HOME RECORDING MEGATHREAD: Rivensbitch Teaches Recording

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Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

I'm looking for a pair of inexpensive omni room condensers for my band to record our rehearsals. Our rehearsal space isn't fantastic acoustically, and we're not necessarily looking for something with perfect and crystal-clear sound reproduction, just something with a good enough response where we can easily make everybody out and determine who's screwing up what and what we need to tighten up. Presumably we would need separate mics to properly capture the highs and lows. Phantom power's not an issue. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Feb 12, 2007

# ¿ Feb 12, 2007 01:33

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:03

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

I just dropped a good wad of dough on some inexpensive mics -- two vintage SM57s (Unidyne III capsule 4 lyfe), an SM58, an AKG D112, and three Sennheiser e604s, with a pair of Rode NT1A condensers on the way. My first question is: how important is the quality of the boom stands we use? We don't move them around much, so durability's not a huge concern, I'm just wondering if cheap boom stands can actually introduce a rattle into the recording or something. Also, how important is XLR cable quality for short runs (less than 25 feet)? Does anyone have any preferred brands of either boom stands or cables?

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Mar 9, 2007

# ¿ Mar 9, 2007 01:58

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Is it a bad idea to plug a non-phantom powered mic into an XLR input that's supplying phantom power? I've got a Presonus Firepod, which supplies phantom power in groups of four -- that is, based on a switch position, none of the inputs are phantom powered, inputs 1-4 are phantom-powered, or inputs 5-8 are phantom powered. I'm recording drums using eight mics, two of which are powered (Rode NT1A condensers as stereo overheads). Will my dynamic mics be damaged if they're plugged into the other two powered inputs?

# ¿ Mar 11, 2007 23:36

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Zapato posted:

(prices are all current Musicians Friend)

Don't be an idiot and order online. Call up, get a rep on the phone, and get a deal on the package. If they don't go for it, call Sweetwater or SameDayMusic or someone who will.

Also, sound dampening on large rooms gets expensive. Make sure you budget appropriately, because it probably makes more difference than what mics you use.

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Mar 19, 2008

# ¿ Mar 19, 2008 03:54

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

deviant. posted:

You might also consider renting a nice small diaphragm condenser or two for the guitar.

I can agree with this. My current favorite low-budget setup for miking distorted guitar is one Sennheiser e906 with one Rode NT5 EQed together to taste, though you could easily use an SM57 instead of the e906. I find the e906 has a more graceful high-end rolloff, where the SM57 is a bit too tinny and sibilant on the highs with high-gain amplifiers.

I feel that condensers alone do not sound good on a guitar cab, though.

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 06:50 on Mar 22, 2008

# ¿ Mar 22, 2008 06:45

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Hadlock posted:

So fell down a weird rabbit hole

Why does Sweetwater, an almost entirely online music store, also have like a 10 acre "campus" and show room, and why did they pick fort Wayne, Indiana as the location?

Apparently this campus was a big new addition? For an almost entirely online business

Fort Wayne is like a 2 hour drive from the next biggest "city" just doesn't seem like a good investment. They are 2+ hours from Indianapolis, Detroit, Chicago and I guess Toledo and fort Wayne itself is barely 200k people

I'm from Texas so I'm used to driving a long distance but just, why? I can't see the business case for it

Maybe a long time customer can explain this to me. I called them up and they didn't have a super good answer for it either

Same reason they'll never just send you an actual quote that you can order online, and they always ask you to call them on the phone

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 00:00

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

I've got an old Digi 002 that I'm still using with my 2014 MacBook Pro to record vocals and occasional instruments. (It's going through a dumb daisy chain of IEEE 1394 to FW800, FW800 to Thunderbolt.) The configuration is a little finicky because of the adapters, but I really like the sound coming off of the DACs, which has basically no ground hum whatsoever even on my house's lovely power.

This laptop's on its last legs; it's got a battery bulge (again) and I don't think I can keep sourcing batteries for it forever. This generation of hardware doesn't tend to work with anything more recent than macOS Mojave anyway, so it's time to move on. I'd like another (hopefully inexpensive) interface with 2-4 inputs, but I'd also like to not fall too far away from the nice clean sound of this thing. My other computers have USB-C/TB3/whatever. What's good nowadays?

