Recording with 32-Bit Floating Point and a MXL R144 HE ribbon microphone | 258

I'm just getting around to dabbling with 32-Bit Floating Point audio recording and it is a godsend for ribbon mics...and a lot more! https://www.geektherapyradio.com/

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Zoom M4 https://zoomcorp.com/en/us/mictrak-recorders/mictrak-recorders/m4-mictrak/

MXL R144 HE https://mxlmics.com/products/r-144-heritage-edition/

Episode Transcript

(00:32):
Welcome to Geek Therapy Radio. You'vegot your mental curator, Johnny Hamburger.
I've realized that it'd be easier forme to put out new shows on a
more consistent basis if I've simply adjustedthe time of the week when I recorded
these shows. Typically over the pastcouple of years or so, I would
record the show midweek. About Wednesdaysor Thursdays was typically when i'd record the

(00:58):
show. Since I started working atthe museum, I always try to kind
of record towards the later end ofthe week because I wanted things to kind
of develop during the week and maybesomething would happen on Tuesday or Wednesday that
I can then talk about on Thursdayand not be behind the curve. But
I realized recently that waiting till laterin the week to record a show is

(01:21):
not conducive to putting out a showeach week. So I'm recording this on
a Monday, and I'm going totry to typically probably going forward, record
shows on a Monday, because Mondaysseem to be my my geek free day,
my daddy, you know, freeday. I'm kind of it's it's
like it's like the weekend for me. Almost it is a work day.

(01:42):
I do work. Now, ifyou're listening from the museum, I'm not
saying that I just I don't dowork or anything like that. I'm saying
the opposite. I do a lotof work on Monday because Riker is home
on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.Things are busy over the weekend. There's
no way I can get in hereto record a radio show. It takes
me about an hour at least torecord a thirty nine minute radio show.

(02:05):
But Monday is when Riker goes backto school. Things kind of normalize.
Things are picking up for the weekat work, and I'm able to actually
do work, do work for themuseum, like do video editing, work
on projects, work on TikTok's,work on whatever videos, work on whatever
I need to do. On Mondaysbecause now I'm more freed up to do
actual work. Things kind of rampup during the week. I get pulled

(02:28):
aside for work, have to gointo the building for work on Tuesdays and
Thursdays and things. So Mondays iskind of like where I can actually sit
in my studio, sit in therecording studio here, sitting the geek cave,
the geek therapy radio studio and actuallydo real work using you know,
I video edit with the Da VinciResolve eight point eighteen point five. By
the way, Public Beta is awesome. It's gotten so good. The AI

(02:55):
text speech to text for subtitles finallywithout a subscription. I know you've been
able to do speech to text invideo editing in what am I looking for?
Premiere for quite a while. ButPremiere is such a prescription prescription subscription

(03:15):
based service that they just kind ofnickel into IMI for a lot of stuff.
Nothing against nothing against Premiere as acapable video editor. It's just more
and more people are coming to DaVinciResolve because you pay for it once,
the studio version of it, thefull unlock is three hundred dollars. There's
no subscriptions to pay after that.You just own it. After you pay
three hundred dollars once, not everyyear, just once and then you own

(03:38):
it. It's wonderful. The freeversion of da Vinci Resolve is also wonderful.
It's just a great n Ellie Andthat's what I used to work with,
and that's what I'm saying on Mondays. I'm freer to actually I'm freer
to do actual work. So I'mgoing to record my radio show also on
Mondays when I have this kind offreedom to work. So I didn't want

(04:00):
to spend the whole show talking toyou about my schedule. But I know
that my more long time listeners arekind of they may have noticed a reduction
in like release schedule. Now onthe radio, I still turn in a
show each week. I don't recorda show each week. I take one
from the archives and I just turnin a new one that listeners on the
radio haven't heard in a couple ofyears. And I keep things going on

(04:23):
the air by playing reruns at area couple of years old, fairly evergreen,
hopefully, But I don't you'll havenoticed, especially my more dedicated listeners,
You'll notice that I haven't really beenreleasing a lot of podcasts each week.
And i'd want to get back tothat weekly release schedule because there's tons
of fun things that I want totalk about. There's tons of things that

(04:43):
happen, things I'm tinkering with,things that I'm doing that I want to
tell you about. It just getsso late in the week and I get
all tied up with things and Ijust can't find time to record it.
Mondays are the best day of theweek for me to record podcasts, and
that's what I'm going to do.So here's the fun thing I want to
tell you about. I've been upto the past week or so, a
couple of weeks, I've been onthis on an audio kick. I'll tell

