[SOLVED] FOCUSRITE 2i2 3RD GEN, MY COMPUTER'S INTERNAL SOUND CARD AND RECORD QUALITY

You can get by with pro-tools lite, I would say not having input monitoring would be a problem, you are going to have to record and play it back to make sure you have your mic positioning sounding good, hopefully you can listen to a metronome through your cans. Delay compensation is not a problem if you just make sure you have the same plugins inserted on your guitar tracks even if you bypass them, but even if there is a slight timing difference it will not make a blind bit of difference if you record 2 takes anyway. You are probably going to have such a minimal amount of tracks in your project that the demo version of pro-tools will not at all hinder you in any way.

You still get your 24bit recording or 32bitfloat. and 96khz is a higher sample rate than I normally work in anyway. I would perhaps stick to using 96khz for your needs though, a lot of people suggest that the audio is of better quality even if bouncing down to 16bit/44.1khz anyway. I thought there was a cap on the amount of inserts you can put on your tracks with the pro-tools demo, but is this not the case with pro-tools lite then? if you are not compressing or using any outboard gear on the way in then I would say you need to have access to a minimum of 5 spare inserts.

I actually really dislike pro-tools, very overpriced. But they have the advantage where it's a system standard amongst literally 90%+ pro studios so they kind of have the monopoly now.

If it were me, I wouldn't be at all phased if I had to resort to using garageband as a free option (I'm on mac though), by the sounds of it you will have more freedom to write and it will certainly make your job easier if not for the input monitoring issue you will have to face.

Hi JamEZ,music! I just arrived here before turning in and so nice of you to contribute here! I need to muse over this. I know I'll have more questions. I'm glad I'm asking before hand. Back in 2004 I used ProTools because it came with "M-Box" I recorded with, yet I thought it was not a lesser version and maybe never realized it actually was. I know the mastering engineer said he was "blow away" by my results and said he only had to do a minimum of work. You have given me a lot to muse over and thanks for doing so! More later.

Thanks!
Winfred
 
Protools First does not sound very attractive to me with the assorted limitations it has, some of which are dealbreakers for me. But you should be able to do what you need to do with it.

However, you can get far better. My personal recommendation is to try Reaper. It is a powerful DAW with a low CPU footprint. You can download it and get an uncrippled free trial for 60 days. At the end of that trial ytou can continue to use, except for a nag screen encouraging you to buy it. A discount licence is $60.

Reaper also has a very active help forum, and there are many video tutorials on how to do things.

Hi gecko zzed!

Thanks again for input. I'm only glancing before turning in at a weird hour once again! What about ProTools being used 90% of the time by production or recording studios? I'm a bit worried about that and maybe I don't need to be. I don't know who I'll finally select to do the final mastering. I'm thinking since ProTools has a kind of monopoly so far I might be safer going with that, yet you give great food for thought. I'm going to have a lot of questions and pitfalls so Reaper has a much better help forum than ProTools, right? I need to think more and you gave me more food for thought. Thanks again for taking your precious time to respond!

Thanks!
Winfred
 
Hi gecko zzed!

Thanks again for input. I'm only glancing before turning in at a weird hour once again! What about ProTools being used 90% of the time by production or recording studios? I'm a bit worried about that and maybe I don't need to be. I don't know who I'll finally select to do the final mastering. I'm thinking since ProTools has a kind of monopoly so far I might be safer going with that, yet you give great food for thought. I'm going to have a lot of questions and pitfalls so Reaper has a much better help forum than ProTools, right? I need to think more and you gave me more food for thought. Thanks again for taking your precious time to respond!

Thanks!
Winfred

What you use depends in part on who is going to be doing what.

If you are going to a studio, you use what they have.

If you are recording it yourself, then you use whatever you want, keeping in mind cost, functionality and your own requirements.

If you are doing some part of the recording, then want to take it elsewhere to do further work, you can simply take your WAV files to them and they'll load it into whatever they have.

If you are doing your own recording and mixing, then sending the finished mix off for mastering, then you just send your mixed file and they will load it up into whatever they use.
 
You only need pro tools if you are collaborating with a studio that also uses pro tools and are building up songs together, or sending rough ideas to and from, and this is only during the mix and pre-mix process because you would want to make sure you both are using the same plugins, and It is pretty much "only" for this reason. When it comes to mastering it does not matter at all, you can send your mixed .wav files over to your mastering engineer and that would be all he needs, wether or not you mixed in audacity, or logic or whatever is completely irrelevent.

I guess some pro studios will take their projects with them to other pro studios to do more tracking, or mixing and so this is where pro tools is kind of the standard, if I ran a pro studio. I would stick with my main DAW Logic-x, but I would probably also have a version of Pro-Tools just for this reason(and also this would be so others could use it as they may be more familiar with it, I would refuse to dedicate a healthy chunk of time to learning another DAW for so little benefit). A studio I worked at had pro-tools but never once saw it being used. I'm trying to think of real pro's that do not use Pro-Tools yet mix all the big songs you probably listen to but so far only Ulrich Wild is springing to mind. In the electronic music world pro-tools is rarely used I believe. Warren Huart I know uses pro-tools to mix, but Logic-x to arrange synth parts.

i don't want to put you off your Pro-tools purchase, I am thinking of saving you money/time. So, you get your 3 tracks with pro-tools lite. What then? You have to buy the DAW at high price (lots of daws are half cost, and i'm talking pro DAW's, that do everything pro tools does) OR, you need to re-learn how to use another DAW and start all over again and lets be honest, learning a DAW is a task in itself. I'm not saying to go with the free option, garageband only because if you are serious about recording you will want maximum flexibility long term even though there are plenty of people (you would not believe) making a living on youtube using garageband to record their songs. But I think getting real professional industry standard DAW is not that big of a cost generally and well worth the purchase so you have near unlimited flexibility.

