The Recording Thread

[4Horseman]

Happy New Year everyone. Great thread idea, Blues.
Do any of you have tips for recording stereo cabs with different mics? I've been running two half stacks in stereo, I have one SM57 on one cab and an AT2035 condenser mic set back about 3-4 feet. I have 2 SM57's but my interface only has 2 XLR inputs, or I'd try using all three at once. Do you guys prefer putting condenser mics close to cabs, or setting them back and blending? It seems like setting it back gets some kind of reverb effect happening. Is this a mic placement issue, or just the way a condenser and dynamic mic blend together?

 

[Frodebro]

Happy New Year everyone. Great thread idea, Blues.
Do any of you have tips for recording stereo cabs with different mics? I've been running two half stacks in stereo, I have one SM57 on one cab and an AT2035 condenser mic set back about 3-4 feet. I have 2 SM57's but my interface only has 2 XLR inputs, or I'd try using all three at once. Do you guys prefer putting condenser mics close to cabs, or setting them back and blending? It seems like setting it back gets some kind of reverb effect happening. Is this a mic placement issue, or just the way a condenser and dynamic mic blend together?

The further back the mic is from the cab, the more it picks up the sound of the room as well as the speakers. If you have a room that sounds good this can be a great thing, but most of us that do this at home are using bedrooms or other smaller, rectangular rooms that can be a nightmare to get to sound decent due to all of the reflections bouncing around.

 

[Dogs of Doom]

The further back the mic is from the cab, the more it picks up the sound of the room as well as the speakers. If you have a room that sounds good this can be a great thing, but most of us that do this at home are using bedrooms or other smaller, rectangular rooms that can be a nightmare to get to sound decent due to all of the reflections bouncing around.

i've posted this before, in other threads, but I think that anyone wishing to learn mic'ing & room acoustics should read.

http://www.crownaudio.com/media/pdf/mics/127089.pdf

then there's this, when it comes to multiple mic's:

Stereo Microphone Techniques Explained, Part 1

Realize that waves of different frequencies travel differently. When you combine that w/ reflection & distance (between mic's) you get phasing & timing issues between the different mic's. When a single mic is used, the distance between the source sound & the addition of acoustic reflections can cause that in a single mic.

To minimize this effect, it's best to have multiple mic's at the same axis point. The more spread between capsules, the more time/phase issues will be created. There are ways to use this for your advantage, but it will be an exercise of treating the room acoustically & then knowing how to do it & then how to put it into context by proper placement of sound source & capture points.

Many people like to record w/ as little coloration as possible, because it's easier to add reverb/delay & even phase, later in post process, rather than to record it & be stuck w/ it. Problem is... many don't really understand phase, time & distance enough to actually add it later, so, they just throw some reverb on it & call it good.

It you really want to get it down, read up on room acoustics & how to design a room for that purpose. Read the mic'ing studies on angles of reflection, time, space, phasing, etc. & then learn how to put it all together. That will be your best bet. Until you get that, it will be hard to understand the whats & whys of recording issues...

Here's an article that gives a simplified version of room acoustics (16 pages)

http://continuingeducation.construction.com/article.php?L=320&C=934

most sites seem like they are simply trying to sell you a product, but this one explains different environments, etc.

 

[minerman]

I learned the hard way too.lol
I have a couple of large dry erase boards & use the digital camera to take shots of those & screen shots of FX plug-in settings.

I use a vst notepad thing in Reaper for this, not sure if it'll work in other daw's but it's worth a shot...Just download, un-zip, & put it in your vst folder to find out....Works great for me in Reaper though, I use it all the time for amp settings, vocals/lyrics, basically everything....

VST Notepad

Screenshot of it in the first post here:

Track Notepad VST plug-in - Cockos Confederated Forums

 

[12barjunkie]

I use a vst notepad thing in Reaper for this, not sure if it'll work in other daw's but it's worth a shot...Just download, un-zip, & put it in your vst folder to find out....Works great for me in Reaper though, I use it all the time for amp settings, vocals/lyrics, basically everything....

VST Notepad

Screenshot of it in the first post here:

Track Notepad VST plug-in - Cockos Confederated Forums

Huh. That's pretty cool...and useful

 

[Coronado]

I'd love to have a dedicated "Recording" subforum. It's been asked for before and hailed by many to be a great idea.

But deleting old threads seems to be a priority.

What is everyone's general recording process? Such as what do you record first?

Drums?
Bass?
Guitar?

I've heard many MANY times that drums and bass are always laid first. I've had a hard time actually putting a song together from some of the riffs I've come up with. No idea how to proceed without a drummer/bass player and/or instruments to cover these.

