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i'm pretty much new to recording. i'm trying to record minimalstic/lo-fi hip hop beats and i'm using login 9 pro on a basically brand new macbook pro. thing is-- i only have the macbook. is it absolutely necessary to have midi controllers and interfaces and such? is it more of a makes-things-easier type of thing? also, is there anyone on here who is skilled at logic and can answer some questions (probably fairly easy ones at that) or can direct me to a user friendly tutorial that doesnt go over eveeeeeryy littttttle thing there is? i don't want to lose the dabbling aspect. thank you.
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Jul 13, 2011 12:31
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keyframe posted:The track is clean. I dont think its the headphones either though because it doesnt happen when I am playing the pod by itself or when I use them with something else. Random question: is the POD on the floor (duh, yes), is it carpeted and do you ever have static electricity problems?
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Jul 13, 2011 13:26
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warzero. posted:i'm pretty much new to recording. i'm trying to record minimalstic/lo-fi hip hop beats and i'm using login 9 pro on a basically brand new macbook pro. thing is-- i only have the macbook. is it absolutely necessary to have midi controllers and interfaces and such? is it more of a makes-things-easier type of thing? also, is there anyone on here who is skilled at logic and can answer some questions (probably fairly easy ones at that) or can direct me to a user friendly tutorial that doesnt go over eveeeeeryy littttttle thing there is? i don't want to lose the dabbling aspect. thank you. As far as the interface goes- if you just want to make simple beats, you can certainly click them in via the piano roll editor. Or, you if you like a more tactile - tap tap tap- interface, you can get something cheap like a Korg nanoPad and just assign your samples to the pads and record them live. I think its $50 or even cheaper.
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Jul 13, 2011 17:49
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wixard posted:If it's not on the recording, it's probably not the USB cable. It could be a fault internally in the unit, it could be a driver issue. It could still be the USB cable, but I doubt it. Yea it is on a carpeted floor. But if that was the case I would have the problem when playing the pod by itself as well right?
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Jul 13, 2011 18:21
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wixard posted:Long awesome post about RX Bandits and compression That's awesome that you got to do live sound for RX Bandits. They're definitely very incredible live (when they're in the right, uh, state of mind), and I am sure that compression is in there somewhere. I'm citing those albums, and TSOAF's Ocean and the Sun, as they have noticeable room for volume change in their songs (and awesome instrument and drum sounds). The dynamics really make the albums sound incredible, as the heavy parts actually are louder in a clear way. I could be wrong though, and their album tracks could be a solid block of WAV data in ProTools - audio is so subjective in a lot of ways. I guess what I need to learn is spend time understanding compression completely. I know it obviously is beneficial for a lot reasons, and it's been around forever. But I hear so much anti-compression talk that to a new home recording type I feel like it's copping out. I've got my work cut out for me, and I'll upload my next tracking session hopefully tomorrow, after I set up the Recorderman method and properly set levels.
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Jul 13, 2011 18:36
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By the way do we have a musicians lounge irc channel?
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Jul 13, 2011 21:24
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keyframe posted:Yea it is on a carpeted floor. But if that was the case I would have the problem when playing the pod by itself as well right?
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Jul 13, 2011 22:09
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Back to overhead mics, I almost always use the evenly spaced pattern that RXbandits posted, usually a few feet above the drummers head, one above the floortom and the other above hihats. That's the setup I used on my last album. I also don't use a hihat mic, ever. However I might mix in a set of room mics in front of the kit, but back 15 feet or so, 3-4 feet off the ground.
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Jul 14, 2011 01:02
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keyframe posted:By the way do we have a musicians lounge irc channel? Yes... it's an idle-fest though. #music on synirc
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Jul 14, 2011 18:32
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nimper posted:Yes... it's an idle-fest though. Wow you were not kidding. -- I have a Axiom question. I am trying to figure out a way to adjust how fast a knob's value goes from 0 to 100% Right now it takes like 2.5 full turns to go from 0 to 100 and I want it to go within one turn. Is there any way to adjust this on the keyboard itself? I havent found a way to change that in reason, I can only assign knobs.
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Jul 14, 2011 23:36
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RivensBitch posted:Back to overhead mics, I almost always use the evenly spaced pattern that RXbandits posted, usually a few feet above the drummers head, one above the floortom and the other above hihats. That's the setup I used on my last album. I also don't use a hihat mic, ever. However I might mix in a set of room mics in front of the kit, but back 15 feet or so, 3-4 feet off the ground. So you wouldn't recommend using the Beta52 just to add some oomph to the kick, with maybe an sm57 on the snare (assuming you are careful with phasing)? I feel like the Recorderman method could be super super amazing if you just added some punch to the kick (so adding the Beta52, but not nearly at the level you would if it was a standard 4 mic setup) and some clarity to the snare. If you say no, I'll take your word for it.
