Simple recording setup

[Tannin]

I want to record some hard drives.

Maybe some of you guys are too young to remember what hard drives used to sound like, but in the old days you could tell the exact make and model of a hard drive from across the room without opening the box. Hell, when Louise (the first of my various beautiful female assistants) originally came to work with me back in 1992, she could tell a Miniscribe 3650 from an S-251 without looking before the end of her first week. It was that easy.

Anyway, having taken pictures of many of them, I want to add sound bytes. Not for all of them, just the really distinctive ones so that people can click on a symbol and hear the wonderful miscelleny of sounds that hard drives used to make. I don't think I've ever recorded anything on a PC, nor plugged a microphone into one.

What I want to know is:

(a) What is the best format to put them up with? WAV? MP3? Something else? (No, no, no, no, no! NOT RealPlayer!) I prefer that it have decent sound quality and be reasonably space-efficient, and it must be cross-platform: i.e., be immediately accessible to people running Windows, Mac, OS/2, Linux, and anything else that is likely to be used for surfing. The recordings should be 5 to 15 seconds long, not much more than that, and I should imagine I'd end up with maybe 20 of them all up.

(b) What hardware do I need?

I have an Athlon running Win 2000 with a Sound Blaster Vibra 128 in it, and figure that should be ample unto the task. If need be, it's a simple matter to nick a SB Live DE 5.1 from the office, but then I have to buggerise about trying to make the poxy thing work, so only if it's needed or will give better results.

I used to have a pair of stage/studio quality low-impedence microphones: a Shure SM57 and an Audio Technica. I'm not sure where they are now (who did I lend the Shure to?) and may or may not be able to find one or the other of them. (Stupid me - the Audio Technica was maybe $250, the Shure more than double that.)

But I'm not sure if they are the right sort of microphone to use with a sound card anyway.

(c) Software. Is the stuff that comes with a Sound Blaster good enough? Or should I get something else?

I don't particularly want to spend any money on this project, but will if I have to.

Thanks guys

Tony

[Buck]

Tony,

I don't have any experience recording through a microphone. Most of the work I've done is recording from either a cassette tape or compact disc. When recording, I've been succcessful with older PCI & ISA cards and their accompanying software. My favorite setup (because it is so easy, and because the software is so simple (but the software's capability is full in scope)) is a Pentium 166 with an OPTi sound card. The accompanying Voyetra software, running under Windows95, does a great job of not only recording at different bit rates, but also has great edit capabilities. This setup may sound ancient, but it is cheap, easy to use, and records in the universally accepted WAV format. However, WAV files tend to get rather large, so I've acquired AudioCatalyst to convert these files intow MP3 format when necessary.

BR

[Sol]

The Vibra should work fine- In fact I don't think any other card would even pretend to do a better job short of a professional editing card.

MP3 would be the best format I think as it is small and pretty much anyone can listen to it. For htis sort of thing I'd be inclined to use a pretty high bit rate maybe 192kb/s. They'll be tiny anyway and your trying to show people the differneces so its not much use if the quality is distict enough.

Those mics should work fine provided you can actually hook them up to your pc. Half decent converters (from the big plug to the little plug if thats not too technical) would probably set you back nearly as much as a crappy little PC mic, besides which there is probably a resonable mic in any boxed SBLive or Audigy card so you might already have one.

The sound recorder that comes with sound blasters should be fine I would think, but somthing like soundforge would be a little nicer to work with for editing purposes ie. trimming your bytes down.

[Mercutio]

MP3 is a bad choice. It's a compressed, lossy format, after all. I can hear the difference between MP3 and CD Audio with only slight problem.

The other problem that's presented is volume gain. You really need to record every drive at a quantitative, reproducable volume level, with a quality mic and in the same acoustic environment. Good luck with that.

After playing with a $30 radio shack mic early this year, I found a nice, used condenser (musicians are mostly poor people, after all) for $100. Much better sound quality. Not studio by any stretch, but way, way better than what I had before.

[CougTek]

MP3 is a bad choice. It's a compressed, lossy format, after all. I can hear the difference between MP3 and CD Audio with only slight problem.
It all depends on the method used. I would be very surprise if you could make the difference between Lame-encoded mp3 at 256Kbps (even 192Kbps is above most people ear sensibility) and original .wav. Experts hardly can't.

If you use Frauwhatever (I alway forget the name), that's another thing because its frequency range is much more limited.

A visit to http://www.r3mix.net/ should enlighten some spirits about mp3 audio encoding. Especially the Quality section.

