> R to redo. Save under a different name to retain your original file.

You can also experiment with rolling off the high end (above 8K) and then adding a touch of compression
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Romanos

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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostTue Apr 06, 2021 8:51 pm

If you take Randall’s advice you’ll lose all your pedal. It might sound fine through the speakerphone but will sound terrible with headphones or any other source (air-play to the tv, car, etc.)
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Re: I need HW Recording Tips

PostWed Apr 07, 2021 5:28 pm

I will start some tests next week. Thanks for your tips.

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