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Would anyone like to recommend me a baby's first mic? I've wanted one for a while now and it's about time I finally bought one. I'd use it mostly for recording vocals, guitar and piano, and I'm pretty broke so it has to be affordable. Just a mic I can record some stuff with and have it sound okay. I found a Shure SM58 for a good price on Amazon but as far as I can tell getting that also involves buying other complicated and expensive kit that I have no idea about, so I'm not sold on that idea. Thought maybe a USB mic, but are they all poo poo quality? I don't know. Help me goons, I know nothing 
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Dec 31, 2009 00:42
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Muck and Mire posted:Yeah, Audacity is pretty lame, I agree. I use Ableton normally but I'm just trying to record a DJ set and didn't want to put Ableton onto this computer just for that. I thought Audacity would be the easiest way to do it but I seriously can't believe that they don't let you select individual inputs... it works out 'cause I only need five hours to record and I have ~8 hours available (recording TWO simultaneous stereo channels, one of which is completely silent) but seriously, Audacity. Why. I spent like 2 years recording with audacity because I was too lazy to think about learning how to use a real DAW  they all seemed so complicated and difficult. I've started using Mixcraft now and it's definitely the easiest and most intuitive software I've tried imo, which is very useful for a babby like me
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Jun 24, 2012 04:26
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Can anyone offer some general tips on how to maximise the potential for hi-fi recordings with a pretty mediocre mic? I just have a USB condenser mic that's nothing special, but it isn't awful and I feel like there may be a few things I could do to try and squeeze more out of it (or maybe there isn't at all, I don't know )
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Nov 8, 2012 18:06
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Nice, that's really cool. I dunno how practical it is but since you said it's scuzzy and weird I could imagine some lo-fi garage rock type stuff going through it.
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Sep 14, 2014 07:19
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Who wanna help me buy a new mic I currently have a pretty bad USB mic and I've been wanting something better for ages. The easiest thing for me to do would be to upgrade on USB mics and get a Blue Yeti, which I'm considering. As far as I can tell they're decent and certainly the best USB option. I'm willing to spend a bit more though if it's really worth it, which I suspect it may be. I mainly want to record guitar, vocals and keys, and I'm just wondering if it's worth getting a preamp and a mic to go with that. The Shure SM whatever mics always seem to crop up and they're affordable, but I've no idea if they sound any better than a Blue Yeti would given that they're of a similar price
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Oct 4, 2014 03:15
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This may be a dumb question, but what's the best way to either remove or significantly quieten an instrument in a single track, leaving the rest intact? I have a live take where my guitar playing was... less than good, but the rest is good. The guitar line already isn't that loud, but I'd like to either get rid of it entirely or have it barely be audible.
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Jul 9, 2016 13:10
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NonzeroCircle posted:Maaaaaaaaybe eq could do it but it would gently caress with the sound of anything else in that range. If its a single "mixed" track of audio such as an iPhone recording of band practice its going to be very hard to remove it. If its fairly central in the mix perhaps some phase flipping could work. I already tried messing with the EQ, it was unsuccesful  I may be able to get away with playing guitar over the top and masking it, I'm not sure yet as I haven't tried, I just thought there may be a better way
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Jul 9, 2016 13:23
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NonzeroCircle posted:What do you feel is wrong with your performance? Is it notes or timing? You may be able to do something with Melodyne but thats a pricey option It was fully improvised and I was really drunk  I can probably just mask it, I just wondered if there was something else I could do to get rid of it easily. I'd like to just do it all again but the rest of the track was so "in the moment" it would never work a second time around
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Jul 9, 2016 23:19
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What are some good ways to give your track more "bounce", for want of a better word? I'm working on a hip hop beat and everything sort of sounds a bit flat, a bit constant. I can't think of any examples at the moment but I like the way the music on some tracks sort of goes in and out a little with the beat, sort of adding another layer of rhythm/groove. I apologise for this being pretty vague but I feel like people will have some ideas anyway
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Jul 24, 2016 19:32
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Flipperwaldt posted:What I read in that description is sidechaining to make a compressor pump with the rhythm, maybe? Yeah, I think that is probably what I mean. It sounds hard :/ I'll look into it though