If you just want to crack on with your songs straight away, use pro-tools lite but in the meantime, look around and don't fall for the demo version baiting you into buying the full version by limiting probably essential tools in the DAW that you may likely find great use for (Input monitoring for starters!, FYI i'd be pulling my hair out without that feature, you might be lucky, your Audio Interface might have on-board monitoring!, In-fact I think it does lucky for you! and seeing as you are recording nylon guitar and not guitar amp sim stuff you are doubly lucky) But still, I wouldn't be surprised if you are restricted further still with other features that will probably be really beneficial for you.

I didn't read all of this thread and I apologise but not sure if you are using pc or mac.

Knowing what I know now, and if I had to start over. I would buy Logic-X over Pro-Tools. I can easily find workarounds if I wanted to send files over to a studio that uses pro-tools, bouncing down my tracks and printing my own effects, or even just sending a rough demo to the mixing engineer there and saying (I like those effects, can you please do something similar) You would have to do this anyway if you happened to use some 3rd party plugins or amp sims etc that the other studio didn't own.

Even if you got into recording whole bands, or mixing pop songs with 100+ tracks, pro-tools has no advantage, pro-tools is not some target DAW that everyone needs to get one day. You will get lifelong use out of just about any pro DAW, and they are all matching each other quite well. I've seen lots of debate and videos about this issue coming straight from the horses mouth (warren huart etc) and they all say the same thing...... Pick a DAW, Learn it well! Not once have I ever seen anyone at the top of their game recommend to buy Pro-Tools because of X reason. I'll gaurantee studios are receiving multitracks from DAW's other than pro-tools more often than not! It's essentially a very minor inconvenience in my opinion.

Don't keep switching DAW's though, very counterproductive. (Cubase/Reason/Logic/Nuendo/FLstudio + many more are all incredible DAWS that do it all) (And yes I said FLStudio)
 
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Hi JamEZmusic! (also Gecko zzed, and anyone else!)

Thanks for your input (s)! My "studio" will be my bedroom in my 481 sq ft apartment. I'm yet to be fully ready. I have a slow going process with my tote type boxes of my books and a lot of papers I have to sift through. I don't know if it was a wise idea or not... but on Dec 31, with some Christmas gift money, I bought my Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen. I bought it for $160 then because it was still at the Christmas season price and thought after the 1st of the year it could go up even higher in price. Is that a common price trend?

I'm still sorting through a lot of things to make room i.e. donating to Goodwill (yet slow too as I haul gradually to GoodWill via the city bus system. Also sorting family momentos to send to siblings etc. My 2i2 sits in the box unopened, as well as my 2 pop screens, 2 shock mounts, that are new. The last I recorded was in 2004 and 2005 my two solo acoustic piano albums that back then I had "M-Box" and two Studio Projects B3 Condenser Mics that I will be using and can switch from cardoid, omni, and figure 8, a matched pair. The M-Box and the ProTools that came with M-Box worked on "XP" windows software as I don't have Apple.

I still have the mic stands and nice XLR cables. This time around... then I guess I'll do fine with the free ProTools that comes with the 2i2. I might try Reaper that Gecko zzed suggests only I don't know what a "CPU footprint" that you mention is. In fact I need to learn what a lot of the recording terminologies are. My computer is going to be my about 8 yr old Dell Latitude 830D laptop Duo Core with 2 gigs RAM and Windows 7Pro. I don't know if that will work well or not. Anyone out there let me know as I know you are an Apple user. If I have to I'll move my desktop into my bedroom, but hoping to be able to use my laptop.

I'm one of these people that is not very tech oriented and focus more on my music. The problem of course with that is I can't afford going to a pro studio. Also going the pro studio route there is the inevitable pressure of recording within the studio time frame and doing things with as few takes as possible, a kind of tension I really want to try to avoid thus creating my own studio and hiring someone to do the mastering is the best way for me. I did that before in 2004 and 2005 with my two 60 and 70 minute solo albums with, relatively speaking ha, significant success. I had many happy listeners and sold, when I had more money, pro reproduced CD's made by Oasis. I've sold so far about 3,875 CD's. Most of those sold back in 2004 to 2007. I only burn them on my computer now and sell a few sometimes. I haven't performed piano in public in many years and didn't very often even back in 2004 and '07.

