Actually it would be really useful I think if the respected pros/forumites took a look at these if they get the time. I certainly agree that there are a lot of non relevant or misleading vids out there but I'm kind of concerned some folks may see those posts and miss out on something useful.
 
I of course don't want to send people to bad vids either so if that's the case then totally let us know but I do kind of wish I had found these when I started out (they seem to have been produced after I really started getting into all this though).
 
PS: I have no affiliation with the guy who made these. Just found them and they kind of surprised me as I was indeed expecting the same old, same old.
 
Cheers.

I watched the one titled "Digital Audio Explained: Samplerate and Bitdepth". Although there were some questionable statements, overall I thought it struck a nice balance between accuracy and accessibility.

bitflipper

...most of the top pros likely started on crummy gear

An important point. But mainly, it wasn't just that the gear was technically lacking but rather that it was simple. Just faders, pan knobs and rudimentary equalizers, plus dynamics processors re-purposed from broadcasting. The relative dearth of tools meant that they could understand each of them in depth.
 
And this is where most modern practitioners lose their way. They have so many tools that they never have a chance to learn everything about them. If a compressor isn't giving them good results, they go out and buy another one. One with more presets. One that some famous engineer swears by. One that carefully mimics a piece of gear from 1965. All the time never really understanding what the compressor does.
 
We can all benefit from periodically revisiting the basics, filling in the holes in our knowledge. If I was to create a recording curriculum, it would start with basic electronics and build from there.
 
 
[EDIT] Duh. And if I was teaching someone how to post to a forum, I'd start with how to properly type in a quote with balanced brackets.

Dealing with hardware is something I unfortunately (but in other ways fortunately) missed our on. I kept taking low paid grunt jobs in and around audio/film studios when I was young hoping to get a chance at the gear but I guess I was so over eager that I became far too invaluable as the big strong guy who was willing to scrape the crud out of the bottom of waste baskets... so they kept me stoopid. lol
 
I did get to SEE and MOVE a lot of gear and occasionally some of the nicer pros in such places would throw me an intellectual bone (that sounded less dirty in my head) which has been useful now because I recognize some of this stuff but really I worked myself crippled for not much return (did pay my rent though and saw some cool stuff so can't b*tch too much).
 
If I can ever get my life in order the way I need to I have been planning on taking a proper electronics course so I can try my hand at building my own little mic pres, mixers and amps... but mostly just to understand.
 
When I was young I was very interested in studio stuff but I was also a musician first and mostly focused on stomping stages (and thank cripes I did as much as I could of that when I did because it is an impossiblity now... those memories are pricelss). I think being hunkered in an analog studio in my twenties may not have been as beneficial as touring and being a band whore (I was almost perpetually in three or more bands at a time and constantly in rehearsals or doing gigs which definitely shaped the type of producer I want to be). I was at the right age that computers were just taking over the studio thing (and everything else) but it was all so ridiculously complex, expensive and... well not very good that it did nt seem worth the bother at the time. I still feel it wasn't. I think the tipping point of ease, affordability and sound quality came right about the time I was ready to dive in... and apparently it had actually been there for a few years before I did. I was amazed at some of the things that could be done once I started studying.
 
It's funny how life works out really. I can only hope these last few torturous years will lead me to the things I was only able to fantasize about as young creepoid stage greaser.
 
Okay... I think I'm in a weird mood today. I should do some work and quit waxing nostalgic, philosophic and any other waxing I am apparently engaging in.

bitflipper
I watched the one titled "Digital Audio Explained: Samplerate and Bitdepth". Although there were some questionable statements, overall I thought it struck a nice balance between accuracy and accessibility.

Thanks. Yes, I noticed one thing that was a little odd but I think he may have mispoke (language barrier). He said that 20,000hz was the max freq that could be something or other in the digital domain when he was discussing samplerate but I think he was trying to refer to something else (like the useful audible info... not what could be digitized).
 
I was concerned there may be other little things like that but that's why I wanted a pro to look at it. I am glad to hear I was not crazy in thinking these were good for beginner's though.
 
Cheers.
 
PS: The one major AHA moment that particular vid gave me was the Bit Depth part. I had no idea that bit depth was in regards to possible increments of amplitude. I guess similarly I did not realize that increasing the samplerate allowed higher tonal frequencies to be heard (edit: not "heard" I guess so much as played back)/recorded.
 
Were those semi accurate statements?

Agree with bit about the entertainment factor. I once watched a video just because of how the guy that spoke perfect English yet kept on saying "midi" to where it sounded like "meedee". I so love accents!
 
