Help with recording project on a college student budget

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paperhatrecords

New member
Over the past four years I've recorded about 12 CDs of music. Almost everything I have ever done was recorded on 4 track (Tascam Portastudio 414). I have become very good at getting a halfway decent sound from the 4 track, but now I'm getting more serious and have begun using the computer and the 4 track together. I'm using Magix Audio Studio 7, which I'm sure is not the best program for direct recording ever made, but it's working for now. I'm intending on actually releasing my next CD, and its a pretty ambitious experimental project. The problem is I want to get it to sound as professional as possible on a "ramen noodle" college student budget.

I've got two main mic-related questions that if I can get answered would help me a great deal. I have three mics (an old Shure 57, and two cheapies -- a Nady Star Power 1 and an Audio Technica ATR20.) I don't really have the money to buy fancy mics, so I have to make due with what I have. I would be willing to buy another cheapie, if someone has any recommendations for really solid mics under $20.

I've got almost all the recordings done except for drums and vocals. I plan to record these using my four track as a stereo mixing board out to a line-in on my computer.

The first problem is my vocals sound incredibly tinny. I use the Shure 57, and maybe it's just too old. But it might also have something to do with the way its recorded. What would be the ideal high-low settings for recording and is there any low budget recording techniques I can do to reduce the tinniness? Would post-recording compression help?

The second question is, what would be the ideal drum setup with those mics? I know the SM57 would probably be best on the snare, but which of the other two should I use for the bass and overhead? The drums on my recordings sound fairly flat, and somewhat tinny. What would be the ideal high-low settings to get a full drum sound? Based on my setup, I could add compression and gate on the drums post-recording, but is that recommended?

Thanks pre-emptively for all your help. It means a lot.
 
Hi Paperhatrecords,

What you're doing on your website sounds really interesting and I wish you luck in your production. I'm in very different area of music so don't have any specific technical advice to offer that would be useful to you - except to say that because a lot of things in audio are an inch wide and a mile deep, it's really helpful to pay for a couple of hours of studio time at a good facility and work with an engineer who can show you how to get the sound you want. I did that with a mastering engineer a few years ago and it was a great experience.

Best of luck,
Tim
 
Thanks for the advice. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or money to go to a studio. That's why I hoped to get some tips from this forum. But you're right, it really does vary I suppose.
 
Which software are you using?

As far as setting up your drums, if you can't afford a drum mic set up, I'd say experiment with what you have until you can get it close. There is a program called drumagog which replaces your drum sounds with some really good sounding drums. You can find a demo of it on the net.

Check out the mic forum on this site for mic recommendations.

As far as your vocals, have you tried using the other mics to record with? It's possible that the diaphram in your 57 is shot due to age...

That's about all I can recommend.
 
yeah, man.

put the 57 like 8 feet away from the drums; at the height of the snare, pointing right at it.

if the bass drum doesn't sound good, put one of your other mics on it; but it should sound fine without an extra mic.

to fix your vocals, use eq on the way in. put on headphones and tweak it till it sounds better. you also might want to set up all three mics at once and try each of them side-by-side. if you are using the 57 for a lot of your tracking, you probably want to use one of the other 2 mics to record your vocals. if you use the 57 on everything, it will be harder to mix, because the same frequencies will be emphasized on every track. so, I suggest using the 57 on your drums and either of the other two on your vocals.

one other thing you might want to try to reduce the "tinniness" if you still experience it, is to simply sing from further away from the mic.


one last note....
i think that tracking the instruments through the 4-track and then the drums and vocals onto your computer is going to sound really good. but if for some reason it doesn't, you could send your instrument mix into tracks 1 and 2 of your 4 track (stereo bounce from the pc onto a new tape, or just do an "old fashioned" bounce), record the drums onto track 3, vox on track 4.
 
Thank you... that helps a lot...

I think using all three mics with pre-equalization on each might work really well to capture the best frequencies and reduce tinniness. I'll try that.

And using the four-track with the computer sounds great because it gets an authentic analog feel but with digital mixing, editing, etc. Thanks again.
 
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