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Jul 24, 2016 20:08
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I've noticed that a lot of (maybe all) the tracks I've been working on lately seem to lack bass when played through laptop speakers rather than decent speakers or headphones. Ideally nobody would listen through laptop speakers anyway, but given that they do, what should I be doing to make the bass come through more? I use FL Studio and I'm talking about midi bass rather than a recorded guitar or something
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Dec 28, 2016 20:16
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Another janky FL Studio question - I'm using FL ASIO in order to record vocals into the program (ASIO4ALL just makes everything mute for some reason) which is fine, but the latency is annoying. I can play through a track fine with the buffer set high, but when I try to record the latency is offputting when I do it and it results in everything being behind. When I change the buffer to the minimum setting recording works in time but there are stutters in the track as I hear it. There doesn't seem to be a compromise in the middle, does anyone have any idea what can be done? e: basically I'm getting tons of underruns but my CPU should be able to handle it as I checked task manager. what is happening i hate it Paperhouse fucked around with this message at 02:00 on Jan 8, 2017 |
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Jan 8, 2017 01:56
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What's a good way to A/B mixes of the same track? I'm thinking either a specific program or just a good way to do it otherwise. At the moment I'm playing two tracks in separate VLC instances and muting one then the other, but it's not really possible to get them playing at exactly the same time and to mute one and unmute the other at the same time
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Mar 25, 2017 23:41
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What tips do you guys have for making acoustic guitar sound nice and thick? My mic is ok (blue yeti) and I'm double tracking and eqing but I feel like there's a lot more I could be doing to get a nice sound
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Aug 8, 2017 23:49
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Kilometers Davis posted:Thicker picks can make a huge difference. It's for a finger picked song
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Aug 9, 2017 00:54
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Why do most of my tracks sound so... "together"? In the sense that the different instruments and elements don't seem to have their own space but all sort of blend in too much. I am pretty poo poo at mixing admittedly, but I do EQ everything and pan a little and I can't seem to stop it from happening. I often hear songs and wonder how they got everything to sound so loud and clear and everything still has its own space
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Aug 20, 2017 22:17
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I don't actually know what a reverb send is I guess it's sending the reverberated bit of a track elsewhere in the mix? I'll check it out and try panning a little harder
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Aug 20, 2017 23:29
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NonzeroCircle posted:What DAW are you using? Ots sort of the opposite of what you just described: You basically set up an fx/send track (terminology varies), put one reverb, or whatever effect, on it and you can 'send' the sound from your audio tracks through that too in different amounts. Its a good way to make stuff sound as if its all recorded in the same space. ah that makes sense. I use FL Studio and the option to do this has never been obviously available for me to try, but I'm sure it can be done. In fact I guess it's probably just selecting a mixer track and adding the reverb and then routing whatever to it
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Aug 20, 2017 23:45
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ricecult posted:That's a big question because it touches on so many factors, but speaking of EQ, how you EQ can make all the difference. I know I've been surprised how subtle high or low passing one track can free up a lot of space in the overall mix. It's hard to catch, because it doesn't necessarily stick out. Thanks, appreciate the expertise. Now for the fun bit of slogging through my tracks and seeing what I can change to improve the mix 
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Aug 20, 2017 23:47
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what's the trick for getting these reverby sort of distant vocals that you hear a lot on indie/lo-fi songs? I can't imagine it's complicated but I don't know how to recreate it something like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6Jjf_MLDsw
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Nov 29, 2017 01:10
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Anyone got a recommendation for a free VST I can use to manually tune vocal notes? I'm not the best singer and I have a take that I'm almost happy with, but a couple of things need to be adjusted and the autotune things I've tried aren't getting it. While I'm at it, any tips for getting nice dreamy backing vocal harmonies that are really hearable but still not too high in the mix? What I've got sounds ok and I've done a lot of EQ and reverb but I'm sure there's more I could be doing.