Digging this topic!! Thanks for making this a sticky!
I either start with a general guitar rhythm that I have in my head, or I play around with some EZ Drummer tracks until I find one that sticks. The cool thing with EZ Drummer is that you can sample some loops and then if you find one you like, you can pull it into song creator which helps you simply pull together the various parts of the song via loops (multiple verse, chorus, pre-chorus, fills (etc...) to drag into the overall drum track). For the last few weeks, Sweetwater has several different packages you can download for $39 bucks (regularly like $89). I just downloaded Rock/Metal and Blues, which really increased the selection of loops and tracks to choose from.

So far I am a fan of EZDrummer, but one drawback is the very large draw on the CPU (at times the clipping makes me want to toss the damn thing through the window...). I will eventually need to update my PC, but for now it does okay. I find that if you build the song first in EZ Drummer, I can then just drag it into Studio One and then build the other tracks (guitar, leads, bass, and (yikes!) vocals around it).

One of my issues was that I would come up with a cool riff that I wanted to build on, but then I would need to grab my phone and video it - often by the time I get that in the right angle and ready to go, I forget the damn guitar part! I recently picked up Electro Harmonix 360 Nano Looper. Now I just step on the looper if I want to quickly record something I like. I can either go back to it later, or I can loop it and then try some other guitar over it. Not a bad little effect, I hear there are better ones, but for me and what I need, it does the trick.

I could go on and on, and I have a million questions for you guys, but I'll stop here so I don’t crash the server with my 4 page post!


I'll end with a question: Once you have the song at a point you want to share it, how do you guys download it (cloud? disk?). And one last question - do you guys ever record video? I've seen some great quality sound videos, and some not so great ones. Any advice/experience on how to record a good sounding video? Thanks!!

 

[Dogs of Doom]

Record the audio & then add it to the video. The poor quality ones are where the video is turned on & the internal mic is recording the sound...

I use soundcloud to share sound samples...

 

[Coronado]

Record the audio & then add it to the video. The poor quality ones are where the video is turned on & the internal mic is recording the sound...

I use soundcloud to share sound samples...

Cool - thanks DoD! In the market to pick up a decent video recorder. Any favorites I can look into?

Thanks again!

 

[Dogs of Doom]

It depends on a few things...

price range?
how will you use it?
what will you use it for?

 

[Australian]

there's always (gasp) Windows.
besides,if you're not upgrading something every two years you're just being passe.

I just bought the UA Apollo Quad (thunderbolt). This should keep me happy for a few years and I couldn't resist having those great UAD plugins.

 

[blues_n_cues]

I use a vst notepad thing in Reaper for this, not sure if it'll work in other daw's but it's worth a shot...Just download, un-zip, & put it in your vst folder to find out....Works great for me in Reaper though, I use it all the time for amp settings, vocals/lyrics, basically everything....

VST Notepad

Screenshot of it in the first post here:

Track Notepad VST plug-in - Cockos Confederated Forums

the problem is when a hard drive or MOBO dies & you don't have it down on paper. or you're "on location" & need the reference notes.

 

[blues_n_cues]

I'll end with a question: Once you have the song at a point you want to share it, how do you guys download it (cloud? disk?).
I use SoundCloud since some phones/apps can't get SoundClick. I also use ReverbNation although it's a PITA & only takes MP3 uploads then kills the quality on those.

And one last question - do you guys ever record video? I've seen some great quality sound videos, and some not so great ones. Any advice/experience on how to record a good sounding video?

I've done a couple short vids,mostly the solo sections of songs.

the best way is to record the audio just like you normally would & record the video simultaneously. go into a DAW that does video editing too & first mute the video track. make sure things are synched & go from there.

if you need to reshoot some video then just do that while playing along with the original track.

 

[poeman33]

Cool - thanks DoD! In the market to pick up a decent video recorder. Any favorites I can look into?

Thanks again!

I just use an HD Webcam. Not that expensive, and do a pretty good job. If I am doing a demo of gear, then I will record live, used the interface as the sound source. If I am doing a video of a song. I add the recorded song as it's own audio track, and record the video to that. I've tried a few different programs, but ended up just using the stock Windows Movie maker. It works fine, but be warned it uses a lot or resources when rendering to the final product you will post.

 

[Coronado]

It depends on a few things...

price range?
how will you use it?
what will you use it for?

Thank You! For price, I guess I'm fairly flexible. This might be a strange way to equate it, but I would say along the same quallity lines as an SM57, M Audio BX5 monitor speakers, and a Sennheiser HD280 headphones range. Somehting that would fall within that range of quality. Nothing super fancy or professional, but that has a decent quality to it.

I would use it primarily for recording videos of me and a buddy playing. I guess something to capture some of the good ol' days for when I'm too old to have this kind of fun.

 

[Coronado]

I've done a couple short vids,mostly the solo sections of songs.

the best way is to record the audio just like you normally would & record the video simultaneously. go into a DAW that does video editing too & first mute the video track. make sure things are synched & go from there.

if you need to reshoot some video then just do that while playing along with the original track.