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 00:07

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Splinter posted:

Any recommendations for a desktop vocal/mic reflector thing? Are they even worth it? Something like this: https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/ReflexionX--se-electronics-reflexion-filter-by-portable-vocal-booth is what I'm looking at. I do have a desktop mic stand already.

Depends a lot on your mic configuration, room acoustics, and what you want to record. Doesn't do a ton for small diaphragm cardioid mics, but makes a bigger difference on mics with a rear pickup and some larger diaphragm cardioid condensers that can be sensitive to reflected sounds. I don't like that they often mount onto the mic stand, because this sometimes introduces vibrations, or the weight requires you to sandbag the mic stand to keep it from leaning, which can also introduce weird audio artifacts with louder sound sources. I spent a whole night trying toy figure out where this "glassy" sound was coming from on a grunge vocal I was laying down, messing with my vocal approach, before I was able to trace it to a thumbscrew on mine that wasn't tight enough.

Only use it with a microphone that has a shock mount.

These are good enough for recording podcasts or Zoom audio or something at low volumes, but for something like rock vocals, consider some other low-cost acoustic treatments first. These filters can make a big difference in situations where those aren't viable (windows, mirrors, closet sliders, things mounted to the wall).

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Dec 2, 2022

# ¿ Dec 2, 2022 22:09

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

McCoy Pauley posted:

Not sure what price range you're thinking of as cheap, but Sony MDR7506's are around $80, and have always sounded really good to me for the price. They come with a plug that is 1/8" but has a screw on adapter for 1/4", so you can easily use them for either. The only thing I don't love about them is the cable is integrated, so couldn't easily be replaced if it got damages, but otherwise they seem very sturdy, sound good, and have been pretty solid for an $80 outlay.

IMO, replaceable cable is a gimmick unless the headphone is wired+wireless. You're way more likely to damage the plug than the cord, and TRS plugs aren't exactly hard to replace when they're soldered on; the hardest part is identifying the good-quality ones you want to order. In the event you trip over or otherwise drop your headphones, it increases the chances you damage the irreplaceable jack side inside the headphone itself (barring something like a MagSafe-type adapter).

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Jan 26, 2023

# ¿ Jan 26, 2023 20:30

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

My vocal practice is driving my wife up the wall, and we're looking to build or buy a vocal booth for my den. I'm looking at something like the 3.5x5' Whisper Room, insulated on the inside with 2-4" of OC703 or Rockwool. I see mostly podcasters and voiceover artists using these. I mostly sing rock/metal vocals in a Dio-style belt. Would something like this be okay for recording demo-quality vocals, or will it be a nightmare of standing waves at 100+ dB?

Papa Was A Video Toaster posted:

You probably want a Scarlett interface by FocusRite. I use a 4i4, it does all the sound in and out I've needed to do. You can probably get away with a Solo or 2i2 if you don't care about line level sources.

I had an old Digi 002 running through three adapters to get to my computer. It finally started to flake and driver support ended with macOS Mojave, so it was keeping me from upgrading my home studio computer. The thing sounded really good and had basically no bus noise whatsoever, and I've had bad experiences with that on some cheaper gear like the PreSonus Firepod, so I was really apprehensive about replacing it despite its problems and the relatively high latency from the adapters.

I just pulled the trigger on a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2, and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that it sounds a bit better than the 002, at least for voice. The signal it outputs is way more sensitive to small details and vibrations than my old interface, so there's a little more care that I have to put into EQ and presets, but it's totally changed the character of my AT4040, which is picking up all kinds of little nuances that I wasn't getting before. I'm also digging that the whole thing is USB-powered despite supplying phantom power, which helps it to be really portable. I wasn't previously considering dragging it between rooms, but it's nice to be able to bring it into the home office if I want to use my AT4040 for a Zoom presentation or screencast.

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 17:28 on Feb 2, 2023

# ¿ Feb 2, 2023 15:16

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

emanresu tnuocca posted:

So now I finally have enough inputs to also hook up my strat to the computer, which is nice, any goon recommendations for a nice and affordable guitar amp\effects emulator suite in this year old our lord 2023? I don't mind being patient and waiting for some sale, just generally wondering what you guys had fun with, I just want to jam with an electric guitar every once in a while after years of playing nylon string guitars and ukuleles.

Guitar Rig has a free version that's surprisingly good, if heavy on the CPU usage

# ¿ Mar 4, 2023 16:38

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Nigel Tufnel posted:

Re-posting from the small questions thread as I didn't get any replies and this is driving me mad.

