The Low End Experiment

[Draw the Moral]

The Backdrop:

I was perusing my daily dose of Gearslutz this morning at work and I came across the following threads:

Is the Apogee Duet really that good?

AT2020

tracking drums with apogee duet

So I started thinking about a little test that I could construct to give some of these things a shot so that people can hear some AUDIO!

So, this afternoon I was bored, and I threw this little diddly together in about an hour.


So for EVERYONE who wants to know about Apogee Duets, Recorderman Techniques, Budget Mics, and what can generally be done with a totally low end setup, THIS IS FOR YOU!!

And remember, this isn't a scientific test by any means. It's meant to show what someone can do when they just sit down with some low end equipment and make music instead of reading gearslutz.

It's raw, spontaneous, and exactly how many of the people in the low end forum would use their equipment. so have a sense of humor and you'll do fine.


So for the purposes of this little experiment, the following points should be considered:

1) EVERY track was recorded 1st take and left alone. All the little mistakes are left in...y'know, for character.

2) This is part of a song that I've been writing for a while, so I did have the main idea already made...but this particular performance is improv. The progression I knew, but the drums, vox, and lead guitar were on the fly...and I left 'em, as is, to keep the life in it. It's a little rough. And yes, I played everything.

3) For purposes of the experiment, I took down some of my acoustic treatment to make the room really crappy. On top of that, I'm using strictly condensors so that you can hear everything. It's 25' x 15' x 9. Not bedroom sized...but certainly not pro. So for all of you $500 and below budget types, here's to you. *holds up glass of wine*.

4) There is NO PROCESSING on any of the tracks. There are only some minor level adjustments on two or three tracks...everything is unity gain and straight signal. The chain for everything you hear is: Source>AT2020>Duet>Logic 8. I messed a little bit with mic placement, but for the most part, I just threw them up and hoped for the best...to simulate real noobishness.

There are two exceptions to the AT2020/Duet combo:

1) The bass is double tracked. One is DI into the Apogee Duet, and the other is the 2020 micing the actual acoustic bass sound.

2) The drums were done using the famous "recorderman" technique. The AT2020 is the main mic directly (32 inches) over the snare. For the shoulder mic (in keeping with the "low end") I put up an M-audio Nova about 3 feet away and back behind my right shoulder. It's facing about halfway between the center of the snare and the bass drum.

Everything else is all AT2020 with ZERO signal processing. So imagine what some mixing, EQ, and effects would do!

Here's what's in the mix:

2 Drum OH tracks with the above mentioned mics. The AT is panned slightly left, the M-audio slightly right. Both are at unity gain.

1 Rhythm Guitar Track: '76 Gibson Explorer with SD JB pickup in the neck, and stock on the bridge. Pickup set to the middle/blend position. Amp is a Mesa Boogie Dual Rec Maverick set to the clean channel. This is panned left to about 10:30.

1 Lead Guitar track: Custom B&V Guitar with split coil pickups. It was set to the unsplit bridge pickup, running through an Electro Harmonix Memory man Hazarai. It was in the same amp and exact same mic placement, on the Gain channel of the amp. This is panned right to about 1:30. For both lead and rhythm tracks, the AT was about two feet away from the grill and slightly above facing off axis and slightly down.

2 Bass Tracks: As mentioned above, one is DI, and the other is the AT mic'ed at the 12 fret to give some fret noise.

2 Vox tracks: Lead and harmony. Right when I recorded vocals, my wife and daughter got home from the store, and our two dogs started getting rowdy. My daughter (one year old) bumps into the mic stand at the beginning of the song. All of these sounds and more are left in. Enjoy! The lyrics are straight forward and self explainatory. I stood about two feet back from the mic, and I had the gain cranked about half way on the duet.

If anyone would like the individual raw WAV files for each track to really hear the character of the AT2020 on a particular source, PM me and I'll send it to you. The files are all a little too big for upload

[Poorbutrich]

WOW! This little jingle rocks man! Very original and witty. I honestly can't believe that was the AT2020....Maybe I should have given the little bugger a chance.

