Return to EQ index

All information in these pages is copyright (c) 1989-2003 by Roger Nichols. All rights reserved. Permission for personal reference only, and may not be reproduced by any method without written permission.

Am I Done Yet?

By Roger Nichols

Am I done buying high tech gear yet? Is the latest hard disk recorder going to make my stuff sound any better than last year’s hard disk recorders? Next year do we have to look forward to 32-bit recorders and 192kHz sample rates? (Probably YES)

I figured it out. It is the media manufacturers that have brain washed us into thinking that higher bit depth and faster sample rates are better. Why? Well, because it sells more hard disks and more optical disks and more blank CD-R discs and soon, DVD-R discs. If you have kept track of how much you spend on blank media, you’ll find that even though media prices have been dropping, the amount you spend in any given month remains the same because you need to buy more media to store your "stuff". There are only so many hours in the day to copy your "stuff", so you would think that there would be an upper limit on the amount of media you could use. If you punched 24 or 48 tracks into record and let them go around the clock, only taking breaks to change tape or hard disks, you could only use so much space, right? Wrong again DVD-R breath!

If the CD-R media people want to sell more blank disks, then they just up the recording speed of the CD-R recorders to 6x or 8x, and now you can burn up to eight times as many disks during a 24-hour period. This was not designed for your convenience. What about recording 48 tracks live to tape or hard disk? You can only do this in real time, so faster recorders are out of the question. But if you are convinced that 24 bits are better than 16 bits, the storage requirements increase by 50%. If you have been told that 96kHz is better than 48kHz, then the storage requirements double. We are up to three times the storage costs in just two sentences. 192kHz will double the requirements again. Can 32 bit recordings be so far behind? If I were you I would make three or four copies of everything you record, just to get used to the future storage requirements.

Think about it. The same thing is happening in the digital camera market. Two years ago one megapixel cameras were top of the line. Last year 2.1 megapixel cameras were the hot ticket. Now 3.2 megapixel cameras are the "must have" if you want any of your friends to keep talking to you. Think about all of the computer disk storage needed for these pictures. Think of all of the CompactFlash memory cards that you will need to take all of these pictures? I turned on my camera the other day in the highest resolution mode with the RAM card removed to see how many pictures I could take without it. The camera said I had room for ONE picture at the selected resolution. WOW!

For you hard disk recordists, you get the double whammy. Not only do you have to buy more hard disks for all of this high-resolution recording, but what are you going to do when the hard disks get full? You gotta buy backup drives and backup software and backup tape. If hard disks were as cheap as tape then you would just fill ‘em up and buy more. But hard disks are much more expensive than tape, and I just saw a press release from some of the hard disk manufacturers saying that they are going to start raising the prices of hard disks. They are not making enough profit for R & D. If you want to see Terabyte or Petabyte drives, then you are going to have to cough up more dough. Maybe we should be talking about the "Big-a-byte" these hard disk purchases are taken out of your paycheck!

TECHNO THIS!

They may be trying to tell you that technology is making things better, but the truth is it takes longer to do everything because of technology. Don’t get me wrong, I am the first guy in line for the new Whiz Bang 3000. I then spend half of my time trying to figure out how you are supposed to work it, and the other half of my time figuring out how to change the way I have been working so I can utilize the new features. When the Whiz Bang 4000 hits the streets they tell you that everything you did with the 3000 will be unusable because the file format has changed, in favor of the more optimized 4000 model. Now you really need some of the new 4000 features, but you have built your whole method of operating around the 3000. You have to increased the time it takes to do your project because you have to transfer to the 4000 to use the feature you want, and after you are finished, transfer back to the 3000. You can’t use the 4000 only because all of the other hardware and software that you use with the 3000 are no longer supported.

What do you do with all of your old projects that were done on the 3000? You have two choices. Choice one is to keep those projects in 3000 format, but you also need to keep all of the 3000 hardware and the external devices that you bought to use with it. You also have to keep this old hardware in working condition. Choice two is to move the project over to the new 4000 version. If you ever have to work on this project again, it will probably not sound exactly the same on the 4000 system. Internal timings and delays are different, processing sounds slightly different, crossfades are done differently, output levels are different because of the extra built-in headroom for more tracks, and probably a hundred other things are slightly different.

Part of the problem with moving up to a bigger and better version of anything is that the manufacturer tells you everything is going to be better. They never tell you about things that may adversely effect you when you change over. Adverse effects should be required like they are with medication advertisements:

"Just released, the new ‘Nick-of-Time’ digital delay line. The first ever digital delay with negative settings. Yes, that’s right, you can set delay times of up to MINUS 1000 milliseconds. Compensate for those pesky hardware delays transferring digital audio in and out of your hard disk recorder. Erase delay times caused by overweight plug-ins. If you buy enough of the new Nick-of-Time delay units, you could have your project done by yesterday. (Continued use may cause vocal parts to become 3.7 cents flat during breathy vowels, guitar parts unexplainably erased, hi hat shuffles to sound like Bernard Purdie, and in some rare cases pregnancy by Immaculate Conception)." Of course, in some cases the erased guitar part may be a blessing in disguise.

New Year

If you are reading this column, then I guess the Y2K bug didn’t get EQ or you. It is also time for New Year’s resolutions. I usually procrastinate when it comes to resolutions. A few years ago 24 bits was my New Year’s resolution. This year I am going to go with Sony Bit Stream as my resolution for the year 2000. You see, Bit Stream basically has no resolution of its own, and you can decide the final outcome later, when you down convert to 24 bit or 16 bit or 2 bit. Cool.