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May 21, 2018 22:32
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I'm using FL Studio. It does have a built in pitch shift thing but I've never been able to work it out and it doesn't look like it does what I need, though I could be wrong
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May 22, 2018 01:11
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I'm experiencing an annoying issue which someone here might be able to help with I use FL Studio and when I select ASIO4ALL as my sound driver, everything sounds great. But my laptop primarily uses a different driver and things sound considerably worse. First question - if I export a song with the ASIO4ALL driver selected, does the song get exported using that? Probably a stupid and vague question. What I mean is, is the song exported as I hear it under that setting? When I listen to a .wav on a media player it sounds different to how it did in FL Studio, but I'm not sure if that's because of the playback of my computer or the file itself. If it's just my computer I could live with it, but if I am exporting songs in a way that makes them sound significantly worse than they could when played on any device, then that's poo poo, and I would like to fix it
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Jun 9, 2018 23:46
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MrSargent posted:You should be able to select the ASIO4ALL driver as your computer's output device and see if that makes a difference when listening to the .wav. Otherwise I would check the track on other media like your car or some good headphones to see if the issue is just with the sound coming out of the computer. Another thing you could do is just drop the .wav file into FL studio and see if it sounds the same as the actual project. Sorry for being dumb - how can I select ASIO4ALL as my computer's output device? When I select it in FL Studio it actually seems to disable any sound outside of FL Studio, and I haven't been able to locate it in any sound settings that I've looked at.
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Jun 10, 2018 00:12
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Something that's pretty difficult to google: what's the name for those VST synth settings where you can hold one note (let's say C) and then press another note (let's say the next C up) and instead of having two separate Cs playing, the note will instead sweep up through from the lower C to the higher C? Hopefully that makes sense. It's a similar sound to play a guitar note and then bend it to a new note. I've come across some presets that do this by accident a few times, and now I'd quite like to utilise this but not sure what to look for or how to manually create the effect in my VST Paperhouse fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 00:01
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Absolute babby question but I don't feel like I understand compression. When I mix I pay a lot of attention to EQ and levels, but I don't feel like I know how or why to use compression and it's probably hurting my mixes. Conceptually I get that it is used to keep sounds within a certain range and to boost/lower any highs or lows, but I generally don't find (visually, looking at the waves) that anything I do has huge discrepancies that need correcting. However, I have occasionally just stuck a compression preset on something to see what it sounds like and it can alter the sound significantly, in a way that I don't really get I suppose my question is, am I loving up by not really using it much? Are there any simple rules to abide by? Should everything be compressed to some degree?
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Jan 10, 2019 21:03
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Thanks for the compression tips! I'll try to experiment with it but I think you guys are right in saying that I'm probably often working in a way that doesn't require it a lot ^ I don't think it's a dumb idea, I'd be all for it, although I feel like that kind of thing often just ends up with people posting links and not listening to the things other people post. Still worth a try though, my experience with that kind of thing has mostly been on Reddit and maybe it would be better on a forum like this
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Jan 14, 2019 19:29
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Fender Anarchist posted:I've been poking at making music lately, I've got a Blue Snowball Ice and and a Fender Mustang, both connect through USB. Trouble is, there's a lot of lag on both when I try and record; this is particularly annoying when I'm trying to record into Ableton, can't get things to line up with the beat. Going and manually adjusting clips to line up is gonna get old real quick, not to mention the difficulty in monitoring through the computer. I record guitar through a Zoom U-22 usb interface and there isn't any noticeable lag, as far as I can tell the tracks are as in time as my playing was. But yeah, also change your buffering settings to the one with the lowest latency. When recording vocals I always turn off monitoring, I find it really distracting to hear what I'm singing in real time through headphones and there's often a little delay.
