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Misinformation on a pro audio forum is very hard to avoid as there is no one textbook that covers all answers. It's another reason why we see the same threads pop up again and again, it's easy for the wrong answer to get out there and not be noticed until it's been repeated as gospel a few hundred times. So to clear a few things up, analog > digital, protools is poo poo, and this poo poo is so amazingly expensive at least the build quality keeps getting better and better as the years pass.
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Jul 12, 2007 22:13
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The best deal out there on high-end reverb processing is powercore + the VSS3 and DVR2 plugins from TC Electronic. It's the exact same two reverbs that are in the system 6000, but without the $10,000 pricetag.
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Jul 14, 2007 00:34
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Elder posted:That looks pretty sweet, how does it compare soundwise to a good convolution reverb? Apples to oranges really, I like convolution reverbs but to my ear they are not a "classic" reverb sound so I think they have different applications than i'm used to.
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Jul 23, 2007 18:14
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i guess it depends on what you mean by "right". It totally sounds like something done in garageband with the equipment you're talking about. Considering your means it sounds fine, maybe soften up the vocal and drums w/ some eq but other than that it's just fine as a rough sketch.
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Jul 24, 2007 02:54
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hmm, perhaps I wasn't very clear in what I meant. A lot of the "Classic" reverb sounds that I think of when creating space with verbs involve a bit of adjustment that I haven't found in convolution verbs. Now to be fair I haven't been looking very hard at the reverb market, I have two PCM81 verbs and a clark technic DN-780 in addition to the DVR2 and VSS3 verbs at my studio. And even with all those boxes I'm using verb less and less on my sessions and delay more and more. So maybe the newer convolution plugs are offering more adjustment than what I found 3-4 years ago, but my impression then was you basically got an impulse either from a real space or from a classic box that's dialed into a given setting and then that's all you get. I'd love to hear some samples of a single impulse and how easily it's attributes could be adjusted. Because when all is said and done, real reverb is easy to find it's all around us. Just put up some speakers and a mic and mix in that "REAL" verb. What makes those million dollar verb boxes so useful is that you can tailor verb to your needs and make what is artificial sound realistic. The good boxes sound great when adjusted, and the bad boxes sound worse. This is also why verb presets are useless, because if it doesn't fit the space that the rest of your track is creating then it sounds artificial, no matter how "Real" the verb actually is.
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Jul 24, 2007 21:43
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Swivel Master posted:Maybe brand and model number and use the google. How dare you suggest that someone actually bother looking something up instead of just spamming a thread and letting other people do their work for them! Are you some kind of Audio Nazi? Show some compassion for the new musicians who are just getting into such a tough technical subject!
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Jul 31, 2007 18:08
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LetoAtreides posted:The mic I'm going to get, as I've mentioned, is at least 15 years old, just sort of a mic my parents bought a long time ago for karaoke. They also bought it in Hong Kong. I don't have the mic with me now, so I can't look it up, but I really doubt I'll find it online. I thought maybe you could tell the difference by taking it apart or something. Would you be willing to take a Tox-Clause esque challenge that the mic can't be found online?
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Aug 1, 2007 00:11
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The TC System 6000 plugin "MD3" has an option to adjust both the center and "stereo" channels, and there is a gain function. It's pretty flawless. If you want to link me the files I could pull out the stereo channels the next time I'm in my studio (which might be a while, but hey your other option is to go drop $10k on either a protools HD system or a system 6000).
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Aug 21, 2007 23:33
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Dirk Muscleton posted:This might be dandy. I've been working on and off on these files for about five months now, so no rush. Check the sample I linked above, and judge for yourself whether it's salvageable. Go ahead and send me the full file and I'll have it run through the plugin. Email insolace (at) yahoo.com either a link or the file itself.