With that said, what is "input monitoring"? I use to listen to myself recording with headphones on with the M-Box. You're saying I don't have that capability with the 2i2? "Metronome", do you mean one of those old fashioned timers that tick? Is "cans" slang for mic? What are "plug-ins". Really I'm sorry as I don't understand a lot of what you're saying. The problem is myself. I need to go back to reading about recording more in order to do well and also understand you guys who have done your homework. I'm sorry about that! Time marches on as I think I found, after a lot of searching, my former sound engineer's obituary... I hope not. I've had bad luck trying to find him. I remember some of the terms you use. I recall he had me record in very high resolution in "text file" where on his lab equipment he could dither it down etc. I think I did record at 96Hz. He said he was blown away by my quality, so I'm hoping now the 2i2 is much better than the M-Box, although I had a nice quiet sound floor etc and wished I didn't have to buy more, but at least I could still use my mics and stands. With all that I said does it seem I'm doing things at least somewhat right? Any insights from anyone is much appreciated. Thanks too to you Gecko zzed!

Top of the Evening, or Day!
Winfred
 
What you use depends in part on who is going to be doing what.

If you are going to a studio, you use what they have.

If you are recording it yourself, then you use whatever you want, keeping in mind cost, functionality and your own requirements.

If you are doing some part of the recording, then want to take it elsewhere to do further work, you can simply take your WAV files to them and they'll load it into whatever they have.

If you are doing your own recording and mixing, then sending the finished mix off for mastering, then you just send your mixed file and they will load it up into whatever they use.

Hi Gecko zzed!

Thanks again for responding and below to JamEZmusic is maybe to you too, but understand if you don't have time. I'm probably getting redundant at times. With recording before I bring it to an engineer to remaster with the term "mixing" I'm not sure what you mean. I plan to record all at once and not mix anything, unless I'll be doing something wrong. It's just going to be me singing and playing acoustic nylon string guitar that has no plug-in that I will have my other Studio Projects B3 mic on. After I get my best versions of an hour long album of my original music I'll then either on line or in St. Paul or Minneapolis find an engineer to do the mastering. I can't find the engineer I had through Oasis CD Manufacturing back in 2004 and 2005, Stewart Weaver. He said he worked with "The Cars", and for other companies. He was very good. He even took my recordings home from the lab to listen to on his own home stereo. He said he did that to hear his work in different environments. He said my result was so good he charged the minimum $60 for an hour of work, which was very nice of him, and the result with both of my albums he mastered a year apart. He had me burn in high resolution and send to him as a "text file". He would then dither it down and did some other things in his lab at the company. Am I planning things right with my present minimal equipment and software? Maybe I'll get that software you mentioned. Again if you don't have time I fully understand.

Top of the Day!
Winfred
 
I need to make sure I understand your process.

You sit with your guitar in front of the B3, hit record, then play and sing into the one microphone?

If that's the case, and as you use no effects, there is nothing to mix; there's only one track. Mixing would be needed if you used two mikes, one for vocals, one for guitar, and they were recorded on separate tracks. These would then need to be adjusted (i.e. mixed) to get a balanced result.

So, that being the case, you can just go ahead, play and sing to your heart's content until you are happy with a selected hour's worth of material.

Then you just need to find someone to master it for you. If the person you had is gone, then you have to find someone new. There are some on this site who may be willing to tackle the project.
 
Sorry if my reply is all over the place, feelin off today.

It's the opposite, I think you interface DOES allow you to direct monitor, so even if pro-tools does not allow it then you will be good to go still. Input monitoring is just so you can listen through your headphones your own performance while you are recording. For me it's vital because you will also hear if your microphone is in a bad position, and you would use your headphones to see the effect that your mic positioning is having on the sound. That's all it is. And if you are singing and playing guitar at the same time you probably wont even bother with a metronome (that click). I will always use it because otherwise I will struggle to keep all of my tracks in time, especially if the intro of a song has no drums for me to follow along to and I want to time a hard hitting strum so everything comes in perfect timing together. I normally use a metronome for scratch tracks then I program simple drums in and then use that in replace of a metronome. but if you're playing guitar+singing then I think honestly a metronome could actually hold you back and I wouldn't use it. (using a metronome could make your performance sound robotic, and destroy any natural response or urge to play at a faster bpm during a particular part of a song that might sound nice; Chorus?)

It seems like you are doing fine, if you already had great success in the past with no plugins, or metronome then I wouldn't worry. A plugin is something you would place into an insert (a spare slot) in your track so you can further process it if you need to. If you wanted to EQ, maybe you mik'd up too close and want to turn down the bass a bit you load an EQ and turn down the bass part of your guitar track, there are hundreds maybe thousands of different plugins. You want reverb? you use a reverb plugin. Delay? etc. etc. All DAWS have a very good selection of free plugins, and you can get professional mixes using them. I can't speak for ALL daws, like mixcraft and audacity which I believe are the free ones but any pro DAW is going to have everything you would ever really need straight out of the box.

