:lol: no worries


"Wait up guys, i've got to do my ride"..." :lol:

hehehe yeah 10 hours in the studio recording the drums for one song

actually, although wee may laugh, i beleive i read somehwere that the drum solo on the intro to "time" (PF) by nick mason had to be done a drum at a time, because nick mason didn't have enough roto toms, and so had to record one, retune the drum record enother etc... apparently it took ages.

[QUOTE=moaner]actually, although wee may laugh, i beleive i read somehwere that the drum solo on the intro to "time" (PF) by nick mason had to be done a drum at a time, because nick mason didn't have enough roto toms, and so had to record one, retune the drum record enother etc... apparently it took ages.[/QUOTE]

...Borrow more roto toms???

:lol:

who knows. they sure could afford them.

sorry... im new to this, but what is a lead? Also, ya know how lots of metal bands have distorted guitars, but they still sound clear? Well i have protools (digi 001 rack) and when i record distorted guitars, they sound crappy, and if i wanna put on another harmonized part or something it just sounds EXTRA crappy. Where as bands that record in a studio, it sounds really nice and clear. Ive tried adding distortion on the little onscreen mixer... ive tried using my distortion pedal... and ive tried recording distortion from the amp. Nothing works... can you help? is there a way to get that sound without spending lots of money?

mic an amp

i have a question....i am a one man band. Like i d everything then i am trying to find a good drum kit for the drums. I was wondering exactly what stuff do i need since i have to recored one thing at a time...like do i only need one mic. I plan on getting a better computer and a program i just was wondering what stuff dont i need that you listed.

[B]AshesOfHate[/B]

I like you was in a one-man band for 3 years, then a singer joined

Basically I did it like this

Bought a Tascam 4-track tape recorder, and recorded a couple of songs using my guitar

Experimented a lot with layering guitars

After awhile I bought a Fostex VF-80 digital 8-track and has been the best thing I've bought since :)

The things I use for every song are

Guitar: Leads to line in or a Condensor mic to mic up my amp (bout £35)

Bass: Same as Above

Drums: If you're going to record a full kit you'll need a set of drum mics, about £180 I think, but if you want a lot better quality you might have to pay a bit more, I use my Mac to program drums

Vocals: Use the same mic for acoustic guitar (£35)

Hope this has helped

Thanks alot man....im gonna use a comp program for drums and mixing and stuff. But thanks alot you answered just what i wanted

Phototropic, are you DeadInLove or did you steal his avatar?

[QUOTE=AshesOfHate]Thanks alot man....im gonna use a comp program for drums and mixing and stuff. But thanks alot you answered just what i wanted[/QUOTE]

Anytime, good luck

[QUOTE=airborne50caliber]Phototropic, are you DeadInLove or did you steal his avatar?[/QUOTE]

Yeah I had my account name changed :D

Thanks for noticing :thumb:

wow, this is VERY helpful. Thank you so much!

[QUOTE=Phototropic]Anytime, good luck



Yeah I had my account name changed :D

Thanks for noticing :thumb:[/QUOTE]

your new name is better than your old one.

congratulations.

Cheers man, tis a Kyuss song :p :D

shhhh.

pretend its just a cool word you made up.

Oh ok

*pretends* :thumb:

Drum recording
 

Hi there, I've only read up to lesson 3 and so far it's AMAZING, but I have a question...

Well, me and my band have played a lot of shows in the year we've been together, it's been incradibly fun and we're going for recording in a 'in-home recording studio'. Now, in all the shows i've played, the technician I always had always told me that we don't really need mics for cymbals (in a show) because they're so loud anyways... which is true because you hear them FINE. But now... i'm guessing recording could be different?... do you reallllllllllly need mics for cymbals... or would the other mics pic up anyways? And also.. you probably don't need mics for each cymbal you have right? Because.. I have a pretty intense set of cymbals.. and for renting mics it would cost a lot if you know what I mean. So.. can you help please! And thanks again for this awesome thread.

Sam, I [I]think[/I] although don't hold me to this

The overhead mics pick up the sound of the cymbals as well as the over-all kit

You usually have 2 overhead mics set above the drum kit about 4-5 ft

The function of the overheads depends on what you are doing.

Case 1: You are a minimalist who wants to record the whole drum kit with a good quality stereo pair of overheads. You find a good compromise in positioning for picking up drums and cymbals in a good blend, then you may want to add close mics for the snare and bass. In any case, the overheads are picking up the whole kit.

Case 2: You are looking for a punchy rock sound and decide to close-mic every section of the kit. In this case the two overheads will be more spaced from one another than in case 1, and will be closer to the kit because they only need to pick up cymbals, not get an accurate stereo image.

