My First Recording... Ever!!!

[jrbr85]

Hey, I just got all of my recording equipment in the mail yesterday, and I downloaded the trial version of Reaper today and kind of figured out how to do a basic recording. I just had my first session tonight.

My recording chain is a pair of Oktavamodded MXL 604s to an M-Audio Profire 610, to Reaper. It's basic, because I'm still in college and can't afford anything better. I didn't use any EQ (mostly because I haven't figured that out yet haha), but I did find a reverb plugin that sounded decent (it's called VST: ReaVerb). I thought I would post a clip so you all could hear it, mostly for critique. In case anyone wants to know, I'm playing the Gigue from Bach's first solo cello suite.

[Nahuel]

cool!

[andersmv]

Not a bad recording for your first one. Whenever people first start recording they always have this uncontrollable tendency to overuse reverb. Don't be afraid to do that because it's how you learn, but just keep in mind that you will almost always put too much at first. It's ok, we've all been there.

Good first start!

[Sky]

I enjoyed the tone and performance. Yes the reverb is a bit heavy which may work with your genre. Perhaps adding some predelay to the reverb will help.

Sky

[jrbr85]

Yea, I also thought the reverb was a bit too much when I first added it. I figured out how to tone it down - how do you think it sounds now? For MXLs the mics sound pretty good, but in the future I plan to buy a good spot mic so I can get a "closer" sound with more character.

[tuRnitUpsuM]

The best kind of recording!!! doesnt get any better than that one.... it's your first. A whole new wonderful world awaits you....


congrats and enjoy the journey!

[videoteque]

tutt No reverb abuse please !!!tutt


You play very well, concentrate on what YOU can DO with your gear, not in what you can't. Spotting a cello is made by necesity, no by choice. String instruments sound better at medium distance from the mic.

If you like reverb, go find a nice hall or church and record yourself inside!!!

[_Morph_]

I noticed some fluctuations in the stereo imaging, in your first recording (the one I heard). The playing is very nice, which is half way to a good recording.
My advice is for you to hear a recording you like and try to mimic that recording. Do three or four recording with different mic placements and then listen to check which one is the best for your needs.

[jrbr85]

Originally Posted by videoteque

tutt No reverb abuse please !!!tutt


You play very well, concentrate on what YOU can DO with your gear, not in what you can't. Spotting a cello is made by necesity, no by choice. String instruments sound better at medium distance from the mic.

If you like reverb, go find a nice hall or church and record yourself inside!!!

Is it safe to use any reverb at all?

[JPeters86]

Originally Posted by jrbr85

Is it safe to use any reverb at all?

Depends of course. Experiment with it, you'll see.

[A440]

Originally Posted by videoteque

tutt No reverb abuse please !!!tutt


You play very well, concentrate on what YOU can DO with your gear, not in what you can't. Spotting a cello is made by necesity, no by choice. String instruments sound better at medium distance from the mic.

If you like reverb, go find a nice hall or church and record yourself inside!!!

I made some solo 'cello recordings by hiring a church with a lovely ambient reverb....sounded so lush and lovely. Wasn't too expensive to hire too. So worth it.

[netrom]

Sounds great, except for some electrical noise in the background. Find the noisey source and you'll be just fine!

[videoteque]

Originally Posted by A440

Wasn't too expensive to hire too. So worth it.

Easier to hire than to buy!!!!!!!!!

(US version)
You can't record 10 instruments at 1 inch and pretend to make a stereo image of a group heared from 10 feet by using panning and artificial reverb...

(EU version)
You can't record 10 instruments at 2cm and pretend to make a stereo image of a group heared from 3 meters by using panning and artificial reverb...

[Sonhouse]

Originally Posted by netrom

Sounds great, except for some electrical noise in the background. Find the noisey source and you'll be just fine!

I listened to both versions very close with earphones and I think what you may think electrical noise is the audible clicks and such of just playing the Viola. The second version I only heard one click that may have been real electrical noise. The second version had better stereo imaging than the first I guess due to less reverb. One problem listening for electrical noise is in this recording, there was almost no quiet sections to compare. The end of both pieces cut off too soon and there was a click at the end due to his inexperience in post production but it would take a couple of seconds of quiet audio wise to hear for significant electrical noise. That's my 3.14159 cents on the subject

[Sonhouse]

Originally Posted by jrbr85

Hey, I just got all of my recording equipment in the mail yesterday, and I downloaded the trial version of Reaper today and kind of figured out how to do a basic recording. I just had my first session tonight.

My recording chain is a pair of Oktavamodded MXL 604s to an M-Audio Profire 610, to Reaper. It's basic, because I'm still in college and can't afford anything better. I didn't use any EQ (mostly because I haven't figured that out yet haha), but I did find a reverb plugin that sounded decent (it's called VST: ReaVerb). I thought I would post a clip so you all could hear it, mostly for critique. In case anyone wants to know, I'm playing the Gigue from Bach's first solo cello suite.