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Aug 23, 2007 18:05
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cmerepaul posted:And the military is well known for having the highest standards when it comes to microphone quality! You might not be aware of this but Milspec is a highly respected set of manufacturing standards and measurements that the military requires of manufacturers that they purchase equipment from. These standards and measurements are used to ensure consistency in products from one production run to another and within individual product runs. If you think those standards are not good enough well my hat is off to you sir, I too appreciate the continued search for higher build quality. However I would point out that between the five main microphone manufacturers we hear about (Shure, Audix, Sennheiser, AKG and Audio Technica) Shure is the only one meeting the milspec standards.
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Aug 27, 2007 20:16
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cmerepaul posted:But I'm not even sure why I'm arguing this, as I don't have a problem with Shure or any mic company, I just thought it was silly to think about a high-end microphone meeting the military's standards for audio quality or something. Like the military has standards for the microphones they use? ...Because they use microphones so much? I understand what you're saying, and I'm not trying to pick a fight or anything, I just thought I'd clarify the misconception. Shure sells mics to the government and military all the time, it's a significant part of our business. In fact, we went milspec back in World War II when we were making throat mics for b52 bombers, handset and headset mics for radios, address mics for pubic announcements etc etc. There is a whole division of Shure that covers government and commercial installs that most people don't think of, from mics for burger king to schools to government board meetings and disccussion systems. It's not that the military has standards for microphones in particular, it's that the government doesn't want to purchase anything that can't be replaced with the EXACT same thing. Milspec is a standard for consistency, and when I say Shure builds to MilSpec I mean that when you buy an SM58 it's the exact same SM58 you bought ten years ago. It sounds the same, it's built the same, it's identical. The government can't deal with bullets that are off by a hundreth of a milimeter from last year's run, and they carry that standard to everything they do. But you're right it's not that big of a deal or worth arguing about. But I would say over half our business is not related to Music at all, and while it's not necessarily with the military, it is with government agencies or corporate boardrooms, churches or public swimming pools.
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Aug 29, 2007 00:00
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I think the M-Audio stuff is fine if you have a good firewire chipset, any m-audio problems I've heard of are usually related to that. However the going rate for the 1814 is $500, and M-powered is another $250. Word on the street is it's still possible to get the old discontinued MX002 racks, and they're much cheaper than the original $1200 pricetag and will come with LE. If it was me I'd rather get LE + four preamps, and I think if you're willing to spend another hundred bucks and are willing to take a floor model you could make that happen pretty easy. If you're interested send me a PM and I might be able to help you. Otherwise go with the M-Audio and M-powered (which I could probably also get you a good deal on).
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Aug 31, 2007 22:38
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WanderingKid posted:I can't tell the difference between the AD stages of the MOTU 828MKII, RME Fireface 800 and Apogee Rosetta 200 in a blind test and neither could nearly all the gearslutz members who decided to participate in those tests. After that I decided that conversion is important up to a point. Then theres so little difference that it basically comes down to whats in your head. a) I don't trust random samplings of people when it comes to how good audio gear sounds, not only is it subjective but honestly a lot of people don't have ears trained well enough to know the difference. Asking a room of gearslutz forum goers to take an AB test judging which AD sounds the best is like asking a room of medical students to take an AB test to determine which Lasik laser looks the prettiest. Except medical students have to graduate college and I bet you there are tons of high school kids, or even worse lighting designers lurking in those forums. b) Something like an A/D converter has a lot to do with experience in a mix situation and experience listening to how one piece of a signal chain can affect the entire tone of what you're recording. c) The affects of AD on your recording quality is cumulative as you add channels to your mix, AB tests with stereo or mono sources are a flawed way to attempt to compare different converters in my opinion. The first time I really understood why converters were important was my first mix session that was recorded with 16 inputs of apogee converters.