Kudos to you for taking the time to do this! I am sure many users will find this useful.

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by Poorbutrich

WOW! This little jingle rocks man! Very original and witty. I honestly can't believe that was the AT2020....Maybe I should have given the little bugger a chance.

Kudos to you for taking the time to do this! I am sure many users will find this useful.

Thanks man! I really appreciate it. I'm really hoping it can inspire people relax and make music.

Don't get me wrong, it's fun to tweak to death...but I think we're all here because we originally wanted to make good music.

[KeithMoonwannabe]

it's great that you posted this...it really ties into a few threads we've been running lately.

And in all honesty it doesn't sound half bad.

Yes I'm sure some flamer/troll will come along and bombard us but for most of us this is the purpose of buying gear. And I totally get the one take vibe, I've had to do it so many times myself for my solo projects. And not having a perfectly treated room in every recording or for every source.

I totally get where you are coming from with this and I think it's brilliant. Kinda makes me wish my Focusrite Saffire didn't just conk out on me. Emailing focusrite now damn my luck.

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by KeithMoonwannabe

it's great that you posted this...it really ties into a few threads we've been running lately.

And in all honesty it doesn't sound half bad.

Yes I'm sure some flamer/troll will come along and bombard us but for most of us this is the purpose of buying gear. And I totally get the one take vibe, I've had to do it so many times myself for my solo projects. And not having a perfectly treated room in every recording or for every source.

I totally get where you are coming from with this and I think it's brilliant. Kinda makes me wish my Focusrite Saffire didn't just conk out on me. Emailing focusrite now damn my luck.

Thanks man. I always appreciate your contributions to threads.

I hope that works out for you with the saffire.

And BTW, my sig has some links to stuff that I've tweaked and mixed to death...I just wanted to put the naked raw side out there.

Like you said, it's not horrible...so if this was your starting point for a mix, there's PLENTY that you could do to make it pretty darn cool.

And that's the point.

[Unclenny]

Pretty cool.

MBox aficionados unite!!

Track what you're playing with what you've got.

Seriously, though, it sounded pretty good to me. Glad you took the time to do this.

[Shaolin]

Good post Drawthemoral. Reminds me of some old video I once saw, I think outta some big studio in Nashville, called 'the 57 song' or something - fantastic stuff.

You've really illustrated that the gear is not pivotal. Now if only you could show the noobs just how far you can take this tracking with a bit of mixing skill, that would be something! Maybe then they'll ease up on the G.A.S? And maybe the bankers will retrun all the money they stole from us. Just because of your mix.

Keith is, I think, referring this thread, maybe others too. Would be nice if this became part of a groundswell!

The life of the home studio guy (or schizos don’t sweat the mic and pre)

Ties in perfectly.

[cyjanopan]

I`ve been doing that kind of stuff all the time, I can give some examples and I think you should mix it more - there is a lot of potential to show.
Recently I`ve done whole album on :

- two preamps
- crappy instruments (except bass, rhodes and trumpet in some songs)
- one orange crush 15R amp ($100 new) for all bass ,guitar, rhodes tracks
- no outboard stuff
- no mastering
- non treated room

yes its noisy but sounds good to me!
you can check it here : Indigo Tree on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

[bcgood]

Your point is well made Draw the Moral. I especially like the tone on your guitar and guitar playing. Good stuff, stop constantly reading and typing and start playing and recording.

[ohmicide]

haha im glad my thread helped

i'll listen to the mix later cos i gotta go to work

i should do something like this also and contribute!

[pdiddy boy]

I'm totally down with this thread because at the end of the day "its all relative" when it comes to music. Its kind of like taking a photo... some pictures simply look better and tell a better story in black and white and not in high digital resolution. Not every recording should be recorded and produced to pop perfection, it kind of ends up loosing its soul and vibe when it is, how many times have you recorded a track and pretty much gone back to the demo, simply because it just sounded right.