The only reason I said about using plugins is because I thought you may have been doing actual mixes with many tracks. I said I personally need at least the ability to load in at least 5 minimum (for my purposes). Really great job though on getting away without using them before in the past. I would never be able to do that. I am not a great performer, and using cheap budget harsh instruments so I need to use a compressor plugin to control my loud and soft parts of the guitar, and an EQ plugin to try and make the guitar sound better than it really is, and saturation plugin to make it sound like I recorded with a nicer tube pre-amp. And that is before I even start mixing for real. I would use reverbs and delay plugins also. But I don't think you should necessarily, your style of music might not call for it. it probably doesn't even call for a metronome to keep that strict timing, keep performance natural I reckon

If your computer can record fine with no pops and crackles then you are good to go. You may need to go into settings in protools and just adjust the buffer size to maximum (google how to do this, it's a very common process to set it as fast as you can get away with when recording so you have minimal lag, and when you have finished recording you set it all the way slow to give your computer some extra time to process your mix in playback when running through a ton of processing) which will help a lot if you are getting horrible artifacts where your computer is struggling to keep up, and seeing as you will not be monitoring (through protools) anyway you won't notice the lag.. If you are overdubbing tracks (recording just a guitar, and then recording just a vocal while listening back to the previously recorded guitar track, instead of recording guitar + vocals in 1 pass) just move your tracks back on the beat if you need to. If you find you are getting the crackles during recording which will destroy the sound of your track while you are on maximum buffer size, then your computer is probably not up to the job. I had a laptop of similar specs and I remember struggling getting a clean recording once I would get the odd POP during my takes (My audio interface was really crap though, you have far better than what I start out on), but it was getting a bit knackered which probably had more to do with it. You can also just try lowering the sample rate from 96, to 44.1khz to help. Once you have got your recordings you probably haven't got much else to worry about. Your Scarlett Interface will do most of the heavy lifting anyway. If only an odd pop, or crackle you may be able to edit it out, if you are overdubbing tracks it's way easier. When I record just a guitar part I normally record more than 1 take, that way if I did get a pop, or a car or a dog barks and I didn't notice it, then I can just cut from the decent guitar take and splice in, or if I make a mistake during the middle of the song I will probably keep the take if it's generally a good take but do another take and carefully edit out mistake using the good take. It's way easier for me to do this though as I keep strict timing with a metronome. (Also if I wanted to get that nice stereo effect then I have a spare take to play with by panning both hard left and right) Sometimes I am very undecided on if I will need it, regardless I don't think it's a bad idea to record more than 1 take, it's actually saved my ass on more than 1 occasion)

Can's is slang for Headphones. sorry.

I have a lot of homework to catch up on still, most on here are faaar more experienced than me and really know their stuff. And when I say "most" that is not an exaggeration at all, I am still a newbie.

Now I'm really not too sure on this but that mbox back in 2007 could possibly had been recording in 16bit? I know a lot of cheaper interfaces back then were like this I tried to look up the specs but don't know what version you had but not too important anyway you will now be recording in 24bit which brings the noise floor down even further and you do not have to record so hot. You will probably have the option to record in 192khz aswel but...... really I think that's overkill. As you said, will be dithered down anyways when mastered.

You are doing things right... great infact, especially if mastering engineer said he didn't have to do much for your tracks. Do it again!

I really don't mind trying to help out, may not be able to get back very quickly sometimes but it's definitely no sweat.

EDIT: Mixcraft is not actually a free DAW my mistake

I hope this time I didn't confuse you with any slang or technical talk, I tried to take it a bit slower in my ignorance I sometimes forget I'm talking to somebody who's just startin out on the newer technology.
 
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Sorry if my reply is all over the place, feelin off today.

It's the opposite, I think you interface DOES allow you to direct monitor, so even if pro-tools does not allow it then you will be good to go still. Input monitoring is just so you can listen through your headphones your own performance while you are recording. For me it's vital because you will also hear if your microphone is in a bad position, and you would use your headphones to see the effect that your mic positioning is having on the sound. That's all it is. And if you are singing and playing guitar at the same time you probably wont even bother with a metronome (that click). I will always use it because otherwise I will struggle to keep all of my tracks in time, especially if the intro of a song has no drums for me to follow along to and I want to time a hard hitting strum so everything comes in perfect timing together. I normally use a metronome for scratch tracks then I program simple drums in and then use that in replace of a metronome. but if you're playing guitar+singing then I think honestly a metronome could actually hold you back and I wouldn't use it. (using a metronome could make your performance sound robotic, and destroy any natural response or urge to play at a faster bpm during a particular part of a song that might sound nice; Chorus?)

It seems like you are doing fine, if you already had great success in the past with no plugins, or metronome then I wouldn't worry. A plugin is something you would place into an insert (a spare slot) in your track so you can further process it if you need to. If you wanted to EQ, maybe you mik'd up too close and want to turn down the bass a bit you load an EQ and turn down the bass part of your guitar track, there are hundreds maybe thousands of different plugins. You want reverb? you use a reverb plugin. Delay? etc. etc. All DAWS have a very good selection of free plugins, and you can get professional mixes using them. I can't speak for ALL daws, like mixcraft and audacity which I believe are the free ones but any pro DAW is going to have everything you would ever really need straight out of the box.