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Sep 11, 2007 07:21
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https://www.510studios.com And I may be doing a lot more work there pretty quickly
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Sep 14, 2007 01:07
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My evil alter personality? Fun fact- I never used this screen name before SA, I normally go by insolace when online but a friend with the SN "Rivens" bought me this acount back in 2002, so he got to name it and of course I became "RivensBitch". Also SM58s RULE! (couldn't resist)
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Sep 15, 2007 00:22
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dancehall posted:Guys do you have any idea why two random tracks in Cubase SX3 don't have fade handles aaaaaarrrrg Are they routed to mono sends and/or buses/outputs? also post screenshot plz kthx
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Sep 25, 2007 09:44
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I can't help but notice that this thread is getting pretty long, I imagine we'll have some kind of new thread at some point. If someone is going to take it upon themselves to do this, could I nominate Wixard as the recipient of the next thread title? Perhaps something along the lines of "Home/Computer recording Megathread III- Wixard Waxes Weecording" or something stupid like that?
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Sep 27, 2007 23:39
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Look into a firepod instead. You'll have 8 mic inputs which is much handier for a band (6 on the drums + bass and vocal scratch tracks). They've been out a while and the price has come down a lot, and I can get you a discount. Vista drivers are here: http://presonus.com/drivers/FirePod_Installer_v2_42.zip I can also help you get that SM57 and ableton.
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Oct 2, 2007 20:50
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if you can try running at 88.2khz and lowering the buffer as much as you can while keeping the signal stable. VV totally beaten RivensBitch fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Oct 11, 2007 |
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Oct 10, 2007 22:34
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Connect the keyboard to your computer via a midi interface (usually $40 for a simple USB to MIDI in/out cable), make certain reason see's the interface as an input (do this in the options screen). Then I think reason has a list of your rack modules in the lower left? of the screen, click on your instrument so the little round midi connector icon is next to it in the list, then you should be in business.
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Oct 31, 2007 08:07
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I would wait to upgrade, but if you send an email to support@tcelectronic.com they're usually pretty quick to respond.
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Nov 1, 2007 00:06
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troll for dollars posted:I didn't see anything about this but if I missed the question before, I'm sorry. send me an email and I can get you either of those, at a discount, through my distributors: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2476002
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Nov 10, 2007 23:22
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Mex posted:I like guitar rig. Here's the webpage: http://www.native-instruments.com/index.php?id=guitarrig3 The foot kontroller interface functions as an audio interface and will allow you to connect your guitar to your PC. This is also something I can get you, at a discount, through my distributors, see the thread I linked in the post above this one.
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Nov 10, 2007 23:25
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yes the pod XT live works on it's own, the guitar rig works with your computer. Of the two I've had more orders for the XT live (shipping on monday mofolotopo).
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Nov 11, 2007 23:26
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hmmxkrazee posted:And on another note, what's the best way to record drums without an actual drumset? I use Reason 2.5 and the drumsets it has for the REdrum machine are limited. I'm looking to record rock-ish drums so I need to be able to pull of fills and constant variations in the drumming. I can also use my friend's Yamaha S90ES keyboard which has pretty good drumkits. What would be the best program to use to record and combine the drums + guitar + vocals? I use Adobe Audition for vocals, I'm guessing I can use GTPlayer for guitar recordings and then record the drums in Audition as well and combine and mix it all there? Have you tried recording some real drums and sampling those into the ReDrum sampler? You don't need the whole kit and a bunch of mics, just get an SM57, a cymbal or two, a kick, and a snare. You might not even need that much if you can get a drum stick and a mallet, try hitting different objects in your house. Take a mallet to a phone book and pull down the high end 6-10bdb, then normalize. You'll have a really low, punchy kick drum. You can do a lot with even the weirdest or most poorly recorded samples just by adjusting the envelopes and filters, which ReDrum will let you do. They may not sound like Dave Grohl or John Bonham played them, but you'll find just the process of tweaking them will make them more musical than if you'd bought the best BFD or DFH plugins.
