Studio Project B1 Recording...

[Robertt8]

I know the B1 gets a lot of positive press here, and I'm behind it 100% (their mic clips leave a little to be desired, but that's another story). If any of you are interested, I've got a new track (open for scrutinizing) that used the Studio Projects B1 for recording the vocals, acoustic guitars and that little shaker thing. The bass and drums were added straight into the recorder (electric bass and Boss Dr. Rhythm for the drums), but you should get a good idea of the guitars and vocals...

URL: http://bob.birdsallinteractive.com/

SONG: So_Cold_02.mp3

Let me know what you think...

[kid klash]

Hey Robert -

Nice job!

[Brent Casey]

Originally posted by kid klash
Hey Robert -

Nice job!

Yeah man. Cool song. How was the mic placed for the guitar?

Brent Casey
PMI Amigo Group
877-563-6335

[Robertt8]

Kid Klash: Thanks! I kind of dig it...

Brent Casey: Thanks again! I've actually got a big baby taylor, so it's not quite as boomy, so I placed it about 8 - 10 inches away somewhere between the 12th fret and the sound hole pointed in the middle...seems to work.

Speaking of which, I checked my B1 clip and like I'd mentioned before, it didn't quite fit either of my mic stands...it seems to be a bit too big. it's the thread or something...wacky!

[frist44]

Robert

the guitar really sounds great. That big baby is blowing me away. I have a 310, i might have to pick one of these mics up.

Very nice song by the way.

keep up the good work


Brandon

[shAkEz_gk]

Robert, have you tried using plumbers pipe thread tape?
Its thin, and it wraps around the threads, and you screw the mic clip on.

Worked for me.

[Robertt8]

FRIST44: Ya, this mic's not bad huh? And I like the way the big baby records. I've actually got a $2000 Martin sitting here but used the Big Baby cuz I liked the recorded tone better...go figure.

SHAKEZ_GK: No, I haven't...I've actually considered it, but doesn't that kind of make it premement? I've got some other mics with their own clips that I need to be able to put on. I'm just wondering why mine doesn't fit... It can't just be mine that doesn't fit.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Richard Monroe]

Very nice, thank you. Reminds me of Dire Straits. How were the vocals processed and what supplied the FX?-Richie

[Antz_Marchin]

I've got a Taylor 314 now, and a B1 on the way...........I'm excited

[Antz_Marchin]

Hey man, the song sounded great.

Could you give me some advice please?? That is practically my ideal recording setup, just some fairly mellow acoustic guitar/vocals stuff with maybe some light drum stuff in there here and there. I'm quite new to this whole recording deal though and was hoping you could tell me how you made your recording??

What do you use to record?? PC?? Program?? Soundcard??
How many tracks total did you end up with and of what (double up guitar tracks, etc)??
Where the drums from something like Fruity Loops or MIDI??
Did you pan the vocals or guitar, and how much??
What effects (plugins/VST) did you use on Vocals and Guitar??
What kind of mic did you use to record the Vocals??
Did you do anything special when recording the solo to make it sound nice and thick?? Or just a single good track??

Sorry for all the questions, not looking to copy your sound, but this is all that I need to learn about recording for my purposes for the time bieng. I've been doing lots of reading but not applying much of it yet since I dont think I'm quite ready. It would be a great help to hear it from you in one piece, instead of having to get little parts from many different people since you seem to have everything I want to know under control. I'd be more than happy with a recording that sounded like this. Thank you very much for your help. BJ

[Antz_Marchin]

Sorry I guess I should read more carefully.......the Drums ...ok : ) and the Vocals are from the B1 too??? WOW, I can't wait to get mine........I forgot to ask if you had a preamp for your mic and what kind. Thank you again. BJ

[Pier Calacino]

Nice tune!

Please tell us how the vocals were processed and what effects were used ?

Thanks
Pier

[Hi_D_Ho_Man]

Really nice work

[riotshield]

Hmm, I've got a B1 and a Taylor Big Baby and can't get my recorded sound that good. It must be me...

[frist44]

Robert-

Did you double track the vocals during the chorus. It has the elliott smith sound to it and i know he does a lot of that.

If you did, what kind of panning and processing did you use for them.

