NOTE: the original recording was a bit over an hour. I edited it down to improve conversion flow, given a bit of connection latency, and i also removed a few bits of the conversation that were less juicy, due to my lack of interviewing skills and not because of bob. Originally I had planned to just release a single video of 20 minutes but bob said too much great stuff, it was impossible to edit out so much
Bob is one of my favorite mastering engineers to work with. I've learned so much from his posts in the old forums and the interviews like this one. Thanks for putting this together!
Always good to hear from someone with such a great history in the field really makes one appreciate all the amazing electronics and daw's there are these days
@APMastering a mentor once told me anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. I can't wait to see you evolve bro. For what it's worth, you got my support. It's gonna be great. Maybe one thing I could suggest, instead of just reacting to what theyre saying. Do deep research on the person then hit questions we'd all find interesting.... you worked with Aretha franklin. Team me about the piano she played on natural woman.. Stuff like that. That way you lead the interview powerfully rather than following their lead. :)
@@personalwatching9312 i did have a buch of questions and research but it's really difficult for me to navigate the conversation and listen at the same time. that's the problem.
What a treat for us to hear him speak, he is the original history of recording !! love his posts on gearspace. Now to clarify the 96k to mp3 is he doing a direct convert from that? What did you find in your testing?
This is great, especially Bob’s story about the masculinisation of the broadcast industry, that was fascinating, but it’s always frustrating for me to hear the discussion on sample rates come up. Bob’s ears don’t lie. Hardware and software engineers with a good understanding of AD/DA conversion and DSP understand well when and why higher rates make a noticable difference, it’s not mysterious at all. It’s not so much converter decimation and reconstruction filters either. If you’re running any non linear time variant DSP like compression effects without adequate oversampling, or you have EQs and filters affecting high frequencies, with inadequately complex filter kernels, ie you are doing typical mixing in a typical DAW, and also for other reasons relating to arithmetic and resolution, then there is a very noticeable difference. If you’re a mastering engineer and someone hands you a mix they did in Ableton Live at 44.1k with a bunch of ordinary plugins, you really know the difference. 44.1 isn’t categorically adequate but it makes sense for distribution, and 96 isn’t always necessary but it’s almost always better sounding. That being said nothing’s perfect, and it probably won’t be long til people are recording on old pro tools rigs for ‘that early 2000s sound’
lol, vintage 44.1k. Theoretically 44.1 is sufficient. I think the conversation is to be had with filters, like you point out. Now I'm very much "in the world of DSP", now pretty much full time coding plugins as a second job, I can appreciate even more how stuff going on above nyquist can turn up not just inside of the audible range, but very far in side of it. That said, I don't think aliasing is as noticeable or horrible as people make out.... it's noticeable and horrible but just not to the extent that people make out.
Regarding tubes, they do have a sound of there own, a fuller mid bass, a lush midrange and a smooth, high frequency, plus headroom . Rupert Neve designed all his solid state gear with a lot of headroom compared to other cells day designs. I’ll give it that Sound, which is closer to tubes.
these things only happen which you drive the gear and at that point you have less headroom. i think the secret is that the distortion that tubes make is nicer so it seems as if you have more headroom because pushing it a bit doesn't matter
OK So I have something to say about the whole “click track /no click track” thing And why it’s so important Beyond the whole mojo thing… bringing it back to the realms of reality Hear me out: Rhythm is actually very low musical note I know it sounds weird if you never thought of it that way But an eighth beat at so-and-so BPM and a 16th are two musical notes an octave apart That’s why we like to hear them simultaneously They are harmonically related In the same way These are actual notes Relating to the rest of the harmony/Melody going on with the Rest of the music It serves as some kind of fundamental And it should be somehow related to the musical scale And so when we allow musicians to dictate the rhythm naturally -they tend to choose a “right” rhythm that actually relates harmonically to the rest of the music I don’t think this part of musical theory is sufficiently studied and understood so it is very hard to find What are the “objective“ musical rules to get it right But we do have the intuitive know how to get it right By winging it On the other hand dictating the rhythm to a hard click track avoids that possibility and that’s why it doesn’t feel as good That’s what I think about it anyway
I’m with you in that I dislike the click track feel, and the process on stage and in the studio sucks, but I also love circa 1980 Kraftwerk and a lot of late 70s commercial disco that was done to click tracks or was itself a click track, Soul Sonic Force, Egyptian Lover... So to be fair every different process yields a different result, sometimes you like it, sometimes you don’t. There’s no wrong out right. That being said, F click tracks
I think we can say F click tracks to natural human music like Motown but in non-natural non-human, machine music like electronic / synthesiser music, whether that is modern or 80s, completely requires this feel as a huge aesthetic component. I've made electronic music without a grid before and it sounds kind of lame and doesnt mix when a DJ wants to mix it in a set.
NOTE: the original recording was a bit over an hour. I edited it down to improve conversion flow, given a bit of connection latency, and i also removed a few bits of the conversation that were less juicy, due to my lack of interviewing skills and not because of bob. Originally I had planned to just release a single video of 20 minutes but bob said too much great stuff, it was impossible to edit out so much
Bob is the king! Working with him for 22 years has been the greatest gift in my professional life.
Thanks man! That takes a lot of tedious work, so it's much appreciated.
