MOTM

At 4:50 PM +0000 2/7/04, paulhaneberg wrote:
>I've never used an MPC4000 but I can offer you some general advise
>on recording the MOTM.
>First off, there is a big advantage to having 24 bit versus 16 bit.
>Secondly the sample rate is not nearly as important as the quality
>of the converters and most importantly the quality of the lowpass
>filters.
>Thirdly the importance of clock stability cannot be overstated. 
>Jitter can do some really weird stuff to your recording and you'll
>pull your hair out trying to figure out what is causing it.
>There is nothing wrong with recording at 44.1Khz or 48Khz if your
>converters and filters are high quality.  I use Apogee converters
>almost exclusively.  I almost always record at 44.1Khz, because my
>stuff is intended for CD.  There is no such thing as a perfect
>sample rate conversion from 48KHz or even 96KHz or 192kHz to
>44.1kHz.  With the right converters and filters, and a stable clock
>recording at 24 bit and 44.1Khz will certainly capture the nuances
>of the MOTM.  If you record at 24 bit and are going to convert to 16
>bit be sure and add some good high quality dither as the last step.

I pretty much agree with everything Paul says here. I don't have 
Apogee converters, but I'm pretty happy with the Swissonic converters 
I use. I do everything at 44.1 for, I think the advantages of not 
having to do sample rate conversion outweigh the advantages of higher 
sample rates. Plus, I don't want to deal with the storage issues. 24 
bit is pretty essential, though.

>I never have added any EQ to the MOTM when recording either.

I've been recording the MOTM lately through a Radial JDV DI box-> 
Amek/Neve 9098 preamp for recording, with the EQ bypassed, and have 
been quite pleased with the results. I wish the MOTM had a balanced 
XLR master output module, I'm sure one could be built, then I 
wouldn't need the DI to convert the signal to balanced.

>Although I haven't tried using FIR filters, the typical IIR filter
>will mess with the phase relationship between the harmonics and can
>smear the sound.

I recently picked up Elemental Audio's Firium EQ plugin, which is 
FIR-based, and to my ears, it seems like the most transparent EQ I 
have. It's great for removing trouble frequencies without affecting 
the rest of the signal. I don't know the theory behind FIR, I just 
know this plugin seems to have minimal side effects on the signal.

>  To me the MOTM sounds best recorded straight in,
>with no compression or EQ, just a little attenuation.

Absolutely true, but I find that when I'm trying to get the MOTM to 
fit into mixes, especially when competing with other instruments, it 
can require EQ and compression to fit right against the other 
instruments.