How do I record? Quite a question huh?

[CherryFive]

Forward:
I am not terribly familiar with the gearslutz family, so I'm not sure if this post fits in well in this category. If you can think of a better place to post this, I'll take the advice.




I used to never want to ask superiors for help with recording. I never wanted to feel like I was being "helped". I don't know why. I guess complete stupidity is to blame. My new problem, or I guess old, is that I have some recording equipment and I don't know how to use it. I just realized this. It's really pathetic. And by the way, I apologize for the "newbie" approach to asking a question, but I feel that the tone of the question is unique enough to start a brand new thread over. This is the gear I have in my set up at the present.

Recording Gear

-1977 Teac 80-8 (8 tracks, ½" tape)
-1979 Teac M15 console (16 channels, 8 buss)
-2002 Yamaha MSP5 monitors
-A box of at least 15 60's/70's mics (EV, Shure, Claricon) and one brand new Audix OM2 (all working).

Instrument Gear (what I record with)

- Fender Rhodes
- Wurlitzer organ
- Hammond organ
- `74 Les Paul
- `78 P bass
- `76 Octave Cat synthesizer
- `78 Ludwig Drums (disco silver!)
- More stuff....



As you can see, I have no outboard gear, like compressors or limiters or gates. By the way, I think you should know that my "studio" is merely for my own recording purposes. I do not intend to sell my services, or preach to any one on how to do things correctly when I know such little myself.
I've been reading around a lot lately and seems that compressors and gates are nifty little things. So I search about compressors on google, and I always find articles describing how they work (i.e. ratio, attack, release etc) but these articles never explain to me how I am supposed to use them into the signal chain.



My largest problems at the present are these:
(some problems correctable with different mics, positions, etc)

-Ride cymbal not sounding mid-rangy enough

-Bass drum not sounding pointy/tight and bassy/pillowy enough at the same time

-Bass guitar not sounding dense enough; lacking "evenness" as no compression is used, but mostly lacking "density" (which seems to be a problem beyond EQ treatment)

-Hi-Hat leaking into the snare drum microphone, so I can't even see a reason to mic the hi-hats separately (though I would like to, and I would like to know how I can move the hi-hats to the right while keeping the snare close to the middle).

-Overall lacking sound "density" - I am very baffled

-Raising the Overall volume of the mix without having a certain portion of the tune clip (therefor volume remains lower).



As you can see many problems are correctable, but I don't know how to address them with my feeble mind (at least not alone). Let me begin asking questions by starting from the very beginning; the signal path.

What is my goal?

I have a microphone on my bass drum (or any other instrument, direct or mic'd). Let's just say it isn't the best mic for the job. And that the room isn't properly treated, and that the tuning on the bass drum itself is sub-par. So the microphone runs from the bass drum to the XLR input on the mixer - let's say channel 1. Is it true that I want my EQ to be completely flat? Or am I supposed to adjust EQ before recording? This is one concept that slightly eludes me..
Now moving onto input volume. Is the VU meter on the mixer supposed to read "0" when hit the bass drum? Is that the goal? Should the fader be set to the "shaded" area while the input volume is actually determined by the mic/line trim knob?
Now onto the actual tape recording machine. Looking at VU meter 1 on the tape machine - is the goal to make this read "0"? Or do I want to try to record "hotter"?

Now here is a second question/thought going through my mind; compression.
Let us just say I buy a cheapie dbx compressor - just one of them since I am a poor flailing sack of shit 20 year old. Just one of them for the moment. Let's say I want to record my bass guitar with compression. Am I supposed to connect bass guitar to the compressor and then to the mixer? I've heard it's proper to record without any effect, and to add effects and comps later ...but this assumes I have multiple compressors. I will only have one. How should I tackle this issue? Is there a smarter way to approach this?

Let's say I am playing my bass through a big amp ...and I want to mic the amp. Can I plug the mic that is micing the amp straight into the compressor and record like that?


A final scenario - and I won't bother you with any more in this post.
A talk about hi-hat bleeding into the snare mic. I think I have been told I need to buy a gate. I would imagine I can use the gate on the modular send/receive patches on the back of each channel strip, and use it post recording. Would this mean I would need two gates - one for the mic on the hi-hat , and one for the mic on the snare?




As you can see, I lack many things that make a studio function properly, or sound decent. I am going for the bizarre 70's sound in an authentic way. Sadly for me, I lack simple things such as a patch bay. The deal is that I record by myself. When I record a song I've written, I record the drums first whilst playing the song in my head. Then I usually record bass guitar to the drum tracks. If you want to hear the sound I'm getting out of this current rig I can post up a couple of Mp3's (if anyone is curious)?


Please do help in any way you can.