In case 1, everything will be picked up by the overheads. In case 2, you will need 2 overheads in addition to your drum kit mics. The hihat is more often than not left to its own devices: it will be picked up by the overheads and will spill into the other mics: in this case your open hihat sound will be far-sounding and continous, you will not be able to hear the single hits (usually) and this is desirable for certain engineers. When you want to distinguish your hihat sound, every single hit, and want it to be very front-end in the mix, you would mic it up separately with a small diaphragm condenser.

Alright cool cool... thanks

Umm... I read up to page 10 and I don't know if it has been posted yet, but... is there a link to the printable lessons yet? Or can someone send it to me at [email]a3r0sm17h@yahoo.com[/email] ? Thanks in advance.

Hey.. I need some advice about recording.. I got a PODxt hooked up on my PC for recording, but I would like to get some drums in too but I have no idea what samplers or MIDI's are as I'm a total noob in this area! Could anyone be so kind to explain this stuff for me or share a link? Many thanks!

OK i need somone to go into more detail about sound proofing(or close) i heard blankets help but how many-and theres like sound isulation-will that help-im on a tight budget-thanks!

I have a question about stereo inputs. Can I make them into mono channels with some kindf of adapter, cause that would save me tons.[drummer has 13 mics....]
Oh, and I'm buying a firewire interface and If I use a mixer to put all the channels into one will I still be able to mix each drum as a seperate track or is it stuck like that? [ I know its a little hard to understand, but I'm tired and thats the best i can do]

[QUOTE=hantge30]OK i need somone to go into more detail about sound proofing(or close) i heard blankets help but how many-and theres like sound isulation-will that help-im on a tight budget-thanks![/QUOTE]

If you can get carpet padding and put it up on walls or just throw it everywhere that helps, and its really cheap++.

recording software
 

heh i downloaded something called fruity loops and it look really great but i plug my guitair in to my computer but how do i make it record to the program.



And 1 other thing u guys r saying to put a microphone to the amp? y dont u just have a seprate chord plug into ur head phone jack of ur anp and into the computer that would give u the best quality i think but tell me if i dont under stand the hole microphone next to the amp. :thumb:

You mic your amp because the power amplifer and speaker have a large effect on the tone.

It all depends on your amp. If your using solid state such as line6 or through a fx box with a pre-amp; its best to record through the (line in) jack. (if your sound card isnt a generic one). If it is a generic soundcard you will notice a constant buzzing from the hard drive in your recordings. You dont need a top of the line sound card to make really good demos and such. I went out and bought a audigy II for 60$ (can) and it sounds crystall clear. I use fruityloops 3.5.6 for mixing and havent even thought of upgrading to the pro. Its awsome. For just recording the guitar get total recorder or ar wizard 3.0 or somthing not windows recorder it sucks. Oh and record as mono not stereo or else it will only record on one speaker, this happens with alot of solid state amps. once you have a rough recording put it in a wave editor to take out blank sound and noise unwanted (the best prog for that would be wavelab. once thats done you import it into fruityloops in the samples folder. And then you can place your riffs into the digital mixing board. This all takes a ton of patience for a noob as i once was digital recording. There are many other programs to do this stuff out there, this is just my choice of progs, seems to work fine. Check out a couple of my recorded tracks to hear the quality of a 60 dollar sound card and tell me if it sounds good ;) >> [url]http://www.sectionz.com/detail.asp?rType=mp3&SZID=19603#[/url]

Yes, I enjoyed this thread so much that I felt I should register, and share my own $0.02 as well!

First off, theabstract, great work on the lessons, you make great suggestions and way to get started. Kudos to you, you have done a great job.

Now, my additions :)


When I first started home recording in 2000 I made TONS of begginer mistakes.

I had decent software (Cakewalk 9.0...in my opinion the best version of this software! Homestudio blows!), an okay card (Soundblaster Audigy), a behrringer 1202 mixer, and a Shure SM58 (the worst mic on the face of the planet! Many will disagree, but I hate it!)

The fun thing was micing things in close, I got a terrible sound. I got this crappy clipping in my ears. But the levels on the board and in the softwear were both in the green.

This clipping was coming from the mic strip. There are two major items on the strip that can cause clipping, the volume and the gain or trim knob. The volume is usually the slider, and the gain/trim is the tiny knob underneath the input. The gain knob is just like that on your amp, the higher the gain, the more 'distortion' your going to experiance. When I record guitar, I usually keep this VERY VERY low, and bring the strip and master volumes up to get my recording level high enough in the software.


I also was recording for a good 3 years without any kind of preamps. Preamps are nessacary it seems while recording. They beef up your sound, and just make it overall warmer. My current low-cost fav is the 'Joemeek ThreeQ". It's about $300 Canadian.