[Mercutio]

Well, since the goal is fidelity to what are admittedly just a bunch of semirandom "white noise" elements, I still can't put my back behind MP3.

As an example, given a real image of static such as that on a TV screen, if you wanted something true to life, could you really trust that JPEG could deliver it? Even at super-high quality settings, there's gong to be some loss in data, and pixel 356 in row 142 might not exactly be what it was in the real image but instead an amalgam of the eight pixels surrounding it. Yes, you'd have a picture of some static. But would it be true to life?

If we're talking about fidelity, we need to talk about something other than MP3.

PCM audio files do zip up rather nicely... and high-bitrate MP3 isn't that much of an improvement over that.

[adriel]

Consumer soundcards such as the ones you've mentioned cannot amp a microphone enough. You need a microphone preamplifier. You can then run the output from the mic preamp to the line-in of the soundcard.

The Creative cards up to and including the Live aren't very quiet. They have a rather loud background noise level compared to other soundcards.

Did you get any of those hard drive mp3s I posted on the old SR forum? What did you think about the sound quality of those?

[timwhit]

I think hard drive noise will work just fine with MP3. You are going to introduce more noise from the Mic than you ever will with 256 MP3.

[NRG = mc²]

With a Creative card and a (relatively) cheap mic there shouldn't be any noticeable difference in quality of the sound of a hard drive even at low bitrates (128)

Just do the capture to wav and send it over to me - I have some nice Mission 733 speakers and Sennheiser HD25SP headphones which I can use to encode MP3s at various bitrates and see if I can tell any difference. I doubt anyone will be listening to noises of hard drives through equipment better than this :P

[adriel]

...I have some nice Mission 733 speakers and Sennheiser HD25SP headphones which I can use to encode MP3s at various bitrates and see if I can tell any difference. I doubt anyone will be listening to noises of hard drives through equipment better than this.

Please, your Mission 733 floorstander and Sennheiser HD25SP hardly provides any reason to be snobbish about it. I've got midfi equipment too you know. Anyway, I'm interested in this kind of stuff. What other stuff to you have?

"Better" is too broad a term to use categorically when it comes to audio equipment, unless you narrow it down and talk about what qualities specifically.


NAD 312 integrated amplifier, Axiom Millennia M2ti speakers, Pure Silver Sound Integre' jumper cables, Luminous Audio Synchestra interconnects, MC Z1 speaker cables, Sony CE775 SACD player. Also, an M Audio Audiophile 24/96 and a Creative SB Live Value--but those soundcards are lifeless and flat and lacking bass compared to the CE775 which I use for most music now.

http://www.pcez.com/~adriel/adriel-desk.jpg

[Mercutio]

I have tons of expensive consumer-grade stuff. If anyone cares. :)

Now we need is Stereodude and we can have an audio pissing contest.
Which might also be a fun thing to record.

:)

[adriel]

Stereodude has a multichannel home theater type of sound setup for his computer last time I read. I'm strictly stereo. We have different preferences, but that is no reason to get "pissy" about things.

[Mercutio]

Adriel, have you done a listening test between DVD-A and SACD?

[Handruin]

Here is my PC audio setup:

http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/multimedia/swdigital_blk.htm

For what it cost me, I think it sounds darn good!

[CougTek]

I currently only have my computer's speakers as audio system, but since I don't listen much music, it's quite enough. It's the Altec Lansing ACS-56 (http://www.3dsoundsurge.com/reviews/ACS56/ACS56.html). It was good for the price back when I got it.

[Mercutio]

Audiophiles usually love to talk about why their electrically-isolated, vibration controlled, no-digital-components stereo systems are superior to one another. Peons using anything so simple as an SPDIF are clueless at best.

It's a bit like winesnobbery or us talking about the noises hard disks make, only more expensive.

Hearing audiophiles go at it is nearly as much fun as watching Sivar and cas in a Windows/Unix debate on SR. :)

Although I still think MP3 is a lousy (lossy?) idea for recording hard disks.

[CougTek]

Me, a peon? :-?


Hearing audiophiles go at it is nearly as much fun as watching Sivar and cas in a Windows/Unix debate on SR. :)
Do you, by any chance, have a link to such debate? I haven't been much on SR these last few days.

[adriel]

Handruin, I used to have those speakers. Soundworks Digital 2.1. The digital input on mine stopped working though.


...have you done a listening test between DVD-A and SACD?

Nope.

