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Question for recording artist/engineers

Let's say you have a jazz band who wants to sell cds of their music with the best quality of sound they can achieve at the lowest out-sourced cost or do-it-yourself. If one wants to do a just-in-time type of manufacturing of their cd, how can they improve things?

Currently they are recording at 48k in Pro-tools, mastered in Sonic Solutions by Air Show Mastering, and then they use top of the line cds (Taiyo Yuden) with a Microboards Orbit II Duplicator. This has produced average cds but we want to do better.

What would you engineers do to improve this so it gets closer to audiophile quality? Would you recommend using a different mastering house, different cds, or a different Duplicator? Or would you just bite the money bullet and go directly to a full-scale manufacturer? We are trying not to have that much money tied up in inventory.

If this is the wrong place to post this question, please suggest another message board to post.

Thank you for your feedback and assistance.
lngbruno
onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
4,163 posts
 
Your question seems to focus on the rear end of the process when the greatest sonic gains are made at the front end. There are several keys to getting a high quality recording. A great recording engineer is probably at the top of the list. Right below that are a good recording room, great microphones, great mic preamps and great A/D converters. ProTools can produce high quality results, but stay away from all but their latest generation of converters. Also why record at 48kHz, the sonic advantage over 44.1kHz is minimal and it requires an added sample rate conversion stage. Either go ProTools HD (88.2 - 192kHz) which will offer a substantial sonic benefit or stay at 44.1kHz throughout.

You might want to consider posting on the following forum:

http://www.musicgearnetwork.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi

Place your post in the George Massenburg or Roger Nichols section. Best of luck.
slipknot1
1,423 posts
 
Lngbruno,
Is this jazz band recording material in a studio, or, recording live performances? Why at 48K only to downsample to 44.1 redbook standard for producing CDs?

Your Pro Tools, Sonic Solutions sure ain't the problem, so I would want to take a good hard look at how the data is getting laid down. Duplication is only going to be as good as the original bit stream.

I have made a number of live recordings and subscribe to the minimalist mic technique: (1 HQ matched pair)>Grace Design Lunatec V2 preamp>Apogee a/d1000 analog to digital converter>Tascam DA P1 DAT deck

My recordings were very natural sounding, good soundstage, plenty of depth... If I had access to the Pro Tools/Sonic Solutions WHOA!
matt8268
92 posts
 
My friend who built his own recording studio uses the following a lot as a great resource for these types or questions:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=rec.audio.pro
lngbruno OP
210 posts
 
Slipknot1 - the band is recording in the studio. 48k is what Air Show Mastering uses with the HDCD format. Could the speed of the Duplicator has a negative effect on the sound quality?? I know on consumer recorders and PC drives it does have a negative effect.

Thanks again for the input to mic techniques.
kirk930's avatar
kirk930
283 posts
 
you guys should direct this thread to tom wright at audio forest.com. he has 104 gold records and builds and designs speakers , cables,etc. he is an honery cuss but a great guy .
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