Anyway, yeah beeps, as always you know I never want you to discount anything. Just be careful like we're all telling you. I think another important issue for you and others to address is....what are your real problems?
 
This is where you can probably weed out the vids that may not apply to you. Granted, there's always something to learn....but fixing your problem areas are, in my opinion, of the utmost importance. Remember, crummy gear isn't a bad thing unless you are really messing with crap. You have Sonar with a nice front end. Don't buy into the hype of mic pre's and all that garbage. I'm serious when I tell you. I've talked to numerous big dudes in the industry about this.
 
The pre thing is all about a certain coloration that they believe in. I've worked with crap pre's and expensive pre's. Some make a 2% difference, others make no difference. That 2% is even subjective. I remember having a discussion with bitflipper about a sound I was getting from my Realtek that wasn't happening when I used my Layla or RME card. How on earth could I like the sound of a distorted guitar better on the Realtek than those pro cards? Bit explained it was probably due to what the coverters may NOT have been doing. How crappy can ya get man? A 1/8 jack into line-in into a Realtek? LOL! That said, like I told you before....a lot of my beta work was done on that system.
 
From programs to plugins. I was asked to use a stripped down system so we knew what limitations we had. Anyone can make their stuff work on a great system (most of the time) but it's nice to see how low you can go. LOL!!!!! I came up with some really well mixed material and didn't use any of my good gear. Stock Dell with an i3, 4 gig ram, Logitech speakers with a sub.....I was quite pleased with the stuff I did.
 
Is there a major difference when I use my good stuff? Yeah, but most of it is due to mixing on my Adams, and NS 10's being more accurate. My mixes on the crappy gear with the logitechs were always bass light....which is ok. The sub pumps a bit too much on them so I drop 30 and 60 Hz by -2dB and it helped me fix that.
 
As for pre's...don't even waste your breath. Get something fair that gets you up to -6dB peak and forget it. With mics, that to me is a bit more important. They literally help to mold your sound a bit more. Sometimes a cheap mic can do wonders. Other times, the pricey mic sucks. I tell this story a lot...but my U-87 only works for me when I sing in G. I have no idea why....but I hate it for myself. My personal choice for my voice and what you hear just about all the time is a $500 Equitek CAD E-200. I have a pretty nice mic locker.....for some reason, cheaper mics sound better on my voice. If you like the stuff you've heard me do, I'm not using millions in gear to get it.
 
I've recently added a Midas to my arsenal....but even there, the pre's are great but aren't giving me any mojo unless I run them hot. When I do, they saturate like a pre should and remain musical. Thats said, I don't do that often so I'm using the pre like any other pre I'd use. -6dB peak going in with a light compressor to condition the signal a little and I forget all about it. So you don't need much brother.
 
So if I were you (though I think you should still stay on this video crusade as it can help you and many others) try to focus on what you feel is wrong with your mixes and see if there is information out there that can help remedy those problems before learning a bunch of techniques.
 
Like maybe, post up one of your mixes here sometime and we can make a clinic out of it or something. That would probably be more helpful than any video you'd learn from, ya know? I know we have the songs forum where there are some great people giving out advice....but sometimes (and I sincerely and heart-fully mean no one any disrespect) there are times when people just aren't helpful over there. Lots of sugar coating at times to the point where it isn't helping anyone. There's one guy that posts things that make me cringe and people fall all over him practically giving him oral text. (lol cracked myself up with that) I just can't sit and read that stuff. I'm all about people being nice.....I'm all about honesty....but it needs to be delivered correctly and not in a pistol pete manner. Then again, over there....a finished song is just that. Finished. The people may not want to be critiqued. When I post over there, I'm not looking for opinions....I just post to share my material. If I want an opinion, you better believe I'd post up and beg. LOL!
 
Anyway, keep doing what you're doing beeps...but like guitar, practice stuff and really research stuff that will correct problems and make you better faster. At the end of the day, you always have me to bounce stuff off of. I never forgot all that theory you shared. I owe ya a few. ;)
 
-Danny

Hi again Danny. I'm doing some stuff right now so will fully read and digest your new post later but on the topic of "pre's" I actually did want to ask your opinion on something... and perhaps you saw my thread on this which is why you brought it up.
 
I am about a month or two away from dropping a small amount of money on an ART Tube MP/C unit. Very simple unit and I have considered it very carefully (benefits vs. budget... etc). In fact... I'll be right back with a link to the thread detailing why I'm thinking this, although not the greatest option, might be a bump up for me.
 
I'm back...
 