I'll print the answers out and nail them to my studio walls!
Thanks in advance,

Best regards,
John

[Snatchman]

Sure..put up a mp3 for us to hear! That's not bad gear to record with! As a matter of fact, there's a couple pieces of it I'd like to have.!.. ..Welcome...thumbsup

[roxxon]

Well the stuff that you have is okay to begin with...
But you should invest a little cash and buy a few things.
-A tube pre
-Stereo Compressor
-Multi-effects unit-with reverb
-A couple of condenser mics

You can buy all of these for less than a 1000 dollars.
Even used on Ebay.

The condensers will help out a lot when you are recording instruments, vocals and of course the drums.

You can live without the tube pre, but you have to have a stereo
compressor-limiter-gate. )Your recorder is anolog).

A decent reasonably-priced effects unit will help out your sound in a big way.

Patch-bays are a good idea, providing you have some effects units to use them with.

Really cheap patch bays, that work.
http://www.carvin.com/products/singl...r=PB48&CID=ACS



Cheers,
Roxxon

[CherryFive]

Thanks...it's good to read some pointers.

Keeping in mind however, that even a thousand is a lot of money to me at the moment. I don't quite have the funds to justify a tube pre amp or condensor mics...

As for the multi effects...it's funny you should mention. For now I use a 1969 Shure Dual spring reverberator which has a nice funny sound...but I'm actually in the middle of building 2 down-sized plate reverbs (24 gauge cold roll steel ...no stainless steel. I was hoping to find 28...but that's next to impossible.)

I certainly need a stereo compressor. Thank you kindly for that patch bay link...





Here are some mp3's from my rig - though I am warning you, they sound really lousy...

http://octavecat.homestead.com/Ornery-Windows_2005.mp3


http://octavecat.homestead.com/Orner...sent_2005_.mp3



Alright thank you!

[Acoustic Cloud]

Hole-ee cow!

Preety nice prog stuff. Sounds like a somewhat decent older live recording. Its not that bad at all.. A mid section sounds like the inst. B side of Kansas Leftoverature!

Some Crimson-Zappa-ELP-Yes...nice..... at 4:40, the synth sound -note-chord that gets progressively louder is pretty harsh. Thats all I hear that is really "bad"...

I would think you just need to control the dynamics a bit better with, well probably any comp units. That would be first to deal with, imo. Is any of this going to pc in the end, or staying analogue?

If your budget is real low, I wouldnt worry too much about bleed in the kit mics or things like that, use some realtime comp, and see what comes about.]

Takes a bit of tweaking and time to learn comp characteristics.

Thats good stuff though, and you're 20?!?!?!

Sheesh...

[warhead]

CherryFive, the specifics you mention that you don't like about your sound? Either the source doesn't sound right, your mics are not suited to the source, or you could use a great EQ. - Warren

[beranie]

Originally Posted by CherryFive

Am I supposed to connect bass guitar to the compressor and then to the mixer? I've heard it's proper to record without any effect, and to add effects and comps later ...but this assumes I have multiple compressors. I will only have one. How should I tackle this issue? Is there a smarter way to approach this?

Let's say I am playing my bass through a big amp ...and I want to mic the amp. Can I plug the mic that is micing the amp straight into the compressor and record like that?

Go into the Mixer (direct or mic-pre), then plug the compressor into the insert of the channel.

Edit:
By the way, I like your songs, musically and sonically!! really nice!

And one more thing with the overall loudness of your songs: You have to use a stereo comp or limiter to raise the average level of your songs without letting distort individual peaks.
hope this helps,
christoph

[hgen]

Can someone post that link to Tweaks guides. It's all there, where to put the mics etc, what you can use or buy cheap to get it all up there. Great site. Just google up Tweaks guide something will come up. Great friendly clear advise!

[johnlink]

I think that you'll be able to make some big improvements if you pay more attention to mixing. I find that what I think of as the lead instruments seem to be buried by the bass. As for making your mixes louder, I think they are already loud enough. Turn up your monitors! (And read the many threads on this forum about loudness wars.)

John Link

[Snatchman]

Yeah....what all above has said. That's quite refreshing..!.. Reminds me of times gone by.... when peopled played music because they loved it !.....

[moon_unit]

I think it bears noting that recording and engineering isn't necessarily the right or best path for everyone to pursue. In fact, any musician who is die-hard and passionate about making good music ... I tend to steer them far away from recording. Especially if you lean, in any way, towards being a perfectionist.

And I don't do this out of selfishness -- but from concern. Once you go down the path of Audio Engineering, your music will tend to change, and not always necessarily for the better. Musicans can be perfectionists, whether they realize it or not, and before long, they can get sucked in to spending a lot of time on the engineering thing.