(05:05):
you right now, right here inthe first segment that what you are listening
to is a brand new microphone,my brand new microphone. I ordered an
MXL R one forty four. Itis. It's a ribbon microphone. It
is the R one forty four HeritageEdition. It costs one hundred dollars to
one hundred and thirty five dollars dependingon what version you get. There's no

(05:27):
difference between the standard one hundred dollarversion and the one hundred and thirty five
Heritage edition. The Heritage edition justcomes with more accessories. It comes with
a shock mount, it comes witha carrying case. That's pretty sweet.
And it's a different color. It'sa it's like a champagne like a kind
of golden champagne color, whereas thestandard edition is just I think it's blue
and silver or blue and chrome.They're the exact same microphone, exact same

(05:53):
internals. They are just exactly thesame. They just get a different paint
job and one comes with more accessories. The one I have using right now,
in particular, is the R oneforty four Heritage Edition. So just
it's in the shock mount. That'sa difference, different color and it's in
the shock mount. Now it soundspretty good, doesn't it. I am
equeuing it quite a bit to makeit sound a little bit more modern.

(06:15):
I'll probably do a sample right herefor those listening to the podcast. You
can hear that it's a lot darker. Now I've taken the EQ off of
it. This is the microphone andit's kind of natural state with no equing.
Now I'm going to turn the EQback on. Now you're hearing it
EQ for a more modern sound.If you're listening on the radio, you
on the AM radio, you didn'thear any difference there. There's there's likely

(06:36):
that you didn't hear much difference.You might have heard a little bit more
kind of low end. That's Ribbonmicrophones tend to have been used in broadcasting
for a very very long time.Particular the R the RCA seventy seven d
X, which I did use fora few weeks there last year exclusively as
my exclusive microphone. The R.The seventy seven DX has been in my

(06:59):
family since it was bought brand newin nineteen fifty four. But Ribbon Mike's
used in broadcast because it has thatkind of low end presence, that announcery
voice kind of feel to it.But what you're listening to right now is
my just that's one hundred dollars MXLR one forty four and it sounds great.
I've eq to to have a moremodern sound, which means I've scooped

(07:19):
a little bit in the middle formy particular voice. I've actually had to
do a bit of gain reduction onthe low end to bring down the boominess
of the microphone, and then Idid quite a bit of boost on the
high end to make it a littlebit more bright and sound a little bit
more modern without being too harsh,hopefully, and then I did all the
compression and everything that I usually do. But that's what I've been I want

(07:40):
to talk to you about the kindof audio things I've been into. You're
listening geek Therapy Radio. Don't goanywhere. Welcome back to geek Therapy Radio.

(08:16):
You've got your mental cure rator JohnnyHamburger geek Therapy radio dot com for
more information and to find links toall the other stuff. The very first
thing you're going to see on geektherapyradio dot com again just real quick,
is a contact form. It's justso you can tell me your geek thing.
It doesn't sign you up for anynewsletter, mailing list or you're not
annoyed by me. It's literally justa way to contact me directly when you

(08:39):
fill out that form and tell meabout your geek thing or talk about whatever.
I just get a notification in myinbox that it just goes to Johnny
at geek therapy radio dot com,which is my email handle, Johnny at
geek therapy radio dot com. Itjust tells me, hey, someone submitted
a forum on your website. That'sall it is. It's just that you
have contacted me, so it doesn'tsign you up for anything. If you

(09:00):
want to talk to me about anything, bring up any subjects you might want
me to talk about, or tojust I really love to hear about what
you're into, like what you're geekingout about currently, or what your favorite
hobbies are. Whatever you're you know, whatever you're thinking about that particular moment.
I love to hear it. Sogeek Therapy Radio dot com is where
you can contact me if you wantto email me directly Johnny j O h
n n y at geek Therapy radiodot com. Then you can find me

(09:22):
on all the socials Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, all
that good stuff. If you're listeningon the radio, you can find the
podcast on your favorite podcast player.Of course, if you're listening on iheartstation,
you can find it in the iHeartRadioapp. But no matter what podcast
app you used to listen to podcast, just type in geek Therapy Radio podcast