Great Viola technique! Do you remember how far the mic's were from you? Also the next thing you need to learn is fade-in and fade-out. I use a program called Sound Forge that lets you put a track in and then fade in and fade outs with mouse clicks. I think my Sonar 7 does that also, but haven't gotten into it deep enough yet. Am still trying to get Kontakt 3 and Sonar to work together, so far with not much luck! Kontakt has a nice Steinway sampled, 1.9 Gigs! and it sounds great but when I run Sonar at the same time I get dumb audio artifacts, probably from too slow a computer. Oh well! What college are you going to? Berklee? My daughter graduated from there. I did not hear the electrical noise one dude said he heard, I listened to both cuts with earphones, the second one had better stereo imaging, I guess due to less reverb. Do you know what percentage of wet to dry you used? Wet to dry: 100 percent dry= no reverb at all. 100 % wet means ALL reverb. I usually try to keep it under 12 percent or so, maybe ten. You get up to 15 percent and it starts sounding like you are in a barrel Also the kind of reverb makes a big difference, Sonar comes with a bunch of different reverb effects in software and external boxes like the Quadraverb I think by Alesis has dozens of settings, a lot to try out. Can your software do fade ins and fade outs or do you have to get it from third party software?

[Kyle S]

^^ You can do all that in-house with REAPER. No better program to start out with IMO. Make sure you check out the REAPER wiki and the PDF. Also the REAPER forums are full of neat tricks.

Welcome to the fall!

[JSG]

I absolutely love your playing. Some beautiful sounds being made there. Keep up the great work, it just takes time and experience to make great recordings. As previously stated, the performance, IMHO, makes more of a difference in a recording than what equipment you use. That was simply beautiful.

[Beyersound]

Very nice playing, nice recording for your first! No one mentioned how great those mics sound. Even with the imperfect recording, you can hear the inherent quality they possess. They will serve you well.

[āvetechnation]

Originally Posted by JSG

I absolutely love your playing. Some beautiful sounds being made there. Keep up the great work, it just takes time and experience to make great recordings. As previously stated, the performance, IMHO, makes more of a difference in a recording than what equipment you use. That was simply beautiful.

+1 keep at it.

[jrbr85]

Thanks everyone for the praise on the cello playing.

The biggest thing that bothered me about the recording was the electrical buzzing in the background. If you listen closely, you can hear it right before I start to play the song. I was using really cheap xlr cables that came free with the mics, but I'm going to invest into some higher quality cables etc. to try to lessen the background noise. Hopefully its the cables that are making this noise. It may just also be the mics themselves.

The clicks that some people commented on is actually the strings slapping against the fingerboard. Sometimes when I get into playing, it happens, and I have to work on that .

I recorded the track in the recital hall in our music department at school. Acoustically, it isn't that great, but since I'm a music concentrator I pretty much have free access to the room any time I want, and it's much better than the practice rooms.

I included a screenshot of the reverb settings I have on the recording. I hope this helps clarify some questions that people had about the track. I didn't use any other type of processing, just added the reverb and rendered it to mp3 and wav. I'll definitely take a look into the fade-in/out option.

[Sky]

Originally Posted by jrbr85

I recorded the track in the recital hall in our music department at school. Acoustically, it isn't that great, but since I'm a music concentrator I pretty much have free access to the room any time I want, and it's much better than the practice rooms.

Now I'm curious. Please tell us more about the recital hall and what you think the acoustic problems are. If you can record some room ambience in place of adding electronic reverb that might be very cool.

Sky

[raal]

very cool 1st recording sir. the best part is you actually played something worth recording!

one thing you have on your side is a developed ear (if you can play cello), so it will be easier to hunt down the actual sound you're after, since you've heard it many times before. best of luck to you and thanks for posting.

[Lwilliam]

I wish my first recording had sounded that good!

Experiment with mic placement to get different sounds instead of using EQ. It will sound more natural.

Move the mics around - I'd suggest finding a little warmer placement...possibly closer to the f-holes? However, if you get too close to them, you'll pick up the air movement from the holes - which you DON'T want.

There are also different ways to place stereo mics which will give you different sounds. Google x/y, coincident, and near-coincident, for example.

[jrbr85]

Originally Posted by Sky

Now I'm curious. Please tell us more about the recital hall and what you think the acoustic problems are. If you can record some room ambience in place of adding electronic reverb that might be very cool.

Sky

I'll take some pictures tomorrow and post them asap.

[Ladia - Audeum]

Very nice !
I was listening to your recording on a pair of studio headphones. Get a nice pair so you can hear all the details of "noise", it's very helpful. Your playing is very good. Try to avoid moving your feet or wiggle on the chair because it's being captured. But even that wasn't bad at all. It will save you a lot of clean-up work later :-)
Good job ! Keep it up and good luck with your next project .

[jrbr85]

Originally Posted by netrom

Sounds great, except for some electrical noise in the background. Find the noisey source and you'll be just fine!

Is there a usual culprit for electrical noise in the recording chain (e.g. maybe cables introduce electrical noise more frequently that other sources)? How would I go about testing each part of my chain: MXL mics, XLR cables, Profire 610, PC running Reaper?

stikeElectrical noise sucks!!!stike

[netrom]

Originally Posted by jrbr85

Is there a usual culprit for electrical noise in the recording chain (e.g. maybe cables introduce electrical noise more frequently that other sources)? How would I go about testing each part of my chain: MXL mics, XLR cables, Profire 610, PC running Reaper?

stikeElectrical noise sucks!!!stike

Nah..

1. Change the cable - If the noise is there still, well, it's not the cable (unless you're really unlucky of course)

2. Try another mic - same as previous.....

3. If you have a second soundcard, try it. If the noise is still there, well - same as previous...

And on it goes...Maybe it's a problem with the in-house electricity. Check it out.