Brandon

[Robertt8]

Hey thanks guys! I'm putting together a little list and process that I record, and more specifically, what I did for that tune...just got to do a bit of work (at work) first...more in a bit...

[Chris Fallen]

What pre did you use?

[rustyfingers]

Damn that was nice !!!

Noticed a couple of bloops but didn't take note of where they were. Right at the end it sound like the timing got a little fudged but I'm listening via headphones so that could be the problem. The ending kinda' just happened... It would be nice if you added another chorus at the end that just kida fades away slowly.

Anyway I downloaded this tune and look forward to my ride home this afternoon so I can have a decent listen.
Dennis

Disclaimer:
I have no clue what I'm talking about

[Robertt8]

Okay...here we go...

Thanks for the feedback people! I see there are a bunch of questions as to what I used to record, so here it goes...

On the recording side, I used the Studio Projects B1 and plugged it into the Midiman Audio Buddy as a pre-amp (It's nothing special, but does the trick to power the B1 and give a good clean sound...plus it has the 2 channels so you can plug in two sources at once, phantom or regular). Then from there, I plug the Audio Buddy into the Behringer ULTRA-DYNE PRO (which is a Digital 2-Channel Multiband Compressor/Limiter/Gate/Peak Limiter, which ironically, I'm really not 100% how to use...but fortunately I know enough to plug in some basic settings. The thing has this "automatic" option where you play in and it will adjust the output depending on what it hears. This is great option for someone clueless like me when it comes to the finer points of compression.). Then from there I just plug straight into my Roland VS 880-EX (which is a 8 track digital studio I got a couple years ago with a ton of virtual tracks...This is where most of the "magic" comes from. I'm just now realizing the potential of this recorder. It's got amazing capabilities including lots of stereo effects, compression, limiters, all that stuff...that you can pretty much adjust to your liking, as well as offer mastering capabilities. It's really sweet! The problem is the thing is about as complex to use as anything. It's like 15 steps to bounce down tracks, but well worth it when you've got a step by step list in front of you. I don't think they make this anymore, but have updated versions). Anyhoo, I pretty much record everything dry (no effects) in to the Roland. Once I have 6 tracks, I bounce those tracks onto tracks 7 and 8. From there I can add another 4 tracks (use virtual tracks to save the originals) + the 2 bounced tracks and bounce all of those to the other available 2 (virtual tracks). Does this make sense? Then, whenever I get it the way I want, I apply some of the "Mastering" options to my stereo bounced down pair. Since I'm an idiot and have some old school stuff, I analogly (with a guitar chord one track at a time...one for right and one for left) transfer it on to my Mac where I just put the two files together again in stereo and save it out to an MP3 or AIF format for the web or CD.

Does that make sense?

As far as the specifics for this song go, I think I did something like this for the tracks in this order...

1. Track 1: recorded a simple drum beat to be used as a metronome

2. Track 2: recorded a live performance of the tune into the B1 (guitar & vocals) obviously you don't need to do this, but I find I get a better performance out of my self in the long run. When recording I've got the drums in track 1 softly going so I don't get too off beat.

3. Track 3: recorded rhythm guitar into the B1 that was panned to the 3 on the left (not all the way, but pretty far). When recording I had tracks 1 and 2 going loud enough to hear, but soft enough that I could hear the new track louder. No effect added at bounce.

4. Track 4: recorded vocals. Turned off Track 2 so I couldn't hear it. I basically no longer need it now that I've "sort of borrowed" the energy from it in the Track 3 guitars. I kept it panned center. I think I used the preset "Vocal Room" as a reverb and turned down a bunch of the settings making it much more subtle at bounce down.

5. Track 5: recorded bass. Listened to everything during the recording but track 2 again. Panned center. No effects used at bounce down.

6. Track 6: recorded lead guitar. Panned way right at 9 to "offset" the other guitar in the left speaker. I think I added the same "tweaked" "Vocal Room" effect from above.

7. Recorded over Track 2: added the little shaker. I thnk I panned this pretty hard right as well. I can't remember if I added an effect on this or not. I think I used a heavier reverb on this at the bounce, but I can't remember.

8. Recorded over Track 1: I no longer need the really bad metronome simple drum beat, so put a back up vocal on that. Panned slightly off center to right. No effect on this at bounce down.