(09:43):
look for the red wine black colorscheme. And that's me. All right.
So here's what I've been geeking outabout recently, audio things. In
the last segment, I just toldyou that you are listening right now,
in fact, to my newest microphone. It is a ribbon microphone. I
guarantee you I've said this back whenI to use the RCA seventy seven d
X for a few months there.I guarantee you promise you that I am

(10:05):
probably one of the only if notthe only person on broadcast radio in the
country, if not the world,that's most likely using a ribbon microphone.
If at most there might be ahandful of us less. You can probably
count on one hand across the worldhow many people are on a broadcast radio
station AM or FM radio station,or even HAM radio for that matter,

(10:30):
that's using a ribbon microphone. It'skind of vintage technology. They still make
ribbon microphones, but it's kind ofa vintage technology. Everything now is either
a dynamic microphone like the industry standardbroadcast Electro Voice r E twenty seven or
ARI twenty seven ten and D.That's what I used typically most of the
time. I got mine in myhand right here. It's not hooked up,

(10:52):
but I do use an RI twentyseven as my go to broadcast microphone.
But I just got this new ribbonmicrophone, and that's why I'm using
it for those of you who arein a round for the first segment,
and it's the MXL R one fortyfour cost one hundred dollars. Doesn't sound
too bad for one hundred dollars,does it. I'm equeuing it to my
voice. I've tailored it to myvoice, which leads me into kind of

(11:15):
the what you should look out forwith a ribbon microphone, or at least
be aware of when you dabble witha ribbon microphone. First and foremost is
that it's a very dark sounding microphone. I did an example of this.
I did an example with no EQback in the first segment, which is
why you should grab the podcast tohear what this microphone's This ribbon microphone sounds

(11:37):
like naked. You're not going tohear much difference between the ab eqing on
the AM broadcast radio. So grabthe Geek Therapy Radio podcast and your favorite
podcast player. Go back to thefirst segment, and I do kind of
an ab test of an EQ versusno EQ for the ribbon microphone. Now,
the mxl R one forty four,which you're listening to you right now,
is like any ribbon microphone by itselfwith no Q. It sounds very

(12:00):
dark. It works very well totame nasally voices. It sounds awesome on
brass instruments and string instruments because ittames that kind of upper mid range of
tones to bring it back more kindof imbalance naturally. But if you're just
kind of talking into it, you'regoing to notice that it's a very dark
sounding microphone versus a typical dynamic ora condenser microphone. Condensers are typically much

(12:24):
much brighter. But yeah, soif you get a ribbon microphone and you
start dabbling with it, there's nothingwrong with a microphone. It's just dark
by its very nature, which lendsitself nicely to certain voices. The other
thing you'll notice is that the output'svery low. Never ever, ever,
ever put phantom power through a ribbonmicrophone. That's the rule of thumb.

(12:45):
Even though modern ribbon microphones like theR one forty four that I'm talking into
right now, do you have adiode in there to prevent electricity from going
back into the element. But asa rule of thumb, you never run
phantom power into a ribbon microphone.That said, you'll notice that the output
of ribbon microphones tend to be verylow, and the preamps that you use,

(13:05):
like the USB Audio interface preamps,might not have enough gain to really
drive the microphone properly, just forspoken word. If you're using the microphone
as like a room mic or anoverhead mic for a drum kit, you
probably don't need much gain at allbecause it's just a loud source. But
for just speaking, you're probably gonnaneed some sort of a gain booster.

(13:26):
You may have heard of a cloudlifteror any sort of inline gain booster.
I don't have a cloud booster acloudlifter. I have a dynamite. What
is an seedm one dynamite. It'sthe same thing. You run phantom power
to the gain booster and it givesyou like twenty five decibels of quote unquote
clean gain and then you go fromthere. It adds a little bit of

(13:50):
inline gain boosting to the microphone.You might be asking yourself, you're sending
phantom power to the gain booster andthe game boosters plugged into the ribbon microphone.
Is that bad? No no poweror actually goes out of the game
booster into the microphone. It justtakes the level of the microphone into the
game booster. The game booster itselfgets power and it feeds it into your
interface. So just a fair warning, when you get a ribbon microphone,

(14:13):
you may want to invest in aninline gain booster, or you can get
what I have been geekin out about. And it's the main heart of this
broadcast of this podcast this week isa technology and audio recording that has been
around for a three or four yearsnow, a couple of years now,

(14:35):
and it's gaining popularity. And itis called thirty two bit floating point.
So when you record into your phoneor audio interface or whatever it sometimes it
gives you an option. Do youwant to record sixteen bit or twenty four
bit? Do you want to recordaway file? That's forty four point one
killer, it's forty eight killer,it's ninety six killers, one hundred ninety
two killer, it's what have you? But what bit rate do you want?

