Sad to say that your expectation of what makes good manufacturing in China is a bit out of whack. The reason people don’t like Behringer has little to do with the China manufacturing side of things (Though that is part of it) and much more to do with their business practices in the past. Along with this despite being a larger (In the audio world) manufacturer in China, their reliability until the introduction of the X32 was known poor at best. The rule of thumb for many of their products is still, if you need one buy two, because one WILL fail right before a show usually.
The x32 was a standout product from them, and one of the first that was a direct result of their purchase of Midas consoles. What this really translates into is that the x32 reliability is what the professional audio industry was looking for to start with, not that it is really better than anyone else out there but about par for the course. For Behringer at the time that was amazing. They have improved in recent years, I suspect more because of the companies they bought doing things closer to correct than they were, but there is still no small amount of hesitation associated with their name both due to quality, reliability, and business practices.
Bit-Depth and Sample Rate these days don’t have a whole lot to do with good sound. 24 Bit and 48kHz is all most people need and all many people use, in all honesty you won’t hear a difference between that and 24/96 etc. when recording. In fact many audio interfaces and ad converters that advertise 24 bit, actually realistically hit around 20-22 bit these days IIRC.
Hi seablade
In the FOH world especially where audience participation is happening
absolutely no one will find any difference in a system with high sample
rates and bit depth, air loss ensure this, I read somewhere about this,
so it is a waste of money having a studio grade system in this environment.
But for studio work, I think the higher bit rate and sampling will have a positive
effect, but I would suspect the majority of the public may not notice this.
I suppose for every situation and audience there are pros and cons, we just
need to know them to get the result we are after.
I am now looking into the QSC TouchMix 30, it seems well equipped with ports
and features, expensive though, it will may be worth it in the end.
@Greenerpastures:
No, no monitor connected to the ui24 yet. We’ve just used an old laptop and some generic Samsung tablet. Performance issues on neither devices so far.
The usb-stick recording was 16bit, 44.1khz, wav. (supports flac as well) I don’t know read/write speeds of that particular stick but since the buffer was full, I suppose the dropout had something to do with a crappy usb-stick.
The daw recording was 24bit, 48khz. (or at least I told Jack to do so - I didn’t find a setup for this on the ui24)
Xruns are a very common problem in my experience and I never figured out how to get rid of that. Plus, I got tired of installing and re-installing all sorts of linux distributions (which is about all you can do in the linux world, given that you’re a regular user and not a programmer), so I got used to live with that. But like i stated, the xruns we ran into were far less concerning than they were with the past recording sessions through the firewire devices, so I didn’t mind. And I guess you are right, it’s quite reasonable that these xruns were caused by my system.
Hi MaxDamage
Yes, Xruns were clocking up for me on Linux even doing nothing, and they are hard to track down,
the more you know Linux the better chance you have.
I think a USB stick with 40mb write speed is required, that should help keep
stuff out of the buffer.
When you recorded into Ardour, I am not too used this program,
but just ensure your project sample rate and bit depth are the same
on your track as in the project settings, there is a function in some
DAW 's that needs to be taken into account, if you told your project to
run at 96khz, and you somehow told the track to use 24, and had set
the project to over write track settings, you would be using the higher
sample rate, and putting more stress on your computer.
I experimented in other DAW 's and found that if I managed the resources
well then I had not problems, but small things like FX on a track even muted
seemed to take up resources, and removing them helped.
Hi seablade, I do not think my idea of what makes good manufacturing in China
is far off.
I know Berhinger had some ethical issues, I know they had poor quality producs
in the beginning, but as you said, they came up well with the X32, which is made
in China, they have been there for quite some time, they have learned very well
how to produce products in China, and it would not matter at all if Intel or Samsung
were supplying the parts, it is the putting them all together that makes the product,
and they succeeded well with the X32.