[adriel]

Yes, I still remember. Back when I played CS on the SR server I used the Soundworks Digital 2.1. And I still remember how you came around the corner in Italy and shot me in the head with a Desert Eagle handgun. And I asked after that, "How did you manage?"

[timwhit]

My pride and joy are my NHT 2.5i tower speakers. In my opinion these have to be the best towers that you can buy under $1000. I listened to a lot of speakers when I bought these and most $2000 speakers couldn't compare. They are quite bright, but I like that. Some people might not though.

I would continue to buy more audio gear if I could, but I keep running out of money for some reason. I really want to get a Sunfire amp and a new center channel, but it all costs too much damn money.

[timwhit]

I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones which are pretty nice. Beat those HD25SP anyways.

I love hearing debates about audio cable. Well your optical SPDIF connection is crappy because the timing can't be correct. Well I use coax so that has to sound better. I doubt it matters on my crappy integrated Sony receiver anyways.

Heres a link to my speakers and headphones:

http://www.sennheiser.com/sennheiser/icm_eng.nsf/(Allinfo)/4195eng?OpenDocument

NHT no longer makes these and their website sucks so they don't have a page on them anymore but here is a review with the picture.

http://www.smr-home-theatre.org/Reviews/NHT/

[Tannin]

Buck said ...
Sol said ...
Mercutio said ...
Cougtek said ...
Adriel saide ...
Timwhit said ...
Energy said ...
Handruin said ...

And this was a simple question?

[adriel]

I love hearing debates about audio cable. Well your optical SPDIF connection is crappy because the timing can't be correct. Well I use coax so that has to sound better.

The implementation of the coax or optical is what counts, not whether one or the other is inherently superior. Jitter can be measured--this is the realm of objective science and engineering, not audio esoterica. Sometimes the optical output provides lower jitter than the coax, and sometimes the coax provides lower jitter. It all depends on the design.

RME Digi96/8 Pro soundcard jitter measurements, optical versus coax:

http://www.stereophile.com/showarchives.cgi?299:5

Do a search for "Measurement surprises" and be surprised by digital cable directionality over here:

http://www.stereophile.com/printarchives.cgi?368

[adriel]

Tannin, we're jacking your thread so that we can talk about computer audio instead rather than whatever your original question was...

Okay okay, if you have one of those plastic computer microphones they will work with a soundcard since they are designed for them. But if you want to use a quality microphone you will need a mic preamp.

If I were to listen to a recording of a hard drive right now that was recorded through a cheap plastic computer microphone it would sound ok. But if I had two recordings of the same hard drive, one recorded through a cheap plastic computer microphone and the other recorded through a higher quality microphone and preamp, one would sound better than the other in side-by-side comparison. So it depends on how stringent you want to be on sound quality. Only you can decide that for yourself.

[Tea]

Hmmmm.... Getting too complicated for poor old Tannin. I can see that I better take a hand myself.

Here is the plan:


(1) Ask Robert if he has still got my Shure

(2) Institute a search for the Audio Technica. It sat on the shelf under the TV for some years. Maybe it's still there.

(3a) If successful with (1) or (2), look into a pre-amp.

(3b) If not successful, there is a mic that came with a SB Live DE 5.1 at the office somewhere. In fact, I think it might have been Sol's, before he traded it in on an Audigy. No doubt I forgot to give it to the subsequent purchaser. I'll see how that goes.

(4) Connect that to my SB Vibra 128, record two or three sample drives. Guess I'll need to find an old PSU and remove the fan from it so that there is no background noise to speak of. Well, there will be the X15 and XP1800 fan, but they can be a reasonable distace away from the mic. I don't have to worry about overheating the old PSU, as I only need it to be on for 30 seconds at a time.

(5) Save as a plain vanilla WAV file* and post the result here.

(6) Await feedback from the experts.

(7) Depending on expert feedback re acceptable sound quality, go back to step (1) only look harder.

* WAV format. Is a WAV file the audio equivalent of a BMP? i.e., zero compression, zero loss, but huge file size? If so, then it's good to record in, but should be replaced by something more efficient - MP3 I assume - before posting the final result, yes?

One other thing: old drives are loud - when you start up an ST-412, you don't notice the background noise.

One other other thing: No Adriel, I didn't get the recordings you made on the old SR. I remember seeing them and thinking they sounded interesting but never got around to listening to them. I think it was during my self-imposed SR-free month. Hell, I only just downloaded my first ever MP3 player last week! It's on my hard drive somewhere.

