IV. Critical Listening // FEB 1st
AUDIO FILES FOR THE CRITICAL LISTENING ASSIGNMENT
My fellow audio and recording nerds, here are the audio files for the assignment from workbook #4! 
These are 6 recordings from my bed room, edited mixed and finalized, but - dang it ! - something is wrong with each of them! 
Use your ears, use the analyzing tools we've looked at and let me know if you have any questions! Have fun with these recordings!
By the way, I have all those recordings on my YouTube-Channel in reference quality, so if you want to compare the original files with the faulty ones, feel free to do so!
Here's the link to the Google Drive Folder:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zt0GY5_i22EblWvP4CdawRBv4HgfQIPj?usp=sharing
Hey y'all, I hope you had fun so far recording, editing and mixing your very own tracks! We've come a long way, so in this lesson we will talk about how to objectively judge our recordings and compare them to commercial releases! 
Please use this thread if you have any questions concerning the workbook or general questions concerning Critical Listening!
Click here to access Session 4: Critical Listening // Feb 1st (Live!)
Find the other sessions here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 5
Download the fourth workbook here
I will post the answers to the questionnaire on Feb 7th!
After the live stream, submit your assignments by replying to this thread!
Timestamps by Philip
5:00 - Denoiser.
14:58 - On natural acoustics.
22:48 - Recap from session 3.
42:20 - Martin's headphones frequency response.
45:22 - Frequency response of smart-phone devices
48:04 - Frequency response of Adam Audio speakers.
49:00 - Room modes.
52:00 - Measuring the room to find problematic frequencies.
56:35 - Trikustik.
58:25 - Question on Adam A5X Speakers.
1:01:25 - Playing 80 hertz.
1:02:44 - Olli
1:05:49 - Best use of whatever room we have: Position of guitar? Position of mic?
1:06:05 - Humans have highest sensitive at around 3-4kHz.
1:07:36 - Is there a way to tell if your room needs treatment?
1:11:25 - Giuseppes Waltz.
1:24:55 - Olli’s Harfenetude with Gonimeter.
1:35:25 - Can you produce stereo recording if you use a guitar with built-in plug in pickup?
1:36:42 - Spectrograph.
1:44:31 - Measurement tool. Using a boxy recording from David Robinson. Threnody first version.
1:54:43 - Bob Katz frequency chart (https://audiophilestyle.com/s3/article-images/2017/0615/8.jpg)
1:57:24 - Position of OTRF, Blumlein and Mid-Side. (Neumann Recording Angle Calculator app)
2:04:56 - Uli's song of India.
2:12:51 - Martin can evaluate our recordings after the academy is over.
2:14:10 - Andres Iparraguirre's recording of Lagrima.
2:19:43 - Klangbild recording by Rick Akney.
2:26:46 - On the compressor.
2:31:30 - Mic position w/Anders Skadborg.
2:35:16 - Proximity effect.
2:37:00 - Lensing effect and phantom image (2:46:51).
2:42:42 - Ribbon microphone.
2:58:00 - Jasmine’s dual recording (worth a re-listen!)
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Hi Martin, I have a question! Back in session 2 you showed us how to apply the limiter, then said there was a much easier way of doing this, by adding the normaliser. So just to clarify, can we choose whether to use limiter or normaliser? Or should we do both?
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martin Thank you! That makes it clearer. It seems like normalising is an easier process so I think I'll stick with that
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Hi Martin, finally I found a little time to try to "overwork" my recording and now I´m looking forward to your critical listening and advice ;-) The workshop is so much fun and all the participants are really great folks and musicians. If I only had more time...... but maybe life will get quieter sometime ... I highly appreciate your work and I am very impressed by the great forum and its members! Thanks a lot.
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Thomas dear Thomas, this is a wonderful edited version of this wonderful piece of music!
I especially enjoyed the subtle use of reverb, this was something I really struggled in the beginning! Getting that naturla balance between the dry and wet signal is not an easy task when you have to "imagine" the acoustics of a non-existent room!
I want to listen closely again at 0:26, I think there is a small issue either with the editing or the way you implemented the reverb! I can hear that you are sliding into a higher position yet the reverb stays on the note for quite a while!
Maybe you can also elaborate a little bit on your mic position, I think you found a very natural and transparent position for your microphones! :)
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Ok... just finished the assignments. Some were quite obvious and others... well.. less? My hearing is quite definitely lousy but I knew that already
Look forward to the monday course! Great playing Martin BTW! -
Martin,
I really enjoyed listening to your beautiful playing of these pieces!
Here is my evaluation of the 6 audio files:
1. Valseana
Frequencies below about 200 Hz are dramatically suppressed by about 20 dB.
2. Cancion triste
The gain on the right channel is suppressed. Increasing the gain in the right channel by about 15 dB seems to correct the problem.
3. Hommage a Tchaikovsky
The EQ Band 4 frequencies centered on 5 kHz are suppressed. Increasing the gain on this band by about 10 dB fixes the problem.
4. Lento
It appears that the recording is mono. Both tracks are the same. It seems the left track was duplicated for the right.5. Un Dia de Noviembre
The left and right tracks seem to be out of phase resulting in some phase cancellation. Inverting the phase of the left channel seems to fix the problem.
6. Alma
There seems to be some low level, high frequency noise in the room above about 20 kHz. It appears that a low pass filter was overly aggressively applied with the result that all frequencies above 10kHz were effectively eliminated, but some gain reduction also occurred at lower frequencies down to about 1 kHz, resulting in diminishment of the upper frequencies of the music.
Best,
Rick Ankney
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