The only reason I said about using plugins is because I thought you may have been doing actual mixes with many tracks. I said I personally need at least the ability to load in at least 5 minimum (for my purposes). Really great job though on getting away without using them before in the past. I would never be able to do that. I am not a great performer, and using cheap budget harsh instruments so I need to use a compressor plugin to control my loud and soft parts of the guitar, and an EQ plugin to try and make the guitar sound better than it really is, and saturation plugin to make it sound like I recorded with a nicer tube pre-amp. And that is before I even start mixing for real. I would use reverbs and delay plugins also. But I don't think you should necessarily, your style of music might not call for it. it probably doesn't even call for a metronome to keep that strict timing, keep performance natural I reckon

If your computer can record fine with no pops and crackles then you are good to go. You may need to go into settings in protools and just adjust the buffer size to maximum (google how to do this, it's a very common process to set it as fast as you can get away with when recording so you have minimal lag, and when you have finished recording you set it all the way slow to give your computer some extra time to process your mix in playback when running through a ton of processing) which will help a lot if you are getting horrible artifacts where your computer is struggling to keep up, and seeing as you will not be monitoring (through protools) anyway you won't notice the lag.. If you are overdubbing tracks (recording just a guitar, and then recording just a vocal while listening back to the previously recorded guitar track, instead of recording guitar + vocals in 1 pass) just move your tracks back on the beat if you need to. If you find you are getting the crackles during recording which will destroy the sound of your track while you are on maximum buffer size, then your computer is probably not up to the job. I had a laptop of similar specs and I remember struggling getting a clean recording once I would get the odd POP during my takes (My audio interface was really crap though, you have far better than what I start out on), but it was getting a bit knackered which probably had more to do with it. You can also just try lowering the sample rate from 96, to 44.1khz to help. Once you have got your recordings you probably haven't got much else to worry about. Your Scarlett Interface will do most of the heavy lifting anyway. If only an odd pop, or crackle you may be able to edit it out, if you are overdubbing tracks it's way easier. When I record just a guitar part I normally record more than 1 take, that way if I did get a pop, or a car or a dog barks and I didn't notice it, then I can just cut from the decent guitar take and splice in, or if I make a mistake during the middle of the song I will probably keep the take if it's generally a good take but do another take and carefully edit out mistake using the good take. It's way easier for me to do this though as I keep strict timing with a metronome. (Also if I wanted to get that nice stereo effect then I have a spare take to play with by panning both hard left and right) Sometimes I am very undecided on if I will need it, regardless I don't think it's a bad idea to record more than 1 take, it's actually saved my ass on more than 1 occasion)

Can's is slang for Headphones. sorry.

I have a lot of homework to catch up on still, most on here are faaar more experienced than me and really know their stuff. And when I say "most" that is not an exaggeration at all, I am still a newbie.

Now I'm really not too sure on this but that mbox back in 2007 could possibly had been recording in 16bit? I know a lot of cheaper interfaces back then were like this I tried to look up the specs but don't know what version you had but not too important anyway you will now be recording in 24bit which brings the noise floor down even further and you do not have to record so hot. You will probably have the option to record in 192khz aswel but...... really I think that's overkill. As you said, will be dithered down anyways when mastered.

You are doing things right... great infact, especially if mastering engineer said he didn't have to do much for your tracks. Do it again!

I really don't mind trying to help out, may not be able to get back very quickly sometimes but it's definitely no sweat.

EDIT: Mixcraft is not actually a free DAW my mistake

I hope this time I didn't confuse you with any slang or technical talk, I tried to take it a bit slower in my ignorance I sometimes forget I'm talking to somebody who's just startin out on the newer technology.

Hi JamEZmusic! Wow! So nice of you to take major time with me! Nothing to be sorry about with me, no pressure here! I'm going to copy/paste all of this with my thread including your invaluable advice, and store it on my flash drives and my portable external drive for safe keeping. The reason I'm a solo musician/songwriter is because I have a hard time with keeping it "right" with other musicians. I use to go to "jams" where they sit in a circle and you can lead a song or "pass". Really though if you "pass" all the time I found it eventually takes effect with the others. I would just say I want to play background or whatever. Eventually I realized it was apropos not eventually to "show your stuff" and lead, or also some of the "jams" were such that in a way we were also entertaining the customers to the coffee house or pub... which effected me too. In fact all the jams I went to over several years were also entertaining listeners. I quit the jams and simply attended "open mics" for a long time, then got brave enough to sign up and play songs I'd written and some covers and was shocked people were liking it. Metronomes or "the beat" bothers me as I change the meter with my playing and also have parts that are louder and others that are softer. Two different times, and different people who didn't know each other, said I reminded them of a, Nick Drake, a guy who was British. I found he died in 1974. He had two vinyl albums or so, but no way was I as good as him. He's right on the beat too and seems not to alter it. In a way he was off-beat, but not sure. I was surprised being compared to him and found a lot of his stuff on YouTube.

I realize now I will be playing my harmonica with some of my recordings... so the mic for my voice will also have harmonica. When I recorded solo piano I always wore my headphones. I think I recorded at 96Khz and 32bit... or maybe it was 64. The sound engineer had me save it as a "text file" onto the CD's I mailed to him. Those CD's are buried in my stuff right now. I saw a while back where I wrote the technical stuff on the covers of each CD as one album with a "Text file" took a lot of megabytes. I am now sorting through my worldly belongings to make room to record as I had 26 plastic totes stacked in my little apartment and now down by 8 totes to a lot of writing and books. I've written in just about all modes of creative writing throughout my adult life and have old drafts etc I need to toss down to what was my last draft. Since it all takes so much of the room I'm now realizing I have 18 totes now with about 3 with books and the rest is my writing and miscellaneous papers and old family momentos etc as I took care of my parents until they transcended.