Excellent! Thanks Blues!! I believe I can use my Studio One to upload the video and then synch up the recorded tracks.

 

[Coronado]

I just use an HD Webcam. Not that expensive, and do a pretty good job. If I am doing a demo of gear, then I will record live, used the interface as the sound source. If I am doing a video of a song. I add the recorded song as it's own audio track, and record the video to that. I've tried a few different programs, but ended up just using the stock Windows Movie maker. It works fine, but be warned it uses a lot or resources when rendering to the final product you will post.

Thanks Poeman - I'll have to give that a try as well. My current PC clips quite a bit from just EZ Drummer, so I'm betting the lights in the house will dim if I tried pulling that kind of CPU. I'll give our (older) camera a try, although I think it might be a bit dated at this point.

 

[Dogs of Doom]

Thanks Poeman - I'll have to give that a try as well. My current PC clips quite a bit from just EZ Drummer, so I'm betting the lights in the house will dim if I tried pulling that kind of CPU. I'll give our (older) camera a try, although I think it might be a bit dated at this point.

If this works for you, you might just add a few bucks for lighting. The more room light, the better the image quality will be. Learning light, is like learning mic's. You deal w/ angles, reflection, etc. When you have more than enough light, turn down the light in the camera. Make sure the light is adjustable in the camera...

 

[johnfv]

...then there's this, when it comes to multiple mic's...

Some good points and articles Dogs. Here is one more that talks more specifically about phase and in particular phase when using multiple mics on a single source.
Phase Demystified

 

[scat7s]

I think unrelated to knob twisting but that I am finding [finally] the importance of.. is patience. Up until recently I'd write a song, arrange it.. change things. Then I'd go in and quickly lay it down to "tape."

I'd do bass to a click (I am weak at bass) and if there was something not quite right I'd say, "F" it after a couple of attempts to nail it. Same with guitar parts, synth or solos.

When I'd listen later I'd be like, hot damn, you are one lazy mother-fookahlicious dude. They (errors) stand out no matter how small and the going back later never seems to materialize.

Now if it takes me 666 takes I will try and make that devil do what I say. At the end of the day something might still squeak by due to me playing to a click and not the actual drums. Maybe clicks work for you, not for me though. I like the actual drum parts. My boy (bassist) told me he's done it and there is a lot of wiggle room still for timing errors using a click.

The other part of patience I am still working on is: I try to get the best sound per instrument that I can squeeze out right now. Get the best you can. I record dry and then mess with effects later.

I would initially say "F" it, I will go back in later and redo with better guitar tone, bass tone.. etc. and I really fugged a song up this way when a singer I don't have a lot of access to did a killer sexy job on a song I was like, let me hurry thru this so she can do her thing. She was awesome, me, not so much. LoL. I guess to sum up:

Take your time, get the best sound and performance you can get right now. It'll give you a solid foundation to build on.

this is me too.

I get an idea im hot on, all I want to do is get it down onto a media and let the creative process work itself out.

inevitably at some point I realize, 'this shit is too sloppy'

I always intend to revisit once my ideas have been fleshed out and do a "proper" version. I almost never go back and redo it proper. by this time ive been obsessing on this song idea for 3 or 4 weeks and am in full burnout mode. I eventually talk myself into "f*ck it, its a rough demo...it gets the point across even if its not a great performance/mix/engineering job"

ive finally abandoned the tape machines and am on the computer, which allows me to put together a reasonably tight performance without having to spend 3 months practicing all of my bits and parts...and being able to play them in sequence with flawless transitions from part to part.

working in sections allows one to move quickly, while the ideas are still somewhat fresh, without having to spend all of the hours practicing parts/transitions.

to me its pointless to learn all of my parts start to finish for any given song since theres a very good chance the song will never be performed live anyway. and if it does ever see the light of day....that's what rehearsal is for right?

I used to get a little hung up on recording in sections...it felt like cheating. but the simple truth is, there aren't enough hours in the day for most of us (edit:me) to do all of the things that should be done if you (edit: I) want a nice tight recording, and you (edit: I) want to do it honest.

im liberated. im free. and hopefully I can start building some nice sounding recordings with a faster turnaround.

 

[blues_n_cues]

this is me too.

I get an idea im hot on, all I want to do is get it down onto a media and let the creative process work itself out.

inevitably at some point I realize, 'this shit is too sloppy'

I always intend to revisit once my ideas have been fleshed out and do a "proper" version. I almost never go back and redo it proper.

and then there's just our own perfectionism,OCD,or whatever you choose to call it.
there's times I'll go back & overdub a manually doubled or tripled lead bend or squeal 15x to get it just perfect when in reality a non-guitar playing stranger listening for the first time in real time either won't hear it or G.A.F. anyway.