Thin signal in DIGI 001 - Room, Interface or Converters?

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 11:05 am

Hi there!
This are my specs:
- Recording Room: 2,6m x 2,4m x 2m (8,6ft x 8ft x 6,6ft)
- Floor: Carpet
- Ceiling: Absorption material
- Walls: Pine Wood
- There are some panels attached to walls that allow to absorb waves and a curtain in the back

Gear:
- DIGI 001
- PreAmp DBX 286A (Condenser, not tube)
- Mackie Console 1642-VLZ3
- M-Audio BX8a and Yamaha MSP3 monitors
- PC: MSI K8N Diamond Plus, AMD FX-57, 2GB RAM DUAL, 300GB and 500GB HD, 128MB Video Card.
- Rode NT2-A, SM-58, SM-57; Sennheisser e835 Mics

This is my problem:
Every sound that I record from my room is very thin, I mean, I can't hear the real sound or something that could reach that level... very low presence of bass and bright in every sound that I could record: brasses, woodwinds, vocals, percussion, etc...
Even Basses guitars that are recorded directly to my DBX sound to dark and thin!!!

I believe that is not a problem with my room... Every sound are going into Analog Inputs of my 001. I don't use SPDIF or ADAT options 'cause haven't any.

Some one told me that DIGI A/D converters are not good and that couyld be my problem... solution? get some A/D converter (Rosetta 200, etc).

But, could an external ADAT help me to deal with this?

I mean, what is the main problem with my studio? Why am I getting this sounds so thin???

I'd thank to anybody that could help me to solve this inconvenience

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 12:55 pm

dagodoy wrote:

Every sound are going into Analog Inputs of my 001.

How are the sounds being routed back out to your powered monitors?

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:44 pm

I'm curious, have you recorded a sound, and then played it back on a different system? For example, record the bass guitar, burn it to a CD and listen to it in your car. If it still sounds crappy in your car, then we can rule out monitors/playback devices, and then we know it has to do with how the sound is getting in.

What happens if you plug your bass guitar right into an instrument in on the digi, bypassing all the other equipment?

I have a digi002. I don't know of the ADA converters are the same, but it sounds awesome. I've been using it for close to 5 years, and I've nary had a problem.

Sincerely,

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:58 pm

I'm curious as well. But what I am really after is does the op use the onboard Sound Blaster Audigy SE With A Tube Amp in any part of the chain Wink

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 6:59 pm

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but I'm assuming that you haven't had a huge amount of experience recording. If so, your equipment is probably not the thing holding back the quality of your recordings. Many people get excellent results with the level of equipment you have.

It's not a direct response to your question about converters in the 001, but go to the Black Lion Audio web page. They do modifications to Digi units that improve the quality of the pres , clock, and converters. They have posted before and after clips that are obviously designed to show off their modifications, but they have been honest enough to do a nice job of recording the before clips. Yes, their after clips sound better, but I think its a good demonstration for people getting started of how small the incremental gains are once you have reasonable equipment and know what you are doing.

If my assumption is right, the room could be a problem, but there are a lot of other things that could be going on. You might try posting some clips and describing what you are doing in more detail.

Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:38 pm

I had a Digi001 and never had a problem with the sound being "thin". It's either the room or your signal flow. There's got to be a setting out of whack there somewhere.

Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 2:01 pm

I would have to believe that it is your room first.

You have a square room that is very small and is going to be problematic in the low frequency range to begin with.

Then you have a soft ceiling - soft floor - some wall treatments and a curtain in the back - all of which will suck the high mid and high frequency life right out of a room......

Rod

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