home recording question(s)

This entire album:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCartney_%28album%29
was recorded in his living room on a 4-track Studer reel-to-reel with minimum mic-ing.
amazing isn't it ?


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Edited by utah_man - October 29 2006 at 15:21

mystic fred wrote: utah_man wrote: penguindf12 wrote:   Really, just stay away from technology altogether and you'll be fine. isn't it interesting how much music - very good music incidently - was recorded in years gone by with very basic low-tech equipment.       i agree - the early Buddy Holly albums still sound fantastic!

is he the guy who recorded stuff within a huge empty grain silo to get reverb ?


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utah_man wrote: penguindf12 wrote:   Really, just stay away from technology altogether and you'll be fine. isn't it interesting how much music - very good music incidently - was recorded in years gone by with very basic low-tech equipment. how much recording technology do we REALLY need to produce a great song ? this is a question i've been asking myself for a long time. .

penguindf12 wrote:   Really, just stay away from technology altogether and you'll be fine.

isn't it interesting how much music - very good music incidently - was recorded in years gone by with very basic low-tech equipment.

how much recording technology do we REALLY need to produce a great song ?
this is a question i've been asking myself for a long time.


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Sound engineers know that when something sounds muddy, exactly which frequency bands to cut, they know how to sidechain a compressor to ensure that the vocal cuts through the wall of guitars, they know how to patch a delay into the insert buss of the mixer, they know how to calculate the delay so it is in sync with the tempo of the track. They know which mic out of the dozens of mics in the cupboard will suit your voice, your guitar cab (and where to point it at the cab) your drum overheads.  They will know which of the many preamps in the rack suits the mic they have chosen, they will know how to calibrate a 24 track 2" studer, how to repatch a 1976 API board from record to mix they will understand what all the hundreds of knobs on the Neve 48 channel board do. 

Edited by MarkOne - October 28 2006 at 12:38

We tend to find that mixing is best done at those times when you feel less creative - in other words, only worry about what it sounds like when you've run out of musical ideas.


That way you get to change hats - and a change is as good as a rest

I'd have to say trying to engineer and play simultaneously is a major pain. I sometimes wish I had a collaberator to work with so we could alleviate each other's suffering in this regard...

^I got over all these issues by using the TonePort, which even lets you model where the mic is in relation to the cab, and the room size
    

Edited by Certif1ed - October 23 2006 at 17:28

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I agree about taking away frequences being better than increasing them ... in order for that to work you'll need to ensure that all the frequencies are there in the signal:If you play an instrument like an electric guitar or a synthesizer just for yourself, without any other instrument in the mix, you tend to remove the mid-band frequencies - it makes the guitar sound more pleasant to the ear. However later on in the mix you'll need those frequencies ... so when recording such instruments it's always a good idea to configure preamp/effects/etc. to not take away any frequencies ... you can always tweak them in the mix.

    
Yes - it does tend to be mid-range EQ, but also for some tracks "air", or frequencies above 16-20khz needs to be removed, as the "air" is more effective if it only comes from a few selected tracks. Mixing "air" is cool, as you can breathe life into a dead-sounding track and make it sparkle.

I also find myself spending some time in the very low frequecies, trying to get the right balance between feel-it-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach bass and nasty booming. This typically happens when bass drum, bass guitar and low keyboards are at work, although detuned guitars are fiendish at this too.

Mid range is the nastiest though - you often get areas that "shout" at you through the monitors, and finding the instrument or instrument combination that's doing it is a painstaking job.

Mixing, mixing and mixing.

I solved the interface problem by getting a Line 6 TonePort UX2 - http://www.piedog.com/musical_instruments/pro_music_live/computer_music/computer_hardware/audio_interfaces/line_6-toneport_ux2.htm - which makes my guitar, bass and Shure SM-58 sound utterly professional, even if it doesn't improve my playing...

As long as you don't go into the red, you will avoid distortion - the SM-57 is a superb mic - but you need some form of monitor with meters on your inputs. Hardware is better than software - give me needles on a dial over LEDs anytime.

A good set of cans should help too - your ears are better than your eyes at spotting distortion! It takes a little getting used to, but recording with headphones on is the best way to ensure an accurate recording.

The biggest problem I have is mixing. Even though the individual sounds are usually great, I find I need to hack out certain EQ bands in order to make one instrument "play off" another well - and then I need to snip away at another instrument, and before long, the whole mix sounds a mess unless I get lucky - and I have to go back to the previous mix.

I read a great article on mixing that recommended taking away instead of adding - thus considerably reducing the need for compression, which sucks the life out of a great track, and although it seems counter-intuitive at first, it does seem to work.

The only fix I've found for this issue is to keep coming back and try mixing again, listening to the mixes on different systems, and mixing again...

For example, the track "Monkey" on my MySpace site has been mixed 19 times, and it's still not quite there, although to get the most recent mix, I spent an hour and a half snipping at EQ bands and removing as much track compression as possible.

My favourite software for recording is Sony Acid Pro - we use version 5, but will upgrade to 6 soon. Sonar just didn't seem to fit our needs - although I used to be a big Cakewalk fan.

The other great thing about Acid is that Sony now do a free and uncrippled trial version http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/products/showproduct.asp?PID=906