(14:58):
And if you're listening to an EMPthree for instance, if you're listening
to this podcast, Actually, ifyou're listening to this broadcast, it's been
digitized before it goes over the air. You're listening to a sixteen bit audio
file right now. Whether you're drivingaround in your car listening to AM radio
or you're listening to the Pristine podcastversion of this. This has all been
transcoded down to sixteen bit. Itypically record in twenty four bit when I

(15:22):
record these shows. I record twentyfour forty eight K sometimes twenty four bit
ninety six K when I actually amediting the show, and then it gets
transposed down to quantized down to sixteenbit for release. Basically, even if
I turned in this show as atwenty four bit audio file to the radio
station two KPRC, it would gettranscoded, it would get quantized and converted

(15:46):
back to a sixteen bit MP three. Sorry to shock you, if you're
listening to HD radio, or you'relistening to this streaming version of the radio
station, any radio station anywhere,you're listening to quite a low quality technically
MP three quantization transcoding of whatever you'relistening to. So yes, it's digital,
but it's a sixteen bit MP threeone hundred and sixty kilobytes per second

(16:10):
at best. It's usually like onetwenty eight, But if you're listening to
a streaming service of any kind,it's typically one twenty eight one sixty maybe,
And if you pay for premium versions, it could be paid for premium
Spotify, you're paid for premium AppleMusic or something like that. I think
you can get up like two twentyfour kilobits per second, three hundred twenty
kilobits per second, but it's allstill sixteen bit. I believe. I

(16:33):
think Apple will let you go upto twenty four bit. You can get
lost less in flak if you payfor if you pay for it, but
typically what you're listening to is asixteen bit MP three. So what is
thirty two bit float. I'm gonnaput it in a way that photographers and
videographers can kind of conceptualize it.Thirty two bit float record audio recording is

(16:57):
like taking pictures recording video in araw format, meaning that if you are
recording a video or taking a picturein a raw format and you have some
clippings clipping in the highlights, thingsare blown out way too bright. If
you're recording in a as just likea JPEG or an MP four or whatever,

(17:18):
you can't really recover those highlights.You can't bring it back down.
You can't. You can't recover theclipping. It's just gone forever. That
information has gone forever. Not withthirty two bit float audio recording. If
something clips in thirty two bit audio, if thirty two bit float audio recording,
you can recover it. Let's talkabout thirty two bit float and what

(17:38):
it is. When we come back. You're listening to geek Therapy Radio.
Don't go anywhere Welcome back to GeekTherapy Radio. You've got your mental curator,

(18:06):
Johnny Hamburger. In the previous segment, I started to talk about thirty
two bit float audio recording. It'sbeen around for a few years now.
I am actually recording this show inthirty two bit float with my Zoom M
four handheld recorder. I have mymxl R one forty four ribbon microphone going

(18:29):
directly into an XLR input on myZoom M four thirty two bit float recorder
with no inline gain booster. Inthe last segment, I talked about if
you're plugging in a ribbon microphone toa traditional audio interface and recording in sixteen
bit or twenty four bit, theoutput of a ribbon microphone is so low
that you typically would could use aninline gain booster like a cloudlifter or this

(18:52):
what is it this se dynamite thatI have here. They'd cost between like
sixty one hundred dollars or so.But if you're recording thirty two bit float
as I am right now, youdon't need the gain booster. Thirty two
bit float as a kind of akind of bring up to speed. From
the last segment, if you're aphotographer or videographer. Thirty two bit float
in audio recording is like recording ortaking pictures in a raw format. So

(19:15):
when you are recording a video,let's just give an example. If you're
recording a video in like pro resraw Apple pro Rez raw, you can
go back in after you record.You record a video, it looks it
looks kind of flat. The colorsare flat, it's a flat color profile,
it's low profile. Whatever. Yourecorded a super bright scene where the
lights are kind of blowing out andwashing out the scene. Now, if

