Solo flute recording project. Classical music

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

I trust your advice more @bachstudies , so then I won’t change anything and leave the mastering the way I left it.

Ha! Definitely get some more opinions. I can only talk about what works for me based somewhat on observing others and doing vigorous internet searches

A K-meter or K-meter-esque approach using LUFS would explain why modern releases don’t all hit the exact same integrated level. I chose to set +4 on the K-meter as my loudest part even if the instrument isn’t quite able to give a real fortissimo (88-90+ dB). The 0 to +4 dB (or -20 to -16 LUFS momentary max) zone should be used sparingly. A purist would probably let the master sit lower down. One thing’s for sure…hitting 0dB peaks for a harpsichord is just weird even on a CD, especially if you’ve just been listening to actual fortissimo full orchestra. Listeners will instinctively reach for the volume knob as their ears hear it as too loud.

[Aleph]

A harpsichord CD at 0dB has to be fun…

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

I’m uploading the tracks and analysis again. If you can hear it a little bit and give me your opinion about how you hear it I would also appreciate it

I’m listening back through Ardour now via a pair of AKG K701s. The sound is certainly pleasant and, of course, your playing is top notch!

A few things:

There’s a nasty glitch in the left channel of the last phrase of track 3:

There may be more so listen carefully over headphones…It is a “digital” glitch for which there could be several causes.

Reverb: As much as I like the Samplicity Bricasti IR I wonder if there are other options to explore…either real space IR or algorithmic. I’m not saying what you have is bad but you might want to rule out other options as well as play with settings like pre-delay etc. Something doesn’t sound quite authentic but, of course, you are recording in your house and adding a very different IR on top.

Compression: If you are happy with your parallel compression that is great. It doesn’t jump out at me at all. Does the dynamic range compare well with that commercial disc? Do the peaks sound energetic and climactic?

My takeaway is that your recordings showcase your amazing talents while demonstrating solid engineering practices. Who could ask for anything more? Well, a beautiful church away from traffic

[Aleph]

Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my recordings @anon60445789. And thank you very much for your words.

• Technical problem: Right. I hadn’t heard that. Maybe there’s always a lot of noise in my house, it’s hard to appreciate but yes, you can hear it clearly. I had to fix it using the first bars of the piece, they’re the same.
  Sometimes I’ve got some clicks, not too many, but it’s a problem, it can ruin a take, and if you don’t have more the problem can be serious. I don’t know why, but they were much clearer and stronger, this one was more subtle.
  Do you have any idea what could cause them?

• Reverb: We were discussing different types of reverb on a separate thread, do you remember? I tried some Dragonfly configurations but the Samplicity Bricasti reverbs were the ones I liked the most, and specially the one I use, Vienna Hall. Do you think I should buy the Impulse Records pack and try some?
  The plugin that worked best for me was the Robin Gareus one, with other plugins it didn’t sound as good, I don’t know why. The problem with Robin’s plugin is that you can’t practically control anything, only the output gain, which I have around -20 dB.
  It’s true that there can be something unreal in the sound, sometimes when everything is a little stronger there are even some harmonics in the high frequencies that are a little uncomfortable, I already talked about it when I had the other mics, maybe it’s a problem of my sound or my flute. Anyway the final result doesn’t displease me at all, as you say it’s nice, and in general all the comments from friends are quite favorable.

• Compression and Loudness: I am happy with this compression, I think it practically does not affect the musical result. Comparing with other recordings the dynamic range of mine I find it similar. I do see differences in the audio level, if I compare with wav files extracted from CDs my recording is usually the same or a little lower than the others. If I compare with Spotify my recording is very low level, maybe Spotify raises the level of the audios.

The repertoire on the CD may be another problem, it’s interesting but they’re not great works… but that’s another issue.

And yes, I think the pending subject is finding a silent church.

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

Sometimes I’ve got some clicks, not too many, but it’s a problem, it can ruin a take, and if you don’t have more the problem can be serious. I don’t know why, but they were much clearer and stronger, this one was more subtle.
Do you have any idea what could cause them?

Are you free of x-runs when recording? What are your buffer settings when recording? So you are saying you have had to deal with evener stronger versions of this glitch during your recording sessions? We might have to troubleshoot your usb device and other settings…

@Aleph

Anyway the final result doesn’t displease me at all, as you say it’s nice, and in general all the comments from friends are quite favorable.

Then I would leave the reverb exactly as you have it! The Convology halls and churches are not true stereo IR but they are from real spaces unlike the Bricasti stuff. Using the Robin Gareus IR plugin might be part of your glitch problem. I realized that he designed it for cabinets and other short IRs. I couldn’t use it for longer IRs without getting into serious CPU loads. Perhaps try the same Vienna Hall in Klangfalter (install lv2 and vst but I believe Ardour blacklists the lv2 version due to block size issues). Note also that unless you use the browser panel, to manually insert a regular stereo vs true stereo impulse you need to use the 1st and 4th slots or else you will get some weird channel effects

@Aleph

I am happy with this compression, I think it practically does not affect the musical result.

