Habey Gonzo

So I guess I've read enough here to finally know what I need to start recording my first demo. It should be made of 4 songs, once finished, but before that, let's see what I have and what I need.

-written the 4 songs? check! (and a few others that won't be recorded in here)
-guitar, bass? check!
-synth? mmm... very old... I might use midi sounds instead (it will be mostly strings and choirs)
-drums? nope. I use midi + VST for the moment, might get some e-drums later.
-guitar and bass amps? check! but also a guitar port, maybe that will be easier to record the guitar? But I don't know if the sound will be good enough.
-mic? nope. I'm about to buy a shure 57 or 58, which seems good, but I hesitate between both.
-mix table? check! (8 inputs + 2 mics, I guess it will be enough)
-nice soundcard + recording soft? check! audigy laptop + audacity + cubase 2 for advanced editing after recording

Ok. I think it'll be enough like that. I'll start by preparing the drum tracks, then the midi synth tracks. When I finish these, I guess I'll already have the mic, so I might continue with the bass, then the guitar... and finally try to sing.

What do you think? Does it seem feasable? Would you change some steps? And also, I heard about the importance of compressors. Let's supose I use one for the voice and guitar and bass. Where would I put it? In the guitar/bass FX chain? Between the mix-table and the computer for the voice?

I'll let you give your opinion, go to sleep, and start the midi thingie tomorrow morning...

 

Aqualung

That's cool! Looks like you've thought of everything, but then again, i've never tried it so I wouldn't know. That's cool that we could have helped you on your way.

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MusicMan

I'm excited for you! When approaching home recording as a student and trying to learn first and then apply what you've learned all at once for a demo, I imagine it would be pretty nerveracking. Starting to record at home for me was a very gradual process with lots of experimentation and trial-and-error involved, and I also had no deadlines to meet or no sense of urgency either. So my learning curve will be different from yours, but if I had to make one suggestion it would be to not rush yourself or settle for less when you know there's something you could do a little better. Don't force yourself to have a finished product in X amount of days or whatever, be open to giving yourself time to explore certain aspects of the recording process to give yourself that valuable hands-on experience you can only learn by digging around and seeing what happens.

Also, feel free to come back and post here about any little problems you might encounter along the way. We might be able to help, and everyone runs into surprises.

As for compressors...it appears that you're on a budget like myself and don't have thousands of dollars to purchase what a real studio would recommend using for equipment. Therefore, I take the utilitarian approach and use what I've got, and make minimal new purchases. I myself use a Boss CS-2 compression pedal which I picked up on Ebay (it's a 1980's model) after hearing it's what David Gilmour uses. Then I tried it for things other than guitars and eventually even for vocal tracks and found with different settings I could get a more desirable sound even on vocals compared to a dry signal straight from the mic. I personally plug the mic into the pedal, then into my Fostex MR8. So I'm sure some people would laugh at me for using a guitar compression pedal for vocals, but I've never had anyone say "Hey man, it sounds like you're using a cheesy guitar compression pedal on your vox, you should try this or that instead!" So it's stayed in my recording toolbox.

So if you're looking for a fairly inexpensive solution to get you some compression, I'd recommend a pedal to start out with. And when you get more money and experience, you can worry about having seperate compressors for different types of inputs if you want. But this is just my ignorant opinion and your mileage may vary. Best of luck to you, can't wait to hear how it goes for you.


EDIT: If you use the pedal in a guitar/bass chain, I recommend putting it close to, if not the end of the chain going into the recorder. That way you're gating everything coming out of the guitar chain and it will help you learn the settings of the pedal without being confused by how much volume flux is coming from pedals that are after the compressor. In fact, when you first start playing with it, try it for a while as the only pedal you use. Then add distortion before the compressor and play with it some more. Then throw in everything you've got and the compressor last and experiment more.

After all that you can experiment with putting the compression before other effects and see how it tweaks your sound. You can get some crazy sounds by doing setups like guitar->compression with attack, sustain and everything maxed out->distortion->Wah->Recorder. But until you isolate the compression and see what it does to the signal you won't have ideas pop into your head. But using compression early in the chain can really make some unique tones and potential energy levels that can really be manipulated well by other effects further down the chain. Hope that makes sense.

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Habey Gonzo

MM->thanks for the hints! I'll try to get one of these pedals (I just bought a house so money is VERY short these days). Here is my actual setup:
-guitar->wahwah->pitch shifter/tremo->metal-zone (won't use that one, don't like the sound very much)->flanger/chorus->amp (I use the amp's distorsion)
-bass->amp yes, just that !

But I guess I'll record it with a mic if I ever get one of these shure sm58 ones. Should I still keep the compressor in the fx line, or after the mic? And about the voice?

Mmm... let's see if I get some drums running today.

edit. till now I just did some sound check recordings, never the full thing... well, one, but was so bad I'm ashamed of it!