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by Unclenny

Pretty cool.

MBox aficionados unite!!

Track what you're playing with what you've got.

Seriously, though, it sounded pretty good to me. Glad you took the time to do this.

Thanks for listening!

Originally Posted by Shaolin

Good post Drawthemoral. Reminds me of some old video I once saw, I think outta some big studio in Nashville, called 'the 57 song' or something - fantastic stuff.

You've really illustrated that the gear is not pivotal. Now if only you could show the noobs just how far you can take this tracking with a bit of mixing skill, that would be something! Maybe then they'll ease up on the G.A.S? And maybe the bankers will retrun all the money they stole from us. Just because of your mix.

Keith is, I think, referring this thread, maybe others too. Would be nice if this became part of a groundswell!

The life of the home studio guy (or schizos don’t sweat the mic and pre)

Ties in perfectly.

Yeah, I was noticing the same trend around these forums. I started actually falling into GAS and getting depressed that I couldn't make amazing music until I had a Neve, an API, a U67...etc.

Not true.

Originally Posted by cyjanopan

I`ve been doing that kind of stuff all the time, I can give some examples and I think you should mix it more - there is a lot of potential to show.
Recently I`ve done whole album on :

- two preamps
- crappy instruments (except bass, rhodes and trumpet in some songs)
- one orange crush 15R amp ($100 new) for all bass ,guitar, rhodes tracks
- no outboard stuff
- no mastering
- non treated room

yes its noisy but sounds good to me!
you can check it here : Indigo Tree on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

I'll give it a listen when I get off of work. I've actually got the orange crush 10. I love that little thing. It's just what you need sometimes.

I'm actually going to do a quick mix here in a little bit. I'm going to set a time limit, and I'm only going to use stock plug-ins in Logic 8.

I just wanted to show it completely naked so you can hear it.
It's still completely workable, even with all those rules broken.

Originally Posted by bcgood

Your point is well made Draw the Moral. I especially like the tone on your guitar and guitar playing. Good stuff, stop constantly reading and typing and start playing and recording.

Thank you! That was my goal.

Originally Posted by alehoe

haha im glad my thread helped

i'll listen to the mix later cos i gotta go to work

i should do something like this also and contribute!

Yes, you should.

Originally Posted by pdiddy boy

I'm totally down with this thread because at the end of the day "its all relative" when it comes to music. Its kind of like taking a photo... some pictures simply look better and tell a better story in black and white and not in high digital resolution. Not every recording should be recorded and produced to pop perfection, it kind of ends up loosing its soul and vibe when it is, how many times have you recorded a track and pretty much gone back to the demo, simply because it just sounded right.

I hear ya'.

And don't get me wrong...this whole time, I'm still trying to learn my craft and get better. I've got a Dream Sheet of several thousand dollars worth of equipment that would make life easier for recording. I appreciate learning from the guys that DO have the multi-million dollar studios (and know how to use it).
But the fact remains...I got into all this stuff to make music.

That always has to be the goal.

[Draw the Moral]

BTW, here's the running tally for the equipment used in this experiment.

The experiment assumes that you already have the instruments.

Equipment:

AT2020- $100
M-Audio Nova- $80
Mic Stands- $60
Apogee Duet- $450 (I got a discount)
Genelec 8030A (pair)- $800 (got it on ebay)
Logic Studio 8- $200 (I got the upgrade, so it's $500 if you get it new)
Macbook Pro 15"- $1500 (Also discounted)

Total cost for recording gear: $3190
And of course, if you already have certain pieces of this puzzle, then it's even less. Or, if you get everything used it can be even less. YMMV.

[Weasel9992]

I think that's absolutely fabulous. Your sense of melody is really nice, the arrangement is fun and the sounds are just fine. Just goes to show that the writer writes the book, not the pencil.

