What Are Your Favorite Stoopid Audio Myths?

[Ryst]

 

I used to be good at standing on my head, when I was a kid. I'm out of practice lately, but if it would enhance the emotional impact of my recordings, I could always get into it again.

 

 

It would be great for your live shows, too.

[blue2blue]

I saw Nils Lofgren do a double somersault off a side-of-stage, angled trampoline while doing a pretty tricky triple stop bend and box arpeggio back in the 70s. At the time, I was quite impressed.

[Anderton]

 

More often than not, a simple analog setup will produce better results than a DAW. It's not better because it's analog, it's better because there are fewer distractions from playing and engineering.

 

 

I don't know if I'd agree with that. I have interfaces with more inputs than I "need," so everything is patched in and ready to go. I hit Auto-Sens on the Octa-Capture, and levels are set. I have templates set up in Sonar that are just turn-on-and-go. I use color-coding to make it easy to parse stuff. Granted, it took me a while to create my "ideal" digital recording environment, but once I did, I can definitely do more, faster, than I could with analog.

 

But that also encompasses some fairly complex projects. If I just needed four or eight tracks (or maybe even 16, i dunno), I'd get an all-in-one box like those from TASCAM, Korg, and Fostex. These days they sound quite good, are easy to use, and last a long time. I'd pick them over a "component" setup with separate mixer, recorder, outboard processors, etc. if I wanted serious ease of use.

[blue2blue]

Agreed on both points. However, given my premise that all audio systems are flawed, I think the flaws in DSD are less than with analog or PCM, and I really don't see anything in Lavry's writings that would contradict that...most of what he says is that DSD does have flaws (no argument there), and that PCM has used techniques that more or less catch up with it anyway. That's a little dicier, as long as people still hear differences between DSD and PCM (and I'm one of those who prefers DSD), but there's little doubt that the industry has cast its lot with PCM, so that's where the improvements are going to come. It's not that different from when DeltaLab used 1-bit technology because RAM was so expensive, and when RAM came down in price, DeltaLab had no commercial advantage any more. Or another example: At one point the RISC processor architecture was more efficient than Intel's "let's just make the clock speed higher" approach. But even Apple had to admit eventually that RISC was an idea whose time and come and gone, at least for personal computers.

That makes sense.

[Anderton]

Here's another myth: Setting priority in Windows to "Background Services" instead of "Programs" is a useful tweak for audio/DAW performance. Not true, at least not any more...

[MikeRivers]

 

I have interfaces with more inputs than I "need," so everything is patched in and ready to go. I hit Auto-Sens on the Octa-Capture, and levels are set. I have templates set up in Sonar that are just turn-on-and-go. I use color-coding to make it easy to parse stuff. Granted, it took me a while to create my "ideal" digital recording environment, but once I did, I can definitely do more, faster, than I could with analog.

 

 

Well, OK, but you aren't the average user. In order to get to the "walk up and start recording" stage, you needed to do a lot of stuff and understand what you're doing. Someone who comes home from the store with an Octa Capture and a copy of Sonar will probably be able to start recording fairly quickly, but it will take a while before everything but the simplest of setups becomes second nature.

 

If I just needed four or eight tracks (or maybe even 16, i dunno), I'd get an all-in-one box like those from TASCAM, Korg, and Fostex. These days they sound quite good, are easy to use, and last a long time. I'd pick them over a "component" setup with separate mixer, recorder, outboard processors, etc. if I wanted serious ease of use.

 

 

I'd agree with that, but most people just want to use their computer because it's there, because everyone else does, and becacause they they don't really know how simple or complex their needs will be. And as a long-term investment in understanding, having all the connections made for you at the factory doesn't offer much of a learning experience along the way.

 

And while not everything that you learn throug using a DAW is applicable to an analog setup, everything you learn about working in an analog, or at least in an "assembled from parts system" environment is directly applicable to the DAW environment.

[MikeRivers]

 

Here's another myth: Setting priority in Windows to "Background Services" instead of "Programs" is a useful tweak for audio/DAW performance. Not true, at least not any more...

 

 

There's a difference between a myth and obsolete advice. That used to work for the Windows 90s because background services is what made the sound card work, and that's how most people were recording in those days. With the computers of the time, it was an effective tweak. As far as I know, audio I/O is still a "background service" but that task's complexity hasn't changed appreciably other than adding more channels, whereas programs have become far more complex and need more of the computer's time (relatively speaking) than they used to.

 

But unfortunately it's impossible to burn all of those old on-line books, and when you search for Windows audio performance tweaks, those old chestnuts will pup up first. How long do you think it will take before people stop worrying about DPC tweaks? That's a good trick today, but in 5 or maybe 10 years, we'll be seeing "I read that I should run the DPC Check program but the link is dead. Where can I get the 128 bit Windows 17 version?"

