Am I all alone?

T

Terry Wetzel

New member
Hello all,
I need to ask this question. I have my own basement studio and have been involved in diy home recording since retiring from my day job a few years ago. My set up is, a Mackie 24 track,8 bus analog mixer, an Alesis HD24 hard disk recorder, and an Alesis Masterlink. I also have an older pc equipped with Sound Forge and CD Archetect software. I'm not a Protools user and gave that up a while back. I found it too complicated for my senior citizen grasp of its functions. Now, does anyone out there have a similar set up? I work totally alone. Being a lifelong musician I record all instruments one track at a time,(Guitars, bass, piano, drums(I even do each drum seperately,I.E. snare, bass drum, hi hat,and ride.) this way I can mix each to perfection,(at least to my ear). I also do the vocals, lead and background harmonys. No, I'm not crazy! It works for me. I'd like to trade tips and Ideas with anyone who shares my love of recording ,albeit old school. Also, is anyone aware of miixing automation software programs that might integrate in some way with my set up? I forgot to add that I don't use plug ins but 2 rack mount reverb and delay hardware effects units. I know i'm setting myself up here for some ridicule by geekheads but, be that as it may....Thanks
 
Terry Wetzel said:
I work totally alone. Being a lifelong musician I record all instruments one track at a time,(Guitars, bass, piano, drums(I even do each drum seperately,I.E. snare, bass drum, hi hat,and ride.) this way I can mix each to perfection,(at least to my ear). I also do the vocals, lead and background harmonys.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I'd say a huge percentage of people on this site do the same thing, myself included. (Except for the seperate drum thing....I play the drums all at the same time.)
 
Are you all alone? Nah...I'd say you're in the majority. At least around here. Lots of us one man bands.

I've got no ideas about a mixing automation dealywhacker for ya. :) I don't use a computer in my studio except for making the screen bigger. ;)

I use the Akai DPS24 and some rack gear. Drums, bass, guitars, vocals and a lava lamp.
:D
 
Yeah I remember automation on my 2408! It was Sharpies and bits of low sticky' masking tape all over the thing.. :D
 
Hi Terry! Nice to meet you.. sorta.. virtually I guess. It was actually encouraging for me to read your post since it was almost a carbon copy of my own situation.
I use a Tascam 788 with a behringer (24 channel) mixer along with an outboard compressor, FX, and exciter (which I never use, btw.. the exciter, that is). I also bought a TC Helicon harmonizer for like $700 bucks.. a total waste. Fake, fake & very inhuman(e) so I don't use that either.. I live with my own voice for all...I also do all of my own guitars, mandolin, keyboards, vocals, harmonies, and bass. Drums is a bit different for me as I've never spent huge amounts of time doing each drum, cymbal, etc... might be laziness, but although I have a good sense of beat & whatnot, I've never considered myself to be very tasteful or even appropriate with the nuances of drumming. I will often used canned beats with little additions here & there like a cymbal crash, kicks, little hi hat open/close stuff... which, by the way is a big weakness in my recordings. I wish I could rent Rami sometimes.. I presume you've heard his elite drumming? After hearing that, I wouldn't dare attempt my own drums. Anywayz, then I dump the whole bit into soundforge for some final spit-shine.
I'd love to trade info anytime. Like you, I felt like the whole world has gone soft... ware, that is, so it's great to find someone else doing a similar gig. Only difference is I'm not retired, so time is always a problem.. anyway, cheers & good luck

oh yeah.. I do own several cheap preamps that I've had some level of success with as long as I use certain ones for certain things and change the tube(s) out.. I annoy the hell out of the big box stores around here because I take like 5-10 of em out of their boxes and listen to each one just plugged in with headphones.. no input device like a mic... this is so I can sift thru the noisy ones because you CAN find quiet ones.. maybe 1 out of every 5 or so... or if it's an ART, maybe 1 out of 25... then if/when I get a good one, I plug my model mic in to see how they mate up.. sometimes will use a guitar if that's my application
 
Terry, lots of great stuff has been recorded like you're doing. "Maybe I'm Amazed" is one of my favorite songs (Paul McCartney said it was his favorite) and it was recorded one track at a time by one guy on a 4 track.

So in the end, the song and the musicianship is way more important that anything. To me there really haven't been any dramatic changes in recording in the last 40 years that I couldn't live without.

Back in the 70's, I used an 8 track reel to reel (Otari MX5050) with an Atari 1040ST (4 MB RAM, 8MHz speed and no hard drive!) and was able to do all the automation by using a sync SMPTE track on track 8 of the reel to reel to drive the Atari computer, which sent out all my MIDI data. All the tracks went through a DMP11 mixer, and those mixers have complete automation capabilities via MIDI.

You could get a DMP11 (if you can stand 44.1/16 quality) and do all your automation with that. They sell for peanuts, often less than $100, and they also have basically 2 SPX90's built in them which still sound good.

You can use the faders on the mixer's channels and any sequencer will be able to record and play them back if connected by MIDI. Or step time changes into a sequencer.

It was a great system, and the DMP11 also recalls scenes so you can store each song as a program change. That would be a cheap solution.
 