I am recording something with tremolo picking () and I feel like I'm going crazy because everything I record has a sort of high pitched quack sound on it. Example below, it's easy enough to hear.

I have tried different guitars, different picks and different VSTs and nothing seems to fix it. It sounds like some sort of harmonic resonance. Is this a technique issue? I have tried deeper and super shallow picking to no avail. Picking in different spots on the string changes the pitch of the quack but doesn't make it go away. I can't seem to EQ it out either because the sound changes depending on what note is being fretted and where on the string I'm picking so it's a moving target. Help!

Demo of stupid sound that's driving me crazy:

https://soundcloud.com/tom-w-dillin...=social_sharing

It sounds like you're skating on the string with your pick, which would cause it to add a harmonic as you scrape the worn edge of the pick across it like a violin bow. Are you using something like a red Dunlop Tortex Jazz on the one you linked?

It does strike me as a technique issue, where you're dragging the pick over the string at an angle. If I had to guess, you're carrying too much tension in your wrist, and it's causing the angle of attack of your pick to change in between strokes. A few months ago I met this really good guitarist in a restaurant�playing southern/blues rock but obviously trained and cut his teeth on Paul Gilbert and Eric Johnson�and he gave me some advice. Imagine the fingers holding your pick each have one job: one makes the pick go up, the other one makes the pick go down. Working on this really helped me start cutting down my tremolo pick noise, especially on string-skipping/pedal-tone runs.

Since I'm more a singer than a guitarist, I apply those learning modes to guitar too. I find it's helpful to relate the picking motions to a motion your hand does intuitively. For me, the motion is "thumbs up", where I go really slowly from a pronated position to a thumbs-up pose. The muscles I use in that motion are the only ones I want to feel in my tremolo picking. As you do this, note which tendons you feel in your wrist as you go up, and which as you go down. You want to isolate those into your downstrokes and upstrokes too.

Lastly: you hear this sound and it bothers you. It doesn't bother me. I think it actually sounds kind of cool and adds this extra layer of ambience to what you're playing. If you run totally the opposite direction, can you make the sound even more consistently?

# ¿ Mar 6, 2023 19:51

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Wowporn posted:

Basic rear end mixing question cause I�m very new to it and am recording a rock song; is there a best practice starting point for eq when I am high passing guitars/low passing bass so they don�t step on each other�s toes? Should I not think too hard and just move blips around until it sounds good or is there like an obvious �start at 500hz and move up from there� I should know

Also do people have favorite tape machine or similar plugins? I�m using the free spitfire labs drums vst and it works good for my simple needs but is pretty dry so I think a bit of compression/distortion could be nice

Not to oversimplify, but start by EQing each instrument until it sounds the way you want it, then only worry about EQing the instruments together if you have an actual problem. Most problems that stem from instruments stacking noise on each other come from the mixing engineer not really knowing what they're listening for on each instrument individually.

If you get to this point, it really depends what frequencies they're both playing in when you look at your envelope. You're going to get very different results from an acoustic guitar in standard tuning than a hyper-compressed Jens Bogren tone on the low end of an 8-string guitar. Consider your openness and your overall approach to dynamic range, because if the instruments have a similar tone, there's a good chance your frequency overlaps will work themselves out in a multiband compression stage.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2023 14:17

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Slothful Bong posted:

Yeah, this is the things that�s killed me a bit getting back into recording. There�s a lot of really good competition out there now all recorded/mixed in bedrooms, and those kids have learned it that way from the start. So I�ve gotta make something that sounds good, regardless of the musical content. Can�t coast on �this was done in a home studio� anymore!

And then the stylistic stuff - I�m working on a modern metal, 8 string, 15/8 song, and I�m just stuck on guitar tone and how I want the mix to be. Do I go for a super loud, heavily compressed mix like the new Periphery album to get even clarity of all instruments, at the detriment of tone? (Answer is no lol, but it�s an example I�d originally considered)
Do I pull from Haken�s new album, with loud kick and snare, somewhat restrained guitars with a smooth high roll off, and a bit more breathing room?

It�s a lot easier to actually hit those goals now, and I�m realizing I�m not sure what I want. I do a mix one way, like it, then the next day I listen to another song and immediately like that mix better. Gonna take a bit to sort out where I want to go I think, and I�ve got major song fatigue so I think I�ll need to start another track as a distraction.