[Jeff da Weasel]

Myth: It takes a lot of money to affect a guitar's tone.

 

In my experience, one of the biggest tonal differences can happen via the use of a different pick. Cost: $0.33.

[blue2blue]

[...] But unfortunately it's impossible to burn all of those old on-line books, and when you search for Windows audio performance tweaks, those old chestnuts will pup up first. [...]

When are folks going to wake up to the fact that online information -- particularly of a timely nature -- needs to be date-stamped? Some of the biggest sinners in this are publications that have come over from the 3DW, some of them news periodicals. A news periodical without a date on a story? Tech information, of course, is no exception. The rise of blogging and the disciplines imposed (often automatically) by blog software have helped somewhat, but there's still a ways to go.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Myth: It takes a lot of money to affect a guitar's tone. In my experience, one of the biggest tonal differences can happen via the use of a different pick. Cost: $0.33.

 

 

Or changing the strings.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Myth: It takes a lot of money to affect a guitar's tone. In my experience, one of the biggest tonal differences can happen via the use of a different pick. Cost: $0.33.

 

 

Or playing differently.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Myth: It takes a lot of money to affect a guitar's tone. In my experience, one of the biggest tonal differences can happen via the use of a different pick. Cost: $0.33.

 

 

Or playing with your fingers.

[Jeff da Weasel]

 

Or changing the strings.

 

 

Changing the strings (either from old dead strings to fresh strings, or changing the gauge of the string) will affect tone more than most people realize. It's almost sad how people immediately try and find an expensive/complex solution before trying the simple/cheap one.

[blue2blue]

Changing the strings (either from old dead strings to fresh strings, or changing the gauge of the string) will affect tone more than most people realize. It's almost sad how people immediately try and find an expensive/complex solution before trying the simple/cheap one.

You bet. But for a lot of folks, it's more fun -- bigger rush -- buying an expensive stomp box or other piece of kit.

 

In my occasional rants and tirades at GearSlutz, I often hit on the point of not doing things by habit.

 

But twice now in the last year or two, I've had to confront how my own habit-bound practice has impacted me, maybe even held me back.

 

The first wasn't an earthshaking change -- but it was a real eye opener.

 

Like a lot of folks, I came up sticking SM57's in front of guitar cabs almost as a matter or course. Works, why fix it? But, one day, feeling lazy, with the Rode NT1 I use for vox and acoustic guitar out on its stand and hooked up, I just tilted it down in front of my Blues Jr -- and ended up really liking the fairly different sound. (Although I must say it captures the impedance mismatch hiss from when the reverb unit is turned up with almost too much accuracy. But, overall, I'm liking it.)

 

 

The other -- and this goes right to your suggestion -- was more of a revelation. I decided to try heavier gauge strings on my steel string acoustics. Nothing crazy, some light/mediums (.0125-.0550) phosphur-bronze from Martin. Not a huge jump from the 11's I'd been using since I dunno when. But, what a difference it made to my fingerpicking! Suddenly things felt solid under me. (I drop my guitars a half-step to accommodate age-driven changes in my still reedy voice so it helps firm up the tension, too.) And the tone struck me as better, as well. Such a nice change.

[Beck]

 

What Are Your Favorite Stoopid Audio Myths?

 

 

"What

[koolkat]

Weed will increase the creativity of a performance. This is the biggest load of Bull{censored}e since that trucking carrying 12 tons of manure over-turned on the 1-5 a while ago. This coming from a weed partaker from way back when.

[Anderton]

Weed will increase the creativity of a performance.

 

Good one! As the old saying goes, "Weed doesn't make you sound better, it makes you think you sound better."

[Surrealistic]

Weed will increase the creativity of a performance. This is the biggest load of Bull{censored}e since that trucking carrying 12 tons of manure over-turned on the 1-5 a while ago. This coming from a weed partaker from way back when.

 

Actually this is an interesting one & maybe not cut and dried (no pun intended). Perhaps not so much performance, but it does seem that many writers have found that being in an altered state helps their creativity. I couldn't possibly comment from experience of course

[UstadKhanAli]

I think it can sometimes, particularly in terms of ideas rather than necessarily performance, but it's definitely not a given.

[Lawrence Farr]

Good one! As the old saying goes, "Weed doesn't make you sound better, it makes you think you sound better."

 

Well... (IIRC) ... it does temporarily improve your hearing... I think. :-) So (in the distant past for me) a small buzz before mixing didn't hurt.

[LRon Butterfly]

Tommy Chong wrote his first hit, "Does Your Mama Know About Me" when he did coke for the first time.

[Anderton]

Yeah, but KoolKat's post was specifically about performance. What you do in the privacy of your own home is your business...and we certainly don't want to advocate drug use in a privately-held, public forum.