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Jul 15, 2011 21:32
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Badvertising posted:
The only reason anti-compression talk is going around is from mastering compressors removing all dynamics from a song. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ Compressing individual instruments won't result in what you see there, unless you use a ridiculously high ratio and brickwall every single track. Good compression simulates what the human ear naturally does for loud sounds - the attack mutes your ears a little bit, and they quickly reset for the following quieter waveform. Unfortunately, lots of people fail horribly at using compressors. Ever hear a televised tennis match where every time the ball hits a racket the crowd sound gets muted out for like 8 or 9 seconds? This is because the sound engineer has the release on his compressor set for like 8 or 9 seconds, longer than it should ever be set. Barn Door fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jul 16, 2011 |
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Jul 16, 2011 23:05
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Badvertising posted:So you wouldn't recommend using the Beta52 just to add some oomph to the kick, with maybe an sm57 on the snare (assuming you are careful with phasing)? Barn Door posted:Unfortunately, lots of people fail horribly at using compressors. Ever hear a televised tennis match where every time the ball hits a racket the crowd sound gets muted out for like 8 or 9 seconds? This is because the sound engineer has the release on his compressor set for like 8 or 9 seconds, longer than it should ever be set.
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Jul 17, 2011 08:23
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Need a suggestion for racking two keyboards on top of each other. I have a full-size weighted keyboard and a smaller, lighter MIDI keyboard. The full-size I'll probably just use a floor stand for. I would like the smaller guy on top and set back a little bit. It seems like the best option would be to get some kind of cheap shelf mount (like this). This right? Any suggestions? e: never mind, I was able to find an inexpensive rack extension http://www.amazon.com/Stage-KSA7500-Second-Keyboard-Stands/dp/B0002E3DNU This is great because I didn't want to buy a whole dual rack, this seems to sit right on top though nous_ fucked around with this message at 20:45 on Jul 17, 2011 |
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Jul 17, 2011 19:28
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The new beta91a is my favorite kick mic of all time, I would use it over a beta52 in a heartbeat.
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Jul 18, 2011 02:17
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Not a bad price either... O.K. so dumb DAW question: If all my individual tracks are clipping to hell and gone but I've got the master down so it isn't clipping, is that O.K. or is it doing something to my whole deal there? Because I'm getting lazy and I really don't feel like dialing back on like 54 trimpots anymore smart DAW question: how would I go about getting the sweet drum tones of 70s AM Gold, I'm thinking like Bread and such. Totally unrealistic sounds completely unlike an actual drum kit, but I'd like it in my repertoire
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Jul 18, 2011 02:28
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RivensBitch posted:The new beta91a is my favorite kick mic of all time, I would use it over a beta52 in a heartbeat.  Schlieren posted:O.K. so dumb DAW question: If all my individual tracks are clipping to hell and gone but I've got the master down so it isn't clipping, is that O.K. or is it doing something to my whole deal there? This might not be a good assumption all the time though, I don't know how digital summing in DAWs really works. But on an analog console you have to think about this kind of thing because its mix bus will overload sooner than +20dBV so you run into it more often. From this post and the one where you mentioned having 30+ guitar and bass tracks in the General Mixing thread, it sounds like you might need to work on trimming your projects more than your faders. 
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Jul 18, 2011 04:08
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RivensBitch posted:The new beta91a is my favorite kick mic of all time, I would use it over a beta52 in a heartbeat. I've been using the Beta 91 (not the 91a) at work a bunch recently and it really is a great mic, I love the amount of attack I can get out of it. A good majority of the time however, most riders I've seen have had both the 91 and 52.
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Jul 18, 2011 04:46
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Schlieren posted:Because I'm getting lazy and I really don't feel like dialing back on like 54 trimpots anymore Both ableton and protools let you turn down all faders as a group, so this should be a single move unless you're using something else.
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Jul 18, 2011 09:38
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Hey guys. I'm very new to the home music studio thing, but I just finished the bare bones home setup and I'd like some opinions, especially if you own a POD. - POD X3 Live connected via USB. Designed for Guitar, Bass, Mic'ed acoustic and vocals. Still don't have a mic, need help with that next paycheck. - PC Computer interface running Pro-Tools SE and Adobe Soundbooth. Working with Gearbox and Podfarm for guitar sounds. Reason for synths. - 49 Key M-Audio USB Keyboard capable of loading .VST's Any recommendations for different or cheaper recording software? Is this setup going to fly for easy recording of a band with a variable amount of members? Does this sound fine and am I second guessing myself? Who exactly is supposed to answer these questions?
