This is great! For point 4, could you not use ripple edit mode for the same effect? For point 3, after you have copied and pasted the “source” into the “destination” how do you go about tweaking the fade and position of audio? What do you do, as is often the case in classical, when the replacement audio is a slightly different length? This is where real 4-point editing works wonders…
Please don’t misunderstand me. I love Ardour and Mixbus and only continued to use Sequoia (and now moved to Pyramix given the price differential) when I occasionally record album sessions when I know there will be many edits to accomplish (with Pyramix having the benefit of the rather fine Hepta Apodizing SRC and Album Publishing). I use Ardour in Windows for a lot of my VSTi work given that the two harpsichord collections I use on a regular basis run in Kontakt. For everything else, I fire up my AntiX Linux partition and do everything from start to finish with open source software and plugins, from Ardour through to Andreas Ruge’s DDP Tools, Sound Converter and Kid3 for any extra tagging. The x42 plugins see regular use, especially the LUFS metering one. The one plugin that breaks that rule is my limiter on Linux - LoudMax - but happy to receive suggestions for open source transparent true-peak limiters of similar quality.
Yes, that is sad reality.
My primary occupation in life is being a bassoonist in my nation’s finest philharmonic orchestra (sometimes I record my colleagues, as a side-job) and while I did play concerts that were both energizing AND neatly performed (or, as we say “just press rec.” concerts), there is no guarrantee that the next one will be such. Large orchestra concerts are plagued with many problems and challenges. We are playing on the instruments which basic design didn’t change for hundreds of years and are negatively affected by stupid things such as changes in air humidity and temperature. The repertoire we are playing is often pushing to the limits of what is possible in the best of circumstances - for example playing extremely quiet in extreme registers of reed woodwinds or playing some virtuoso part on horn or trombone, or fast passages with unusual scales while breaking octaves on any instrument. There can be up to hundred people playing without clear idea who is playing lead and who is accompaniment at any given moment (and that changes from one bar to another) while they sit so far apart that they don’t hear each other, but rely on one person’s gestures which are most of the time very vague… then there is this concentration issue when all goes well, suddenly you experience total blackout for a fraction of a second (usually when trying to focus very hard for more than half an hour) which is enough to produce “audible artifact”… My friends who are both jazz or latino/samba/rumba and classical music players are way more likely to play something wrong when they play classical then otherwise. I am not saying that jazz is inferior music, but I’d say it is more in the line with human nature, creativity and inspiration (any unusual move is not interpreted as mistake, but as voicing and is considered new and interesting, and rightly so, I’d add).
And so, when recording session come, producers always want at least two extra takes in case something is not as written in the score, even if they didn’t notice it on “live listening”.
But in my experience, it is not nearly as bad, last time when we recorded an album for a major German label, we did it with a general rehearsal, two concerts and one correction session, three days altogether.
I don’t use ripple edit because, at least for me, it introduces more problems than it solves. I just delete a selection I want out and copy edit from another place and trim regions and crossfades manually. I want it to sound musically so I don’t leave edits in hands of machine algorithms, but trim it by ear I In the last couple of years everyone is recording video + audio so I need to take care that the timeline is unchanged, but when I edit just audio, I manually trim parts when the edit is of different length. In this case “Ctrl+Shift+E” (Edit->Select->Select All After Edit Point) comes very handy.
As for limiters, the latest version of x42 plugins contain a peak limiter - x42-dpl - inspired by Fons Adriaensen’s Zita-dpl1 which always worked just fine for me.
Hmm, ripple edit has never given me any trouble in any of the DAWs where it is implemented correctly (Reaper, Magix products, Ardour etc). I do all my edits by ear to begin with in the sense that I create the in/out points while listening back. Any latency between me hearing and my finger moving is corrected as necessary in the crossfade editor. So no machine algorithms in play at all…
Ardour supports true-peak and loudness normalization at export. That is generally much more useful that realtime dBTP limiting: http://manual.ardour.org/exporting/edit-export-format-profile/ allows to set a max loudness (EBU-R128) and max dBTP. Whatever limit is exceeded first is used to calculate the gain factor.
Check “Analyze Exported Audio” in the export-dialog to get a report.
Yes, that seems reasonable. The peak limiter on the master-bus can be used to trim some transients.
Those would otherwise attenuate the whole export when normalizing to (true)peak.
If you don’t have to deliver to broadcast industry, you could configure export-normalization to use
Loudness 0 LUFS
-1.0 dBTP
In this case the the loudness is not taken into account, because digital true-peak will always dominate the gain-factor.
Otherwise the established practice for program material is to aim for an average loudness of -23 LUFS but at most -1 dBTP (the defaults).
Bach’s Inventions bring some warm memories from childhood. That used to be compulsory repertoire for anyone taking piano lessons.
Beautifully performed! Thank you for sharing.
@x42 Just a quick question: Is it possible to normalize across the entire project to, say, -20 LUFS integrated? I realize that when exporting tracks each individual track would be conformed to that value which is not what I would want for a classical album. Would exporting wav+cue achieve a batter result? I could then split and convert them in Fre:ac or similar…
Congratulations! A great performance and recording! Good luck with the project, you have a hard job left but it will be fantastic once finished.
You should also record the sonatas for flute and harpsichord obligato…
The best part of that recording in addition to the lovely flute playing is the use of various different keyboard instruments including clavichord, lautenwerk and harpsichord with a 16 foot register. Sonic heaven!
Just wanted to say excellent job on these recordings. I look forward to hearing more. You inspired me to sign up to comment and lurk around the forums. I’m a vocalist that knows all the notes in my head, but not talented with instrumentation. I’m still going to jump in and try, sticking with open source of course
Welcome to the forums and thanks so much for your kind comments. I’m hoping to begin recording the French Suites in the next few days. I have an overly ambitious schedule to record all the keyboard works in 5 years but I imagine it might be closer to 10
I In the last couple of years everyone is recording video + audio so I need to take care that the timeline is unchanged, but when I edit just audio, I manually trim parts when the edit is of different length. In this case “Ctrl+Shift+E” (Edit->Select->Select All After Edit Point) comes very handy.