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Nov 27, 2007 09:41
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How many mics do you have? If you have 6 that don't completely suck then I'd do something like this: ch1 kick ch2 snare ch3 over L ch4 over R ch5 bass (direct) ch6 guitar (mic) ch7 keys (direct, mono) ch8 vocal As far as levels go, set your preamps so that their PFL peaks just below -6. Make certain that the drummer is hitting as hard as possible during level checks otherwise he'll overdrive them during playing (they always play harder when the band is playing together, without fail). Then for mixing I generally start with the kick up around unity gain, bring the snare way down so it's just adding to the mix subtly (maybe -12db or even less), and put the overheads around -9db (don't forget to pan them hard left and right). Put the bass, guitar, and keys at -3db and slightly pan the keys left, guitar right. Vocals go at unity, to monitor them take an aux send from the mixer and run it to the guitar amp that you said you're using (or a pa if you have one). Record a loud section from your best/first song and then listen back to it. Using your ears adjust the mixer, but under-compensate your actions. If the bass is too loud, bring it down just a smidge. It's best to keep your headroom down, so if something is way too quiet but the rest of the mix is good then try to bring down everything else rather than cranking up the one offender. If it's just rough and you've been asked to give "rough" then all you need is something where you can audibly hear everyone. Once you have that forget the recording and try to make everyone comfortable and get some vibe going on in the room, because your performance will be way more important to this label than the quality of the recording. Put up some christmas lights or something and maybe even bring a bunch of friends, it helps if you liquor them up I swear.
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Nov 30, 2007 21:04
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I think bleed from the monitors would make everything sound more live and less "odd" as you're worried about. In fact I'd heartily recommend you stay away from headphones and just perform in the room live with plenty of PA bleed. I wouldn't fret that the direct vs live sound as long as you're close micing the guitar/drums. Either way it's not going to sound like a studio recording with perfectly engineered spaces and acoustics, so don't worry about making it sound that way. You said the label is expecting a "rough" recording, you're worrying too much about something that they aren't going to care about. What you need is decent levels and intelligibility for each of the instruments, if you can get that and a good performance the label will know what a better recording could do for you, which is the whole point of sending them the demo right?
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Dec 2, 2007 01:03
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Elder posted:I don't mean latency, it's a delay that is specific to each track. I did a little digging and it turns out that the delay is caused by certain plugins, and can be fixed either by nudging the resulting audio file back or adding the same delay (ProTools has a built in plugin to do this) to all the other tracks. protools has automatic plugin delay compensation in HD, and back when I was at GC the digidesign rep told me it was actually built into LE as well but was not documented (this was back in the 6.4 days).  I'm fairly certain protools LE will automatically account for this, but maybe I'm confusing plugin delay compensation with delay compensation while recording. I bet flock-o-werewolves would know.
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Dec 13, 2007 22:00
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Elder posted:That's pretty interesting, although I don't think it's built into LE (at least the never versions). The only reason I noticed there was a delay was because I heard it. actually the C4 compressor is a linear phase multiband compressor made by waves, whereas the EQ on the next channel is made by digidesign. C4 was the only plugin I had that actually caused a delay. I think it's just the complexity of the plugin and how it's written. Which plugins are you using that are causing delays?
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Dec 15, 2007 05:33
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Peacebone posted:I know the general consensus is that Windows Vista blows for audio programs, but it's all I have on my laptop right now which the other specs include I bought a new laptop back in September and of course it only came with vista and attempting to install XP would make the thing non-bootable in either partition. So I sucked it in and installed live anyways. It runs well if it has a good interface attached to it, my onyx 1620 has poo poo for drivers (it's still on version 1.0 if you can believe it), it passes audio but has a lot of hiccups. My MBOX works very well now that digi released their vista drivers, however to get it working I had to tell vista to run live as an administrator. Doing this actually improved Live's performance across the board, so now I do it even when running with the built in laptop audio. Vista is actually the "best windows yet" and I say this as someone who has always waited to upgrade my OS (I think I was running 98 up to 2 years after XP was released). Once the hardware and software catches up I think everyone who has held back will be pleasantly surprised. However some people might not be happy with how long that catching up takes, I spoke with a contact at Mackie that I knew through my old job and his estimate for vista drivers was "weeks, maybe months... I know they're writing one, at least I'm pretty sure they are". Of course he's the top guy in their tech support department... (/me pulls hair out of head while staring at $1,400 paperweight)
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Dec 19, 2007 09:20
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I wouldn't assume a tube will solve this problem, in fact your next equipment purchase should be a real interface. Using an unbalanced cable to record through the 1/8" input on your sound card is most likely the chokepoint in your signal path. The converters on your soundcard are not at the same level as a real interface, and the unbalanced signal could also be introducing problems. A tube wont solve this problem. Think of a camera with gunk on the lens, using better lighting wont get rid of the gunk. Get an MBOX or a m-audio firewire based interface with a mic pre built in. Then to get the cleanest recordings plug your mic direct into the interface, bypassing the mixer.