We in other parts of the world have had many years of a head start building electronic
components and devices with a high success rate, what Berhinger faced in China was
daunting, they had cheaper labour, and components, but skills take time to develop,
that is why I would now buy one of Berhinger 's flag ship models, I still would not touch
their lower grade stuff, but given time, they will improve it, or else loose out, there are now
many more competitors in the marked that can produce for similar costs, thus improve or
loose out, Berhinger left behind them a poor enough record, I believe this reflected the
difficulty they had in China, that they have now overcome. Their product concepts were not
bad at all, but their struggle to build their conceptions were problematic, they have learned,
they have learned the public do not want rubbish even at a lower cost.
But for studio work, I think the higher bit rate and sampling will have a positive
effect, but I would suspect the majority of the public may not notice this.
On the recording end of things, not really. 48kHz (Even 44.1) results in pretty much a perfect match with the exception of things in poorly designed filters that have a resonance before the Nyquist limits. 24 Bit is more than modern ADs can handle, so there really isn’t any benefit to going to 32 Bit at all. I can make the argument that in processing you will hear more of a difference due to some of the alogrithms used in reverb and synthesizers as well as some mixing processes when dealing with high track counts, but in reality on the recording side I would be surprised if you could find people to pass the double blind test to prove otherwise (As would many other names on the topic).
That being said I still capture at 96k when I can, but I don’t use that as a selling point very much anymore and it is more out of an abundance of caution than anything.
Hi seablade, I do not think my idea of what makes good manufacturing in China
is far off.
You misunderstand. My point wasn’t that Behringer can’t do this, it was they CHOOSE not to manufacture quality in favor of cheap, and had a track record of not manufacturing quality when they were clearly capable of better. Just because they have on some products doesn’t mean they will on all.
When you recorded into Ardour, I am not too used this program,
but just ensure your project sample rate and bit depth are the same
on your track as in the project settings, there is a function in some
DAW 's that needs to be taken into account, if you told your project to
run at 96khz, and you somehow told the track to use 24, and had set
the project to over write track settings, you would be using the higher
sample rate, and putting more stress on your computer.
For the record, not possible in Ardour, the files are recorded at the bit rate and sample rate the session is created and run at. There is no seperate setting per track.
I use the X32 for a while and had discussions about the AD converter and the preamps. I recorded a 28 voices session with 48khz 24bit, when the adjustments of the singers were petty bad. I had to increase the Volume of some voices about 6 to 9 db and afterwards there was no audible increase of noise. So, the preamps and the AD converters can’t be that bad. I you are in a professional studio environment, there might be an advantage with studio gear 5-10 times more expensive then an X32, but then you won’t record with Ardour ( @paul “no offence”) but with protools or similiar.
I use Ubuntu Studio (real time kernel) with an old I5 Laptop with USB2 and an external hard disk and never had Xruns. Ardour worked always with out any problems.
Hi Andreas1, good of you to post your experiences.
There would be no audible increase in noise if you record at
a fairly low level, in fact doing so keeps the amps quiet, its when amps are
too high that the most of the noise gets into the mix, so you did well to keep the
noise as low as possible then raise the volume digitally, what were your Vocal
amps set at?, and maybe what mic’s you used on Vocals?.
I do not mean to challenge what you say, but the small amount I used Ardour I
found it capable of producing fantastic sound, my gripe would be with stability
on Linux, and that has as much to do with Linux, maybe more, Linux is great
because of its ability to adapted, this too can work against it for there are simply too
many scenarios to test, Windows is Windows, Mac is Mac, they are a lot easier
to develop for and test on.
Hi seablade
I agree with what you say, in my opinion
bit depth and sample rates do have an effect,
but only if the rest of the circuits involved are capable
too, so in general the only real way to know how well
a unit will perform is by doing real work with it and evaluating
the results, but not many will get to try before they buy,
so we just have to take into consideration the opinions and
experiences of others, and take what the manufacturers tell
us into account with a pinch of salt.
As regard Berhinger not making good products when they could have,
I agree, they turned out volumes at low prices to meet a raging demand
from people who wanted to create music but had not the budget to buy
more expensive products. I bought a Berhinger Pre-amp years ago, it
works great, but I do not trust it at all in regard to it keeping going, the pots
are so easy to move that I need to avoid sitting it near vibrations or slopes
as the Knobs are so heave and off round that they could rotate on their own.