[Pradeep]

* WAV format. Is a WAV file the audio equivalent of a BMP? i.e., zero compression, zero loss, but huge file size? If so, then it's good to record in, but should be replaced by something more efficient - MP3 I assume - before posting the final result, yes?


Yes. Just like a .bmp. But it file size can be nearly halved by using a lossless codec such as MonkeyAudio. Of course, what with SR.com still posting insanely large 200KB+ pictures of the HD reviewed, why not just go for the big lardy stuff ;)

[Pradeep]

I also have a pair of Sennheiser HD580 headphones which are pretty nice. Beat those HD25SP anyways.

I love hearing debates about audio cable. Well your optical SPDIF connection is crappy because the timing can't be correct. Well I use coax so that has to sound better. I doubt it matters on my crappy integrated Sony receiver anyways.

ST glass fibre is the good stuff :D

[CougTek]

Buck said ...
Sol said ...
Mercutio said ...
Cougtek said ...
Adriel saide ...
Timwhit said ...
Energy said ...
Handruin said ...

Why did you put an "e"? Remember, he's not a girl :wink:

...or is he?

[Tannin]

Coz the only thing worse than me selling is my proofreading, Coug.

I'll just try that again moire sowlky.

danm it, I'm not going to edit this post at all, just type as I usually do and then let you see it in all its glory prior to my usual s\loppy proofreading ...

Coz the only thing worse than my spelling is my proofreading, Coug.

There! I can do it when I try.

And I thought that Adriel was a girl. Or am I thinking of someone else? No, no, that was someone else, I think. I seem to remember a thread on this at SR, and Adriel got peeved. Hell, Tea and I get confused about our own genders from time to time, how can we try to remember anyone else's?

(OK, I proofread and edited that last para.)

[NRG = mc²]

Please, your Mission 733 floorstander and Sennheiser HD25SP hardly provides any reason to be snobbish about it. I've got midfi equipment too you know. Anyway, I'm interested in this kind of stuff. What other stuff to you have?

I wasn't being snobbish. The speakers cost $100 new (Mission cost nothing here), as did the headphones, and the amp (Rotel RA921) around $120. Nothing snobbish here. Pretty cheapskate stuff actually but the headphones do produce a hell of a lot better sound than what 95% of computer users have at their disposal. Neither do I consider my self an audiophile.

What other stuff? Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, some no-name OFC cable for the speakers... thats it.

[NRG = mc²]

Ah I forgot. In the attic I have some of my father's old JBL 4311 monitors. I like them more than the Missions but I think they sound worse in smaller rooms like mine.

[Tea]

Found that Sound Blaster microphone. It works, but the volume is incredibly low, quite unusable. I seem to remember striking this problem before, or at least having the odd customer bring a system to me with that problem, and fixing it (I think) by swapping soundcards. As I recall, the ISA Sound Blasters wer much more reliable from this point of view. Alas, these stupid new DDR boards have no ISA slot. Guess I could switch on the VIA embedded thing, but it seems like a step backwards.

[Mercutio]

Don't you have an old component preamp sitting around somewhere? Or a sound app that's capable of boosting your audio recording levels?

[Cliptin]

Found that Sound Blaster microphone. It works, but the volume is incredibly low, quite unusable. I seem to remember striking this problem before, or at least having the odd customer bring a system to me with that problem, and fixing it (I think) by swapping soundcards. As I recall, the ISA Sound Blasters wer much more reliable from this point of view. Alas, these stupid new DDR boards have no ISA slot. Guess I could switch on the VIA embedded thing, but it seems like a step backwards.

There is is switch to boost the mic +10db. Have you tried that?

[Tea]

Switch? Where? What switch?

I was thinking of making up a scratch computer with an ISA sound card - AWE64 or somesuch. I seem to remember that they were more reliable and easier to get working right.

[Cliptin]

Switch? Where? What switch?

I was thinking of making up a scratch computer with an ISA sound card - AWE64 or somesuch. I seem to remember that they were more reliable and easier to get working right.


10 Double click the speaker icon in the task bar and make sure you have a slider for the mic.
20 If not goto options>properties and turn it on
30 click the advanced button under the mic slider
40 turn on mic boost
50 if options not available install SB drivers then goto 10
60 evaluate usage of mic slider in recording mode. options>properties recording

[Tea]

Thanks Cliptin. Did that, ann improvement but still not nearly loud enough. I think this mic must be designed for yakking on a webcam, right up close to your mouth. I'll find a better one, try again.