(19:38):
you record, and if you recordit in a compressed format like MP four
or what have you, you can'trecover those highlights. It's just blown out.
What you what you record is whatyou get. But if you record
in a raw format, you cango back in. You can dump your
pro res raw in this example,into your video editor, and you can
bring down the ISO. You canset the ISO in the gain of the
camera to whatever you want after thefact, and you can recover those highlights,

(20:03):
and you can bring out things inthe shadows, and your image is
not destroyed because you recorded in rawor you took pictures in raw, and
you can recover you can do thelike you can do the camera settings after
recording or after shooting the picture.That's kind of what audio recording in thirty
two bit floating point is. Sothere is no gain knob when you plug

(20:26):
into a thirty two bit floating pointinterface. Right now, I'm using my
Zoom M four recording in thirty twobit floating point at forty eight killer hurts,
and but the Zoom M four youcan go all the way up to
one hundred ninety two killer hurts atthirty two bit floating point. I have
it in USB interface mode, whichonly allows to go up to forty eight
killherts. In this particular case,maybe they'll do a firmware update down the

(20:48):
line and unlock the thirty two bitfloating point. But anyways, as I'm
recording this, it's a ribbon microphone, no gain booster, no gain knob
at all, even on the devicerecording straight thirty two bit floating point.
It's like recording in raw or araw format for video editing, or a
raw format for video shooters or photoshooters. That's kind of what it equates do.

(21:14):
So what I'm doing is it's microphone. It's this ribbon microphone XLR cable
into my thirty two bit float recorder. No gain knob, no adjusting gain
at all. How does that work, Johnny? Basically, what it allows
you to do is it allows youto capture every the raw output of the
microphone itself, so in a videoor a photography recording or snapping pictures,

(21:37):
and raw basically takes all the datafrom the sensor itself, and then you
can manipulate things later on, likethe gain in ISO and things like that.
Same thing for this, for audiorecording and thirty two bit float,
there's no gain knob because it's it'sit's using a handful of converters that set
at different kind of gain levels,and it's automatically switching between them seamlessly so

(21:59):
that you get I think it's sowhen you record sixteen bit, like let's
say you record sixteen forty four oneor sixteen bit period, you have sixty
five thousand different levels of volume fora given sample. When you recording twenty
four bit, it's something like sixteenmillion different levels of volume per sample.
When you recording thirty two bit float, it's I forget how many what's the

(22:22):
actual word for it quintillion, quintillionto the power of ten. Like it's
it's seemingly infinite amount of volume levelsyou can have per sample. And there
the dynamic range. Dynamic range ofsixteen bit is like ninety six decibels,
So you're listening to a CD andMP three, you have like a ninety
six dB dynamic range. With twentyfour bit, it's something like one hundred

(22:44):
and twenty something decibels of dynamic range, which is great. But with thirty
two bit float you have like threethousand, five hundred of dynamic rads.
You know, I'm actually going tolook it up. Well, I've got
the Google here range thirty two bitloat, and we'll see what comes up.
The dynamic range of thirty two bitfloat recording is one thousand, five hundred
and twenty eight decibels. Now I'llrepeat that again. The dynamic range of

(23:10):
thirty two bit floating point is onethousand, five hundred and twenty eight decibels.
There is no audio source on planetEarth that even is a pimple on
the butt of fifteen hundred decibels.The loudest recorded sound on Earth was a
volcano erupting. I forget which exactvolcano. It registered at one hundred and

(23:33):
eighty decibels. When you go toa rock concert, like a super loud
rock and roll concert, that's aboutone hundred and twenty decibels. A jet
engine is somewhere on the order ofone hundred and thirty hundred forty decibels.
With thirty two bit dynamic float thirtytwo bit floating point, you have a
range of fifteen hundred and twenty eightdecibels. There might not be something in

(23:53):
the universe that's that loud. Sothe point is you will never clip in
thirty two bit float. The thirtytwo bit float will never clip itself.
However, however, for anybody who'shappened to be listening that is familiar with
thirty two bit float, you canstill clip. But if you clip,

(24:14):
you are clipping the microphone itself.So, for instance, when you buy
a microphone, you get a microphone, and you look in the specs of
the microphone, it says it canhandle spl level or decibel level of one
hundred and thirty five decibels before theelement of the microphone itself begins to like
vibrate and rattle and distort. Sowith thirty two bit float. You are
getting every decibel that your microphone canproduce, and you're capturing all of it,

(24:40):
whatever sort, whatever, the audio, from whatever source you plug it
into. It's capturing every decibel upto one thousand, five hundred and twenty
eight decibels, which there is nota source on Earth that can get that
high. The loudest recorded thing onEarth was one hundred and eighty decibels.
It was a volcano erupting. Avolcano exploding, it's absolutely insane. So

(25:02):
you are basically, just like rawfor photography and raw for videography, you
are capturing everything that your microphone canpossibly produce. And if your microphone itself
physically distorts the element the diaphragm andthe microphone physically starts rattling and distorting.
Because you are recording something that's onehundred and forty decibels, you have put
your microphone right up to the exhaustof an afterburner on a fighter aircraft.