Decision fatigue because you don't trust your own ears (a common problem to have) is a good indicator that you should probably be pulling in another set of them from somewhere

# ¿ Apr 4, 2023 14:47

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

olives black posted:

Cross posting this from the PYF obsolete tech thread.

I fuckin love stuff that sounds like this.

https://youtu.be/e_8s48-hHvc

Yeah yeah I know there's plugins that emulate the tape sound but it just feels wrong and not kvlt at all to do it that way. Go on, get the chuckles out of your system. I'll wait.

Seems to make little economic sense to go the 4-track Portastudio route though given the cost of those units, repairs to said units (which I have little faith that I have the skill to do) and the rising cost of tapes.

Figure that I can mitigate the cost and get a similar sound if I just record digitally (using an absolute minimum of overdubs and other DAW trickery) and send the final mixdowns out to a cassette deck (which seem to be a lot cheaper on various used gear sites). Figure recording with 4 mono tracks to Audacity with a single SM57 for each instrument performance would do the trick. Suggestions?

I wouldn't sweat the rising cost of tapes. A cool thing about magnetic tape is that it sounds worse the more you use it, so a well-reused cassette will probably get you more of that tape hiss you're looking for.

Your approach is basically reamping the mixdown, which should work fine. Something I've seen people doing more of lately is recording the instruments via DI and then reamping each track, which would also work for layering your tape sound. A cool thing about the reamped approach to your instrument tracks is that if you find a spot with weird acoustics that you like, you don't have to sit there recording lots of takes. You can do really weird stuff with this like "record live" in a busy rehearsal studio while you pick up the sound bleeding into the room from other bands.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2023 14:53

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Mister Speaker posted:

I've been using some very basic multiband compression as part of my 'mastering' chain when I run my DJ mixes. Literally just the Ableton native multiband comp on the 'Standard Multiband Compression' preset; I turn it on and scan through the mix while A-Bing it at varied 'depth' settings. If it don't make the mix sound slightly better I ditch it, but usually it does with the depth set to around 30%.

Recently I started playing around with the Input/Output Gain knobs of each band, and I'm wondering if this is something I shouldn't be loving with. Seat of the pants I know that driving the Input gain of a band a little harder makes it hit its threshold more readily, so I've been pushing the midrange by like 2dB and cutting down about the same at the Output Gain. I do a bit of the opposite with the HF band; cool it on the Input so it's not compressing as hard and then add a dB or two afterwards. Again, is this a dumb thing to do, or does this practice sound familiar to what you might do as a mastering engineer or mixing a radio broadcast? That's the goal for my mixes anyway, to sound 'like the radio'. After the MBC there's a Glue Compressor at a low ratio for a bit of pump, and then it's finished off with a trio of Waves limiters to make everything nice and loud. I'm wondering if I should be loving with the MBC at all, or if it's ok to goose those settings a little bit in the interest of 'radio ready'.

The only other example I can think of deliberately pushing the Input gain on a band is some production techniques I've seen for bass and lead presence, where (usually in the Serum MBC, not Ableton's, but surely applicable just the same) the midrange is pushed HARD.

Most of my (hobbyist) experience in this area has been for rock and metal, but the same principles ought to apply to what you're doing.

If you pretend you're mixing/mastering for vinyl, you'll usually get close, and just be left with some little tweaks.

Mix-level compression for loudness, as opposed to that pump effect, is usually the opposite of what you want to do for radio. Radio is a pretty low-fidelity medium even with a decent FM signal, so brickwalling a sound is likely to just make it sound hissy and bad. Usually you want to focus on high-quality mids since they suffer the least signal loss and interference over FM, and use less compression than you would for a digital mix. So I think the multiband compressor is a good play here, but I would first try to stick that glue compressor ahead of it in the signal chain, then use the multiband to push the low-mids and mids but mostly leave the bass range and highs alone. They'll need to keep the dynamic range to sound good in that medium.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2023 05:13

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Mister Speaker posted:

Thanks, that's really helpful! I will definitely try Glue Comp->MBC with this latest mix. Any comment on my previous ones (in the link in my avatar)? I tend to DJ with the mids scooped a bit anyway; I wonder if this is just fundamentally the wrong way to do it but to my ears it seems to sound alright.