[Cliptin]

Not an ambient noise problem I trust.

[Tea]

Who is Ann Improvement and why do I know her? Perhaps I meant "an improvement". Nope, not an ambient noise problem, just tha the volume is way too low. I'll scratch around for a different microphone.

[Sol]

I was sure I already posted this but what can you do.
The soundblaster Live! cards are Creatives first obvious active atempt to capture the Audiophile market segment that I'm aware of. For this reason they descided that the card would not need to amplify anything much as true Audiophiles would have thier own amps and be offended at the quality loss that the crappy onboard one would cause.

At least I think thats why they ditched the amp. Probably irelevant really.
You could always try to up the volume with software, you might loose a bit of quality though. Realistically though if you want much better quality I suppose you'll need a dynamic mic and a preamp. If it helps at all (and I suspect it doesn't) there is a preamp built into the Audigy drives and I suspect the Live! drives which come with Creatives Platinum pack sound cards.
I'm not really holding out too much hope of you having one on hand though. (Since I don't remember ordering anything like that recently)

[Onomatopoeic]

I want to record some hard drives.

I have an Athlon running Win 2000 with a Sound Blaster Vibra 128 in it, and figure that should be ample unto the task.

I used to have a pair of stage/studio quality low-impedence microphones: a Shure SM57 and an Audio Technica.

But I'm not sure if they are the right sort of microphone to use with a sound card anyway.

Software. Is the stuff that comes with a Sound Blaster good enough? Or should I get something else?

I don't particularly want to spend any money on this project, but will if I have to.



Well Tannin, I must've missed this topic during one of my recent hiatuses, but anyway...

First of all, it's VERY good that you have a pair of decent microphones -- the Shure SM57 (a general all-around dynamic microphone, but primarily a heavy duty instrument and vocal microphone) will be enough for the job. A good condensor microphone would be a bit better since they can pickup more nuances and high frequencies, but a SM57 should be able to record just about all the audible noise of a hard drive.

The least expensive way to interface your balanced / low-impedance microphones to your high-impedance / unbalanced sound card is to buy a commonly-available transformer (cost is about US$15) that will plug into your low-impedance microphone cable -- which will also convert your XLR connector to a 1/4-inch male RCA tip+sleeve connector. From this you will need a 1/4-inch female RCA - to - male mini connector convertor so that you can plug this all into your soundcard.

The bad thing here is that the Creative SB-128, like ALL of their soundcards, has fairly poor noise floor characteristics. Getting a low noise original sound file (WAV) will be a very important first step in producing a final product, as the second step will be to dynamically compress the audio signal to listenable levels (narrow dynamic range). I believe the cheapest software capable of audio compression (and other important features such as frequency band equalising) will be Goldwave, which goes for US$40 downloaded, at:

http://www.goldwave.com/

I don't personally use Goldwave, instead I use Sonic Foundry Sound Forge (about $300) for such chores, but I know Goldwave comes close to what you can do with Sound Forge for a fraction of the price and dynamic compression is certainly one of the things you can do with Goldwave. There is a "cheap" version of Sound Forge for about US$70.

By the way, my soundcard has low-impedance inputs and outputs -- bunches of them! -- so, no need to convert anything for me.


http://www.lynxstudio.com/images/CableAudio.jpg http://www.lynxstudio.com/images/LynxONEPhoto.jpg
http://www.lynxstudio.com/images/CableMIDI.jpg

[Cliptin]

Bang Pow Zoom Bam Clank

Is this the sound your hard drive makes? :o

[Sol]

Actually I think there is a "Free" version of soundforge for about 30 days or so, can't see the job taking longer than that.
You should be able to get it here (http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/Step2.asp?DID=287)

[Onomatopoeic]

Bang Pow Zoom Bam Clank

Is this the sound your hard drive makes? :o

No, those are just onomatopoecisms which are remotely related to stomasonics.


NEXT QUESTION!

[Onomatopoeic]

Actually I think there is a "Free" version of soundforge for about 30 days or so, can't see the job taking longer than that.
You should be able to get it here (http://www.sonicfoundry.com/download/Step2.asp?DID=287)

There was a Sound Forge "SE" that was around for a while -- may even still be -- that you could buy at various music stores for US$10 or US$20 on just a CD-ROM (no book). I never saw this for sale except at music stores (guitars, keyboards, drums, etc). It wouldn't accept the various pricey Sonic Foundry plug-ins, but it did all the basics. Sound Forge XP was around then as well.