a few mixing questions

[Steenamaroo]

Put your head in front of the speaker to see if the sound you are recording is what is actually coming out of the amp. With combo amps, it's easy to think the amp sounds great when you are standing beside it and the sound is blowing at your ankles. What the direct sound coming from the amp sounds like could be something completely different. Especially if it is an open backed cabinet.

This is a big thing^^.
I know you said your current sessions are over but in future maybe try getting the amp up to head/chest level, or angling it upwards.
Either that or lean down and listen. Without that it's record, listen, change something, record, listen, change something.

Having said that, record, listen, change something, is going to happen anyway because your ears are never going to be 1" from a blaring cabinet.
You'll never really know how a recording will sound until you've heard it or being doing it for years and really know the gear and routines.

 

[Steenamaroo]

i could hear my click track and the song when i stopped playing the guitar -- if the mics were picking this up all along

Did you have your mixing speakers on in the same room whilst recording the amp?
It's all volume dependent but that could definitely mess things up.

If not, your headphones are too loud and/or your amp is too quiet.

 

[Farview]

Mirosolav, i just finished the pan law article... that article is over my head. I just don't have enough experience or education to know what they're talking about. Usually I just mix in mono and then pan at the end b/c i want the mix to sound good mono.

Pan law is just how the mixer reacts when you pan something. On analog mixers, it was just part of the design and couldn't be changed. In daws, you can play with it.

Basically, it is designed to make the track seem like it is the same volume as you pan it across the stereo field. Without the compensation, things would sound louder in the center, because it is being pushed out of two speakers. Pan law compensates for that.

 

[Farview]

okay, i will when i get home. i have one day left, and i need to get to work and get some vocals done right now.

the general problem is this:

1. guitars all sound good on their own
2. the moment i add two together there seems to be a hollowness or wash over them.

it's like the room's reverb is all summing and bumping.

one other question: one one of the tracks (when it ended and was quiet) i could hear my click track and the song when i stopped playing the guitar -- if the mics were picking this up all along, would it be the cause of this? that would really suck. i'd hope and assume the amp's volume overrides that.

Does the click sound direct, or like it was being picked up by the mic in the room? If it sounds direct, you may have recorded your headphone mix on top of the guitar part you were playing. That would cause phase issues.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Since nobody answered it directly - there is nothing about a hollow or semi hollow electric guitar's body that should make it sound "hollow" or "distant". There might be something about the pickups and how they're set that makes that difference, but it ain't just because it's hollow.

You said the tracks sound decent on their own, but a combo amp on a hard floor can end up with some very quick, very loud reflections hitting the mic, and that can cause all kinds of phasy, comb-filtered weirdness. This is an even more important reason to get the amp up off the floor or at least leaning back a ways.

 

[miroslav]

Pan law is just how the mixer reacts when you pan something. On analog mixers, it was just part of the design and couldn't be changed. In daws, you can play with it.

Basically, it is designed to make the track seem like it is the same volume as you pan it across the stereo field. Without the compensation, things would sound louder in the center, because it is being pushed out of two speakers. Pan law compensates for that.

Right...what Jay is saying....
I was suggesting you check your DAW pan law setting.
If it's set to "0"...then hard panned tracks will certainly sound much quieter than dead center.

In a nutshell...the pan law sets a difference in levels between center and hard L/R...3dB difference (more louder at L/R than at center) is sorta the norm, though it could be as much as 6 dB difference.

That's the pan law.
I mean...you're always going to adjust your track levels regardless where you pan them...but have the pan law active make it easier, so as you pan, the level adjustment happens automatically to get you in the right ballpark when you comapre center levels to hard L/R levels.

 

[Nola]

Does the click sound direct, or like it was being picked up by the mic in the room? If it sounds direct, you may have recorded your headphone mix on top of the guitar part you were playing. That would cause phase issues.

oh it only sounds like it's being picked up by the mic on the amp, very distant sounding and quiet, but i can hear it when i stop playing. would that cause any problem? when i say i can hear it, it is super faint.

here is an example of the click: https://soundcloud.com/suicidevan/test/s-tRFc9

at that level, would it cause any problem? does the tone sound hollow?

i did have to mic the amp in the same room with me because i simply had no option.