Excellent! See here about Spotify: https://artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and-loudness#what-is-loudness-normalization-and-why-is-it-used. It looks like Spotify does indeed mess with volume on playback with only premium users being able to select between three settings. Not good for classical!

I can’t remember now but how do you deal with room tone before a track? Did you have digital black before the first note or did you fade into room tone a couple of seconds before the music begins?

[Aleph]

@anon60445789

Are you free of x-runs when recording? What are your buffer settings when recording? So you are saying you have had to deal with evener stronger versions of this glitch during your recording sessions? We might have to troubleshoot your usb device and other settings…

Since I switched to the new 4.20.0-16.2-liquorix-amd64 kernel I will only have had one or two xruns.
Other newer kernels gave me problems with wifi.
I did have 2 or 3 strong clicks during the recordings.

@anon60445789

Then I would leave the reverb exactly as you have it! The Convology halls and churches are not true stereo IR but they are from real spaces unlike the Bricasti stuff. Using the Robin Gareus IR plugin might be part of your glitch problem. I realized that he designed it for cabinets and other short IRs. I couldn’t use it for longer IRs without getting into serious CPU loads. Perhaps try the same Vienna Hall in Klangfalter (install lv2 and vst but I believe Ardour blacklists the lv2 version due to block size issues). Note also that unless you use the browser panel, to manually insert a regular stereo vs true stereo impulse you need to use the 1st and 4th slots or else you will get some weird channel effects

Some time ago I installed the Klangfalter but it was the lv2 version and I couldn’t use it. I have installed the vst version and now it appears, but when I select the ViennaHallQuad file the program stops responding and the CPU starts going crazy. I didn’t quite understand the last part of what you were saying, maybe that’s what you meant.

Edit: I just figured out what you meant. It’s already working. I’m trying it out

@anon60445789

I can’t remember now but how do you deal with room tone before a track? Did you have digital black before the first note or did you fade into room tone a couple of seconds before the music begins?

When I start I do a quick fade in.

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

I did have 2 or 3 strong clicks during the recordings.

Did those clicks correspond with x-runs or totally separate?

[Aleph]

@anon60445789

Did those clicks correspond with x-runs or totally separate?

The clicks are separate.

Edit:
I’ve been testing the Klangfalter a little bit and even if I try several parameters it’s difficult to get something as smooth and natural as the reverb you get with the Robin Gareus plugin.
Maybe it’s just chance and I got this result just by chance.
I also just tried the Dragonfly reverb Plate, and I think it’s more natural than the others, but I still like what I have more.

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

I’ve been testing the Klangfalter a little bit and even if I try several parameters it’s difficult to get something as smooth and natural as the reverb you get with the Robin Gareus plugin.

Technically there should be zero sound difference between Convo.lv2 and Klangfalter. In any case, if you are editing and mastering with higher buffer settings there will be no problem with convo.lv2. Obviously on export you are doing faster-than-realtime so the audio device is not used. I suspect there is a gremlin in the way your USB device (Audient iD14, right?) is interacting with the audio backend during real-time operation.

EDIT: Do let me know what settings you use for live recording in terms of sample rate, buffer size, number of periods etc. Also, be sure to disable wi-fi before recording! Plus, I assume you are running the CPU scaling governor in “performance” versus “on demand”?

[Aleph]

@anon60445789

Technically there should be zero sound difference between Convo.lv2 and Klangfalter

Here the sound is very diferent

@anon60445789

Do let me know what settings you use for live recording in terms of sample rate, buffer size, number of periods etc.

Sorry, I’ve attached a screenshot of the settings.

@anon60445789

Also, be sure to disable wi-fi before recording! Plus, I assume you are running the CPU scaling governor in “performance” versus “on demand”?

Maybe it’s my fault then. The wifi was on and the CPU was “on demand”. But I don’t remember now how to change it to “performance”

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

The wifi was on and the CPU was “on demand”. But I don’t remember now how to change it to “performance”

I use cadence to do that:

Note also that your “Dispositivo de Entrada” and “Dispositiva de salida” both need to be your Audient iD14 device. I just been recording 4 stereo tracks of background room noise on my UMC1820 for 30 mins using a 128 buffer and had zero x-runs or glitches. It’s also worth moving between 2 and 3 periods to see if that makes a difference. For the longest time I defaulted to 3 due to internet advice but it seems in recent times that is unnecessary. For the Audient I don’t really know.

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

Here the sound is very diferent

My Klangfalter looks like this:

I used the brower to select the quad Vienna Hall file and it automatically assigns to the 4 slots (1-1, 1-2, 2-1 and 2-2). Each slot shows a different channel of the quad file. I’m sure you’ve done that. If you are running the reverb on a bus, you’ll need to disable the “dry” and probably the autogain to get an exact replica of the sound from convo.lv2.

[Aleph]

@anon60445789

I use cadence to do that:

I’m going to install Cadence too.

