lockettpots wrote:Hi
The first example sounds MUCH better with all that reverb gone and the reduced dynamic range. Unfortunately I couldn't listen to the second example. YouTube says it is private
OOPS! 
I set it to private, but it should be "unlisted", so I updated it, and now you can listen to the second version . . .
THOUGHTSThe NOTION 4 native instruments were played by the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) and were professionally recorded at Abbey Road Studios, where as best as I can determine the recording, mixing, mastering, and later digitizing technique generally focused on providing ample "headroom" or "dynamic range", which is a correct and logical way to do this . . .
However, it creates a bit of a conundrum when folks are discovering the rules for acoustic physics with respect to producing, mixing, and mastering in a studio setting, especially when they are using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) studio monitor systems, none of which are calibrated full-range studio monitor systems . . .
[
NOTE: Some of this is explained in vast detail in one of my ongoing topics in the IK Multimedia FORUM, and while it is a lot of reading, there is very good information . . . ]
The Fabulous Affordable Studio Monitor System Project (IK Multimedia FORUM)The succinct high-level overview is (a) that you cannot produce, mix, and master accurately unless you can hear everything accurately through your studio monitor system; (b) that this only happens with a calibrated full-range studio monitor system, which in turn only happens when you do a bit of custom work; because (c) there are no new COTS full-range studio monitor systems available from any manufacturer anywhere on this planet since sometime in the 1970s . . .
Typically, what happens when folks use COTS studio monitor systems, which nearly always are "bookshelf" size units, is that everything sounds wonderful on their particular COTS studio monitor systems but otherwise sounds terrible everywhere else, because instead of making the music sound good, instead the focus is on making the music sound "good" on a specific COTS studio monitor system, and it is easy to determine when this happens . . .
Yet another significant aspect involves (a) producing, mixing, and mastering when listening to music played through a calibrated full-range studio monitor system versus (b) producing, mixing, and mastering when listen to music played through studio quality headphones like the SONY 7506 (a personal favorite), where the absolute rules are (1) that one must do it first with (a); (2) that after doing (1) it is good to check it and do any required fine-tuning with (2), but that the final check needs to be made with (1), which is the case for several reasons but most importantly the fact that when listening with studio quality headphones each ear hears something completely and totally separate and independent from what the other ear hears, which is a huge problem and is the reason that (2) does
not work by itself . . .
The curious aspect of this is that calibrated full-range studio monitor mixes sound better when you listen with studio quality headphones than mixes done solely with studio quality headphones. It makes sense once you understand the rules, but some of the rules are very subtle and not so easily found, hence the popularity of the ongoing topic IK Multimedia FORUM . . .
Regarding the recording and digitizing style of the NOTION 4 native instruments, from one perspective while it is good that the focus is on providing generous "headroom" or "dynamic range", this tends to be different from what typically is done with sampled sound libraries designed for use in what one might call a more "modern" setting, which is fine with me, where in this context the "modern" era began with George Martin started adding orchestra instruments to Beatles songs, where "Eleanor Rigby" is an excellent example and involved placing microphones so close to the string instruments that the musicians had to devise ways to play without hitting the microphones, which overall made it possible to move the strings to the front of the mix, which in a practical way eliminates dynamics, where everything is just "loud", which is outstanding in my view, because if it is so soft that you cannot hear it, then why take the time to have it . . .
In other words, if it is important, then let people hear it!On the other hand, I fully understand the logic for having a wide dynamic range, but in the real-world this is the primary reason that a specific category of signal processors exist, and this category of signal processors exists so that radio and television broadcasters could satisfy the audio broadcasting rules set by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US and corresponding broadcasting regulators in other countries, where the key is to devise ways to constrain music, singing, vocal work, and sounds in general without destroying the melodic content and sonic textures, with this category of signal processors typically being called "vintage" in the T-RackS (IK Multimedia) universe . . .
REWIRE STRATEGYThe strategy I use for ReWire 2 is (a) to peg all the volume sliders in the NOTION 4 Mixer to 0dB; (b) to set panning specifically only when I know exactly where I want a sound to be heard in what I call the "rainbow panning arc"; (c) not to use any reverb; and (d) not to use any VST effects plug-ins . . .
Once I have recorded the NOTION 4 generated audio as "soundbites" in the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) application, which usually is Digital Performer (MOTU), I exit NOTION 4 and switch to doing the producing and mixing in Digital Performer and then later do mastering with T-RackS, which I do for several reasons, primary of which is the fact that since Digital Performer does not need to generate the audio and to control a virtual festival of either NOTION 4 virtual instruments or third-party VSTi virtual instruments like MachFive 3 (MOTU), Kontakt 5 (Native Instruments), and so forth, there is ample memory and processing resources available, as well as the ability to do elaborate automation and other activities . . .
One of the most important aspects of doing ReWire 2 correctly is having the various audio quality and processing parameters properly configured, where the fact is that NOTION 4 generates audio at standard CD quality, which is 44,100-Hz at 16-bits, and this must be the way the DAW application is configured . . .
[
NOTE: While it might appear that using a higher audio resolution is "good", it actually is significantly worse and might be just plain "bad", because since there is only 16-bits of information at a sample rate of 44,100-Hz, arbitrarily increasing it in the DAW application requires the DAW application to "create" stuff that is not there, and this causes significant problems with the quality of the sound and for all practical purposes destroys it . . . ]
This is the reason that I started my first post by noting that discovering how to do ReWire 2 is a
major accomplishment!
The first time I did ReWire, it took me approximately one month working on it 18 hours a day--which is documented in posts to this FORUM and is part of the "historical record"--and it included quite a few technical support calls, mostly to the MOTU folks who after a while could not avoid reminding me that I might want to read the user manual before calling, but they are nice and they understand the way things work in the real world, plus at the time the user manual was not available in PDF format, and reading stuff printed on paper is not something I do unless there is no possible way to avoid it, which is not the case now because beginning with Digital Performer 8 the user manuals are in PDF format and I can read them quickly on the Mac Pro here in the sound isolation studio, which makes it a bit easier to make sense of complex stuff . . .
To put this into perspective, until the day when everything worked, if the folks from IK Multimedia, MOTU, and Notion Music had appeared outside the house, I probably would have chased them around the yard with an axe in each hand, since discovering how to get ReWire working was so strange and puzzling that it nearly made me crazy, but once everything clicked it became nearly trivial to do . . .
~ ~ ~ Continued in the next post ~ ~ ~ 
Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 11:33 am
