Experiment #2: Using mics to record what you've already recorded.

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89gtsleeper

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Experiment #2: Using mics to record what you've already recorded.
http://www.myspace.com/2ndstorystudios
Check out my myspace page now. The song is "Experiment #2: Mic Positioning" OK, It is officially up now!!! And I set it to auto play when you load my myspace page. It's a rough mix and I'm not done with this one by far, but I'm tired of working on it today. Will try to finish tomorrow. Enjoi.

This is my next experiment I started working on yesterday. This is the first part of the process.

1) I recorded three long ringing chords. Each chord rings for 8 beats, or two full measures.

2) I placed a condensor microphone in my room directly in front of my DAW facing the speakers. I played back the previous recording so that the mic would pick up the sound from my monitors and record what it hears to a separate track.

3) Repeat step two several more times, but each time I moved the mic around so that it got farther and farther from the source and is pointing less and less toward the source. I now have a total of 8 tracks if you include the original recording.

4) Now, I manually move each track so that instead of them all playing at the same time, it plays one each beat... Remember how I told you each chord rang out for 8 beats.... well now I have a version of that chord playing on each beat.

5) Last part of the process. Go through each of my eight tracks and set the panning on each. The 1st track starts hard panned to the left, and each track after that fades farther and farther to the right so that by track 8, it is hard panned right.

Now when you play it back, the chords just ring out and kind of spin all around you.... I have to run some errands right now, but I will post up the pictures of each of my 7 mic placements now, and you guys can check my myspace page later to hear this. This is a really exciting project for me. I'm sending some wave files to my good frined in Manhattan tonight so he can add some Bjork style beats to it. Hope this gives you guys some new ideas.
 
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WARNING WARNING WARNING.
One last thing I forgot to mention on this is that when I was recording using the mic in the room each time, I would have output at 0 volume for all channels except the original source track. That way there is no feedback. Please if anybody tries this at home, do the same or you could damage your speakers.
 
that's an interesting way of doing it, changing the track with each beat like that. i've done the echo chamber thing where you record the sound being played in a big room. i've done it down my hallway before but who knew roommates don't like being woken up by the sound of me singing booming through the whole house?:rolleyes:
well done!
 
Just got back home a bit ago. I still have to transfer a cd from my tascam to my comp, then rip it to mp3, thne upload it. Should be on there within the next hour or so. Sorry for the delay.
 
ooh I see, i'll check a little later, sounds really cool. I love the stuff on that myspace btw though. You seem to have a lot of original ideas.
 
Just an FYI, there's a common trick that is done like this with drums. Mic up the drums and hook it up to a PA. Then mic the room where the PA is.
 
I feel really bad about keeping you guys waiting like this... I've been working on this track all day, and it's coming together to be what I think is the best song I've ever written or recorded. There's so much more to it than just what I told you about. I've extended that section from 30 seconds to about 4 minutes. I've got my drum beat in place and sounding pretty chilled out. Then I've got two harmonized slightly distorted guitars.... I swear to you this won't be too much longer but I really think it will be worth the wait. Like I said IMHO, this is the best thing I've ever done to date going all the way back to the beginning of this year.
 
:cool: Just listened and I've got to say that the effort you've put in has produced a beautiful effect – very atmospheric. Love the sound of that guitar moving across the speakers, so I might try it myself one day. I can hear the potential even in only the basic track that you have up at the moment, so it should turn out to be excellent. Well done so far.

dreamer7 :)
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'From Nowhere To Here And Back Again' – a dark filmic electroacoustic otherworldly sonic tapestry.
 
Very nice.
Could it have been done by cloning, staggering & reducing vol?
I like this more organic approach though.
Bill Nelson liked to experiment - one of his desires was to drop speakers & mic from an amp & recorder in a plane & record what happened before they hit the ground or the wires ran out.
My wildest experiment? Picking up a guitar.
 
You know, after I spent a few hours to record this simple idea, I started to wonder that myself. I tihnk it could be simulated to an extent, but in actuality it would have taken even longer. If I had done it that way I would have had to record the initial track, make 7 more copies of it. Set all the panning for each track. Then set the volumes for each track. Then mess with the reverb and EQ of each track. If you look back through the pictures you'll notice on the last few placements, I had the mic right in front of my diffusors which changed the sound drastically, then practically inside my huge chair which I did to absorb bass on the last few chords. So in theory I would have had to make several EQ adjustments to simulate this type of thing. I like the old-school approach better. :)

You know it was weird because I had the input and output volumes the same for each track as I recorded them, and the sound level went down a little each time due to being further from the source or pointing at it less or what have you... but when I moved to the placement directly in front of the diffusors, the sound level jumped up about 50% from the position before it. Not sure what all attributed to that, but I thought it was a rather interesting anomaly.
 
another cool idea this project gave me was to use this format as like a sequencer of sorts. Since each of the mic positions was recorded on a separate track, I can essentially use the mute/solo buttons on each channel to create different rhythmic patterns as the phrase loops over and over again.
 
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