@anon60445789

Note also that your “Dispositivo de Entrada” and “Dispositiva de salida” both need to be your Audient iD14 device.

Yes, of course. It’s just that now the Audient wasn’t connected to my laptop.

@anon60445789

using a 128 buffer

So it’s better to go down to 128 buffer and try period 3?

@anon60445789

I used the brower to select the quad Vienna Hall

I didn’t quite understand that part before, so it didn’t sound the same. I selected the file in slot 2-1. I’m sorry for my stupidity.

Now I added it from the browser, which I didn’t understand before, and yes, it sounds quite similar without touching anything. Maybe with the “Dry” I like it a little more, I don’t know, it seems more present.
I added it to the same bus, and to compare them I deselect the one I don’t want to hear.
I don’t touch the parameters of the Robin Gareus plugin since months ago, when I made the first tests and commented it in the forum. What I do notice is how much the output gain affects the output volume.

With the autogain the Klangfalter increases the volume much more than I had it. It really sounds good, but maybe I should lower the 4dB I had added with the knob in the flute channel and check all the LUFS levels again.

I don’t know what to do about it now…

[anon60445789]

@Aleph

Maybe with the “Dry” I like it a little more

If you are using the reverb on a bus, you definitely want to disable the “dry” as it should be 100% wet. With dry enabled you are essentially doubling the dry track which, at best, is simply increasing volume.

[Aleph]

@anon60445789

If you are using the reverb on a bus, you definitely want to disable the “dry” as it should be 100% wet. With dry enabled you are essentially doubling the dry track which, at best, is simply increasing volume.

Ok. I will disable “dry”.

Installed Cadence but something is wrong. I can’t change “ondemand” for “permormance”. Cpufreq utils is installed.

Edit:
it seems that the package “indicator-cpufreq” has to be installed outside the Debian repositories. I’ll try tomorrow.

Instalando el paquete indicator-cpufreq en Debian/Ubuntu

[Aleph]

I followed the indications of the blog

wget http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/universe/i/indicator-cpufreq/indicator-cpufreq_0.2.2-0ubuntu1_all.deb

sudo dpkg -i indicator-cpufreq_0.2.2-0ubuntu1_all.deb

now I can select performance from Cadence

[anon60445789]

Great, I’ll be interested to see if the glitches disappear with performance selected and wi-fi disabled. Here’s a script to run to check for other optimizations: https://github.com/raboof/realtimeconfigquickscan

[Aleph]

How should I proceed to execute this script properly?

EDIT:
I think I’ve done well. This is the output:

$ perl ./realTimeConfigQuickScan.pl
== GUI-enabled checks ==
Checking if you are root... no - good
Checking filesystem 'noatime' parameter... 4.20.0 kernel - good
(relatime is default since 2.6.30)
Checking CPU Governors... CPU 0: 'performance' CPU 1: 'performance' CPU 2: 'performance' CPU 3: 'performance'  - good
Checking swappiness... 10 - good
Checking for resource-intensive background processes... none found - good
Checking checking sysctl inotify max_user_watches... < 524288 - not good
increase max_user_watches by adding 'fs.inotify.max_user_watches = 524288' to /etc/sysctl.conf and rebooting
For more information, see http://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration#sysctlconf
Checking access to the high precision event timer... readable - good
Checking access to the real-time clock... readable - good
Checking whether you're in the 'audio' group... yes - good
Checking for multiple 'audio' groups... no - good
Checking the ability to prioritize processes with chrt... yes - good
Checking kernel support for high resolution timers... found - good
Kernel with Real-Time Preemption... not found - not good
Kernel without 'threadirqs' parameter or real-time capabilities found
For more information, see https://wiki.linuxaudio.org/wiki/system_configuration#do_i_really_need_a_real-time_kernel
Checking if kernel system timer is high-resolution... found - good
Checking kernel support for tickless timer... not found - not good
Try enabling tickless timer support (CONFIG_NO_HZ_IDLE, or CONFIG_NO_HZ in older kernels)

== Other checks ==
Checking filesystem types... ok.
** Set $SOUND_CARD_IRQ to the IRQ of your soundcard to enable more checks.
   Find your sound card's IRQ by looking at '/proc/interrupts' and lspci.

[anon60445789]

http://mixbus.harrisonconsoles.com/forum/thread-7780-page-7.html?highlight=realtimeconfigquickscan

I seemed to have various things come back as “not good” but in discussion with user “sunrat” it seems I’m good to go. Indeed, no x-runs or glitches here…

EDIT: I note via an internet search that having “high precision event timer” enabled makes no difference to audio and, indeed, can sometimes have adverse effects: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/835600-hpet-high-precision-event-timer-off.html

[Aleph]

So it seems that it was all the fault of not turning off the wifi and having the cpu “ondemand”. I hope there won’t be any problems next time I record myself. I’ll let you know if I notice any x-runs or glitches here.

Thank you very much @anon60445789!