Here is the thread. No need to read it all unless you want to but it pretty much has all my reasoning behind wanting/buying that specific unit.
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/Suggestions-on-cost-effective-multi-purpose-PreampDI-for-guitbassvocals-100150-m3237383.aspx
 
Gotta get back to what I was doing but I'm always poking about the forum. Great to see you around more again, buddy.
 
Cheeeers!

Beeps won't the Focusrite you have do a lot of that stuff? Between the Layla and that, you should have all bases covered, no?
 
If I were you....the simplest and cheapest way to go in my opinion, would be to get some sort of mixing console. You can send your outs to channels and re-amp if need be, you can have dedicated channels for bass, guitar and vox that you never mess with once you get them dialed in, and here's the good thing....you just about never worry about latency again because you'll be playing in real time and won't have to use direct input monitoring unless you are recording in real time with a VSTi.
 
Second choice would be the ART because it seems to do everything you need all in one box. I like the mixer option because in some instances, believe it or not I'm lazy. From the time I started doing this stuff, I have always had dedicated channels for each instrument. This way, once I dialed something in, I left it alone and it was there for me instantly. I also liked it due to it removing latency from my world just about completely. Not that we have to worry much about that any way with the way our pc's can process, it's nice to leave my audio buffers at 2048 and never touch them unless I have to record a synth/drum program in real time.
 
Great to see you also.....hope some of this stuff helps. :)
 
-Danny

Thanks for checking that out, Danny... and yes my Scarlett does indeed do that stuff and rather well BUT I feel it's not as good a signal as I could get from my guitar, bass and mics.
 
I recently discovered that I can get much more "oomph" (to use the technical term... lulz) from my guits by putting my old MXR gain pedal in between it and my solid state amps and/or the interface (before it hits the sims).
 
That got me thinking about pres and how I do not have a single tube in my set up.
 
So I figure highly flexible input boost to drive whatever I need + outboard compressor/limiter (of which I have NONE and it shows on my waves and is a biznotch to tame once it's in the DAW... especially for bass) + maybe a bit of tube flavor... well for $120 (which is a lot for me but in the real world a pittance) it could be what I'm needing.
 
The other thing is I do have my old American Mackie console (before they released the Onyx pres but I still really like the sound of it). Hooking my guit or bass right up to it is an absolute no go though. There is no high-z. So another thing I'm hoping to do is use the ART to plug into the Mackie (and get access to the sweet pres or at least the very nice EQ section and the slick arse routing) and use that as a super nice "dry" signal to mangle in the box.
 
Of course having something for my mics will be nice as well (might make some of my crudmuffin mics more useful).
 
It apparently does reamping stuff too which is another thing I needed.
 
I guess you can see where I'm going with this (I've already pretty much made up my mind... lol) but it's nice to hear you not completely go "ZOMG NONONNONONONONONO!!!111".
 
;-)
 
And I gotta say... you may remember about two years ago I was bugging you about my input set up. Well I have indeed explored all my options with the gear I have and I certainly came up with some cool stuff BUT...
 
I am doing this a bit out of laziness as well. I know the amps I have and the crazy routing I have all set up can get some really nice results and I certainly intend to play around with all that more but really... I'm a bloody cripple and I'm so wound up in this that or the other that I would rather just plug straight in and tweak in the box. I am getting VERY good at this (not to toot my horn but I have been studying like crazy). The Focusrite is great. THe hi Z in is awesome... BUT it could be better and I think just that simple input drive/compression might do it.
 
It would also save me from having to compress/limit/volume automate the dry signals IN the computer before they hit the real effects... which is obviously not ideal and frankly starting to tick me off a bit.
 
Of course I could be completely wrong and out of my mind which is why I keep harassing you and the other fine folks here for advice on such things.
 
Considering batsbrew is the fellow who pointed me to those ART devices (and he strikes me as an extremely hardcore outboard gear dude based on his posts) I figure it must be able to help with my input at least a little.
 
Even if it just gets relegated to controlling some of the voice over stuff I intend to do then I guess it ain't a waste of money but I would REALLY  like it to do something useful on my bass and guitar input... especially now that I'm working on sessions.
 
Meh... thanks, dood.

There is some awesome info in this thread. I find there is an overload of info nowadays and it can be really distracting. I've decided to narrow down my resources to a handful, less than 10, covering composition, orchestration, mixing, mastering, sound design and PD/Max programming and I stick to them for better or worse. These are resources I really trust and I try my best to shut out the extraneous noise, even if there is awesome info elsewhere, at least for the time being. Nothing can get done without some focus and the barrage of info that is the internet can be really be the death of that.

Beepster
Thanks for checking that out, Danny... and yes my Scarlett does indeed do that stuff and rather well BUT I feel it's not as good a signal as I could get from my guitar, bass and mics.
 