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Jul 20, 2011 00:23
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It really depends what kind of recording that you want to do. If you want to just record you and your friends for shits and giggles (or for scratch tracks), you might be able to get something that sounds like music. It's not going to sound anything close to professional-quality, though. I realize that's probably not hugely helpful for you, in the event that you're asking "how do I make professional-quality recordings". What sort of recording are you looking to do?
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Jul 20, 2011 23:13
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Yeah, that's okay for a first time recording setup, but you should in no way expect to put out high quality poo poo with it. If you're thinking of charging people to record them... don't. But you definitely have enough to gently caress around and get a feel for what it's like to record stuff. My first setup was an M-Audio Fasttrack Pro and an M-Audio Producer mic that I used for tracking basic demos. Both of them used USB and taught me a valuable lesson about how much USB loving sucks for audio gear. Latency and line noise were almost unbearable, but I was still able to churn out demos that had enough flavor to give my bandmates the gist of what I was trying to do. Plus it made me really appreciate the firewire interface I got a year later. In fact, this is my suggestion not just for recording gear, but musical instruments as well. Buy gear with a low price to get your feet wet. Then get the higher end gear once you're sure you want it. My first guitar was a $100 Synsonic from Toys R Us with a built-in speaker that ran on a 9 volt battery. It was a complete piece of poo poo, and I got laughed at when taking it to guitar lessons, but the fact that I was so persistent on learning on such a crappy instrument told me that investing in a better guitar wouldn't be a complete waste of money.
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Jul 20, 2011 23:34
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TylerK posted:In fact, this is my suggestion not just for recording gear, but musical instruments as well. Buy gear with a low price to get your feet wet. Then get the higher end gear once you're sure you want it. My first guitar was a $100 Synsonic from Toys R Us with a built-in speaker that ran on a 9 volt battery. It was a complete piece of poo poo, and I got laughed at when taking it to guitar lessons, but the fact that I was so persistent on learning on such a crappy instrument told me that investing in a better guitar wouldn't be a complete waste of money. Counterpoint: you will be less frustrated, and get more satisfaction (and sound better) with a halfway decent instrument or piece of hardware. Which isn't to say you have to spend tons of money, there is reasonably priced quality gear out there if you do your homework. The Mackie Onyx Blackjack or Focusrite Saffire 6 are very solid entry-level interfaces which can be had for $150-200 (or, for guitars, you can get an entry level Ibanez or Agile in the same price range, which will play orders of magnitude better than some Wal-Mart beginner's special with terrible action and build quality). If you want to get your feet wet, download some ASIO4ALL drivers for your soundcard and a trial copy of Reaper or Ableton Live or whatever; it'll give you a feel for the tools without spending a cent. Anytime I've approached a purchase thinking "I know this is half-assed but it will save some money", it's almost universally ended up costing MORE money in the long run. quote:My first setup was an M-Audio Fasttrack Pro and an M-Audio Producer mic that I used for tracking basic demos. Both of them used USB and taught me a valuable lesson about how much M-Audio loving sucks for audio gear. There I fixed your typo. h_double fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jul 21, 2011 |
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Jul 21, 2011 00:13
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SlippyHat posted:It really depends what kind of recording that you want to do. If you want to just record you and your friends for shits and giggles (or for scratch tracks), you might be able to get something that sounds like music. It's not going to sound anything close to professional-quality, though. Back in the day for Day of Defeat on Half Life 1 I was in charge of sound design, I was young but I learned Sound Forge so well I don't think I'll have a problem making good quality recordings. But yes, this is just for myself, I'd never think of charging a cent for someone to record here. The POD is nice, a 500 dollar investment that has everything I need but a looper. I believe the X3 Live is closer to the X3 Rackmount than the POD HD500, so I can emulate even their best .VST's. It also has active line noise cancelation so I really can reduce the amount of fuzz coming out of here without running filters. One of my buddies has an eight mic drumset and similar software. I'm going to goad him into working with me so I can get some decent samples. And I've got a nice Taylor, a Tabla, a Fender, and my friend who plays bass is a professional so he's got a few basses of ultra fine quality. Mainly, I just thought it would be fun, since I'm on the wagon right now that I have a place for my friends to distract me and make music with me since they all play. That's what you get for hanging out with band kids in HS. I'll be sending some samples on this forum when we actually produce something that sounds like music. For now I'm named The American Synthetic Telepathy Experiment on Facebook.