(25:27):
That's when your microphone itself will distortand start being destroyed. Thirty two bitfloat
is going to capture that. Yes, it will capture that distortion, but
the real beauty in it and thirtytwo bitfloat happens to be in situations kind
of like a field recording where youdon't have time. You don't know what

(25:47):
the environment is going to be likethat you're recording in. You don't know
who you're going to be recording,if their voice is soft or loud or
whatever. You see kind of recordus in the background when they're interviewing people,
like after court case, as areoutside of courtrooms. They're kind of
adjusting knobs and things as they holdthe microphone in the person's face. Thirty
two bit float you don't have todo that. You just hit record and
just go. There's no gain settings. If the person was really soft and

(26:11):
really whispering, I'll do an exampleof it right now. I'm in thirty
two bit float using a ribbon microphonewith super low output. I'm gonna whisper
into this microphone and then normalize itlater. I'm gonna start whispering out and
I'm going to normalize it. I'mwhispering right now. I did not stop
the recording. This is just mewhispering right in the microphone, varied subtly,
and I'm gonna start yelling. Thisis me yelling into the microphone.

(26:33):
You're not going to hear any distortion. I have not stopped the recording.
I have not changed any gain settings. It's just going to capture everything that
this microphone can produce. There's noway I'm going above one hundred and thirty
five decibels of this microphone. Now. I never stopped recording. Now I'm
back at my normal speaking voice.I never stopped recording. I did not
have to go back and adjust gainfor my whispers, and I did not

(26:56):
have to go back and adjust gaineddownwards for one I was yelling. It
just captured everything. Now, whenI load the thirty two bit floating point
file into my audio editor and startediting in twenty four bits or sixteen bits,
what have you, I can goin after the fact and normalize it
to whatever I want. The clippingcomes down. There's no clipping at all.

(27:18):
It's just a pure, pristine audiofile, all in one take without
adjusting any gain. I can goin after the fact and normalize and adjust
while I'm editing to bring it withinthe sixteen bit or twenty four bit range.
It's a beautiful, beautiful thing.Now I will add one caveat that
when you're bringing up something like avery quiet source, it is also going
to bring up the noise floor ofthe microphone it self. So whatever the

(27:44):
noise floor of the microphone is,it'll bring that up. If you have
a microphone with a super duper lownoise floor, it will sound pristine.
If you're using a noisy mic likethis cheap ribbon microphone, it'll bring up
the noise floor of the microphone itself. But the point is you are boosting
the microphone itself and nothing else.Now, in a typical recording session,

(28:06):
there's there are fuddy duddies out therewho just twenty four bit whatever. There's
no point the third two bit floatingwhatever. You just know what you're doing
with the gain settings. Yes,I agree in a controlled recording studio environment,
when you do have perfect control andprecision over you know, you're recording
a snare drum and you know howloud it's going to be, and you've
got the levels, and you've gotthe drummer doing the test test test with

(28:27):
the snare drum, and you've setthe level of the preampjest right and everything
that's fine, and a controlled environment, thirty two bit float is not super
duper critical, but where it shinesas in an uncontrolled environment, where it
shines as if you want to getevery possible detail out of a microphone without
adjusting any gain at all. Thirtytwo bit float is amazing. And that's

(28:51):
what I've been geeking out about forthe past week or so. You're listening
in geek Therapy Radio. Let's talkabout some more geekie stuff coming up.
Don't go anywhere, Welcome back togeek Therapy Radio. You've got your mental

(29:17):
cureator Johnny Hamburger. A studio application, I would say for a thirty two
bit float we've been talking about thirtytwo bit float audio recording, very quick
recap for anybody who is a photographeror a videographer recording audio and thirty two
bit floating point is like shooting photosor recording video in a raw format.

