New at home recording. Dont know where/how to start.

L

lordbodom

New member
Hi,

I have decided that i want to try to learn how to record at home. Mostly for creating my own demos/etc. Im not really sure where to start though and i live in an apartment which brings its own set of challenges. I play metal music and would like to record my guitars and drums through ezdrummer.

My equipment:

Line 6 15 amp
Peavey 20watt amp
Digitech gnx3 multi effects processor
Digitech Death metal pedal

Lexicon alpha audio interface
emu 0404 sound card.
Cubase

I have it setup currently that:

guitar->gnx3 processor->lexicon alpha->cubase

I know that the preperred meathod is to mic the amp. But i have a small practice amp, no mic and cant really crank it up in an apartment so i am going to have to use direct in.

Does anyone see any issues/problems with my setup? Any recommendation is appreciated.

Thanks in advance!
 
Go ahead and get started, if you haven't already! Before buying any further equipment, read the stickies for noobies on this forum on computer multitracking - if you don't have them already, you're going to need monitors for mixing.
 
at first, watch your distortion/gain/whatever is not super high, it sounds good live but recorded it should be less because after a while it just muds everything including itself if it isnt the "piercing" lead kind of tone... double track the geetar part, panning L+R to make it "huge" sounding when it needs to be. Play it the same way twice, but the microseconds make a difference for something to sound big, or just part of the middle mud.

flip up the drum beat often, as even the most boring drum part still has the extra flutter kick or double-tapped snare or whatever here and there. If you want some "live" feel to it, it's good not to use the built-in reverb of whatever program/plug-in/ap/drum machine has built into its sounds, use dry-er sounds and the same verb as the rest of it to make it kind of blend - but not until the end. only way I've ever found to hide fake drums....

then mic up a couple of speakers, re-record it once its mixed, miked onto a heavy old cassette tape to get some ugly tape saturation beauty... put it back as a stereo track into your cpter. You almost have a real drum bangin sound at that point.

or find a drummer and a garage or basement or something
 
Geez, if you guys don't want to give helpful advice for noobies, stay out of the noobies section of the forum.
 
shortedaman said:
throw away the digitech and line 6 stuff.
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Why ? Because you, an anonymous person on the internet said so ?

Armistice said:
How is this helpful advice?
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It would have been wonderful advice if the OP had asked "What should I do ? All my Digitech and Line 6 stuff has been crushed by mystery aliens".

lordbodom said:
No. Looking for advice on how I can use what I have. Isn't that what home recording is?
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Partly, yes. A crucial partly, I might add.

CrowsofFritz said:
Lol. And your the one with the quote that reads "It's not what you have, but what you do with what you have."
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I heard a rumour that it was going to change to "Do as I say, not as I do".
 
Thank you all for helping. I will start messing around this weekend. Its good to know to lower the distortion level while recording and later layer it. It's going to sound off/weird while recording im sure and i think i need to get used to it as it will sound fuller after layering.

One additional question. Volume levels. with my setup, there are 3 places where i have to maintain the volume levels:

digitech processor, lexicon alpha, cubase

How should i have the volume levels setup? eg. put it on high on the digitech, lower on the alpha or low on the digitech and higher on the alpha/etc.

Thanks again!
 
Volume higher on the digitech as it is going to be the main source of noise. You want the signal-to-noise ratio to be as big as possible.
 
This is harder than i thought it would be:(. So today was my first try at this. I just did random riff as a sample and tried to see how well i could....sounded like crap:(. I am pretty embarrased to post and ask for help, but figured thats the only way i can learn.

I know pretty bad. So what i did was use ezdrummer for drums and eq'd that. Recorded guitar 1 with tone A. Then duplicated and panned one left and one right. Recorded guitar 2 with tone B. panned each 75 right and left. and duplicated bass and had that centered.

I tried messing with EQ's. All help is appreciated :(
 
I'm not sure what you did with the EQing of EZD< but all I could hear was a too-fast bass drum and the cymbals/high hat. Could not hear the bass (computer speakers), so if you were using a low (below 120Hz) tone, that would explain it. You dont' need to duplicate your bass, unless you are doing something different with one track of it. Same thing with your guitars - if you just duplicate a track and pan one left and one right, you might as well just have one track and pan it in the center.
 
Do i just have a really bad guitar tone or is it something i need to mix correctly? The bass was just through a bass effect through my guitar, so just did it to try it out. Drums need to figure out. THis was just done as a test to see if i can get my guitar down. Heres another test i did. sounds pretty bad too.



Anything you can recomend on the guitar? how should i record it? just once and center? or do pan/etc?

Thanks again!
 
I could hear the other drums on this one, as well as the bass
Best tips I have read here:
Less distortion is better on guitar
If you want to duplicate a guitar part - play it twice. If you just duplicate a track and pan it the other side, you can put a slight delay on it, but it just sounds like a slightly delayed sound, does not sound fuller.
Keep working on it, and post to the MP3 Clinic part of this forum.
 
Is there an option on your pedal that lets you select between amp/DI. I know with my Line 6 pedal it sounds like ass if I have it in the wrong mode.

oh yeah, nothing wrong with Line 6 stuff.
 

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Thank you for the responses. Much appreciated! I checked my outputs and i was going going into the lexicon via the headphone on the digitech, i swithced to the mono guitar output and sound changed a bit. Messed around this morning a bit and i think i hear an improvement? lol still sounds bad though.



Posting in MP3 clinic as well. Thank you again!
 
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