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Jul 22, 2011 00:51
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Could someone explain or give some links as to why m-audio has a lovely reputation for audio gear?
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Jul 22, 2011 23:41
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Noise Machine posted:Could someone explain or give some links as to why m-audio has a lovely reputation for audio gear? Do they? They're cheap and you get what you pay for, what else do you need to know? There are quite a few posts sprinkled about in the history of this thread about having a lack of gain in the preamps of some of their interfaces, but I don't think anyone ever accused them of being anything they aren't: a low cost entry level interface.
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Jul 25, 2011 17:05
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Of course it didn't help that M-Audio spent all that time with no working drivers for the latest OSs for most of their hardware.
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Jul 25, 2011 18:07
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On the subject of M-Audio...I scored one of these (at least I thought it was a score) from GC for $39.99 because it was mis-tagged: http://www.guitarcenter.com/M-Audio-Pro-Tools-Recording-Studio-105935092-i1549430.gc Now, I know about grounding and background noise, but every time I've tried to do any guitar work with this thing, it sounds like an amp with a pillow over its speaker, with background noise at full volume. Is this thing just a piece of poo poo, or can it be used for anything worthwhile? It's for scratch tracking (and then taking to the real rehearsal spot, for tracking), but it's been worthless as of now. Also, for all I that care, I'm going to snag boom mic stands and finally get some Recorderman tracking done, with proper setup and dB levels. I promise, at some point, I will post a mixdown.
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Jul 25, 2011 20:47
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Badvertising posted:Also, for all I that care, I'm going to snag boom mic stands and finally get some Recorderman tracking done, with proper setup and dB levels. I promise, at some point, I will post a mixdown.
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Jul 26, 2011 00:23
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Badvertising posted:Is this thing just a piece of poo poo, or can it be used for anything worthwhile? It's for scratch tracking (and then taking to the real rehearsal spot, for tracking), but it's been worthless as of now. I can't see what you bought because the link isn't working but I had an M-Audio FastTrack for six years and never got it to work properly. The line input was never consistent and would go from a decent clear guitar signal to tinny crud without any notice. Once I upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit it would stop working randomly and I'd get ASIO sample rate errors from everything, even with current drivers. It seems a lot of other people had the same issue with their drivers on their current FastTrack as well. I can't speak for their high-end hardware but I don't think I'll be buying one of their boxes again. e. I'm looking for a 25 key controller and wanted to know you guys' opinion on the Roland A-300PRO and Novation SL-MKII. I'm looking for the one with the better pads. I've looked at the Akai MPK25 but I want sliders and better quality knobs. Using Ableton Live on Windows 7. Wax On fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Jul 26, 2011 |
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Jul 26, 2011 16:59
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RivensBitch posted:Do they? They're cheap and you get what you pay for, what else do you need to know? There are quite a few posts sprinkled about in the history of this thread about having a lack of gain in the preamps of some of their interfaces, but I don't think anyone ever accused them of being anything they aren't: a low cost entry level interface. I've got a Delta 1010 that just up and died a few months after I bought it, and I once bought one of their controller KB's that had a couple keys that flat out didn't work right out of the box. I had an old Audiophile 2496 whose MIDI would stutter and drop notes constantly if you tried playing more than a few notes at a time through it (such as sending out data to a couple different synths at the same time). Out of the 5-6 pieces of M-audio gear I've owned, the only one that's either not died shortly after purchase, had issues working correctly, or just plain been broken right out of the box is my Midisport 2x2 interface. If that's "getting what you paid for", I'd rather spend the extra $25-50 to buy something from a brand that actually works.