MusicMan

Hehe, don't ever be ashamed of a work in progress, just let it help you find out what needs improved and be happy that you've come as far as you have.

As for that setup, I would try keeping the compression in the guitar chain and run the mic straight to the recorder or mixer. You should be able to produce output at the speakers that should be recordable without much fluctuation in the levels coming into the recorder. If you find your level ranges covering too wide a spectrum still, try putting the compression in between the mic and the mixer/recorder. But the initial recommendation should work ok for you.

Also, a common mistake when first starting to record is to set levels so that you get close to +1.0db or what appears to be the "peak" level. Instead, try to shoot for +0.6 and have absolutely no peaks above 0.8-0.9 and never reaching 1.0. If you've got a couple spikes that the compression didn't catch for some reason, you can always use goldwave to cut all level spikes above a certain mark, so no big deal. But if you gate an entire piece (recorded too loudly) in postproduction, you start to notice the manipulation and its side-effects. If Audacity doesn't have all you need, I recommend Goldwave peronally over Audacity as a free sound editor, so try it if you haven't already.

....and that's enough rambling for now. I'll let you get back to turning knobs and punching buttons and all the fun stuff.

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How to upload music to the Music Showcase. How to embed a YouTube video.

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Aqualung

How do you do that? I have tried to normalise audio tracks before with Goldwave, but I wasn't familiar enough with the software, and I was on a deadline, so I just ended up sending it to my dad.

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Kyria

Of no importance if you want to use a compressor for sure but may I suggest you record the track without the compressor and with it so as to see whether you actually like the effect of using a compressor?

I personally never use a compressor even on voice if I can help it as I feel you lose a lot of the 'colouring' of the sound. If you try it both ways and prefer to use the compressor then you will at least know for sure rather than doing it because you think you should .

Habey Gonzo

I guess I'll start without one, because of money not cheap maybe later. I was exporting some tracks now, and I wondered, would you export in wav or in w64? I guess wav is more compatible, but maybe w64 has a better quality?

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Habey Gonzo

I found the answer: w64 is simply wav which enables 4GB+ file sizes!

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MusicMan

In Goldwave, click on Effect and go down and click Compressor/Expander, then click on Presets at the bottom and find Hard Limit at -6db. If that level isn't right for what you need, you can go up and manually change the cutoff levels and such. There are lots of other helpful presets within the Compressor/Expander there that can help correct recording levels as well.


Glad you found an answer and shared it, until now I knew nothing of w64 so thanks!

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How to upload music to the Music Showcase. How to embed a YouTube video.

Send me a PM if you need any help with anything.

Aqualung

Thanks.

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Mongo97

When recording direct to digital, then you really don't want to spike over -6. Your optimal range can be as low at -10 to -18 or so. Trying to sit as close to the edge of -6 is ok, as long as you don't go over. While there are ways to patch up tracks that spike higher than necessary, it's best to track it without issues. It gives you less to worry about when you're mixing.

If you're going to analog, you can go higher. The reason for the difference is because if you spike out in analog, it'll distort slightly. Digital, on the other hand, kind of freaks out when you peak. Peaking in analog gives some distortion, which could work with the tune. Peaking in digital gives you a headache.

As far as compression or other effects...

1) My personal feeling is to only record with whatever effects are 100% necessary at the moment. If you're recording a mic'd guitar, you want the guitar's effects on it. But, if you have the option (and if you're working with a PC, there's some options) of recording as dry as possible and adding the effects after the recorded signal, it'll give you more room to work with. If you put the compressor in with a plugin after the track was recorded, you get some room to work with tweaking the settings on it. If you put it in the signal chain and record it, you're stuck with what you've recorded. And if you don't like it, you can't take it back out again, you have to either live with it or retrack.

My own recordings have everything running in dry. I run through Guitar Rig, so guitar and bass are recorded 100% dry. Vocals, same deal. I put some reverb on the monitoring output, but the track is being recorded dry. Then, go back in afterwards and tweak it all.

2) If you're working with a PC, there's a boatload of quality free effects out there on the intarweb. Do a Googling for 'free vst plugins' and see what works. If you find some, try them out, and don't be afraid to toss out any that don't work. Some work better than others, some are easier/harder on CPU and memory usage than others, ect. But, free is free.

generalchaos316

Awesome post Mongo. You pretty much said exactly what I read somewhere else "out there" but wasn't really sure to believe it. (You know audio people and their opinions...)

Following that logic, would you agree that there isn't much necessity to have a compressor in the signal chain while recording? Other than probably a nice preamp, is there anything else (equipment wise) that is overly useful to ensure that the dry tone coming in is the best it can be?

Mongo97

Why, thank ya!

If you know 100% sure that you want the compressor in the signal chain, with the settings how it is, then it's not bad to have it in there.

