Starting to regress...

[Brian]

OK, I'll fess up to the "other goodies" being the clock from my smpte machine. I hought the clock of the masterlink dounds pretty good and IF I could use it to run the HD24 it would sound even better, but, it sounds fine without once it's warmed up for a half hour.(dimensional stability and thermal stability of the clock crystal)

[kayagum]

IF I could use it to run the HD24 it would sound even better, but, it sounds fine without once it's warmed up for a half hour.(dimensional stability and thermal stability of the clock crystal)

Prove this. I think this is complete audiophile BS. Silicon does not need to warm up.

[RefD]

IF I could use it to run the HD24 it would sound even better, but, it sounds fine without once it's warmed up for a half hour.(dimensional stability and thermal stability of the clock crystal)

Prove this. I think this is complete audiophile BS. Silicon does not need to warm up.

clock crystals are and always have been a quartz crystal wafer, not silicon.

and they do improve after getting to a stable temperature.

so, not BS.

[kayagum]

I stand corrected on the clock being crystal instead of silicon....

... but c'mon, I would love someone to prove to me that people will notice audio differences based on "cold" clocking crystals.

[Brian]

Test it for yourself. Turn on a cold HD24 and cut a track with Drums bass and gtr live and then turn it off, let it cool all the way, then turn it back on and try to mix it.
Then the next day, turn it on, wait till it's good and warmed up like an hour or two, repeat the process.
To me, cold stuff sounds klunkier and it smooths out when it's warm.
I think we solved this argument about two years ago. utfsf.
I believe someone even did a measurement on cold clocks and warm clocks.
Makes sense too, if your soundwave changes a good bit due to temp, humidity, pressure, then it seems to make a little sense that if a clock's precision has to do with the size and shape of the crystal staying constant that temp would affect, especially if it varies by over ten to thirty degrees.

[kayagum]

(a) Wouldn't the crystal in the HD24 be kept "warm" in standby mode (i.e. HD24 plugged in, but not operationally "on")?

(b) Could it be the rest of your gear (preamps, interfaces, outboard, etc.) that needs to be warmed up? If you did the "cold" vs. "hot" HD24 experiment with consistently "cold" or "hot" signal chain gear, then you may have something. I'm betting it was the rest of your gear that needed to be warmed up.

(c) Doing some quick googling, the error rates for "cold" crystal clocks varied from 1x10-6 tp 1x10-9 (one millionth to one billionth). At 96kHz, that's less than 1/10 to 1/10000 per sample. Now, maybe there's some improvement here, but that gets into the clocking discussion that's probably beyond 90% of this board. Joel will argue his new clocking does make a difference, and other people with expensive clocks will argue the same, and they're probably right. But I would probably rank that way behind everything else in the signal chain (mic placement, acoustics, mic, preamp, outboard, probably in that order). Joel et al have everything else covered, and they are in a position to take this on. But most of us small studio / hobby studio types won't be able to make a meaningful difference, especially for the $.

[kayagum]

PS: Nothing came up in the search engines on this subject. If you can tell me what to search on, or link me to those topics, I'll happily read the postings.

PPS: Hopefully we're all taking this as a lively debate, not mudslinging

[Brian]

Well, the analogue end does need warming up, but, sort of that's implied that that is already done and, now, I realize that it isn't goosd to assume people know that,,,ooops.
Yeah, warm up your analogue end for a day first. I did. I leave my analogue stuff on.
As far as the crystal being kept warm in standby mode, wouldn't that have been a great idea to include in standby mode?
I bet it isn't one of the things standby does, BUT, I'm not ruling it out. I'm talking about from a dead turn on, not from a standby.
My expartner used to keep the studio pretty cold in winter and pretty hot in summer when no one was there when we first started up, so, we had to wait for thermal stability.
Also, I used 48khz at 24bit, I don't go higher because of diminishing return.
What I noticed was, the HD24 sounded musical yet a little klunky in the mids, you could hear errors, lots of them, once it warmed up, they were gone.
Is it my imagination? Can we trust their published stats? Are they publishingbtheir stats on a warm machine?
I don't know, but, for 15 minutes time, I can wait.
Where to look, I don't know it's been years since that thread was up, like 2005 or earlier.

[JGriffin]

I seem to be finding myself in this conversation a lot these days. You should just work on the song however you see fit. Would someone be a better painter because they threw away all but 4 of their colors of paint? If they have 300 different colors, do they ALL have to be on the canvas?

Why not just take a simpler approach to the mix? keep in mind that I fully hear you, and I mix on a console.

If you are fully convinced you need limitations imposed on you, then for sure you should just get a small mixer, and some sort of small tape machine. maybe you really should get an ADAT !! all the hassle of tape with NONE of the benefits! awesome!

Or, if using (for example) ProTools, one could create a template session with only eight tracks, and discipline oneself to never create a new track while working on music. Most DAW abuse comes from lack of discipline, not from bad DAW design.

[Brian]

I seem to be finding myself in this conversation a lot these days. You should just work on the song however you see fit. Would someone be a better painter because they threw away all but 4 of their colors of paint? If they have 300 different colors, do they ALL have to be on the canvas?

Why not just take a simpler approach to the mix? keep in mind that I fully hear you, and I mix on a console.

If you are fully convinced you need limitations imposed on you, then for sure you should just get a small mixer, and some sort of small tape machine. maybe you really should get an ADAT !! all the hassle of tape with NONE of the benefits! awesome!

Or, if using (for example) ProTools, one could create a template session with only eight tracks, and discipline oneself to never create a new track while working on music. Most DAW abuse comes from lack of discipline, not from bad DAW design.

:ar15:

[kayagum]

My expartner used to keep the studio pretty cold in winter and pretty hot in summer when no one was there when we first started up, so, we had to wait for thermal stability.

OK, maybe that would/could introduce an extra factor. I was assuming that the room temp was relatively stable.

[Brian]

I wished.

[RefD]

I seem to be finding myself in this conversation a lot these days. You should just work on the song however you see fit. Would someone be a better painter because they threw away all but 4 of their colors of paint? If they have 300 different colors, do they ALL have to be on the canvas?

Why not just take a simpler approach to the mix? keep in mind that I fully hear you, and I mix on a console.

If you are fully convinced you need limitations imposed on you, then for sure you should just get a small mixer, and some sort of small tape machine. maybe you really should get an ADAT !! all the hassle of tape with NONE of the benefits! awesome!

Or, if using (for example) ProTools, one could create a template session with only eight tracks, and discipline oneself to never create a new track while working on music. Most DAW abuse comes from lack of discipline, not from bad DAW design.

i don't let myself go over 16 tracks cos i know if i let myself go further i'll end up with a nightmare.

[b3groover]

Three things that help me when I'm working on a mix:

1) Turn it down. Way down. That way anything that is out of place sticks out like a sore thumb or is totally buried in the mix.

2) Close my eyes. Sometimes it helps to not have another source of stimulus distracting attention away from the task at hand.

3) Split time between monitors and headphones.

[RefD]

2) Close my eyes. Sometimes it helps to not have another source of stimulus distracting attention away from the task at hand.

for this very reason i have a tablet back on a masking tape hinge that i can flip over the display as-needed.

it can help ALOT.