Weakest link ?

[Charlie_M]

Hi I'm new to this board and have been working on getting a little hobbyist recording rig together at the house for a few months now. My main goal is to be able to record my songs that I write, recording them with me performing one track at a time.

The gear I have so far is:

1. digi 002 rack running protools LE 7.3
2. Art pro channel (mic pre w/compressor and eq built in that I use for vocals and also for direct bass)
3. mics:
AT3031 (small diaphragm) mostly used for acoustic guitar
CAD GXL 3000 large diaphragm for vocals and in second position on
acoustic guitar
Sennheiser e609 silver on guitar amp
4. I use reason to make the drum track. I recently upgraded to their drum
refill pack and have been pretty happy with the drum sound ever since.
5. Behringer monitors (8" Truth model).

So far I only recorded one song (of about 5 I have written, recording of second one is in progress). First run through took me a very long time to get to where it sounded OK to me. I'm sure it still has a long way to go but I'm ready to move on to the next song now and come back to this one later after I learn more over time.

Would really appreciate hearing people's assessment of, just looking at the gear here, what do you think is the weakest link in the signal chain. Except for the monitors.... I recognize those are coloring my mix a bit but I've made the decisioon to live with that for the time being and want to focus on two areas for now : 1. improving my own skill, and 2. obtaining gear that'll help me get a quality sound. Thanks !


Charlie

[willerichey]

I would say your weakest link is your monitors. I had the same Berhinger truths. ALthough I have made some pretty good mixes on the (as well as the home speakers I had before them) you have to listen to ALOT of music throught them and have to do ALOT of A/Bing between systems. I had problems with too much bass in my mixes and the highes sound brittle.

I would boost the treble switch on the back and try various settings for the bass. I would also consider searching for monitor placement artcles on the internet. I had a small apartment in LA that I made one of my proudest mixes through those monitors but the ceilings were like 10 ft tall and their wasnt a completely flat wall in the the entire front room. I also A/B'd through computer speakers and also listened to alot of albums through them.

You have a good setup going and I would just mix, mix, mix and then upgrade your monitors first and then mics, then pres. IMHO of course.

[Stevil]

get some serious time in exploring the limits of what you have. get to know your gear inside & out. record & tweak on whatever you can get your hands on. sample your favourite albums & see how close you can get to their sound. for me songs are never done, just where i leave them when i get sick of messing with them.

[Chrisc_o]

My Truths translate very well, ans took me no time to learn.

You touched on it in you post: work on your knowledge and comfort level. Your gear is more than good enough to give you good results, so just practice as much as you can with what you've got. Experiment, and even record the same song more than once trying different techniques.

Once you can get decent results consistently, then it will be time to re-evaluate your gear. In the mean time, put as much money aside as you are comfortable with for the day that you are ready to buy more serious gear.

[Ethan Winer]

Originally Posted by Charlie_M

what do you think is the weakest link in the signal chain.

Lack of bass traps and other acoustic treatment. Your speakers might not be the best in the world, but they're good enough to benefit from better acoustics. That will do more to improve the quality of your work than anything else you can get. By far.

--Ethan

[tINY]

Come on now, Ethan....

He could be recording in a large room that sounds good. There are more than a few mansions in San Jose.

I suspect you are right, though. Room acoustics and mic placement are much more important than any or the gear he mentioned (except the monitors - those "truths" are pretty marginal as monitors).



-tINY

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by tINY

Come on now, Ethan....

He could be recording in a large room that sounds good. There are more than a few mansions in San Jose.

I suspect you are right, though. Room acoustics and mic placement are much more important than any or the gear he mentioned (except the monitors - those "truths" are pretty marginal as monitors).



-tINY

No reason not to start the guy out right, don't you think? Or should he fight the room for 5 or 6 years?

Glenn

[Charlie_M]

Ya - I should have mentioned about the room. Right now I work in my shed – which is nowhere near as bad as it sounds. The shed is 20x12 and is finished like the interior of a home and I really do like having a structure separate from the house (so that I don’t get rumbling from the toddler tearing across the floor in the room above me for example). But ya my room is far from ideal. The floor is tile (no carpet). I would invest in improving it but we are set to move to Southern Cal soon. Sadly I will no longer have a separate structure for recording at that point but by other criteria the room will be “better” in some sense. What I have now is surely too bright, and I’m sure it would benefit from bass traps. In about 3 weeks I’ll have a more normal room in a house for recording and at that point I will look hard at bass traps and other acoustic treatments.



Seems to be more or less unanimous that the path forward is mainly practice, reading and general skills development. Thanks for all the inputs guys.




Charlie

[willerichey]

Originally Posted by Ethan Winer

Lack of bass traps and other acoustic treatment. Your speakers might not be the best in the world, but they're good enough to benefit from better acoustics. That will do more to improve the quality of your work than anything else you can get. By far.