There's tons of great gear out there that won't cost you a gillion dollars.

Frank

[patfont]

Nice little song, and yes you can hear the nice fidelity of the equipment. Would love to hear it mixed/mastered, any chance of that?

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by Weasel9992

I think that's absolutely fabulous. Your sense of melody is really nice, the arrangement is fun and the sounds are just fine. Just goes to show that the writer writes the book, not the pencil.

There's tons of great gear out there that won't cost you a gillion dollars.

Frank

Thanks Frank. And I totally agree. You don't have to spend much at all (relative of course) to get great sounds.

Originally Posted by patfont

Nice little song, and yes you can hear the nice fidelity of the equipment. Would love to hear it mixed/mastered, any chance of that?

Mixing? Yes. As soon as I get some time today.

Mastering? No. Sorry. Unless of course someone has a mastering studio and wants to help this experiment out?

[Raider]

"Testing the Microphone"
Reminds me of a girlfriend I used to have.
Invokes some great memories.

Seriously, more of this needs to be done here to put creativity vs. equipment in perspective.

[Insomniaclown]

That sounds good dude! Really really good in fact. It really doesn't sound like it will need any "help" from mixing. Nice work!

[mike_in_co]

I recently joined and have been poking around here. Lots of great info all around, posts like these are the best. Kudos to you, and proof positive that with even modest gear, you can create engaging, quality results. Great effort, thanks so much for putting the time in and sharing with us.

On a side note, I've sung similar lyrics about my noisy preamp while trying to figure out melodies/harmonies, check levels/mic position, etc... "...wondering where all the f'n noise is coming from...". We probably all have.

Thanks again, let's HEAR more posts like these.

M

[hachre]

great song, this could make it to top #1

[Draw the Moral]

Part 2

Alright, if you haven't done so already, take a listen to the first dry recordings.

This is the second part of the experiment where I do some light mixing.


Here are the rules that I used for this portion:

1) I put a thirty minute time limit on myself from the tweak of the first knob to bounce to mp3.

2) I used ONLY 100% stock Logic Studio 8 plug-ins. No third party nuthin'.

3) I made NO edits to the actual audio. So no pitch correction, quantizing, or strip silence of any kind.

4) Again, to really put the squeeze on this, I mixed this entirely on a pair of Sennheiser HD212 Pro's.
Cost: About $40. I gave it one listen through on my laptop's built in speakers, and that's it.

5) To further uncomplicate things, I mixed using my laptop's built in headphone jack. So I didn't even use the Duet's conversion for mixing. And actually, as I'm posting this, I still have yet to listen to this mix through my Genelec monitors and with the Duet.


So the goal, because of my time limit was to only use the following:
1) Volume
2) Panning
3) EQ
4) Compression
5) Modulation
6) Verb/Delay

To achieve a slightly more produced feel.

After I solo'ed each track and got them where I wanted (taking about 2-5 minutes per track), then I threw on one of Logic's stock "mastering" presets on the master outs.
I actually used mostly stock preset settings in each plugin as well, which I have never really used before. That was a cool learning experience.
The "mastering" preset that I used was the "Final Pop Master Wide" setting.

There will be a part three where I actually go a little nuts and edit and do some crazy automation and stuff. But let's get everyone's take on part two first.

ENJOY!

[hachre]

I like the mix, I would have preferred the vocals to be a bit louder though, maybe 2-3 dB... Other than that I think this sounds really good

[cyjanopan]

Cool

[hachre]

What did you do to make the guitar sound so wide (stereo wise)?

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by hachre

What that did you do to make the guitar sound so wide (stereo wise)?

For the rhythm guitar I've got the following plug-ins in this order:

1) Channel EQ
2) Stereo Chorus
3) Stereo Compressor

The guitar itself is panned -21 (to the left off of zero), but I made the stereo chorus centered in the mix. The ratio of the mix is 77% with a 13% intensity on the chorus effect.

