Morningloryseed
New member
Hello all
Here is my background...
I record onto the old Yamaha 8 Track mini-disk recorder. It's has decent sound. I have a nice collection of tools to help me capture the sound including six channels of wonderful ART tube pre-amps (two channels which have built in limiters and dials to tailor the sound according to the job), a couple channels of DBX 266 XL compressor, an AT 4033 condenser mike (beautiful microphone), a couple of SM 57s, and a few other things for effects and equalization.
My biggest influence as far as recording is definitely George Martin/The Beatles. My recording style tends to use a lot of tube warmth (everything I record goes through the tubes), very little compression except when needed, and not too many effects unless the application really calls for it. For things like effects/modulations on the guitar, keyboard, or base I like to add them before I record the sound.
At mix down I may add a little reverb to many of the instruments if it calls for it to “make it sound whole”, and I tend to add some delay to vocals. I mix down to a stand alone CD burner. The signal goes from the 8 track into the ART tube preamp (each channel of the stereo picture goes through a different tube channel obviously), and into my compressor. I usually bypass the compressor unless one of two particular peaks is causing problems. Instead, I try to compress as I record. If I don't bypass it, I use the compressor very sparingly. From the compressor, the signal is recorded onto the CD burner. I record as loud as possible to lower any noise from the tubes and the amplifier in the burner. But the amount of noise produced is negligible.
I then take the songs from the mix down CD and load them into Cool-edit pro 2.0. I wonder if it would be better to skip the burner and record from the 8 track directly into the computer hard drive. But they are different rooms and it's nice to have a CD back-up of my mix down. I just don't trust hard-drives.
I then tidy up the tracks with Cool-edit pro (fade outs, maybe some final equalization, etc) and burn the final master to CD with Nero.
What I wonder is...
The normalization issue has me confused. I've read perhaps four threads in this forum on normalization and there are so many contradictions. Many say never normalize. I do limit everything to -1 or -.5 with Cool-edit pro so I see the point of there being no reason for further normalization since it is already as loud as it can be.
Anyone want to take their time to add/comment/advise? I sure would appreciate it. I hope I'm not rehashing already-discussed topics, but I haven't seen any threads that relate to my specific situation. Thanks so much.
MGS
Here is my background...
I record onto the old Yamaha 8 Track mini-disk recorder. It's has decent sound. I have a nice collection of tools to help me capture the sound including six channels of wonderful ART tube pre-amps (two channels which have built in limiters and dials to tailor the sound according to the job), a couple channels of DBX 266 XL compressor, an AT 4033 condenser mike (beautiful microphone), a couple of SM 57s, and a few other things for effects and equalization.
My biggest influence as far as recording is definitely George Martin/The Beatles. My recording style tends to use a lot of tube warmth (everything I record goes through the tubes), very little compression except when needed, and not too many effects unless the application really calls for it. For things like effects/modulations on the guitar, keyboard, or base I like to add them before I record the sound.
At mix down I may add a little reverb to many of the instruments if it calls for it to “make it sound whole”, and I tend to add some delay to vocals. I mix down to a stand alone CD burner. The signal goes from the 8 track into the ART tube preamp (each channel of the stereo picture goes through a different tube channel obviously), and into my compressor. I usually bypass the compressor unless one of two particular peaks is causing problems. Instead, I try to compress as I record. If I don't bypass it, I use the compressor very sparingly. From the compressor, the signal is recorded onto the CD burner. I record as loud as possible to lower any noise from the tubes and the amplifier in the burner. But the amount of noise produced is negligible.
I then take the songs from the mix down CD and load them into Cool-edit pro 2.0. I wonder if it would be better to skip the burner and record from the 8 track directly into the computer hard drive. But they are different rooms and it's nice to have a CD back-up of my mix down. I just don't trust hard-drives.
I then tidy up the tracks with Cool-edit pro (fade outs, maybe some final equalization, etc) and burn the final master to CD with Nero.
What I wonder is...
- *Should I limit and normalize with Cool-edit pro?
*Should I limit with Cool-edit pro and then use Nero to normalize before the burn?
* Or just limit with Cool-edit pro and then burn with Nero using no normalization?
The normalization issue has me confused. I've read perhaps four threads in this forum on normalization and there are so many contradictions. Many say never normalize. I do limit everything to -1 or -.5 with Cool-edit pro so I see the point of there being no reason for further normalization since it is already as loud as it can be.
Anyone want to take their time to add/comment/advise? I sure would appreciate it. I hope I'm not rehashing already-discussed topics, but I haven't seen any threads that relate to my specific situation. Thanks so much.
MGS
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