This guy simultaneously has “wholesome grandpa” vibes and “hardened war veteran” vibes. Makes him sound twice as wise.
ha ha
Bob is one of my favorite mastering engineers to work with. I've learned so much from his posts in the old forums and the interviews like this one. Thanks for putting this together!
was my pleasure
Always good to hear from someone with such a great history in the field really makes one appreciate all the amazing electronics and daw's there are these days
Bob is one of those names you see on every forum going all the way back. he's a living library
Thanks for your groundbreaking no nonsens work. Looking forward to your analysis of analog vs digital summing!
Oh sweet there is almost an hour of this. heck yeah
I'm here for it!
Great interview, he seems like a great guy and I love his attitude towards quantizing/click track etc. Good job.
Excellent interview guys
Thanks again, Alain! 🫶🫶🫶
Dig deeper on the questions man. But only episode two and I'm excited to watch your development. My best wishes!
yeah i've never been good at interviews or live tbh. i know what i'm good at and what i'm bad at and interview fall into the latter category
@APMastering a mentor once told me anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first. I can't wait to see you evolve bro. For what it's worth, you got my support. It's gonna be great.
Maybe one thing I could suggest, instead of just reacting to what theyre saying. Do deep research on the person then hit questions we'd all find interesting.... you worked with Aretha franklin. Team me about the piano she played on natural woman..
Stuff like that. That way you lead the interview powerfully rather than following their lead. :)
@@personalwatching9312 i did have a buch of questions and research but it's really difficult for me to navigate the conversation and listen at the same time. that's the problem.
@@APMastering ahh gotcha. A developed skill. Well done working towards it.
@@personalwatching9312 yeah good interviewers and radio hosts have a massive talent. it's really hard for people without that talent
40:15 TDR Ultrasonic 👑
❤
What a treat for us to hear him speak, he is the original history of recording !! love his posts on gearspace. Now to clarify the 96k to mp3 is he doing a direct convert from that? What did you find in your testing?
yeah was great having him on!
I haven't had time to do the tests yet but I will do them at some point!
Awesome. Do you release the full episode somewhere? I would instantly subscribe on spotify or Apple Podcasts!!
yeah it's already up here, it will be on spotify too soon, the first episode is already up
@@APMastering horray!
This is great, especially Bob’s story about the masculinisation of the broadcast industry, that was fascinating, but it’s always frustrating for me to hear the discussion on sample rates come up. Bob’s ears don’t lie. Hardware and software engineers with a good understanding of AD/DA conversion and DSP understand well when and why higher rates make a noticable difference, it’s not mysterious at all. It’s not so much converter decimation and reconstruction filters either. If you’re running any non linear time variant DSP like compression effects without adequate oversampling, or you have EQs and filters affecting high frequencies, with inadequately complex filter kernels, ie you are doing typical mixing in a typical DAW, and also for other reasons relating to arithmetic and resolution, then there is a very noticeable difference. If you’re a mastering engineer and someone hands you a mix they did in Ableton Live at 44.1k with a bunch of ordinary plugins, you really know the difference. 44.1 isn’t categorically adequate but it makes sense for distribution, and 96 isn’t always necessary but it’s almost always better sounding. That being said nothing’s perfect, and it probably won’t be long til people are recording on old pro tools rigs for ‘that early 2000s sound’
lol, vintage 44.1k.
Theoretically 44.1 is sufficient. I think the conversation is to be had with filters, like you point out. Now I'm very much "in the world of DSP", now pretty much full time coding plugins as a second job, I can appreciate even more how stuff going on above nyquist can turn up not just inside of the audible range, but very far in side of it. That said, I don't think aliasing is as noticeable or horrible as people make out.... it's noticeable and horrible but just not to the extent that people make out.
Regarding tubes, they do have a sound of there own, a fuller mid bass, a lush midrange and a smooth, high frequency, plus headroom . Rupert Neve designed all his solid state gear with a lot of headroom compared to other cells day designs. I’ll give it that Sound, which is closer to tubes.
these things only happen which you drive the gear and at that point you have less headroom. i think the secret is that the distortion that tubes make is nicer so it seems as if you have more headroom because pushing it a bit doesn't matter
OK
So I have something to say about the whole “click track /no click track” thing
And why it’s so important
Beyond the whole mojo thing… bringing it back to the realms of reality
Hear me out:
Rhythm is actually very low musical note
I know it sounds weird if you never thought of it that way
But an eighth beat at so-and-so BPM and a 16th are two musical notes an octave apart
That’s why we like to hear them simultaneously
They are harmonically related
In the same way
These are actual notes
Relating to the rest of the harmony/Melody going on with the Rest of the music
It serves as some kind of fundamental
And it should be somehow related to the musical scale
And so when we allow musicians to dictate the rhythm naturally -they tend to choose a “right” rhythm that actually relates harmonically to the rest of the music
I don’t think this part of musical theory is sufficiently studied and understood so it is very hard to find What are the “objective“ musical rules to get it right
But we do have the intuitive know how to get it right By winging it
On the other hand dictating the rhythm to a hard click track avoids that possibility and that’s why it doesn’t feel as good
That’s what I think about it anyway
I’m with you in that I dislike the click track feel, and the process on stage and in the studio sucks, but I also love circa 1980 Kraftwerk and a lot of late 70s commercial disco that was done to click tracks or was itself a click track, Soul Sonic Force, Egyptian Lover... So to be fair every different process yields a different result, sometimes you like it, sometimes you don’t. There’s no wrong out right. That being said, F click tracks
I think we can say F click tracks to natural human music like Motown but in non-natural non-human, machine music like electronic / synthesiser music, whether that is modern or 80s, completely requires this feel as a huge aesthetic component. I've made electronic music without a grid before and it sounds kind of lame and doesnt mix when a DJ wants to mix it in a set.