A few questions

M

Metallica5

New member
Hi, I'm having trouble with a few things and thought I'd get some help from you guys/girls.

My band records on computer and we use a Delta 44 soundcard, Behringer mixer, and Sonar.

When we record vocals, they always seem move around too much in the mix, we think it might have to do with the fact that we are using an SM-58 for recording vocals. Would it be better if we got a condensor mic? Also, can anyone explain to me how to use Sonar's compressor and some general settings I would use for drums and bass?

Also, in our recordings, we seem to keep the drums up too high. I think its because we didn't mic the cymbals good enough. What are some ways to know if your drums are too loud in a final mix?


thanks for your help!
 
The sm58 is a good budget vocal mic. You don't really need a condensor. Try getting a decent outboard compressor first. A bit of mic technique and some volume envelop editing should get it sounding a bit smoother.

Now for mic overheads s couple of condensors would be sweet. that might help your cymbal balance. Are you recording the drum mics on seperate channels and if so, how many?

How loud you mix drums is up to you and can vary greatly from one genre to the next but generally speaking I try to keep drums from "poking out" too much.
 
thanks, the only problem with buying a compressor is that we just don't have any money to buy one. Once we get money we weill invest in one, but for right now we just need to get by on what we have.

We record drums to 4 different tracks.

1-snare and hi-hat
1-first 2 toms and crash symbols
1-second 2 toms and ride/china
1-kick

4 tracks is as many as we can do seperately with our set-up.
 
heres a thought- ditch the 2 tom mics- scrape together $100- sell blood plasma, whatever, buy a pair of small diaphram condensors- even ones that arnt that good, if youve never heard the differnce between a dynamic and condensor mic- WILL blow you away- the MXL603's are gettin alot of press around here lately $50 each- the thought is the overheads will pick up a stereo image of the kit and 2 other tracks, one with the kick and the other with the snare will give ya control over those elemnts

-jeff
 
Metallica5 said:
thanks, the only problem with buying a compressor is that we just don't have any money to buy one. Once we get money we weill invest in one, but for right now we just need to get by on what we have.

We record drums to 4 different tracks.

1-snare and hi-hat
1-first 2 toms and crash symbols
1-second 2 toms and ride/china
1-kick

4 tracks is as many as we can do seperately with our set-up.
Click to expand...
That should work alright if you spend the time on mic placement. Record a bit and move the mics...repeat until it gets there. As far as vocals go, get used to using the mic as a dynamic controlled by moving it closer on quiet parts and further in loud parts. A good singer should at least try to adjust volume and tone to fit into the track.

If all else fails use the volume envelope inside Sonar to create the attenuation where the voice gets too loud or spikes out of the mix. You can almost do it visually by looking at the wave size compared to the other parts in the song. Nothing will replace careful listening though.
 
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