Hope that helps.thumbsup

[hachre]

Originally Posted by Draw the Moral

For the rhythm guitar I've got the following plug-ins in this order:

1) Channel EQ
2) Stereo Chorus
3) Stereo Compressor

The guitar itself is panned -21 (to the left off of zero), but I made the stereo chorus centered in the mix. The ratio of the mix is 77% with a 13% intensity on the chorus effect.

Hope that helps.thumbsup

Nice!

[djgizmo]

Ok Time to weigh in...

I think it was recorded well, however, IMO, a bit too much fret in bass is mixed in (on both examples uploaded)

Like others had said, I'd prefer if the vox was up and the guitars were brought down. (swapped volumes)


Guitars sound completely different than the original (which is a compliment)

Anyways, nice job for showing those what can be done on a low budget.

[lerone]

Originally Posted by Draw the Moral

The Backdrop:

I was perusing my daily dose of Gearslutz this morning at work and I came across the following threads:

Is the Apogee Duet really that good?

AT2020

tracking drums with apogee duet

So I started thinking about a little test that I could construct to give some of these things a shot so that people can hear some AUDIO!

So, this afternoon I was bored, and I threw this little diddly together in about an hour.


So for EVERYONE who wants to know about Apogee Duets, Recorderman Techniques, Budget Mics, and what can generally be done with a totally low end setup, THIS IS FOR YOU!!

And remember, this isn't a scientific test by any means. It's meant to show what someone can do when they just sit down with some low end equipment and make music instead of reading gearslutz.

It's raw, spontaneous, and exactly how many of the people in the low end forum would use their equipment. so have a sense of humor and you'll do fine.


So for the purposes of this little experiment, the following points should be considered:

1) EVERY track was recorded 1st take and left alone. All the little mistakes are left in...y'know, for character.

2) This is part of a song that I've been writing for a while, so I did have the main idea already made...but this particular performance is improv. The progression I knew, but the drums, vox, and lead guitar were on the fly...and I left 'em, as is, to keep the life in it. It's a little rough. And yes, I played everything.

3) For purposes of the experiment, I took down some of my acoustic treatment to make the room really crappy. On top of that, I'm using strictly condensors so that you can hear everything. It's 25' x 15' x 9. Not bedroom sized...but certainly not pro. So for all of you $500 and below budget types, here's to you. *holds up glass of wine*.

4) There is NO PROCESSING on any of the tracks. There are only some minor level adjustments on two or three tracks...everything is unity gain and straight signal. The chain for everything you hear is: Source>AT2020>Duet>Logic 8. I messed a little bit with mic placement, but for the most part, I just threw them up and hoped for the best...to simulate real noobishness.

There are two exceptions to the AT2020/Duet combo:

1) The bass is double tracked. One is DI into the Apogee Duet, and the other is the 2020 micing the actual acoustic bass sound.

2) The drums were done using the famous "recorderman" technique. The AT2020 is the main mic directly (32 inches) over the snare. For the shoulder mic (in keeping with the "low end") I put up an M-audio Nova about 3 feet away and back behind my right shoulder. It's facing about halfway between the center of the snare and the bass drum.

Everything else is all AT2020 with ZERO signal processing. So imagine what some mixing, EQ, and effects would do!

Here's what's in the mix:

2 Drum OH tracks with the above mentioned mics. The AT is panned slightly left, the M-audio slightly right. Both are at unity gain.

1 Rhythm Guitar Track: '76 Gibson Explorer with SD JB pickup in the neck, and stock on the bridge. Pickup set to the middle/blend position. Amp is a Mesa Boogie Dual Rec Maverick set to the clean channel. This is panned left to about 10:30.

1 Lead Guitar track: Custom B&V Guitar with split coil pickups. It was set to the unsplit bridge pickup, running through an Electro Harmonix Memory man Hazarai. It was in the same amp and exact same mic placement, on the Gain channel of the amp. This is panned right to about 1:30. For both lead and rhythm tracks, the AT was about two feet away from the grill and slightly above facing off axis and slightly down.