Time that would have better been spent perfecting the chorus on a song ... or practicing, or whatever. Time spent researching a microphone with just the right tone could have been much better spent researching effects pedals or pickups to help your guitar tone (or if you're a drummer, learning how to tune your kit better or finding the right drum heads) ... and I'm sure you catch my drift.

It usually goes something like this; a buddy I know who's got uber-talent as a musician decides to get a pro tools system and guts his basement for a studio. His music slowly starts sucking ... and after a few years, I start asking around, enquiring as to his whereabouts.

"What happened to Johnny? He used to play out all the time?"

"Last I heard he was setting up a Home Studio or something."

And nothing else really needs to be said.

.

[Acoustic Cloud]

Thats pretty true, painful but true...
especially if someone is talented, and young. I spent years playing live, and wouldnt trade the experiences for anythng, but I HAD the experiences....
dont cheat yourself out of it. Especially if you are one man act, covering everything... not enough time in the day, you will become wolfman, and grow hair on your teeth.

Now, I just want to pretend to be an engineer, and record peoples, and myself.

While getting better at it, and learning.

But thats where I want to be, playing out occasionally, is all good.

The vortex of gear and methodolgy is a pretty hardcore undertow though......

[CherryFive]

Thanks all. Real interesting discussion starting here...

Acoustic cloud- thanks. I happen to agree with that synth-change part at 4:10. The only "digitizing" of the recordings that happens is when I do a final stereo channel master to my computer so I can burn a CD. It's all very analog. I see what you mean about not worrying much about bleeding and all of that stuff. Hell they recorded Bohnam's kit with just 3 microphones a couple of times. I guess I shouldn't apply pro techniques to sub-par gear (and low funds!).

Warhead is also right. I listened to the drums on one of the songs - windows I think. I remember at first thinking "man those drums sound so clear and neat considering the garage they were recorded in sounds like absolute rubbish".
The tape actually made the drums sound better than they were...the room sounding so sharp and noisy and just all around stupid. My source needs to be better. I'm setting up all of my gear again in a new garage devoted to just my gear in less than a month. I will spend a great deal of time cheap-treating the room....blankets, egg crates, whatever. But something better than what these 2 songs I posted were recorded in....

beranie- good observation on the final mix issue. I've actually heard of "running the whole show through a compressor" - but I never really thought it would help me. I guess it should- I really need a compressor! By the way, thanks about what you said on the music. Let me ask this - what is the difference between patching the comp through the modular send/receive jacks or just recording with the compressor in the signal chain? I actually like the idea of using the modular jacks...but the tape is still actually recording the compression in both instances, correct?

hgen- I'll search for that Tweak guide you're talking about on my own. I pretty much find any kind of auditory publication to be of help. Thanks.

And mixing- Jesus John link that's poignancy. I think I rush things too much. My friends also commented. They say I don't use the analog synthesizer right, or as the lead. But yeah...the bass is too much. I think that's because bass is my favorite sounding instrument (especially old fenders!) and I fear that they will not be heard in the mix...though a quick listen to some professionally done 70's album reveals a much softer quieter bass. But mixing in general needs to be worked on. Agreed.


Snatch- I wish I could of been in those days passed. The reason I have to play as a one man band is because I can't meet anyone interested enough! I think a lot of young musicians in my age bracket need to slow down and really work on arranging, but I really don't know. Moon unit, I don't think I'll fall into the trap of concentrating more on recording. Actually those songs I posted I think are really dumb. They are from 2005. My writing is at least 20 times more interesting now and my keyboard/piano skills have developed tremendously. All the while my interest in recording and acquiring all of my recording gear has multiplied by 20 as well. I think for me the art goes hand in hand. As for playing live...that's something I've only done about 30 times in my entire life which is pretty sad. But I just can't string an interesting band together. And I don't want to go "solo". These are sick times.

[treymonfauntre]

i love those 2 songs you posted. sure there are a ton of things you can do more modern, but this vibe is perfect for the music. a better interface to mixdown on would be your next best step (to eliminate all those pops and fallouts) in my opinion!

[big country]

Im rockin out to your stuff. sounds good ,real old school sound.grovy man.
gotta give your self some credit.

[Snatchman]

Hey CherryFive..For what's it worth, you seem to be a pretty level-headed, genuine type of guy. I think if you keep at it, you'll do well..!.. ..Do you have samples of some of your "lastest' stuff?....

[beranie]

Originally Posted by CherryFive

Let me ask this - what is the difference between patching the comp through the modular send/receive jacks or just recording with the compressor in the signal chain? I actually like the idea of using the modular jacks...but the tape is still actually recording the compression in both instances, correct?

yep. you can actually put it ANYWHERE into the chain, but it has to be behind the Mic-Preamp / DI.

And I would also love to hear some of your newer stuff!!