For the guitar example, if you know 100% for sure that you want every effect you've got on it to be that way on 'tape', then record it that way. Back in the day when I recorded with an amp, I had my sound laid out exactly for everything, from distortion, to compressions/gates, to the bits of songs that used flangers or delay. So when it was time to record it, all that was needed was to throw a mic in front of it.

If you're not sure of it, apply the effect to the recorded track, either via an effects loop or apply it to the track from the PC, depending on how you're working. Doing it that way allows you the chance to make adjustments after the fact, which is wonderful. Now, when I'm running in dry and using plugins to get the right sound, it gives a lot of different options that wouldn't be available if the effects were recorded that way.

As far as a piece of gear to ensure a good dry sound, not so much. A good area to track in, a good source to record, a decent mic, good pre, and no line noise gives you your best coming in. If you've got issues with it coming in, the place to usually start checking is in that order, starting with examining the area you're recording in and working back to the recorder. A lot of times all it takes to get a better final result is adjusting where things are in the room, or mic placement.

Looking for a piece of gear to save a bad track or telling yourself you'll just fix it in the mix (famous last words...) is asking for a headache. If the take/track is bad and you know it, retrack it, don't try to salvage it. Recording is 90% your source, and 10% what you do with it.

Or, as I've heard plenty of times, you can only polish a turd so much.

About the only real 'trick' I ever really used often was we often recorded in larger rooms. For the guitars we didn't want a lot of the room sound, so a leather jacket over the cabinet/mic did wonders at making the room sound go away. If it were my place I'd have looked at adding a small closet sized room down there for tracking, but it wasn't, so we used Plan B. Otherwise, it was as simple as I could make it.

Habey Gonzo

Quick update on the recording... not much going on since all my instruments are in boxes, ready to be moved to the new home, all I have now is my computer, so I can just level and adjust what will be taken directly from the midi. First 2 songs are ready from that point of view then. Another one might be recorded by a friend instead of me (I mean, he'll be the one playing, since he plays synths better than I do), so only one more to "midify" and then, find my guitar and bass somewhere in the new house and record the rest.

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Aqualung

Wow, that's splendid. Thanks for keeping us informed - it's great to see that it's going as well as possible with your instruments currently indisposed.

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example

What mic are you usign?? whats the best for guitar?

Habey Gonzo

I guess I'll get an sm57, once I have enough money

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Habey Gonzo

Quick update on the recording:

well, nothing new, since when moving, I packed all the guitar and amp cables in boxes, and now I can't find the box in which I packed them!! Nor the one with the guitar port... So basically, I guess I'll be doing extra midi-work for a while, adjusting drums etc for the 4 songs, so when I find the cables I can just record guitar and bass, and finalize.

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Mongo97

Hee, nothing like moving studio stuff to completely mess you up for a few weeks.

"All I need is that one cable! ARRRRRGGGGGH!"

Habey Gonzo

Ok, found the cables, unpacked almost everything, and recorded a bass track for the first song. It sounds nice. I'm happier and happier with this guitar port thing, although a tone port would be friendlier, even a pod live xt3, but that's another story.

So for that song, only the guitar and voice remains to be done. I'm retraining a bit for the second song's bass, but I lost lots of speed during all that time not playing! I guess I'll record the first song fully, before attempting the rest.

[just for a quick update]

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Aqualung

Awesome! I"m glad to see you're still doing this even with the little delay of moving.

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Habey Gonzo

Not much progress in the recording yet, but I'm facing a quite crappy problem. I've recorded some synths, programmed midi-drums and run them through LM-4 MarkII for the "sampling", and tried to export a first demo. The sound was ok (apart of my awful bass pickups, which keep producing an awful sound), but the whole song is missing a lot of OOOMPH, and it sounds quite low compared to almost any CD I have on my shelves. Especially the drums, which is weird, since they're the only part I haven't recorded myself :s , they're supposed to be pro-dude-recorded... Well. If I turn them up in the mixing, they start to produce clippings etc, so I can't turn the whole volume up without almost muting my drums. Any idea?

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Mongo97

Start with "it sounds good" then worry about getting "it sounds loud!" later, and try not to lose sight of the first part.

It sounding "low" and not having "oomph", we talking volume, or something else?

For volume, most modern music is 'loud' as a result of compression. You compress the peak volume, you can bring the overall level up. But, this comes at the expense of dynamics, and overdone can suck some of the life out of the song.

Get the sound sounding as best as possible, don't worry about initially comparing your early mixes against a modern CD/MP3/song, as that song has been completed, multiple tracked, and mastered. After you've got everything sounding 'good', then work on bringing the volume up with some compression on elements of the song.

Habey Gonzo

I mean, the whole thing is missing some power, the loudness itself is not a problem, since I could just turn the volume up, but the bass drum and snare hits seem weak, compared to those I'm used to. Which reminds me that my drum plugin has a velocity setting for each sound, and hi settings give the sound more power-like thing. Maybe I should edit the midi, putting the midi-volume at max (since that's what will trigger the plugin's hi velocity sound)

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