I'm out so it will be a bit before I get to it, but in general, just about all the dance music I've ever heard tends to be light on the mids because people listen to it at loud volumes for long periods of time, in cold environments with bad acoustics. This is absolutely fine for digital media - mix to your purpose, your environment, and your ears. Bumping the mids and maximizing the dynamic range just becomes important because of signal loss.

A common trick for singles and radio mixes is also to blow out and brickwall the first 20-30 seconds of the song (past the intro), and then dial back the compression to give the listener a chance to hear the song. One of my favorite examples of this technique, exaggerated to all poo poo, is actually a symphonic black metal song. Listen to how the bombast backs out and the soundstage opens wide up as it moves out of the intro and into the first verse:

https://youtu.be/NiNTrKsQ8TU

# ¿ Apr 16, 2023 16:04

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Past a certain price point, the acoustic signature of the room is going to make a way bigger difference than the speakers, yeah. There are lots of situations where "worse" speakers will sound better for the space, so this kind of question is basically impossible to answer beyond the crossover frequency

When I was growing up I had a room that was berber carpet on top of concrete, with wood paneled walls, and nothing I did would make JBL or KRK monitors outperform a $150 Aiwa stereo, which sounded awful everywhere else and absolutely unbelievable in that space

# ¿ May 20, 2023 15:27

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

pubic void nullo posted:

I'm looking at getting an audio interface like a Scarlett Solo to support recording off a guitar and wind instruments. No big mystery there but what I want to know is how many channels I need in the scenario where I play the guitar or wind, apply fx on my laptop, then pass the audio back out through the interface to a different audio system, live. Would the Solo work for that?

I also want to be able to just play along with songs on my Oxygen 49 keyboard for fun. I tried doing this using various combinations of Ableton, Reaper, two powerful PCs, and adjusting buffer sizes. I *can not* get the latency down enough to play at fast tempos. The notes always come out on the offbeats. I already eliminated my wireless headphones as a cause by going straight to the laptop speaker. So I think I need an audio interface with headphones plugged into it for this scenario as well, is that right?

The cost difference between something like an M-Track Solo/Duo or a Scarlett Solo/2i2 is so small that I'm almost always going to recommend getting the second input, even if you don't need it today. It takes up like an extra 1.5-2" of room on the unit. Only consider a single-input interface if you really need that space back. Either configuration can be powered off of USB without an external power supply.

There isn't a direct relationship between the number of instruments and the number of inputs you need�that's driven by your mic configuration. I would assume you're going to close-mic each one individually, in which case you'd need two inputs to capture both instruments' mics at the same time, but there's other ways to do it. For example, if you stuck an omnidirectional mic between them, you'd only need one. If you close-mic'd each one but also added an overhead, you'd need three.

Complicating this more: if you had multiple unpowered microphones where you didn't need to adjust each one's gain independently (think something like a set of Sennheiser e604s clipped onto rack toms), you could actually use an XLR splitter instead of needing multiple inputs. I've seen acoustic guitarists dual-mic at the bridge and the neck if they really wanted the string twang to carry, so this would be a cheap option for that kind of configuration.

The latency comes from your input device and your output device having different clocks, which causes sync issues. The simplest way to avoid this problem, as you've guessed, is to have your input and your output on the same interface. It's possible to get lucky and have your output device be subordinate to your input device's clock, but this is usually done to coordinate several pro audio interfaces, usually from the same manufacturer, not to sync to some onboard audio device with no hardware features (i.e. everything is implemented in software by the driver).

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 18:40 on Aug 29, 2023

# ¿ Aug 29, 2023 18:30

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

20 Blunts posted:

One thing I'm trying to figure out constantly is how to keep the bass prominent as I like it, without getting in the way of my bass-baritone voice.

The best way to bring out the tone of the bass is rarely in the bottom end, which is mud on most setups that people will listen to the final track on. Have you checked the solo tracks out with a Mel spectrogram to see where the crossover is actually happening?

You can use automation on an EQ to clear the bass out of the way when you actually have vocals happening in the track, and give the range back for the instrumental sections. I always point to Progenies of the Great Apocalypse as an example of how to do this in a crowded soundstage, because the way they did it is hilariously unsubtle, but you can always just do less.

