I've read many people say the goal it to EQ as minimally as possible when track

bluesfordan

bluesfordan

Member
which I'm assuming means in a well-treated, good sounding room and also assuming good sound isolation from outside.

but what about when recording in less than optimal conditions? Or going direct?

Let's go with the latter first, going direct. I don't always get the same sound on playback as I do while I'm recording and playing. It usually sounds livelier during the performance. Part of that may be the acoustic sound of the strings gets in the headphones and augment the monitored sound. Then upon playback, it is usually duller, woofier.

so far, I haven't had much luck with preamp channel plugins, they often seem to introduce more noise than they are worth. You only get gain on the interface, no EQ going in. Listening to the playback I usually give a steep cut to around 235-250 Hz and boost some brightness into the rest if it's sounding dark. Then sometimes I lower the overall level if it is barking too hard on the main level meter. From there I go to compression, another round of EQ and sometimes more compression. I start getting it to sound more like what I was hearing when I was playing.

I did some recording last night with sdc mics, positioning them x-y where my head was in front of my amp (up on a bookcase). approximately 44" vertical and 20" from center of speaker. Very dark and woofy upon playback. The EQ analysis showed way more information in the sub-250 Hz than the direct input. Got the mud EQ'd out, couldn't really find a center for the nasally honk. That may have been a node caused by the room.

Long post short. Not EQing on the way in, but massively sculpting after the fact. I'm pretty sure GIGO (garbage in garbage out) applies but sometime that forces one hand to use a lot of Fabreeze in the form of EQ.
 
If your source has the natural sound you are after, when you hear it on its own....then yeah, no need to EQ going in.
Of course, that doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't. The idea is that you should hold off and wait...that's the "safe" approach...but if you want to sculpt the sounds some going in, it's OK.
You probably only want to do minimal sculpting, and if anything, you're probably just trying to do some minor EQ correction...because you're not hearing that track in the context of the final mix, so you want to give yourself some room for later.
Still...I've done some steeper cuts at times (rarely boosts), simply because the combination of the source, mic. preamp...had something I didn't like, and there was no reason to save it for later. You just don't want to cut something that you'll have to then boost later.
It's about getting that right tonal balance at the start...and if you need to EQ a bit...it's OK.
 
yeah thats the Headphone thing ..the problem.

1, get your tone without headphones on.
2. record 1. to DAW
3. eq in the mix if needed

the headphone thing is the curse of HR....closed back headphones boost the bass, make the highs crisp as can be etc,,,, then you play it in some average playback environment and its totally different.

tracking headphones arent the same as Mixing Monitors, tracking headphones arent even good for anything but keeping mics from howling... definitely dont set your "tones' up using the tracking headphones. imo
 
Close micing really is about the only option in a poor recording space. Then, you've got what the source is putting out, with the effects of the room minimized. This does introduce the problem of proximity effect, or other physical sounds from the vocalist, player's technique or other mechanical noises, so you've really got to learn how to set up to optimize the mic's distance to balance these things. Then, at least, what's in the track is a pretty accurate reflection of what is coming from the source.

The problem, as others pointed out, is how to monitor those, and then you're back to the room and monitor speakers, or headphones. You have to get to a setup where you can trust that what you hear on playback is really what it sounds like, and be able to base your mixing decisions on that.

It's nice when things fit together without a lot of futzing, and through the pain I think one thing you learn is that some vocals/guitar styles/etc. when mixed together create more work, so you either plan to reduce that with different instrumentation or perhaps a different singer, or you learn how/where to make the adjustments efficiently. I know, e.g., that my baritone voice and the big dreadnought acoustic guitar sound I like are just going to have too much overlap in some areas, but I can't really switch to ukelele for the songs, so it's going to be some work.

If you think you need "massive sculpting" I'm not sure what is going on, but it could be just the terminology. You shouldn't need massive anything on the basic track when you listen to it solo'd (IMO), but when it's time to fit it in the mix, well, it might need a lot of compression, and maybe some cuts/boosts to make it fit that would be clearly audible, i.e., A/B'd against the raw track. That's just mixing.