2 Bass Tracks: As mentioned above, one is DI, and the other is the AT mic'ed at the 12 fret to give some fret noise.

2 Vox tracks: Lead and harmony. Right when I recorded vocals, my wife and daughter got home from the store, and our two dogs started getting rowdy. My daughter (one year old) bumps into the mic stand at the beginning of the song. All of these sounds and more are left in. Enjoy! The lyrics are straight forward and self explainatory. I stood about two feet back from the mic, and I had the gain cranked about half way on the duet.

If anyone would like the individual raw WAV files for each track to really hear the character of the AT2020 on a particular source, PM me and I'll send it to you. The files are all a little too big for upload

Sounds good mate! Nice one. i would'nt say the duet was low end though really. It may not cost a bomb, but the conversion is towards the top end of the spectrum - aint no m-audio 24/96! Good job though.

[Draw the Moral]

Originally Posted by mike_in_co

I recently joined and have been poking around here. Lots of great info all around, posts like these are the best. Kudos to you, and proof positive that with even modest gear, you can create engaging, quality results. Great effort, thanks so much for putting the time in and sharing with us.

On a side note, I've sung similar lyrics about my noisy preamp while trying to figure out melodies/harmonies, check levels/mic position, etc... "...wondering where all the f'n noise is coming from...". We probably all have.

Thanks again, let's HEAR more posts like these.

M

Thank you for listening and for your comments. Have fun making good music with modest gear.

Originally Posted by hachre

great song, this could make it to top #1

Ha...thanks. Although, my style of music is pretty weird (prog rock meets fusion jazz with a sprinkle of pop rock), and it doesn't lend itself to being #1...at least not here in America.

We'll see though. As soon as I finish this album I'm working on, I'll know what the audience is for it.

Originally Posted by hachre

I like the mix, I would have preferred the vocals to be a bit louder though, maybe 2-3 dB... Other than that I think this sounds really good

Yeah, vox levels are definitely a personal preference thing. I went with that level because I view my voice as an instrument along with everything else.
But I sent you the files, so feel free to post your mix.

Just make sure you include what you did and how you did it.

Originally Posted by djgizmo

Ok Time to weigh in...

I think it was recorded well, however, IMO, a bit too much fret in bass is mixed in (on both examples uploaded)

Like others had said, I'd prefer if the vox was up and the guitars were brought down. (swapped volumes)


Guitars sound completely different than the original (which is a compliment)

Anyways, nice job for showing those what can be done on a low budget.

Fair enough. For the bass, the reason why I put the fret noise was two-fold.

1) I've never done it before.

2) I wanted to use the AT2020 on every instrument.

You are right though. I just listened to it in the monitors and the fret noise is noticable. But, rules are rules. For this experiment, I can't go back and tweak.

If you'd like me to send you the files you can try your hand and post a mix here.

See above for my reasons on the voice.

Thanks for the constructive criticism. It's appreciated.

Originally Posted by lerone

Sounds good mate! Nice one. i would'nt say the duet was low end though really. It may not cost a bomb, but the conversion is towards the top end of the spectrum - aint no m-audio 24/96! Good job though.

I tend to agree...but as you know, this is gear slutz.

We got into a lengthy debate on some of those threads about how good and not good a Duet is compared against other units worth several thousand more.

But obviously, since I'm using it, I think it's great.

And for what you can pick up for used, it's definitely in a low budget range.

Thanks for listening.

[Lawrence]

Nice job. There will always be subjective opinions about any mix but the quality is fine.

You can do great work with "low end gear" these days, as technology and electronics in general get cheaper, less expensive gear sounds better for very, very little money. If it's sample based production it's even easier. Multitracking groups costs a little more (inputs and mics) but you can get it done with prosumer gear.

I know some people still don't believe that.