One other useful trick I haven't seen too many people use is opposing compressor settings. So if you have really punchy vocals, like on old funk or soul recordings, you might go with a really soft attack on the bass. But on the other hand, if you have an airy delivery and a slow sweep on the compressor, like a Jonas Renkse from Katatonia delivery, you'd stick a much more aggressive attack on the bass track. It's not as good as getting the frequencies out of the same spot in the first place, but it's a helpful tool to keep in the box.

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Sep 25, 2023

# ¿ Sep 25, 2023 16:14

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Paperhouse posted:

any tips for getting a blown out distorted sound without it sounding like crap?

using virtual amp sims as I don't have a real amp here. A lot of the really blown out settings sound cool in isolation, but I can't get them to sound good in a mix. I always end up toning them down too much and losing what I liked about them in the first place

Are the other instruments mixed before you add the guitar? It's helpful to think in terms of: you can never add an instrument to an existing mix, changing the arrangement necessarily creates a whole new mix. Everything is fighting over frequency ranges, and your three main weapons are:

Stereo panning: put the instruments that are fighting to opposite channels
EQ: cut narrow and deep, add minimally and broadly, and if EQing your new track takes away a fundamental character of your sound, leave it alone and subtract from other instruments instead
Compression: mess with the dynamics so one attacks faster and punches through the other (see my post here)

# ¿ Nov 2, 2023 19:13

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Mister Speaker posted:

I'm slowly getting into streaming with OBS, at this stage building templates for my DJ setup and sit-down streaming with my AT4040 and webcam. Right now I'm trying to dial in some EQ/dynamics settings with VSTs to make things sound good; you know, a gate on my mic and some EQ and compression to make me sound like a radio DJ, or in the case of my DJ mixes, some compression and limiting to louden and even things and give them that 'radio pump'.

I'm familiar with the settings and can dial them in no problem with pre-recorded material, but I'm having a bit of trouble in OBS because monitoring through my headphones is giving me a bit of a delay. This isn't really going to be a problem when I move on to the DJ template as I can literally just play a song through my setup and sit down and tweak settings, but sitting here checking the mic and hearing myself back a half-second later is loving me up when it comes to dialing in my EQ and dynamics settings.

The setup is a Scarlett 18i20, piped through Loopback so I can use multiple inputs on the interface with OBS. I created two different templates in Loopback, one for the DJ setup and one for just the mic. In OBS I have a scene for each, with a chain of processing on the master. Is the delay coming from the Loopback, or within OBS? Is there a way to monitor more directly, but still through the VSTs? I'm thinking the only solution might be to go into my DAW, create the same processing chain on a mic track, dial in settings and then save them within each VST for recall later in OBS.

I don't know Loopback specifically, but I use other low-latency audio routing software and they're usually pretty performant. However, your audio devices each have a hardware clock. If you're routing between devices that use the same clock, your base latency is going to be low, and if you're using devices with a different clock, it's going to be higher. So if you're using the headphone output on your Scarlett to do software monitoring, your baseline audio should be pretty low-latency. If you move onto Bluetooth headphones or your laptop's integrated headphone jack, it's going to be higher. If you involve a sample rate conversion, it's going to be higher again.

The delay is probably sitting between Loopback and OBS. A quick way to test is to disable all your plugins and see if your performance improves. If it does, your plugins are slowing you down.

Best would be to get your effects chain to be something you're confident with, monitor in hardware, and just trust that your output is going to sound right. Maybe get another person you trust to listen in.

Mister Speaker posted:

Also, what are some good guidelines to this end, and good plugins to use particularly to get that Howard Stern radio voice? I mostly know what I'm doing with EQ, and less so but still confident with dynamics, but I'm wondering if there's a specific set of plugs that will make my voice shine. I have a bunch of iZoTope, FabFilter and Waves stuff, but maybe there's a particular hardware comp emulation that might get me there easier? I've been meaning to pick up some UA poo poo as I can basically get it for free through work...

Start with your own delivery, especially if you're confident with EQ and playing with it hasn't given you the sound you want. People who do broadcasting or other voice-over work for a living, a big part is just the way they've trained themselves to speak. I like to point people to random interviews with Busta Rhymes�he sounds like a radio DJ in every single interview, no matter if he's talking into a pro audio setup or a hidden camera. Same thing if you listen to old cartoon actors like Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Barney Rubble, etc.), you'll notice that they have that same sound without any of the talk radio broadcast technology that came into vogue in the 1980s.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2023 17:58

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

OutOfPrint posted:

Every time Focusrite puts out a new diver for my 3rd generation Scarlett Solo it breaks in new and interesting ways.