9. Then I took these 6 tracks and bounced them to the empty Tracks 7 & 8. This is where I added some light reverbs on some tracks 1-6 as mentioned above.

10. Virtual Track 1 and 2 (to get a stereo pair): I programmed 3 simple drum parts on the Boss Dr. Rhythm and tracked them straight into the Roland bypassing the pre-amp and compressor. The Dr. Rhythm has nice stereo drums, so all I need to do is pan them left and right on two tracks and we're in business. Reverb was added here to kind of help mush it back.

11. Virtual Track 3 and 4 (again to get a stereo pair): realized I wanted a little more bang in certain parts and didn't feel like redoing the previous drum programming, I programmed a couple little parts to over lap the chorus this is basically where you hear the Snare and a little more bass drum. again, one track is panned hard left and the other hard right. Reverb was added here to kind of help mush it back.

12. Bounced all of these tracks down again into a stereo pair again and added another back up chorus panned slightly off center with no effects. Then I bounced this back again to 2 other virtual tracks. Then I applied the Master options to these 2 tracks and got what you hear now.


DAMN! All done! I hope that helps. That was pretty much my process step by step. Hopefully this answers all those questions, and maybe will help some of your recordings if you need it...also, feel free to offer advice as well.

[Richard Monroe]

After reading what you did this with, I'm even more impressed. That's one of the best examples I've heard of doing more with less. That's what home recording is all about. Way cool.-Richie

[Robertt8]

Like I said, I hope that feakin' long message answered some questions or whatever...

RICHARD MONEROE: Hey thanks! It was a lot of typing, but i think it was actually kind of nice to see my process myself. I never really think about it and just do it.

RIOTSHIELD: What do you have for gear to record?

RUSTYFINGERS: Yeah, I know what your talking about doing another chorus. I was contemplating it, and still might do another version where I do another chorus, shorter guitar solo thingy and maybe another altered verse or change up somewhere. I'm trying to keep my songs short these days. I have a tendency to run on a bit too long.

ANTZ MARCHING: Does that little list help I provided earlier?

I know this got a bit off track from the mics...sorry. Let me know if there's any other feedback.

Thanks!

[riotshield]

Wow, that's a pretty involved recording process. My set-up is pretty similar to yours except the DAW:

-SP B1 and Marshall MXL603S
-Audio Buddy
-Edirol UA-20 USB interface (also had the Audiophile 2496 for a while)
-My laptop for recording, my desktop for mixing down/adding effects running n-Track
-a '02 Taylor Big Baby and a Squier electric & bass w/a J-Station

I saved your song so I can use it as a reference next time I do a recording.

[Bodhisan]

Yeah (and I hate to skip by the REAL subject, but) the threads on my B3 clips are tooooo big. I like the plumbers tape idea...thanks.

[Robertt8]

RIOTSHIELD:Your stuff sounds really similar to mine...um...this is what i've got...

-2 Shure SM58's
-1 MXL990
-1 Studio Projects B1

-1 Midiman Audio Buddy
-1 Behringer ULTRA-DYNE PRO
-1 Boss Dr. Rhythm

-1 Peavey...something or other (guitar amp used in a long time)
-1 Big Baby Taylor
-1 Epi piece of crap acoustic
-1 Ovation acoustic electric...this kind of sucks
-1 Borrowing friends Martin something or other (nice guitar...too boomy for good recording)
-1 Squier electric bass
-8-10 chords

How's that N-track? I've been using some primal Mac program that doesn't work well now and then.

Feel free to use the track...enjoy.

BODHISAN: Your right man, that freakin' clip is tooooo damn big I just don't want it stuck on my mic stand permenetly. ya know?

How's that

[alanhyatt]

Originally posted by Robertt8
[B]I know the B1 gets a lot of positive press here, and I'm behind it 100% (their mic clips leave a little to be desired, but that's another story). B]

Hey Robert, Good job on the recording. Since you did such a good job showing people how good the B1 really is ofr home recording, send me your address and I will send you a free B Series Shock Mount for your B1....

E-mail me at alan@pmiaudio.com with your address. Hell, its the least we can do for all that positive effort..