But, the biggest lesson I've had was that trying to do mixes without room treatment was creating a lot more work.
 
right now I have a pair of speakers, nothing fancy just some old radio shack minimus 7s on the top of the desk hutch as my monitors. Slightly over my head when I sitting down. about 10" apart and a foot from the wall. What wall treatment behind them would help? I'm not expecting miracles just something.

as far as tracking direct, there's really no way to play and listen without hearing some of the guitar's string sound. All of my electrics are pretty loud acoustically, it is a large part of the reason why they were chosen in the first place. I suppose I could try using a treble boost of some sort in front of the interface. I'd say the majority of my dissatisfaction with my direct recorded sounds is due to muddiness.
 
DI sounds and setting tones requires good monitoring thats the other curse of HR.

Recording yourself without the guy in the Mobile Studio unit, or in the other room behind the glass directing mic positions and all that.

Recording yourself and monitoring at the same time is a lot more work....if you have bad monitoring environment even harder but its been done.

So the third place option is a great set of open-back headphones and a great headphone amp which isnt as good as the first two options of seperate rooms, then great rooms and great monitors...
but you know some AKG702's or BD880 600 ohm and a amp that can handle that is a decent investment...and all your online listening for fun gets an upgrade too.:listeningmusic:
 
CoolCat said:
yeah thats the Headphone thing ..the problem.

1, get your tone without headphones on.
2. record 1. to DAW
3. eq in the mix if needed

the headphone thing is the curse of HR....closed back headphones boost the bass, make the highs crisp as can be etc,,,, then you play it in some average playback environment and its totally different.

tracking headphones arent the same as Mixing Monitors, tracking headphones arent even good for anything but keeping mics from howling... definitely dont set your "tones' up using the tracking headphones. imo
Click to expand...

I never pay attention to the sound in the headphones.
If I want to check my settings...I do a test track recording, play it back, listen to how it sounds and/or fits with other tracks, and then adjust as needed.
The headphone sound is just there to give you cues...not to be used for tonal decision making...but I know that sometimes you get absorbed into how things sound with the headphones...and you have to just ignore that.
I always...ALWAYS...do at least 2-3 test tracks to check how it's actually going down. I don't even trust how it sounds in the room. I mean, you can get most of the way there, but until you hear how it sounds after it's recorded, you just don't know.

This is the thing when you are recording alone. There's no one in the control room checking all that "on the fly". :D
It's a PITA...I sometimes have to walk from the mic or wherever, back to my console or rack gear...20-30 times...as I'm tweaking, and tweaking.
It's like...the "setting up" takes me 2 hours...and then the actual takes, only a few minutes, because after it's all set up right, I just bang out the takes one after another.
 
bluesfordan said:
right now I have a pair of speakers, nothing fancy just some old radio shack minimus 7s on the top of the desk hutch as my monitors. Slightly over my head when I sitting down. about 10" apart and a foot from the wall. What wall treatment behind them would help? I'm not expecting miracles just something.

as far as tracking direct, there's really no way to play and listen without hearing some of the guitar's string sound. All of my electrics are pretty loud acoustically, it is a large part of the reason why they were chosen in the first place. I suppose I could try using a treble boost of some sort in front of the interface. I'd say the majority of my dissatisfaction with my direct recorded sounds is due to muddiness.
Click to expand...
You kind of lost me with the 2nd part. If you record electric guitar direct, you don't record any acoustic sound, and certainly the audio in your [tracking] headphones should cover up 99% of any kind of acoustic sound from the electric, unless you've got a big jazz box maybe. Of course, your picking and finger/string noises go through the pickups, and the string vibrations are affected by the resonant properties of the wood, but that's 100% electric guitar pickup signal. (An electric guitar, especially one with a hollow-ish body can pickup up acoustic sounds, i.e., act like a microphone, but I'm assuming that's not the issue, especially direct recording.) So, anything you don't want to hear in the direct recorded track is something you should be able to fix.

Now, a guitar is technically a bass instrument, so in a mix it's almost always going to be seriously high-passed. You could be like Keith Richards and just remove that low E string because it's contribution is almost always effectively gone if there's a bass and drums in the mix.

I'd probably pay more attention to your guitar and amp EQ and pickup selection going in, and if your amp sim has the ability to switch cabinets, mics and mic position, play with that as well. That should get you the track sound that will be maleable come mix time.

10" apart? That's really close. Like any monitors, I'd try for that equilateral triangle arrangement, with the tweeters directed at your ears. If they are rear ported, then you definitely should have a pretty good panel behind them. Could you put an angled trap along the ceiling wall join, and some clouds over your head? That would have to help. The early reflection points are usually the first thing to attack, as well.
 
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