Two updates ago, and it would randomly desync the audio to about 2 seconds behind everything else. Only unplugging the power and plugging it back in would resolve it, and it could start again within 20 seconds.

One update ago, it would randomly kill the audio entirely. Unplugging it and plugging it back in would fix it. Luckily, it wouldn't happen as often as the desync.

Latest update, any kind of audio input would make it chug to the point that loading a random patch on a standalone synth exe would crackle. Setting a midi track to record in Reaper, not recording anything to it and just listening to playback would crackle, and turning off record would sound normal. Same settings on the previous drivers didn't do this.

Short version, I'm looking for a replacement. Here's what I'm looking for:

Min 2 inputs, 1/4" and XLR
Stable at 96kHz recording and playback
Monitor and headphone outs
Runs on Win11
Usable for general audio playback purposes--gaming with headphones, watching videos, etc.
<$100

Any recommendations outside of Focusrite? I'm pretty burned on them at this point.

Can you roll back to old drivers? I'm not sure I see the value in driver updates for something that's working fine for you, unless there's an actual exploitable security concern, and I say this as someone who was using a 2004-era PreSonus Firepod and Digi 002 until they broke in 2022-23.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2024 05:50

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Remember that when you're recording and mixing, the whole point of high fidelity systems�which sound totally different than what average people will be listening to your music on�is to catch issues with your mix that you wouldn't notice otherwise. You're hopefully going to be A/B testing your mixes on all kinds of systems at all quality levels. So unlike a system you'd be listening to music on for enjoyment, the integration of the subwoofer with the monitors is only a small piece. If it makes you better at improving your mixes, it doesn't really matter how it sounds, as long as the audio profile isn't distracting.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2024 17:49

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Origami Dali posted:

Anybody have a recommendation for a desk/chair setup for audio? Right now my keyboard controller, speakers, and pc monitor/keyboard/mouse are all on a single surface and propped up on cardboard boxes and generally in each other's way. I end up leaning forward a lot while editing and my neck is killing me. Also my chair sucks. There's got to be a better way.

I moved to an adjustable standing desk and would never go back. This fixes both your neck problem and chair problem (but you may find yourself with a shoe problem instead)

If you ever record vocals, as a bonus, hey, you're standing now

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Feb 12, 2024

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 16:22

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

The thing with standing desks is that you don't want to be standing for super long stretches either. So it's best if you can get a sit/stand desk so you can change positions every hour or so.

For chairs, there used to be a thread on SH/SC, but I can't find it anymore. General advice is to get a Herman Miller. Buy used if you can't afford new. Yes it's expensive. Yes it's worth it.

Yeah, the key with prolonged standing, as with prolonged sitting, is to make sure your muscles are bearing your body weight, and that you're not inattentively leaning in ways that cause your connective tissues or joints (this includes your spine!!) to inappropriately bear load. I have a workout riser that keeps me from spending all day on carpet, but a balance board can also be great if you're able to tolerate it�it basically does the same thing as sitting on a yoga ball.

Flipperwaldt posted:

Leaning forward all the time can be a sign of worsening eyesight. I guess you can fiddle with scaling options on your OS some.

Good callout. In this vein, also worth looking at dry eyes and floaters, both of which can be signs of dehydration.

I suspect this is the phenomenon of "I have too much gear on my desk to keep my monitor at the right distance from my eyes", in which case a platform riser or monitor ergo mounts are a better choice

I was an idiot and bought a standing desk that's slightly too cheap to correctly accommodate ergo mounts, so I have to deal with bitty little risers

Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Feb 12, 2024

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 20:14

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

I have a relatively cheap On Stage Stands boom holding a fairly weighty condenser mic (Audio Technica AT4040 with shock mount). If I wanted to add a stereo bar and a small dynamic mic like an e906 to simul-track vocals, is this enough to support both in a home studio environment, or should I be using a heavier duty stand?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 21:38

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 05:03

Vulture Culture: Jul 14, 2003; I was never enjoying it. I only eat it for the nutrients.

As I imagined and feared. What's a good middle ground between this and a $700 Manfrotto Super Boom? I don't trust vendor weight ratings, but my gut says "keyed to attach a sandbag to the other end" is probably a decent marker of its intended duty

# ¿ Apr 22, 2024 16:33

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