People at open mics have liked my guitar and singing so much I decided to record before I sign off from this temporal world, hoping to leave behind at least one solo album of my music in addition to the two solo piano albums I created back in 2004 and 2005. I never toured but sold now about 3,875 of them. I'm 66 and one time line is... I could end up pushing a walker in not all that many years... I hope not, but it's a real world reality. Now I have maybe a chance to on a low budget go for several years and see the world, travel cheap on my Social Security as part of my "bucket list". I should have gone long ago, but all I have is the present, like anyone. In some ways today I've been "shifting" sort of my paradigm. My Focusrite 2i2 3rd Generation sits unopened in the box from Amazon, also my two pop screens and shock mounts. In some ways I feel like I should return them to Amazon for a refund and leave.

I thought by recording I could make some extra money to support my trip as it will take several years, a major adventure. Maybe it's a pipe dream thinking some of my music might sell while I'm on the road and help pay for my trip. There's a lot of musicians out there and it's my problem that my chronic low self-esteem kept me from believing my music was good enough, meaning now -- my guitar and singing. My solo piano CD's, the equipment, cost of manufacturing, effort to sell, was a great and at times scary experience (I mean believing in myself enough to record, and spending thousands of dollars), only I was somewhat "younger" relatively speaking. At my age more health issues arise.

It's funny as at times I envision putting three totes on a 2 wheeled dolly I borrowed, hauling them down maybe 2 at a time to the big dumpsters with the high-rise apt bldg I live in and dumping each one, saving out my used books and selling them to a used bookstore, returning my 2i2 for refund, getting my vaccinations etc. and leave. I was told I can go to ATM's worldwide to get my Social Security gradually as I travel, not a lot, but if I stay in the cheaper countries I'll be okay, and go. I have a lot of writing I loved creating, screenplays, novels, essays, short stories, and 2 solo piano albums, that never really got anywhere... but what is it all really? That's all I've ever owned. I commute by bicycle so donate that somewhere. There's a 2 wheeled cart that attaches to the hips with a wide belt that puts like 95% of the load on the wheels as I have a bad back... but leave my comfort zone, music, and all behind, and go. Really though my annual lease started on December 1st for the next year, and I suppose they'll want thousands in rent... if that's how it works. There is a nuts and bolts, whatever... type of recording studio here that charges $36 an hour as an exception to the lower budget songwriters. Maybe I should take the risk of being nervous and the pressure of doing my songs in not to many takes and recording in a studio. Five hours would be $180 and maybe I'd be able to record my whole 60 minute album. Sorry about all this about "my life" but strange how right now between you and Gecko zzed this happening. Really it's all been on my mind but seems to be forcing itself to a kind of plain or surface right now and I better not burden you with more. I'm going to consider your much appreciated advice and even sharing from your own recording experience. Here I'm hashing out all these "life" decisions and shouldn't be. Sorry about that, but I'll just leave it posted in case some other musician might feel philosophical. Also I mention some things to Gecko zzed in my reply to him just before you. If you don't have time for all of this I fully understand. Thanks so much for your input!

Kindest Regards,
Winfred
 
I need to make sure I understand your process.

You sit with your guitar in front of the B3, hit record, then play and sing into the one microphone?

If that's the case, and as you use no effects, there is nothing to mix; there's only one track. Mixing would be needed if you used two mikes, one for vocals, one for guitar, and they were recorded on separate tracks. These would then need to be adjusted (i.e. mixed) to get a balanced result.

So, that being the case, you can just go ahead, play and sing to your heart's content until you are happy with a selected hour's worth of material.

Then you just need to find someone to master it for you. If the person you had is gone, then you have to find someone new. There are some on this site who may be willing to tackle the project.

Hi Gecko zzed! I'm trying to find my reply I wrote about an hour ago and can't find it! I have a reply and need to hopefully figure out where it went. So very nice of you to take the time to respond to me! Also I understand if you don't have time but maybe if you can take a look at what I mention to JamEZmusic.

Top of the Day!
Winfred
 
Focus on getting started as simply and as easily as possible.

If you have ProTools, use it.

If you want to try something that is not limited, try Reaper. A low CPU footprint means it doesn't use too much computing power to get the job done.

You have two mikes and an interface.

Point one at your guitar ( and a good starting point is to point somewhere near where the next joins the body).

Point the other at your mouth.

Set the DAW up to record two tracks, one for each of the 2i2's inputs, hit record and go for it.
 
I need to make sure I understand your process.

You sit with your guitar in front of the B3, hit record, then play and sing into the one microphone?

If that's the case, and as you use no effects, there is nothing to mix; there's only one track. Mixing would be needed if you used two mikes, one for vocals, one for guitar, and they were recorded on separate tracks. These would then need to be adjusted (i.e. mixed) to get a balanced result.

So, that being the case, you can just go ahead, play and sing to your heart's content until you are happy with a selected hour's worth of material.

Then you just need to find someone to master it for you. If the person you had is gone, then you have to find someone new. There are some on this site who may be willing to tackle the project.