--Ethan

I agree with Ethan. I have learned a wealth of information reading the articles on his company's site, and posts in this forum and others. I put up some make shift bass traps in three of the corners of my studio room in my house and put a throw rug over the wood floors and the results have definitely decreased the flutter echos and tightend the bass I can hear. I also have the JBL's with the room correction. I know some do not agree with eqing the monitors but the combination of acoustic treatment, monitor placement (decoupled from the floor, while observing the .38 rule, setting up with the longest walls to my side, and not having the monitors half way between the ceiling and floor), and then eqing has yielded great results for me. It's been difficult considering my room dimensions are 10' x 11.5' x 8' (ceiling) . My next step is to install a diffusor on the back wall at listening level height and then covering the reflection points on the ceiling and side walls.

One fear I have in completeing my room acousitc project is its affect on my drumset. I use a small 5 piece in the corner in the same room and I am afraid if I fully treat the room my drum recordings will suffer. Am I wrong in this assumption?

Definitely moitoring : monitors and room acoustics.

Get yourself a well designed room acoustics -- does not mean a foam kit but a qualified acoustician low cost analysis and recommendations. Possibly arranging the layout in your room and some of your furniture would make dramatic improvements with correct room acoustic correction.

Consider self-powered neutral monitor you can trust: Dynaudio BM6 or Air 6, Focal Pro SM6/8, Tannoy Ellipse 8, PMC DB1-SA or TB2S-A, Quad 12L active.

Do not put monitors on console meter bridge or furniture but on stands, tweeter at ear level or slightly above, free standing 1m away from any object, avoid surface reflection (RFZ) ... probably add generous subwoofer.

[willerichey]

Originally Posted by APOHStudios

Will, it could. By finishing the treatment, are you saying it is treated on one end or is it just sporadically treated? The area where your kit is, is it treated already?

I have the front two corners trapped and the corner behind the kit trapped with 2inch fiber board. I have a throw rug which covers most about 75% of the floor. and the entire kit is lifted about an inch off the floor on rubber mats (the kind found in weight gyms) to decouple the bass. When I set the kit up on those mats in definitely tightended up the bass. I still get lowend through the kick mic but it doesn't bounce wildly around the room.

I have yet to install a difusser, clouds or sidewall reflection absorbers. The room sounds pretty good to my ears now. It is not too dead and not too live.

[willerichey]

Yeah I got them for free out of the neighbor's garage. I was going to build a riser, but these worked out perfectly.

[Charlie_M]

Originally Posted by APOHStudios

Charlie, I do not know your experience level or education in recording. Asking the questions you did say you are fairly new to it. Absolutely nothing wrong there, because we all started somewhere. My best suggestion is to get some books on recording, maybe take some classes, do some internship, and most of all, plug your stuff in and experiment. Learn everything you can about the gear you have so you can see what everyone else talks about in the posts. Find it's strengths and its weaknesses. But most of all train your ears and your brain.

There are a lot of people here that can and will help you. But there will be a lot of work on your part as well. There will be no quick fix or solution for this. I could drop you into a $1mil+ studio with the best chains and acoustics, and unfortunately for now, you would be in the same situation. You will need patience and a love for it. And don't get discouraged.

Thanks all for the tips and encouragement.

Ya I’m an absolute beginner on this. Did my first track about 2 months ago. I was so proud of it on the first day and now I listen to it and think my god didn’t I even listen??? I’m still on such a steep part of the learning curve… when I get something sounding OK and then listen to it critically a couple days later (and on other systems) I go “oh man how did I miss that glaring problem??” So yes I know I have a long road ahead in terms of gaining experience.

Totally agree about experimenting. The other night I played around with my acoustic guitar and my ART preamp using various amounts of compression, tube vs. optical compression, etc… and settled on a sound I liked best. Still don’t know why I liked the tube compression better but there it is. Also found that by dialing in the EQ on the way in I was able to make my inexpensive little Seagull M6 sound like a much pricier guitar. In the past I had been bypassing all that stuff and just applying EQ and compression with plugins. I guess next I’ll try compression and EQ on the way in on vocals to see how I like that vs. a plugin. Anyway … I’m digressing a bit here but, basically agreeing with the point about experimentation and looking forward to spending as much time as I can doing this and learning more about it. On the subject of learning I recently picked up this book here:
Amazon.com: Pro Tools 7 Session Secrets: Professional Recipes for High-Octane Results: Books: Scott Hirsch,Steve Heithecker

and really liked it. I applied a few of the techniques in there and it took the sound of my mixes to a whole new level. Welcome any other suggested reading material too.

Thanks again.