I recently discovered that I can get much more "oomph" (to use the technical term... lulz) from my guits by putting my old MXR gain pedal in between it and my solid state amps and/or the interface (before it hits the sims).
 
That got me thinking about pres and how I do not have a single tube in my set up.
 
So I figure highly flexible input boost to drive whatever I need + outboard compressor/limiter (of which I have NONE and it shows on my waves and is a biznotch to tame once it's in the DAW... especially for bass) + maybe a bit of tube flavor... well for $120 (which is a lot for me but in the real world a pittance) it could be what I'm needing.
 
The other thing is I do have my old American Mackie console (before they released the Onyx pres but I still really like the sound of it). Hooking my guit or bass right up to it is an absolute no go though. There is no high-z. So another thing I'm hoping to do is use the ART to plug into the Mackie (and get access to the sweet pres or at least the very nice EQ section and the slick arse routing) and use that as a super nice "dry" signal to mangle in the box.
 
Of course having something for my mics will be nice as well (might make some of my crudmuffin mics more useful).
 
It apparently does reamping stuff too which is another thing I needed.
 
I guess you can see where I'm going with this (I've already pretty much made up my mind... lol) but it's nice to hear you not completely go "ZOMG NONONNONONONONONO!!!111".
 
;-)
 
And I gotta say... you may remember about two years ago I was bugging you about my input set up. Well I have indeed explored all my options with the gear I have and I certainly came up with some cool stuff BUT...
 
I am doing this a bit out of laziness as well. I know the amps I have and the crazy routing I have all set up can get some really nice results and I certainly intend to play around with all that more but really... I'm a bloody cripple and I'm so wound up in this that or the other that I would rather just plug straight in and tweak in the box. I am getting VERY good at this (not to toot my horn but I have been studying like crazy). The Focusrite is great. THe hi Z in is awesome... BUT it could be better and I think just that simple input drive/compression might do it.
 
It would also save me from having to compress/limit/volume automate the dry signals IN the computer before they hit the real effects... which is obviously not ideal and frankly starting to tick me off a bit.
 
Of course I could be completely wrong and out of my mind which is why I keep harassing you and the other fine folks here for advice on such things.
 
Considering batsbrew is the fellow who pointed me to those ART devices (and he strikes me as an extremely hardcore outboard gear dude based on his posts) I figure it must be able to help with my input at least a little.
 
Even if it just gets relegated to controlling some of the voice over stuff I intend to do then I guess it ain't a waste of money but I would REALLY  like it to do something useful on my bass and guitar input... especially now that I'm working on sessions.
 
Meh... thanks, dood.

Sometimes the coolest sounds come from loads of experimenting and chaining things together. The down side of that is, it can really suck up a lot of time. The more I get into this stuff, the more I seem to simplify. I got good results with my old methods but now I'm getting what I like to consider great results with the stuff I'm using now. Just whatever you do, try your best to only spend money when you have to. Like in my opinion, with what you have right now, I don't know if that pre is going to make life much easier. You have stuff that can do what that thing does really. It may give you a few more options...but are those options really better? Is it worth $140 to find out to you? This is what you have to ask yourself.
 
As far as amps go, if they sound good on their own when you have the speaker right at your ears, they should sound good recorded without doing a lot of signal stuff. For example, I had an old Sunn amp that was just loud and sounded horrible. Nothing would make that sound good on a recording....not even Steve Vai. LOL! If your amps really sound good, a mic and a light compressor is all you need. If you want to re-amp, just get a cheap DI box that allows you to send a clean, un-effected signal at the same time as your dirty signal.
 
This way you capture the signal and can send it to your plugs. I think the more stuff you are attempting to chain, the more of a headache you are giving yourself. That's just me though. I've seen guys chain loads of stuff together and get cool sounds and I've watched them fail miserable too. Right now, the less tweaking you do, the better in my opinion. Concentrate on using what you have and getting some good stuff going on. Between Guitar rig 5, the thing that comes in Sonar and some of the other plugs out there, guitar should be the least of anyone's worries right now.
 
Bass sounds....just get a bass POD or that Ampeg SVX thing from IK. I've had such great results using both of those, it's crazy. As for mic'ing guitar cabs....I've had such good luck with my self made speaker IR's and modeling of my own stuff, I can't tell between me mic'ing a cab or using my direct sound these days. It's that scary. Just don't over-think this beeps....a little compressor and a device that gets you to -6dB are the necessities in my opinion. Do what you feel is best though brother. Experimenting can create some really interesting situations. :)
 
-Danny