 

[Nola]

You said the tracks sound decent on their own, but a combo amp on a hard floor can end up with some very quick, very loud reflections hitting the mic, and that can cause all kinds of phasy, comb-filtered weirdness. This is an even more important reason to get the amp up off the floor or at least leaning back a ways.

how far off the floor does it need to be? i had it like 2" off the floor, and the floor is carpet if that matters. under the carpet there's some kind of synthetic plastic. it's like a raised floor to prevent flooding.

crap...

 

[Steenamaroo]

oh it only sounds like it's being picked up by the mic on the amp, very distant sounding and quiet, but i can hear it when i stop playing. would that cause any problem? when i say i can hear it, it is super faint.

here is an example of the click: https://soundcloud.com/suicidevan/test/s-tRFc9

at that level, would it cause any problem?

i did have to mic the amp in the same room with me because i simply had no option.

You've sort of danced around the answer a bit there....I'm asking were the monitor speakers on in the same room whilst tracking.
Ie, can the mic 'hear' the amp and the output of your monitor speakers?

If so, yeah...you'll have issues.

If the tracks sound good individually, though, this is all great but not strictly relevant advice.

That's what you need to be 100% on.
Is most of the problem general general recording technique, or something as a result of combining two or more recordings.
It may be both...That's cool.

 

[Nola]

You've sort of danced around the answer a bit there....I'm asking were the monitor speakers on in the same room whilst tracking.
Ie, can the mic 'hear' the amp and the output of your monitor speakers?l.

I don't have any monitor speakers just headphones. I used closed back headphones.
in the soundcloud link, you can hear the mic picking up the click from my headphones -- i'm about 5 ft from that mic. it's faint, but it's there. with the amp on 5 (about as loud as it goes, it just breaks up more after that), i'd hope that wouldn't matter.

 

[Farview]

That is the click bleeding through closed back headphones from 5 feet away into a mic in front of a loud-ish amp? You might not have to worry about what anything sounds like much longer, your ears are going to explode.

From the one note I heard from the guitar, it doesn't sound too strange. But Fender distortion isn't my favorite, so I'm not sure I'm the guy to ask.

 

[Nola]

That is the click bleeding through closed back headphones from 5 feet away into a mic in front of a loud-ish amp? You might not have to worry about what anything sounds like much longer, your ears are going to explode.

From the one note I heard from the guitar, it doesn't sound too strange. But Fender distortion isn't my favorite, so I'm not sure I'm the guy to ask.

thanks jay. that was a big muff not the fender's tubes.
i wear earplugs when i record.

so the click you hear in that track -- that low level like that wouldn't cause phase would it?

edit: i will try to post more clips later and some with a single guitar and then the double (which is where i hear the problems). i'm just in and out of the room doing vocals and taking short breaks so not enough time to really put that together yet.

 

[miroslav]

That is the click bleeding through closed back headphones from 5 feet away into a mic in front of a loud-ish amp? You might not have to worry about what anything sounds like much longer, your ears are going to explode.

Yeah...damn...you must have that click cranked for it to be picked up from 5' away.

 

[ashcat_lt]

how far off the floor does it need to be?

More than 2".

I usually put them up around waist height, but that's more about how tall the things I have to put amps on stand. It's only a problem if it's a problem though, and if it was a problem, you'd hear it.

As for the bleed: If the mic sound itself was leaking back into itself from your headphones loud enough, it might cause some comb filtering, but it would have to be really close to the actual level coming from the amp. Usually, though, unless you really intend to crush those guitar tracks in mixing, a little bit of bleed from another instrument shouldn't be a huge deal as long as that instrument is also going to be in the mix. If the bleed is more than 9db quieter than the actual source at final mix time, there won't be any meaningful interference.

Are you really wearing earplugs inside of closed back cans?

 

[Nola]

Are you really wearing earplugs inside of closed back cans?

thanks for your detailed reply.

would 2" help at all, or would the carpeting/raised floor?

yes, the reason is mostly because of timing: i couldn't put the amp in a different room, and i kept hearing the amp through my headphones and it was causing timing problems and disorientation, so what i did is turn up the headphones louder, put in ear plugs, and then turned up the headphone amp. this drowned out the guitar amp in the room and i could only hear it in the phones. i hope it didn't cause combing or phasing...if you click the soundcloud above, that's the level it's picking up the click. can you hear that? it seems low to me -- would that cause phasing or comb?