Hi Gecko zzed! I'm trying to find my reply I wrote about an hour ago and can't find it! I have a reply and need to hopefully figure out where it went. So very nice of you to take the time to respond to me! Also I understand if you don't have time but maybe if you can take a look at what I mention to JamEZmusic in reply to his comment. I reply to him with quote. Basically I'd be writing nearly the same to just pass by you for any input some of my major considerations I came up against after reading you and the inputs of others. If none of this very much appreciated input had happened I think I would not be where I am now at this major juncture in my life. My 2i2 sits unopened in the box. I'm finding I'm hovering on paying $40 an hour to record one album before I leave on my bucket list journey that could take even a few years. I plan to go to ATM's worldwide, travel very low budget, and see the world. I know I can't carry instruments with me but will travel with my tin whistle and harmonica collection. Guitars are just too big. I'm going to have a 2 wheeled cart that attaches to my hips where I can put up to like 95% of my load on the wheels. The cart also converts and by the long handles attaches to the seat post so you can pull it like a trailer behind a bike, which I might do too. I have major issues with my back but feel I can work around it. It all does translate into my considerations to record at home or maybe to record in a studio near me. If you don't have time I fully understand.

Top of the Day!
Winfred
 
Hi Gecko zzed! I'm trying to find my reply I wrote about an hour ago and can't find it! I have a reply and need to hopefully figure out where it went. So very nice of you to take the time to respond to me! Also I understand if you don't have time but maybe if you can take a look at what I mention to JamEZmusic in reply to his comment. I reply to him with quote. Basically I'd be writing nearly the same to just pass by you for any input some of my major considerations I came up against after reading you and the inputs of others. If none of this very much appreciated input had happened I think I would not be where I am now at this major juncture in my life. My 2i2 sits unopened in the box. I'm finding I'm hovering on paying $40 an hour to record one album before I leave on my bucket list journey that could take even a few years. I plan to go to ATM's worldwide, travel very low budget, and see the world. I know I can't carry instruments with me but will travel with my tin whistle and harmonica collection. Guitars are just too big. I'm going to have a 2 wheeled cart that attaches to my hips where I can put up to like 95% of my load on the wheels. The cart also converts and by the long handles attaches to the seat post so you can pull it like a trailer behind a bike, which I might do too. I have major issues with my back but feel I can work around it. It all does translate into my considerations to record at home or maybe to record in a studio near me. If you don't have time I fully understand.

Top of the Day!
Winfred

This was my most recent response:

Focus on getting started as simply and as easily as possible.

If you have ProTools, use it.

If you want to try something that is not limited, try Reaper. A low CPU footprint means it doesn't use too much computing power to get the job done.

You have two mikes and an interface.

Point one at your guitar ( and a good starting point is to point somewhere near where the next joins the body).

Point the other at your mouth.

Set the DAW up to record two tracks, one for each of the 2i2's inputs, hit record and go for it.
 
Winfred, I have been very busy and finding it difficult to partake in this thread, a short reply would not do you justice and have not had an hour spare recently. My Macbook Pro charger went POP on me so have also been unable to get a move on with some compositions also. It just seems that I am struggling to free up some time recently. Sorry if it seems like I am ducking out of this thread. Not the case at all.
 
Winfred, I have been very busy and finding it difficult to partake in this thread, a short reply would not do you justice and have not had an hour spare recently. My Macbook Pro charger went POP on me so have also been unable to get a move on with some compositions also. It just seems that I am struggling to free up some time recently. Sorry if it seems like I am ducking out of this thread. Not the case at all.

Hi JamEZmusic!

It was very nice of you to take your precious time to respond so conscientiously and invaluable input for me! Sorry your device burned out on you. I imagine it is a very expensive piece of equipment. That's great you have compositions in the making and hope all goes well. I am very grateful for your help!

Kindest Regards,
Winfred
 
Hi Gecko zzed!

I was thinking of this thread and knew I was going to come back, and of you with all your help and others here. This hasn't gone full circle quite yet, although I want to let you know I did basically as you so wisely advised and that is just to get brave and do it. I had trial runs with my old Paracho, Mexico guitar from the 60's I've owned since 1980. I sadly realized it just wasn't doing the job well enough. It's a long story, but I bought a Takamine No.10 built in 1986 classical guitar online and cost $1,000. It has rosewood back and sides and a cedar top. To be short it is a beautiful hardly ever played, deep and rich sounding instrument. I feel the guitar made it to me via divine intervention. I had to resolve the classic 3rd string problem I learned the hard way many classical guitars have.