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Jul 29, 2011 06:38
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HotCanadianChick posted:I've got a Delta 1010 that just up and died a few months after I bought it, and I once bought one of their controller KB's that had a couple keys that flat out didn't work right out of the box. I had an old Audiophile 2496 whose MIDI would stutter and drop notes constantly if you tried playing more than a few notes at a time through it (such as sending out data to a couple different synths at the same time). edit: Sorry that's pretty snarky, but if you were to read this whole thread and then read Part 1 you would find lots of people recommending lots of things that they have or haven't had problems with. The interfaces from $100-$400 themselves get discontinued, recontinued, redesigned and remarketed constantly. You would think that there could be product that was just made right and worked and could be recommended from the time the first thread started until now, but that product doesn't seem like it will ever exist. ChristsDickWorship fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Jul 29, 2011 |
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Jul 29, 2011 09:18
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HotCanadianChick posted:I've got a Delta 1010 that just up and died a few months after I bought it, and I once bought one of their controller KB's that had a couple keys that flat out didn't work right out of the box. I had an old Audiophile 2496 whose MIDI would stutter and drop notes constantly if you tried playing more than a few notes at a time through it (such as sending out data to a couple different synths at the same time). Do they still sell Delta 1010? I was selling them 7 years ago at Guitar Center and they were old then. My Konnekt SK48 from TC shipped with a bad preamp board which was a problem with their first run of manufacturing, and that was a $1000 interface. It's just a fact of life that competition has forced most if not ALL manufacturers to look for cheaper ways to produce their products, and that includes going with cheaper PCB and circuit stuffing facilities, using cheaper component parts, and faster soldering on the assembly line. Some manufacturers are worse than others, but there are very few manufacturers that spare no expense when it comes to avoiding defects. I don't think this is really an issue of spending another $25 on a competitor, if you want truly professional gear that is ultra reliable then you're buying in a much smaller pool of customers, so prices are going to be way higher. It's great that the capabilities of recording are so cheap now, but the market for disposable entry level gear is a bit misleading in that the pro gear is still really expensive like it has always been. It's a small market and the R&D costs are fixed, so even though the components aren't that much more expensive, the manufacturing process and the engineering to test and ensure the product doesn't fail and is roadworthy are added expenses that the makers of cheap poo poo sold to millions don't have to deal with.
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Jul 29, 2011 19:51
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Mandals posted:And now a question of my own: what is the best way to wire up my Apogee Duet to my Mackie 1202-VLZ3? I'd like to be able to hit a switch on the Mackie and cut out the speakers and output to just headphones during recording to avoid feedback. So, wanted to post what I wound up doing: ditching the Mackie. It was just adding a layer of complexity that I'm not sure I needed for my workflow. I dug up my old headphone amp with a mute/monitor toggle and I'm running that between the Duet and my speakers now. So simple, so nice. Input works great with just the Duet press, too. Actually sounds better without the Mackie sitting in the middle. No hiss. Plenty of gain. Moral of the story: keep the signal chain as simple as possible.
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Jul 30, 2011 05:31
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Noise Machine posted:Could someone explain or give some links as to why m-audio has a lovely reputation for audio gear? I still use a Delta 44 with the OMNI breakout box. This thing is awesome for the money if you can score one on ebay - 2 headphone outs and two mic preamps, plus phantom power...I paid $32.75 for the omni breakout box minus power cable. M-audio doesn't make them any more. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/m-audio-omni-i-o I've never trusted usb or firewire. I'll probably upgrade when pci-e soundcards get more popular.
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Aug 1, 2011 17:51
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SuperMxyz posted:I've never trusted usb or firewire. I was recording 18 inputs at 44.1/24bit via firewire onto a P3 1ghz with 512mb ram laptop back in 2002 and had no issues. What exactly leads you to "not trust" firewire?
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Aug 1, 2011 19:00
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I have just had bad experiences with a non-ti firewire ports probably. Also isn't firewire is being phased out of many new motherboards/laptops? I don't use Macs, but they are dropping firewire and pushing thunderbolt in its place.
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Aug 1, 2011 19:18
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Well if you're using a laptop then your PCI solution wont work, so it doesn't matter what APPLE puts on their mac laptop. As for thunderbolt, it's an expansion bus like PCI and PCMCIA. It's not replacing firewire or usb, it's augmenting it. As it starts getting more use you'll see breakout boxes with firewire and usb built into them in a few months, they've already been announced by third parties.
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Aug 1, 2011 20:13
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SuperMxyz posted:I have just had bad experiences with a non-ti firewire ports probably. Everyone has bad results with non-TI firewire chips. That's why you should never buy any PCI firewire card that doesn't use a TI chipset.
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Aug 1, 2011 22:54
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So I am thoroughly a recording novice, and only do it as a hobby and to save stuff that I do. That being said, I'm having a volume problem. I'm using a sterling ST59 mic, a presonus audiobox USB interface and ableton live. When I record I turn the mic gain up and play and check to see if the little recording line things are red, and turn the gain slowly down until i'm only in green range. My results are always that everything's too quiet. My guess is that it's the crappy interface, but what are the chances that I'm doing something else wrong? What are the "volume problem troubleshooting" options?
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Aug 6, 2011 04:08
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