 

[Steenamaroo]

thanks for your detailed reply.

would 2" help at all, or would the carpeting/raised floor?

yes, the reason is mostly because of timing: i couldn't put the amp in a different room, and i kept hearing the amp through my headphones and it was causing timing problems and disorientation, so what i did is turn up the headphones louder, put in ear plugs, and then turned up the headphone amp. this drowned out the guitar amp in the room and i could only hear it in the phones. i hope it didn't cause combing or phasing...if you click the soundcloud above, that's the level it's picking up the click. can you hear that? it seems low to me -- would that cause phasing or comb?

2" isn't going to make much or any difference in that context but, dude...Why not just mute the guitar tracks?

I also doubt that sort of bleed is going to cause noticeable or serious filtering or phase issues. Your setup would need to be so ridiculously out of whack for that to happen.
I mean...take the headphones off and set them on the table. If you can hear them over the actual amp then it would certainly cause problems, but that ratio should be miles away from this ever happening.
Realistically, if you listed one side of the cans off year ear an inch, the guitar amp in the room should totally dominate what you're hearing.


Get the cans on turn them down, lose the earplugs, mute the guitar track in the cans (or turn the track down to a suitable level).
If latency is the reason, manage it with your buffer settings or totally mute the tracks.
If you're struggling to follow, try lifting on side of the cans off so you can hear mix and live, or try using direct monitoring if your interface supports it.
If you do the former and the amp is too loud (which it should be) pop an earplug in the open-ear.

Get the amp off the floor, get the volume up so everyone in a 1mile radius is pissed off, watch the gain (what sounds right is too much) and then just record, listen, alter, record, listen, alter.

 

[miroslav]

... i kept hearing the amp through my headphones and it was causing timing problems and disorientation...

It's something you have to work with...yes, it can be disorienting at first....that blend of live sound and the cue mix in the cans.

I play my guitar amps quite loud most times, and I'm standing like 3 feet from them, with cans on...but I've learned to adjust how I listen to both the amp and the cans...and I never pay attention to the combined tone at that point. I'll always listen to the playback when doing a few test passes...and that's how I set the tone/levels...then when I'm actually recording, I just find one spot where the blend of the amp and cans is the most acceptable, and I don't move around the room much....and I'm just using all of that for cues.

I'm curious why it was messing with your timing...?...I mean, the amp and the cans should be in sync...or was there some kind of delay coming out of the DAW feeding the cans...?

What pisses me off occasionally is that sometimes the blend of the amp and the cans sound really good...but then I can't seem to dial in that same sound for the recorded track.

Oh...I'll sometimes also walk away from the amp...as far as my 20' guitar cord + headphone cable let me... ...and I can just reach into the adjacent room, with the door open, so that way I'm not getting that blast from the amp when I have it really cranked. Depends on the amp, some of them can be really LOUD and hit your ear drums a lot harder...even though technically, the wattage isn't all that great.
My Dr. Z Rt 66 is one annoyingly loud amp even at lower volume settings. I really have to step away from that fucker.

 

[Greg_L]

I don't even bother trying to hear the guitar in cans when tracking. I hear the amp through the cans. All I need to hear is drums and I'm good. I never monitor guitar in real time. I don't think I could even if I wanted to. I'd have to put the cabs across the street.

 

[Nola]

I'm curious why it was messing with your timing...?...I mean, the amp and the cans should be in sync...or was there some kind of delay coming out of the DAW feeding the cans...?

I can't be sure since it was my first time doing this, but I think it was the 4ms latency combined with the loud amp bouncing all over the room, which I'm not used to. I wasn't sure if what I was hearing was the amp from the cans or the amp itself and it was throwing me off.

At times I tried turning the cans off and just using the amp's sound. It was okay, but I preferred that ear plug method because it allowed me to turn up the drums/click in the cans and hear the beat better.

This was my first time recording loud guitars in a decent room so...a lot of learning and experimenting (and errors).

 

[Farview]

thanks for your detailed reply.

would 2" help at all, or would the carpeting/raised floor?

yes, the reason is mostly because of timing: i couldn't put the amp in a different room, and i kept hearing the amp through my headphones and it was causing timing problems and disorientation, so what i did is turn up the headphones louder, put in ear plugs, and then turned up the headphone amp. this drowned out the guitar amp in the room and i could only hear it in the phones. i hope it didn't cause combing or phasing...if you click the soundcloud above, that's the level it's picking up the click. can you hear that? it seems low to me -- would that cause phasing or comb?

No, it wouldn't be causing the phase cancellation. It's not loud enough to do that. Good thing about the ear plugs, but you still might pop the headphones. (or the headphones don't isolate very well)