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Old 01-24-2019, 10:29 PM   #1
pixeltarian
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Default bitrate mismatch... will anything help salvage this recording?

https://soundcloud.com/fictions/hi-sci-fi-pi
So my Focusrite Clarett and my Octotrack were both set as the master and this made all the drum tracks have this really gnarly distortion. I have 2 questions:

1. How "listenable" is it as-is? Does it sound like it is an intentional lofi choice that works? How well does it work on a scale from unlistenable to don't-change-a-thing?

2. What could help reduce or fix the bitrate mismatch fuzz?

bonus question: What is happening when 2 devices are set to different bitrates and fed to reaper that creates this distortion?
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Old 01-25-2019, 03:57 AM   #2
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i think i fixed it with the acon noise reduction suite:
https://youtu.be/dZV6GrQkxFs
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Old 01-25-2019, 11:35 AM   #3
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Well I'm glad you figured something out. Now I just have to be "that guy" and point out that bitrate is not really the appropriate term here. It only really applies to compressed formats and is meant to tell you how much network bandwidth it takes to stream the file without (much?) buffering.

Your interface sends Reaper PCM data - individual samples of a given bit depth - usually 16 or (preferably) 24 - at a given sample rate - 44.1K etc. Technically, the bit rate of this stream is the product of the two. Bit depth times sample rate equals bitdepth. But again, we never talk about bitrate for this kind of thing.

It's not immediately clear to me, though, that any of this is actually the problem. Bit depth is pretty much transparent and doesn't need to be matched or synced at all. Sample rate does want to be matched and synced if the two devices are connected digitally. Since you said they were both "set to master", I guess they weren't synced. Whether the sample rates match nominally or not, the two clocks can't and never will. They may be really close, but if they disagree on how long a second is, there will occasionally be times when one is expecting a sample but doesn't get it. That's the noise you've made.

What I don't really understand is how you managed it. I guess I don't know exactly which octotrack you have, but the one I looked at doesn't have digital connections other than the USB which is basically a built in interface. Are you somehow running both interfaces into Reaper at the same time? How and why?
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Old 01-30-2019, 12:35 AM   #4
pixeltarian
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i’d be curious to know exactly what happened, the octatrack dynamic mkII has adat out going into the clarett 2pre. The guitar that was plugged straight into the 2pre sounded fine but every drum track coming from the octotrack had distortion/fuzz (not in a food way at all). I checked the levels a bunch and nothing was clipping at any point in the signal chain. The only thing I could think is that the clarett was set to 48khz and the octatrack was a 44.1.


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Originally Posted by ashcat_lt View Post
Well I'm glad you figured something out. Now I just have to be "that guy" and point out that bitrate is not really the appropriate term here. It only really applies to compressed formats and is meant to tell you how much network bandwidth it takes to stream the file without (much?) buffering.

Your interface sends Reaper PCM data - individual samples of a given bit depth - usually 16 or (preferably) 24 - at a given sample rate - 44.1K etc. Technically, the bit rate of this stream is the product of the two. Bit depth times sample rate equals bitdepth. But again, we never talk about bitrate for this kind of thing.

It's not immediately clear to me, though, that any of this is actually the problem. Bit depth is pretty much transparent and doesn't need to be matched or synced at all. Sample rate does want to be matched and synced if the two devices are connected digitally. Since you said they were both "set to master", I guess they weren't synced. Whether the sample rates match nominally or not, the two clocks can't and never will. They may be really close, but if they disagree on how long a second is, there will occasionally be times when one is expecting a sample but doesn't get it. That's the noise you've made.

What I don't really understand is how you managed it. I guess I don't know exactly which octotrack you have, but the one I looked at doesn't have digital connections other than the USB which is basically a built in interface. Are you somehow running both interfaces into Reaper at the same time? How and why?
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Old 01-30-2019, 10:14 AM   #5
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...the octatrack dynamic mkII has adat out going into the clarett 2pre.
Oh well that explains it. I'm not actually familiar with that unit, and didn't see ADAT connections in the pictures Google brought me. Even at the same sample rate, if the clocks aren't synced, you'll get that kind of distortion.
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Old 02-21-2019, 09:32 AM   #6
DarrenH
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Nice sound! Who cares what bitrate whatever...epic sound and playing. Sometimes 'wrong' is so right ; )


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i think i fixed it with the acon noise reduction suite:
https://youtu.be/dZV6GrQkxFs
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