what compression takes away

I listened to the mp3 and the drums sounded great. The wav file is hard for me to listen to though, it seems to be like a 130MB file size and my connection sucks so its hard for me to download and play.

But if I understand you added 16bit drum overdubs to the wav? What was the bit-rate you originally transmitted at over Ninjam?

Also what kind of mics are you using, again the overall kit sounded really good.

BTW in the US they have the Radio Shack electronic store, which used to sell a nice inexpensive PZM microphone. As I always have understood it, if the drummer tapes it right to their chest its somehow gets a great drum sound.

here is a famous video of Neil Peart of Rush as I recall wearing a PZM -

Vital Signs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chHppsy59AE
"everybody got to deviate from the norm
an ounce of perception, a pound of obscure"

But what do I know, to me I love VSTi technology today, I can just dial in any kind of drum sound. I don't even own an acoustic kit.

just remembering how neil pert plays makes me wanna throw away everything. But to answer you Q. I used the multitrack backup reaper makes in the HDD with all participants. Muted the stereo drum track which is streamed by me. Then I put in its place the full 6 track of separate drums uncompressed recorded at the same time in a separate recorder, so I can make the perfect mix of the drum sound with full spectrum and dynamics, process each track separatedly, etc.

I made a wav file so U can appreciate the full depth of no-compression (Tried to make a flac, but couldn't). The mp3 should be 800kbps to be lossless, so there was no joke making a 320kbps mp3. Remember. The drums were NEVER COMPRESSED from capture to the wav file. If you work in studio this is the norm; you only compress the final mix only, but in the real world since mp3 appeared ppl think this is Hi-FI. mmmm....NOT.....there's lot of audio lost (as it is called loosy compression). If you think a mp3 sound the same as the CD where it came from, then this whole comparison is useless. btw, you can stream the wav. just drag to winamp the url.

The mic set is a cheap audiotechnica 6-piece set midnight blues, and the recorder is a korg d3200

I've heard you play and i thought you played acoustic, but vst can fool you. Sounded great. I'd really like to have one of those silent plastic portable and sound changeble on the fly drums, but there are too expensive here. And Its been lots of years since I played this beauty for the first time. I know her better than my ex-wife (mmmm...you never get to know women that well anyway).

Ahh.... that PZM mic never heard of it. will search. thx

Im no drummer.
But i say your drums sound very good. And to my own surprise,my bass sounds good too.
Havnt listened to it for a longer time.
Cu.

It took me awhile but I finally downloaded and listened to the wav file now, the drums indeed sound really nice.

But on the mp3 if I understand correctly, I think I can hear how they sound more compressed.
To me I think they sound somewhat more clearer and upfront compared to the wav but what do I know.
Again though, overall the kit sounds nicely miked.

What type of kit is it? wood/sizes etc?

Also what bitrate was the jam recorded at or when opened in Reaper?
Was it higher than 16 bit as the drum overdub on the korg d3200?

BTW Addictive drums has a free demo which you can download here -
This is what I primarily use.

you can download it here

You do make AD sound good Mutant, I normally can't stand the thing cos it sounds too rigid and static, and at times even sounds like groove agent but I wouldn't have known you was using AD form hearing you play.
Have you ultra tweaked them to ya liking?

Jon I get what ya mean about the acoustic drums dynamics getting all squashed up and killed, with acoustic drums it does matter I guess, but you could try EQ back in what's going out, maybe add a bit of air on the EQ might stop some parts getting lost when compressed. Will probs take an extra couple of megs of Toms HD's but I think it will be years before you cost him even an extra gig. :)
You could pull everything out not needed on the eq, like look on a vst scope where's not really being used and just pull it out on the EQ, to leave a little more room for the rest in the compression, don't know if the ogg is constant or variable though.

Mutant:

Lets clarify first there are different kinds of "compression". The one we're talking about here is psycoacoustic compression created by fraunhoffer in '98, '99 which gave birth to the mp3. In simple terms it analyses the audio and eliminates the sounds that are less perceptible and won't be missed so the file is less size (about 10:1 or more without audible degradation). On the other hand the "normal" compression you find on a vst plug-in or a pedal FX is another thing. It lowers the level when audio peaks over a desired threshold, so the dynamics is affected, but none is eliminated.

Said that the reason I think you hear the drums more "upfront" in the mp3 is that in th remix I used invividual compressor in the SD,BD and toms, so the dynamics is lower. This is just a matter of taste. I like i that way, but I could have made the opposite, so it would be more "upfront" than the original. Thats the trick. More control so the sound can be "sculpted" as wish.

The sizes and wood I don't know. It is a TAMA Swingstar...very old with a ludwig snare and zildjzan cymbals. I play wood sticks, not plastic. The recording in d3200 was 16bit-44.1 khz

Andy:

Ive monitored the outgoing stream of reaper with d/u meter and it looks like it is variable. It could be a good idea to cut away all the not used freqs if you wanted a synth drum sound like 909. It indeed could sound "better" at low bitrates as drum boxes sound really nice in the jams. Worth experimenting. Can you explain more that "air" thing?.Didn't get it. As far as I know the "dynamics" of the sound uses space in the ogg/mp3 stream, so to make more room for quality it is best to get it the louder and compressed as possible.

Adding some Air and eq'ing back in what sounds lost. Like you said it gets rid of some parts so they get lost but if you make them more defined then the parts that you feel are lost will be less lost.
So like passing an ice cube through a heater will melt it but if you make the ice cube much bigger and dense then there will be more left after its passed through the heater.

By Air I mean around 4k plus, upping it there and above add's air.

Maybe we should have a few Hi-Fi channels that stream in 256 or 320 kbit/s ? :)

http://www.youtube.com/Hitrate