(29:37):
So if you're shooting like pro resraw as a videographer, that allows you
to go back and set gain settingsand ISO settings and all that after shooting.
It just pulls all the raw dataoff of your camera's sensor. Thirty
two bit float audio recording is likepulling all the raw data off of your
microphones element so if your microphone saysit has it distorts at one hundred and

(30:00):
thirty five decibels, then you're goingto catch everything between the noise floor of
the microphone and that one hundred thirtyfive decibels without adjusting gain at all.
Because the dynamic range of thirty twobit float recording is one thousand over one
thousand, five hundred decibels the dynamicrange of twenty four bit recording. I'm

(30:21):
going to look it up again nowbecause I'm on I do have the Googler
open is Come on, heck,if I can hit enter is one hundred
and forty four decibels of dynamic range. So technically twenty four bit will capture
the entire dynamic range of a microphone. If the microphone can only capture up
two hundred thirty five decibels, whichis the microphone I'm using right now can

(30:44):
distorts at one hundred thirty five decibels, twenty four bit as one hundred forty
four decibels of dynamic range, butyou're still going to have to adjust gain
settings. You can't just keep ifyou put the gain down to zero to
capture a loud voice or something likethat. And then the person starts whispering,
and you have the gain set allthe way to twelve or whatever,
you're gonna hear a lot of noisein that signal. Even with twenty four

(31:04):
bit pre amps inherently have noise tothem. It's not a bad thing.
It's just the nature of the analogbeast or thirty two bit float. Granted,
you won't get the characteristics of youknow, a nice juicy two preamp
unless you have a two preamp goinginto the thirty two bit float recorder.
But you do have the option,as I described in the last segment of

(31:27):
UH when just there's no gain knob, there's no gain stage to set when
you record in thirty two bit floatrecording. So if somebody's a whispering very
softly versus somebody yelling really loudly,there's no gain adjustment to be made.
So if you are in an audioeditor and you have adjusted your your trim,
your your volume on the track forsomebody whispering to bring up their whispers

(31:49):
and have the whispers be at anomal level, and then all of a
sudden they start talking really little outand they're yelling and it's clipping in there.
All you do is you do alittle split point before they start yelling,
and then and you'd take the yellingpart and you normalize it down to
whatever you want. Now there's nomore clipping. You've brought it down back
and within range. Video editors andphotographers know what I'm talking about. With

(32:09):
raw recording, when something's blown out, the highlights are blown out, the
scene is way too bright. Ifyou've recorded in raw, you can go
back after the fact and pull downthose highlights and bring him back to within
range so everything's not washed out.So that's what I've been talking about the
past segment is thirty two bit floatrecording and how it's amazing. I would
recommend that if you are going tobuy a ribbon microphone. By the way,

(32:34):
if you're just joining us, you'relistening to the ribbon microphone, this
entire time being recorded at thirty twobit float into my Zoom M four recorder.
If you are going to buy aribbon microphone or vintage microphones or things
with kind of low output from themic itself, thirty two bit floating point
recorder is a godsend because you cancapture that low signal and then boost up
the gain after the fact, withno noise, with no added noise.

(32:55):
It's brilliant. There's a brilliant usecase area. If I had access to
a five hundred thousand dollars Nive consoleand some awesome like Avalon, Mike pres
and everything, I don't, youdon't need to use thirty two floating point.
And that it's a controlled environment.You can do the sound checks,
you can adjust the game as necessary, twenty four bits one ninety two recording

(33:16):
whatever controlled environment that's fine, outin the field or super low output devices.
Thirty two bit floating point is amazing. But let's move on to other
things. The Logitech g Cloud.This is kind of a complete shift into
another direction of geekery. For thoseof you semi familiar with it, y'all

(33:37):
know what the steam deck is.I think anybody who's into video games or
game consoles or gaming at all hasheard about, at least at this point,
the Valve steam Deck. Handheld videogame devices kind of Nintendo's always done
them. Nintendo's always had the GameBoy, or the Nintendo DS or the

(33:58):
three DS, or even the Swim, which technically switches between a handtel device
and a regular gaming console. Butover the past over the past few years,
I think several years at this point, there have been a lot of
like Chinese companies coming out with handheldgaming devices that people like me, nerds
and geeks like me can do theiremulation on. So we can play our