Hi Terry, I'm in a similar situation as you, I'm semi retired, with a somewhat limited home studio, and mostly record myself. I play guitar, bass, drums, and a little keyboard, and do vocals (I'm not a great singer but for my purposes I get by.) I do occasionaly record others but most of the time it's just me. A little over a year ago I entered the pro tools world when a friend upgraded his system and made me a good deal on his old mac and digi system, I'm still learning and often fall back to my old puter and even to 4 track tape sometimes. I don't use many plug ins, I'd rather get the sound I want up front (maybe I'm really old school in this respect.) I use assorted mics (mostly dynamics), a 16 chanel mixer, a couple of pre amps, outboard EQ, and a lot of trial and error, and send to the recorder of choice depending on my mood at the moment. I've never had any formal training in recording, what little I know was learned by experimentation. I'd be glad to share any of my experiences, maybe we can learn something from one another. Dan
 
Good to hear from you.

bunt said:
Hi Terry! Nice to meet you.. sorta.. virtually I guess. It was actually encouraging for me to read your post since it was almost a carbon copy of my own situation.
I use a Tascam 788 with a behringer (24 channel) mixer along with an outboard compressor, FX, and exciter (which I never use, btw.. the exciter, that is). I also bought a TC Helicon harmonizer for like $700 bucks.. a total waste. Fake, fake & very inhuman(e) so I don't use that either.. I live with my own voice for all...I also do all of my own guitars, mandolin, keyboards, vocals, harmonies, and bass. Drums is a bit different for me as I've never spent huge amounts of time doing each drum, cymbal, etc... might be laziness, but although I have a good sense of beat & whatnot, I've never considered myself to be very tasteful or even appropriate with the nuances of drumming. I will often used canned beats with little additions here & there like a cymbal crash, kicks, little hi hat open/close stuff... which, by the way is a big weakness in my recordings. I wish I could rent Rami sometimes.. I presume you've heard his elite drumming? After hearing that, I wouldn't dare attempt my own drums. Anywayz, then I dump the whole bit into soundforge for some final spit-shine.
I'd love to trade info anytime. Like you, I felt like the whole world has gone soft... ware, that is, so it's great to find someone else doing a similar gig. Only difference is I'm not retired, so time is always a problem.. anyway, cheers & good luck

oh yeah.. I do own several cheap preamps that I've had some level of success with as long as I use certain ones for certain things and change the tube(s) out.. I annoy the hell out of the big box stores around here because I take like 5-10 of em out of their boxes and listen to each one just plugged in with headphones.. no input device like a mic... this is so I can sift thru the noisy ones because you CAN find quiet ones.. maybe 1 out of every 5 or so... or if it's an ART, maybe 1 out of 25... then if/when I get a good one, I plug my model mic in to see how they mate up.. sometimes will use a guitar if that's my application
Click to expand...

Also good to know I'm not alone here. Yeah, sounds like you follow the same tried and true way of doing it. I also don't use stuff like harmonizers and auto tune. If my ear ever gets that bad, i'll cash in my chips and call it quits. If you would like to listen to some of my stuff:

http://www.myspace.com/thirdgenerationband

that's my old and almost forgotten web site. thanks
 
You are not alone!
I am doing similar as well although I am using Cubase 4.5 and plug-ins.
I am also in the middle of a home studio rebuild (see "Studio Display..." section) and have a few things that may help you on my website (use link below)
HSG
 
Analog musicians in a digital world!

Long time home recordist doing all the instruments. Started with using two cassette decks through a mixer, bouncing 2-1. (spirited performances, ugly sound!) Then I upgraded to the 4 track cassette(revolutionary!) bounced 4-2 to a VHS Recorder with "High Fi" audio and back again. I now could maintain a stereo sound stage for earliest tracks laid down. (The VHS Hi Fi was a very quiet/high head room way to record audio and the TASCAM had dbx on board, so it wasn't too noisy ) I think I have a 12 track "masterpiece" from those days.(6 bounces!)

Entered the digital age the easy way, a TASCAM 2488 , and bought some Roland V drums. I find (cringe) that they sound better, consistently, than trying to mic and eq real drums by myself. My lady likes them better too!

I am not at all digital adverse. The sound quality is incredible and it is so flexible, with endless opportunities. However, I think there is something to be said for having to make decisions, like getting the most musical sound when you track, and not fixing it later "in the box" For me that is when it sounds digital, and I don't mean in a good way.

By the way, anyone else find any irony in that home recordists (as well as pros) can now record and mix with incredible audio resolution, all the headroom in the world, and no noise, while the mass consumers of music have abandoned CD's and downgraded (sound wise) to MP3's !
 
well, you are definitely not alone! i am moving towards a similar setup...i have been mostly digital but am moving towards the analog. i use a omega as the interface, do my mixing in vegas audio (although i am switching to pro tools) and also use soundforge to tweek sounds and practice mastering.

i know you mentioned that you don't use a lot of plugins but if you are using soundforge you may enjoy the line of plug-in's that Izotone has out--pretty nifty stuff.
 
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