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Dec 22, 2007 22:13
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Steiler Drep posted:There's the Art tube pre USB. Is it better than those Firewire interfaces? Thing is I've spent nearly $1200 worth of equipment and I'd prefer not to spend $200 more on one of those firewire interfaces. That interface should be a good upgrade to using your sound card, and will be more or less on par w/ the m-audio/mbox. quote:what's the best way to record an old school drum machine that you're plugging directly into your recording device? It always seems like its too loud and clipping out, or too quiet and thin sounding. does your "recording device" have input meters? You should visually be able to tell if it's to loud/clipping or not.
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Dec 24, 2007 21:13
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grapecritic posted:What exactly is lo-fi recording? Is it a viable option for someone who can't afford good recording gear? Should I just wait to get decent gear, or will lo-fi work until I have more money? i think lo-fi refers more to a style of music than any specific recording technique, every lo-fi band I've ever listened to it was obvious they recorded most of their stuff with the same expensive gear everyone else is using, they just used it slightly differently.
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Dec 30, 2007 10:37
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Try plugging it into a preamp instead of "directly into your recording device" and use the meters to avoid it from clipping. Arm the track before recording, press play on your sequencer and watch the levels as the drum machine is played. Listen to the loudest section and adjust the input trim so that the meters are barely almost touching red, but not quite. There's no reason for the audio to clip if you do this. Make certain that you're recording at 24 bit so you have plenty of headroom to adjust and compress levels in software. After adjusting your input trim as above, if it still sounds to thin then it could be the quality of the gear in your signal path. If your equipment has a high noise floor then there isn't much you can do. Give yourself a reality check and reference your recorded audio to the sound of the drum machine playing through your equipment. If you hear a big difference between the two then you probably need to upgrade some gear, maybe even invest in some nice preamps.
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Jan 3, 2008 15:46
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cmerepaul posted:Since when do you pay sales people to demonstrate their product for you? There is a difference between going to a salesman to buy a car and having a mechanic bring a car to your garage and start adjusting it in front of you. One of my biggest pet peeves at Guitar Center was meeting customers who wanted to talk to someone who knew a lot about the product, giving them an hour of my time with demonstrations and blind A/B tests, and then having them haggle me to the point of making no commission. Suffice to say I don't work at guitar center any more, and I know for a fact that they've yet to find and hire someone who had my level of expertise. This reminds me of a recent discussion I had with the owner of a large commercial studio in the bay area and one of his mastering engineers. The next time you take your car into the shop to have some engine work done, take a look at your bill. It costs you $75/hr to have a mechanic work on your car, and that doesn't include any parts. That mechanic owns less than $10,000 of his own tools, and only needs 12 months of training at a trade school. Conversely look at a recording studio. You're looking at $30k-$100k of equipment and YEARS of internship for each engineer before they're considered "good". What we have in the recording world now is the equivalent of a bunch of amature mechanics with $2,000 worth of cheap tools running around and putting the real mechanics out of business. With a car that wont fly because if the car isn't fixed you'll know. But with recording and mixing music the results are more subjective, you might not realize your engineer isn't good enough until it's too late and you now have a final mix that sucks. At that point you probably will have to re-record everything, since your budget engineer made half of his mistakes during the recording process. The dynamic between making music and recording music is eroding, and it sucks. I think it's great that there are now options for people with low budgets who want to work on their own music at home, but the DIY mentality is becoming less of an option and more of a forced standard. It's also forcing some really skilled people out of the recording business. The owner of that large studio I mentioned? I counted the CDs from his mix sessions the other day. In the past six years he's mixed over 400 different clients. He's a really talented guy and I can say with 100% confidence that his mixes stand