(34:19):
old nes games on our Super Nintendogames or Sega Genesis games, or Dreamcast
games or PlayStation two games or whateverwe can, we can play them on
these handtel devices. Since the Switch, the handhel devices didn't become super dupy
popular in the mainstream again until NintendoSwitch. Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch.
After that, different manufacturers like Logitechand Valve and different even Sony's getting back

(34:45):
apparently, rumors are that Sony's gettingback into the handteld gaming arena. They
have started to build their own handtelgaming devices. Valve built the steam Deck
because of the Nintendo Switch. Theysaw how popular the Nintendo Switch was and
that people were getting into handteld gamingagain, and they built the Valve and
it's been wildly successful. So othermainstream there's always been Chinese manufacturers like GPD

(35:07):
and whatnot, ay n and thosethings making handheld devices kind with kind of
to serve the emulation community, butnow it's handtel gaming is getting more mainstream
and that's thanks to the Steam Deck. Really, Nintendo made the switch kind
of spark the handtelds were a viablething again, but Steam was like the

(35:28):
next manufacturer to really popularize it.And now Logitech a few years ago,
not a few years ago, likewithin the last year as of recording,
released the Logitech g Cloud and it'skind of the redheaded step child of handteld
gaming. There's the reviews have beenmixed on it, good and bad,
and I have one. I sawthe Logitech g Cloud on Amazon. They

(35:52):
were doing monthly payments for like thirtybucks a month or whatever. It was
three hundred dollars. We'll talk aboutthat in a second, but it was
kind of like, you know what, I'll get into it because it's it's
kind of it's doing a little promotionright now where it's it makes sense.
I would not have dropped three hundreddollars just off the bat, you know,
and one fell swoop for the thing, but like fifty bucks whatever,
I'll see what this is about.I love it. I really liked the

(36:15):
Logitech g Cloud. It's got theSnapdragon. I think is a seven thirty
G or seven twenty G. It'skind of a process or an SC that's
a few years old. At thispoint. It was like a global access
processor. It was meant for likedeveloping countries that didn't need the snap Dragon
eighty five, didn't need the snapDragon eighty five, doesn't need the Snapdragon
eight Gen one or eight Gen two. It's the Snapdragon seven twenty G or

(36:37):
seven thirty G, and it's itdoesn't matter the exact moniker of it.
It's not a super duper powerful systemon ship. It doesn't have a super
powerful GPU. It does have eightcores, it's not four gigabytes a RAM.
It's kind of like middle of theroad, mid range whatever, which
is fine, except that Logitech wantedthree hundred dollars for this, and I

(36:58):
agree with that critique that I'll talkabout why I love the Logitech Cloud,
but I do agree that three hundreddollars is too expensive because for like fifty
dollars more, you can get abase model steam Deck that will run circles.
That's an x eighty six process,so that will run circles. AMD
processor run circles around the g cloudin the seven twenty Snapdragon that's inside the

(37:20):
G Cloud. Three hundred dollars istoo much for the G Cloud. The
G Cloud would be an absolute bangerat two hundred dollars, it would be
a no brainer. At one hundredand fifty dollars. I don't know how
they could reach that price point.But at three hundred dollars it is too
expensive. Now. The field,the buttons, the layout, it feels

(37:40):
exquisite in your hands. It isso good to play emulators on. It's
got a seven in ten eighty screen. The Steam Deck has an eight eight
hundred P screen. The logic dG Cloud is seven inch ten eighty screen,
higher resolution. It looks gorgeous,ips it looks absolutely gorgeous. The
processor inside there, the Snapdragon seventwenty or whatever. It's powerful enough to

(38:00):
run a lot of PS two gamesand WE games. You might have to
put on some frameskiret for some things, but for instance, I love Grand
Turismo for for PlayStation two. Itplays beautifully on the Logitech G Cloud.
I adore it. It should becheaper. It should be cheaper, or
if it US three hundred dollars,that should have a faster processor in their

(38:22):
better processor that's my critique. It'sjust too expensive for the hardware. But
the hardware itself is awesome and Ido love it. Thank you for listening
to Geek Therapy for Radio. Youare worthy of love, you're worthy of
giving love, you're worthy of receivinglove, and you're worthy of your own
self respect. Thank you so muchfor listening. Please support your local hobby

(38:42):
shops. Find out where they arearound you, and support your local brick
and mortar hobby shops or bar fromthem online. Anyways, thank you for
listening. Talk to you next time.