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Mar 12, 2019 14:52
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Sort of half a songwriting question and half a recording question, but I don't know if we have a quick question thread for songwriting tips What are some good ways to increase intensity quickly? I'm working on a track that's got a slow beat, slow and fairly light guitar, and then a fuzzy distorted synth comes in and I want a section that feels a lot harder and more intense. So far just adding the synth hasn't done much. It still feels soft and slow and light, just with a fuzzy synth on top. I know I should probably build up to it with some drum fill and then continue with faster/more intense drums, but other than that I'm not sure. I tried making the guitars crunchy and distorted but it didn't really sound good. Plus, I don't want to mess too much with what I have already since it sounds good Annoyingly I can't really think of any examples of what I mean, though there are definitely loads. I THINK I'm sort of going for that soft/loud verse/chorus thing that I guess grunge bands did a lot. Maybe Smells Like Teen Spirit is a close enough idea
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Mar 17, 2019 20:26
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massive spider posted:IMO It’s partly about session view and the arrangement of parts as vertical blocks you can audition, then drag into the arrangement. This post could have been written by me about FL Studio
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Apr 1, 2019 12:40
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You can also still do it with Audacity https://www.howtogeek.com/217348/how-to-record-the-sound-coming-from-your-pc-even-without-stereo-mix/
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May 3, 2019 16:48
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Not a recording question but probably something someone might know I've just been trying to master a song (which may be irrelevant). I've played the song in a couple of media players and in both of them, the volume (and it SOUNDS to me like the quality too but I can't be sure) increases if I then open my browser. To be clear, I'm listening to a song in a media player, switching to my browser with the track still playing, and a split second later the volume (and possibly quality) jumps up. Why would that be? I'm especially curious because I've been trying to work out how to export a song and have it sound like it does in FL Studio, and then trying to master... it's a weird and confusing process already, and then this unexpected thing has confused me even more I've been messing with my audio drivers a bit but I didn't knowingly do anything that should make it switch like this I suppose a follow up is: how can I just make it like this all the time? It really seems to sound better and I don't think it's just volume. It sounds similar to when I change my driver in FL Studio from the default to ASIO4ALL, and that's what I kind of suspect it is although I have no idea why or how it would be happening
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Nov 20, 2019 01:20
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Would getting a better audio interface for recording electric guitar improve the sound, or is that solely down to the guitar itself? Both my guitar and interface were very cheap, and sometimes they really sound it
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Jan 13, 2020 08:59
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Can anyone give me any ideas about how to create the sound on this Faye Wong song? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvoeUwn2ghQ Specifically the dreamy guitar sound that plays through most of the song and is the first thing you hear. It sounds like a lot of reverb or delay and chorus, but apart from that I'm fairly lost
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Feb 2, 2020 16:28
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guppy posted:[*] I own FruityLoops, which I bought a while ago to mess with electronic music production. It doesn't even get mentioned in the context of articles about DAWS for live recording; I think it's capable of it, but probably not great? I'm going to want to either buy something else or use Reaper for this, right?[/list] FL Studio is fine for recording audio, it's the DAW I use and I'm pretty happy with it. I don't know how it compares to recording in other DAWs, but really they're all just different ways of doing the same things. Since you have it already and presumably have some experience with it, I would stick with FL Studio. It's good software.
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Sep 15, 2020 04:41
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does anyone know a half decent way to simulate guitar feedback with a VST/digital amp? I want to get some of that noise going on but I don't have a real amp, I plug my guitar into an interface and use stuff like Amplitube
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Jan 25, 2021 05:50
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idk if that's what the OP is asking for but I love that plugin and use it all the time
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Feb 14, 2021 16:06
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Mic/preamp question I currently record with a Blue Yeti, thinking about getting a preamp and an XLR mic. I've seen a combo of a Scarlett preamp with an AT2035 mic for what looks like a very good price, but how much of a difference would this actually make in terms of sound quality/performance? Quite a lot of differing opinions online, I'm sure it's better but I wonder how much my poo poo ears will really notice
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May 15, 2021 09:14
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I asked the seller and it turns out the price was a lie anyway, so I won't buy that particular combo I'm alright with the yeti really, I just wondered if buying an interface and new mic at that price point would be an obvious improvement. Sounds like it may not be, and I can probably get better sound with the yeti if I try playing with the gain and how close up I get. FWIW my music is pretty lofi anyway, the main thing I don't like is that sometimes when I add some effects and compression I get some noise in the should-be silent bits between singing. but again it may be more about what I'm doing and how I'm doing it than the mic itself
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May 15, 2021 17:41
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Drunk Driver Dad posted:I wanted it to sound like a bass guitar. I think I might just fork over the cash for EZ bass if I like the trial. Yeah they generally work as intended. Your DAW may even have some pitch shift capability already without using plug ins, I know FL Studio does. For bass I usually do as creamcorn said - record it in guitar, pitch shift down and apply some amp plugin
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Jun 28, 2021 09:11
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