out and are better than most of the other studios and DIY recordings in the bay area. But product quality standards are being lowered. The attitude from the distributors and labels is that the end user doesn't care for quality and the records aren't selling enough product to justify paying more for it. The DIY musicians usually don't have the studio experience to know/afford what they're missing, and the musicians working with labels aren't given a choice. Even worse, many labels are now relegating the task of recording to the musicians themselves. Some musicians think that this is a bonus, when it is actually more work and pressure being dumped on them. The whole point of having recording engineers whose only job was recording was so we could have skilled people making our records sound good. My friend, the owner of the studio? He's going to close the studio, mix at home in his spare time, and find a job working on high end sports cars.
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Jan 12, 2008 18:44
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Aenovae posted:This is a great thread. If you're going to use a midi controller and soft synths then you might want to get a firewire interface to reduce latency. Your built in sound card will give you a 1/4 second delay at least, that means you hit your key and 250ms later you hear your note.
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Jan 15, 2008 20:19
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I didn't mean the interface on the keyboard I mean an audio interface for your computer. However if you're getting an external synth rather than soft synths then you will definitely need a good audio interface to record the synth output
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Jan 16, 2008 01:20
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Yoozer posted:MIDI travels at the speed of a 33k6 modem; if such a keyboard has a FW connection it's because there's an audio interface built in. 32,150 baud 
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Jan 19, 2008 21:52
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t_rf posted:The alternative way you could look at it is that the recording business forced musicians out of business, because demand for live music went down, and now the trend is simply reversing back towards the musician. If someone were to get the technical backend in place, musicians could give a live performance, every day of the week, to the entire internet. That's something that was never possible with the old model. I don't know if I agree with this, has the demand for live musicians really increased? Most of the clubs I see these days have DJs that are still spinning records from the 70s and 80s, with a few of todays hits mixed in. My real concern is that as musicians are being forced into the role of producer and engineer, the art of recording is dying. The record industry has assumed that the end user doesn't care about quality and therefore they don't want to pay to involve someone whose primary talent is engineering awesome records. So instead the talent has to figure it out, and they can do an okay job but the bar overall has been lowered substantially. A few weeks ago we received a copy of the protools sessions for some of Jimmy Eat Worlds songs on their latest record. Just for fun my friend Aaron put a few hours into a mix on our Amek and had it sounding 100x better than what's on the radio. This was a night and day improvement that anyone could hear, and I just wonder what kind of budget they were given that they couldn't shop around with a few different mix engineers to find the best results. Whoever they went with obviously mixed the record in the box and it shows, and this has become common. The majority of new bands have that same dull sound. I was reading Slash's autobiography and he talks about how it took them a year and a half to find a producer for appetite, and how they went through almost every producer in town before they found one that worked. They would have a potential producer actually record a song of theirs and then they would listen to it, and if they didn't like what they heard they'd keep looking. At this point guns was unproven and Geffen was still investing money to get a good record. These days the label would just make them lay down the tracks with anyone and then put out the record.
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Jan 20, 2008 21:46
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Ableton live lets you record synth and audio to a metrenome or drum beat and loop it in real time. For example, as the last bar of your loop is playing, you hit record on your synth track, then start playing on the down beat. As you reach the end of your last bar you or someone else hits "stop" and recording will stop right before the next downbeat, at which point your loop begins playing in sync. It's really, really cool.
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Jan 25, 2008 02:36
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