As implied earlier, a decent mic can go from making your Mesa boogie Dual Rectifier sound like a menacing titan, or it could make it sound like a Marshall MG10. (Funny though how Eric Clapton did many records with low powered practice amps) Therefore if you only have $150 in your budget for a mic, get an Shure SM57!

The SM57 is the workhorse of the home studio. You can do vocals, guitar amps, snare drums, toms, overheads, even kick drum with it. (Yes kick drum. It's best used on the batter head and blended with another kick mic thats on the front). If your going to buy only one mic this year, and you don't have one already, get a Shure SM57!!!!

What I did for three years before shelling for a new sound card, I went Stereo out from my behrringer mixer into the 'aux' ins (RCA) on the front of my audigy box. This worked for quite a while, but added A LOT of background hiss. I recomend poping the wallet for a $150 Maudio box or a Edirol UA-25 USB box. These two boxes can both recieve two balanced input signals (that you can bounce to two different audio tracks), the UA-25 even has midi in/outs which is a nice feture to have!

If your working off of your computer you probably have noticed an area to use 'plugins'. Plugins have been a saving grace for me on numerous occasions. Waves makes a great package called 'Rennisance' that I use quite often. It's pretty pricy, but definatly worth the cash! (or you can probably get a 30day demo of it from your local music retailer and just skip your comptuers **** back every 30 days to enjoy it longer!)

The big plugin that always finds its way onto ALMOST every track I record now is the Rcomp by Waves. Compression is a pretty much a must have in this day and age of music. Pretty much compression squeezes the audible frequency range to make things sound louder. using Compression is an art, as too much is bad, and not enough can make it sound weak. My big gripe with compression is hte fact that it seems to cut out the highs and lows.

[QUOTE=www.tweakheadz.com]What is a Compressor? OK, Imagine you had a vocalist who would whisper words quietly and then belt out some loud screams. You, the engineer, has to record such a take. You find the whispers are too quiet unless you boost the fader and the screams require you to quickly lower the fader so you don't overload the recorder. That is the time-honored technique called "riding the gain" (gain is another word for volume). A compressor is an audio circuit that automatically rides the gain. It pumps up the volume when things get quiet and slams down the peaks when they get loud. The goal of the compressor is to achieve a more uniform, more consistent audio signal that is optimum for recording and listening. [/QUOTE]


Finally, I will further emphaise the fact that MONITORS ARE GOD!!!!! They will aid you in the 'it sounds good at home but crappy in the car!'

Actually, one of my first tests on most 'mixes' is to throw the mix on my iPod and jump in the car and listen to it. Most people listen to their music in the car, so if my newly recorded track sounds great on my dads stock Ford Tempo stereo, and great on the system in my RX-7...then it should sound good in any car!

The acoustics of your room can disrupt the sound of your mix as well. I for one mix in a very crappy room, even with monitors the vocals sound clear as day and everything else sounds like poo, or like its way off in the background. On headphones the SAME MIX sounds evenly balanced and well put together. In the car....the vocals disapear. It's a game, a frusterating one, but one that should be mastered!



After five years of doing the most frusterating thing I have ever done in my life, I also find it the most rewarding. While I do not have the best gear in the world, I would like to think I still do good indie recordings. (checkout [url]www.myspace.com/rolodexrock/[/url] for an idea) This is my setup:

System:
AMD Athlon system 1.2GHZ with 512 ram (OLD and lame for recording!)
Mini-Mac (VST linked with my AMD. The AMD is my main machine)
Comptuer link box (Allows me to work both machines from one monitor, keyboard, mouse!)
Cubase SX3 (I had a protools Digit02 rack system and hated it!!!!! That and you can link mulitple computers together to split the workload!)
PreSonus Firepod (This is the greatest device I have EVER used! So worth the $750!!!!!!)
JoeMeek ThreeQ (compressor, EQ, and preamp all in little 1/2 space rack unit! and it sounds GREAT!!!!)
EVERY Waves plugin currently available (A staple in all of my recordings)
BlueSky Media Desk monitor system (Hey, if it's good enough for Lucas Sound it's good enough for me!)

Mics:
Audix OM2 Vocal
Audix OM5 Vocal
Audix OM7 Vocal
Audix IM5 Instrument (like the SM57, but better!)
Shure SM57 x2
Audix DP5 Drum mic kit
Audix Fireball Wind Instruments
Blue BlueBird Condensor (multi-purpose)
AKG C1000S x2 Condensor (multi-purpose)

TONS of high-grade bulk cable. (low quality cable has lots of noise)