It took a while and the other day decided to resume recording with my "new" guitar. I also finally decided to buy a camcorder and dug into year long savings to get the Zoom Q8. This sounds kind of crazy, but my 2i2 still since january sits in the box unopened. The Q8 has XLR cable sockets and phantom power so I bought it bran new. I was intimidated at first and hesitant, but later embarrassed as it is quite easy to use with my simpler application of just 2 mics. I took out my Studio Project B3 large diaphragm condenser mics I bought 17 yrs ago back when I had a little more money. Back then I recorded two solo piano CD's. Finally with the right camcorder, mics, and the right guitar, a long process, I recorded and felt I was "ready". I also got a free 60 day trial of Reaper. I took very careful notes and watched part of a long tutorial on how to use it on YouTube. I still ended up shying away from editing, and am paying for it in a way, but you'll see if you see my video. It's sad though with only 52 views in 25 hours! Take a look, if you have time, and I understand fully if you don't, at my debut cover song video I just posted 25 hrs ago on YouTube. It's at:

YouTube

I think my guitar sounds kind of muddled and not like it sounds in actuality with deep rich tone. Would there be a better mic maybe as the solution? At several open mics the hosts had a small black flat ended mic and someone called it I think a "Shure" and wonder if it was the SM57 that captured the sound of my acoustic guitar so well. Would that maybe solve the problem. Maybe I'm being too fussy. Just want to know what you think. With only 52 hits in 25 hrs I'm wondering if you might also know how I can get more to click on my video. Do you know of any mailing lists of some kind? Any ideas on how I can increase views would be great. I saw an SM57 for $99 US dollars and if I have to I'll get one of those. I have I think it's the B 1.3 or something like that stored away. Is that good for acoustic guitar. I remember buying it many years ago for $75 from a Schmidt Music store, a big chain music store in the US. Anyone else here I hope you can take a look and give my video a thumbs up as I hope it will attract people to hear my original songs I'll be posting. More later!

Many Thanks!
Winfred
 
I am so glad you posted back here, It's nice to see how you are getting on!

Well done, I really enjoyed your youtube video. You nailed the balance of the vocal/guitar except near the end you started singing a bit too quiet so maybe automate that vocal fader up.

The SM57 is a great mic, but you have to be aware of the lack of bass with distance miking. It's high passed at 200hz. So the mic IMO is more of a close mic (proximity counteracts the 200hz HPF) and with the close miking you reduce the amount of room sound so you might want to add some reverb or ambient mic into the blend if you find you have not got your desired ambience. I've used it at a distance and got great results though, but the song arrangement allowed me to do this. eg: I intended on highpassing high up anyway, and guitar was too boomy.

Thanks for checking back in with us. I have not been around here for months myself so it was a surprise to see this thread pop back up.

Nice one.
 
I admit the audio sounded better than expected. There was a nice crisp detailed vocal with the SP B3, the overall sound was full and noise floor no problem. Some room verb too.

The song got me flying through the Joni Mitchell version that lead to the Judy Collins versions (very fast tempo! mono and stereo 45) , recorded through Elektra....which had a name drop of the Byrds recording at Elektra too and a producer mentioned a Byrds song with writing credits to Harvey Gerst...a poster here. The 2000 version of Joni's and the 1000's of covers was an interesting story in itself, of how Joni didn't have a clue it would be so big a hit. The song itself is mesmerizing how it captured the ears of so many recording artists, I never knew all that. wow!

Anyway! You seem to have a good grasp on recording and getting the sounds mixed, and mic placements might be all you need to tweak, if you want to work on the guitar clarity. It was a recording easy on the ears as is, I listened to it a few times...

good luck with your adventures!
 
Good to see you back, Winfred.

First off, the playing was really good. Nice arrangement on Joni's music.

The vocals sounded pretty good to me. They were a bit low in comparison to the guitar but that can be adjusted. The tone of your voice was captured pretty well. For the guitar, I think you just need to start with some different placements of the mic. Acoustic guitar is a big instrument, and the sound varies a lot depending on where the mic is pointed. Aiming straight at the soundhole usually gives a boomy sound. With a nylon string guitar, you won't get much in the way of brightness from the strings, so I would try pointing the mic at the neck joint, perhaps tilted a bit towards the soundhole if you need it. I would sit down with the camera on, play a bit, move the mic, play some more, move again, then go back and listen to each position until you find the spot that sounds the best. With using the camera, you won't even have to try to remember which setup you like really is.

Keep at it, and you'll find that things get better as you learn what works best.

As for only getting 52 view in 25 hours, that's actually not bad. I have a video I posted weeks ago that has about 30 view, but it was posted strictly for a forum that I'm on. Considering the BILLIONS of videos on the MILLIONS of channels on YouTube, its actually quite good considering its a new channel. As you build your portfolio, and post videos on various forums, you will get more views. Its not like Youtube will promote a video unless you get millions of hits. Its a bit of a vicious circle. You get more views because you have a lot of views!
 
Playing was good, voice was good, the version was interesting and engaging.

I echo many of the comments made above. I would like to have heard more of the voice.

it's an honest home video, and I am reluctant to say too much about it because of that. However, there are relatively easy things you can do make it visually more appealing. For example, placing the mike stand that's on your right further to your right, bringing the boom in across from the right, and changing the orientation of the mike accordingly. That would stop the boom from dominating the vision. Another possibility is to switch vocal and guitar mikes, so you use the mike on your right for voice, and the one on your left for the guitar. That would have the added benefit of being able to focus it more on where the neck joins the guitar, which might give a cleaner guitar sound.

Also, on the left and right I can see some furniture poking into the scene. Zooming in tighter might get rid of that, or maybe pushing the furniture out of the way. And maybe you could change the position of your chair so that the power point on thge wall is covered up.

But well done for getting your system up and running and producing great results.
 
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