Better pots and I would never mention this, and I could be all wrong regarding
how the internals will hold up, they look really well put together, but the Knob
issue states, we do not care that this is a bad design nor do we care it will
rotate on its own, it tells me no thought went into this part of the design,
and causes me wonder if they took the same approach to the innards,
thus no confidence in this product.
I suppose in years to come this product will be known as a Genuine Berhinger product,
and a working one will fetch big money from such collectors, maybe that’s Berhingers
target market and we got them all wrong.
bit depth and sample rates do have an effect, but only if the rest of the circuits involved are capable too
With 24bit you will be limited by the atomic noise of the (that is, any) electronics before you run out of resolution, because physics. (or by hearing damage at the opposite extreme). At 48kHz (or even at 44.1) you can completely reproduce anything within the audio range. Some types of processing may benefit from using higher sample rates, and often do so internally, though that is kind of a separate but related issue, although it is possible to design algorithms for which this is less of a requirement.
Hi mike, yes, there is lot to it, developers like you will understand this,
but for the likes of me, I just depend on the developers and engineers
getting it right.
There would be no audible increase in noise if you record at
a fairly low level, in fact doing so keeps the amps quiet, its when amps are
too high that the most of the noise gets into the mix, so you did well to keep the
noise as low as possible then raise the volume digitally,
Just for the record, it is better to have the amplification on the preamp which is designed for amplifying low level to line level, than by doing it digitally after the fact. The latter will actually get you more noise honestly, except in cases of very poorly designed preamps.
This is a common misconception that I see a lot, that I would encourage people to test it, drop a preamp by 10dB and then add it digitally, chances are for that you won’t notice much difference, but then repeat using a 30dB difference and see what happens.
Not sure that is what you intended or not, just wanted to clarify for others that might be reading.
I suppose in years to come this product will be known as a Genuine Berhinger product,
and a working one will fetch big money from such collectors, maybe that's Berhingers
target market and we got them all wrong.
Yea… given their shady business practices in general, I am not holding my breath for that to be the case:)
@Greenerpastures: just like in the analogue domain, digitally raising the amplitude of a signal (e.g. multiplying all the samples by some value), will also magnify any noise present in the recording by the same amount. What’s important is the signal to noise ratio, which, if the processing were perfect, would remain constant, e.g. no additional noise has been introduced by the amplification process, however… a related issue is that (similar to analogue processing) any digital processing will intoduce some inaccuracies - your computer cannot represent the sampled values or the result of an operation on them with perfect accuracy*, and these inaccuracies translate to additional noise.
*Even using floating point. For example, in very simple terms, 32Bit floating point gives you a massive dynamic range of around 1500dB, but, a signal to noise ratio close to that of 24Bit fixed point (though as I mentioned previously, that should be more than adequate in most cases)
Hi mike@overtonedsp
I am really glad I posted regarding my take on keeping the pre-amp low and
digitally raising the level.
You see I read this recently, as I researched for a Digital Mixer, I commented
on the mixer spec stating 60db gain, with a further 15db digital gain, and was
told the digital gain would bring no noise penalty.
My own testing through a UR22 does not add noise as the amps are raised,
unless they are up almost in full, and I would be no where near that other than
I am using an SM58 that seems to need a lot of boost especially when talking
as opposed to singing so am getting a Fethead in-line pre-amp for it, saves the
vocal cords.
Thanks for posting in this regard, and apologies if I have mislead anyone,
that was not my intention, and am surprised at the person who put me astray
in telling me that there would be no noise penalty, the mixer in question was
the QSC TouchMix.
@Greenerpastures: In the example you give, an extra 15dB of gain in the digital domain, probably won’t cause any noticeable issues (e.g. vs 60dB). But it is incorrect to assume that this means all digital gain magically amplifies only the wanted signal, and not any noise also present. If you take some signal + noise, and amplify it (in the digital or analogue domain) you will at best (and in the absence of any other processing) get both the original signal and the noise, amplified by the same amount.