Charlie

[6dyslexicelephnt]

try some better mics - AT4033. I'm starting out and I use it on everything. I really don't care for the 3035 and I probably wouldn't like the 3031 either. Maybe you might like a sm57 or a MD421 for electric guitar? Get mics that excel for the limited number of sources you're recording. Find a mic in your price range that you love for each source. Don't bother getting mics that are generally good. You're just recording yourself, so you don't need all purpose mics. Find a vocal mic you love, ele. guitar mic you love. From there experiment with placement and compression to get different tones out of them.

ATH-M40fs. You might have crappy monitors. I haven't heard the truths myself. These headphones rule for mixing. I did a mix the band thought was okay on some pretty cheap AKG (k55s?) headphones (just sold my K271s because I didn't like them). Yesterday I got these and continued to tweak the mix. After I sent it out, I got an email back with at least 12 exclamation points. I think these headphones will work well for you until you can get some decent montors and room treatment. As always, your computer speakers are valuable monitors as most people will be listening on BS like that.

Good luck!

[Charlie_M]

Originally Posted by 6dyslexicelephnt

try some better mics - AT4033. I'm starting out and I use it on everything. I really don't care for the 3035 and I probably wouldn't like the 3031 either. Maybe you might like a sm57 or a MD421 for electric guitar? Get mics that excel for the limited number of sources you're recording. Find a mic in your price range that you love for each source. Don't bother getting mics that are generally good. You're just recording yourself, so you don't need all purpose mics. Find a vocal mic you love, ele. guitar mic you love. From there experiment with placement and compression to get different tones out of them.

ATH-M40fs. You might have crappy monitors. I haven't heard the truths myself. These headphones rule for mixing. I did a mix the band thought was okay on some pretty cheap AKG (k55s?) headphones (just sold my K271s because I didn't like them). Yesterday I got these and continued to tweak the mix. After I sent it out, I got an email back with at least 12 exclamation points. I think these headphones will work well for you until you can get some decent montors and room treatment. As always, your computer speakers are valuable monitors as most people will be listening on BS like that.

Good luck!

I forgot to mention in my original post that I do have these headphones you're talking about. I agree they are pretty great. As long as I keep the volume reasonable, I feel like I get a pretty clean picture with them.

Thanks !

Charlie

[Charlie_M]

Originally Posted by APOHStudios

Amazon.com: Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals: Books: F. Alton Everest
Amazon.com: Master Handbook of Acoustics: Books: F. Alton Everest
Amazon.com: The Art of Mixing: Books: David Gibson
Amazon.com: Recording Engineer's Handbook: Books: Bobby Owsinski

These are just a few selections from my library. I have probably 25 books on recording, and it is still not enough.

That is the thing, you say you are on a steep part of the learning curve. You will never leave that part of the curve, because we are all there with you. Some are ahead of you, some behind you. The only ones not on that steep part are the ones who have stopped learning. I know it sounds trite, but it's true.

Thanks. I'm always looking to read more books on things. When I was in college I was one of these guys who bought 5x the required textbooks. Not because I had money to throw away, it was more that I found that having the perspective on the same material from 5 different authors was really helpful in cementing the concepts so I looked at it like an investment. Anyway ... this'll be a great start on building my recording library. I just downloaded the Gibson book as an e-book from our local library and will pick the others up from Amazon. The Katz book is already on the way from there !

Charlie

[Glenn Kuras]

Originally Posted by willerichey

I . It's been difficult considering my room dimensions are 10' x 11.5' x 8' (ceiling) . My next step is to install a diffusor on the back wall at listening level height and then covering the reflection points on the ceiling and side walls.

?

I don't think you want to do that in a room that size. For a room like yours I would put THICK absorption on the back wall and maybe some diffusion on the left and right walls behind where you sit. With your setting spot so close to the back wall you are not only going to get a lot of nulls and peaks below 500 Hz, which no diffusor can help, but also you are to close to the diffusor to really get the effects from it on the mids and high end. Take a read here at http://www.rpginc.com/news/library/T...ffCritList.pdf to help you get a better understanding of how diffusion really works. I would hate to see you spend time and money on something that really is not going to work right for your room set up.

Glenn

[willerichey]

Originally Posted by myfipie

I don't think you want to do that in a room that size. For a room like yours I would put THICK absorption on the back wall and maybe some diffusion on the left and right walls behind where you sit. With your setting spot so close to the back wall you are not only going to get a lot of nulls and peaks below 500 Hz, which no diffusor can help, but also you are to close to the diffusor to really get the effects from it on the mids and high end. Take a read here at http://www.rpginc.com/news/library/T...ffCritList.pdf to help you get a better understanding of how diffusion really works. I would hate to see you spend time and money on something that really is not going to work right for your room set up.

Glenn

Thanks alot Glenn! I will definitely check out that link.

A wise man once said: "True intelligence is being comfortable in the fact that you know nothing."