the kelvinator
Member
some RHCP vibes you got there..
Bass line disappears
- Thread starter LazerBeakShiek
- Start date
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
Trying to get it going in the right direction. I was looking to get separation in the instruments. So I notched the hell out of it. The drums are a little thin from it. And Im not sure if I am recording the bass right..There seems to be something to it. hehe..
I lowered the recording levels from -6 to -16db. Headroom? Here are 4 instruments and I think they are pretty clear. One does not drown the other out. Yet, it is not terribly loud. It could be the different style of music , or not. I cannot keep playing the same thing over I gotta keep it fresh. Specially when I am trying to learn this.
guitar bass drums voice.
I lowered the recording levels from -6 to -16db. Headroom? Here are 4 instruments and I think they are pretty clear. One does not drown the other out. Yet, it is not terribly loud. It could be the different style of music , or not. I cannot keep playing the same thing over I gotta keep it fresh. Specially when I am trying to learn this.
guitar bass drums voice.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
GTO, what part helped you the most?
Mike, had no problems with those bass and kick drum tracks layering. He was doing minor, subtle changes. I like that I could see his levels. But his tracks had NO boominess or droning from the dynamic range.
Mikes video is just a guy playing with VST's. Does he explain how he got the tracks tight like that in the first place? Or tell us the preset?
He never identifies his problem. Show me it's not layering or lacks separation first.. Then show me how you fixed it. He was not having any separation issues that he could identify.
Todd Leon has videos on youtube, and in one video I had all the equipment he used. I asked for instruction to achieve that sound myself. As an online educator, he agreed. He explained that he records the amp with a microphone and then applies an impulse response to shape the guitar sounds he records. They are not natural at the microphone.
Anybody use an impulse response loader?
Mike, had no problems with those bass and kick drum tracks layering. He was doing minor, subtle changes. I like that I could see his levels. But his tracks had NO boominess or droning from the dynamic range.
Mikes video is just a guy playing with VST's. Does he explain how he got the tracks tight like that in the first place? Or tell us the preset?
He never identifies his problem. Show me it's not layering or lacks separation first.. Then show me how you fixed it. He was not having any separation issues that he could identify.
Todd Leon has videos on youtube, and in one video I had all the equipment he used. I asked for instruction to achieve that sound myself. As an online educator, he agreed. He explained that he records the amp with a microphone and then applies an impulse response to shape the guitar sounds he records. They are not natural at the microphone.
Anybody use an impulse response loader?
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Farview
Well-known member
One of the problems with having access to a lot of people and their methods is that there are a thousand ways to do something. All of them work in the specific circumstance that the methods were created, but most aren't universal truths or "the secret method that the professionals don't want you to know about".
The best thing to do when evaluating others' advice is to focus on why, not how. If the person giving the advice is recording a 30 year old Crate amp with a radio shack mic and has found a way to make it listenable, unless you start with the same thing it's not going to be helpful information. of course the guy has to use 3 EQ's a multiband compressor and a cabinet sim...he started with garbage.
Another issue is that in this thread, you seem to have 3 different tunes, all with different issues. You tend to apply advice for one song to a completely different song that probably didn't have the problem that the first one did. You're kind of all over the place and never stay in one spot long enough to fix the original problem.
Back to the overall issue. There are many ways to get a decent instrument sound and to get sounds to fit together. The easiest way is to record the sound you want in the first place and chose the sound of each instrument such that they all fit together. one problem that I have seen a lot of people have is they have a tone in their head that sounds good to them, and they give every instrument that same sort of sound. when you do that, it becomes hard to tell anything apart. (like making the kick and the bass sound the same, or the guitar and the bass have the same midrange content as each other and the vocals) Once you have recorded like that, you will get the advice to use EQ to make room, but you only have to do that if you don't pay attention to what you are recording in the first place.
I didn't mean to write a book. But if you plan out the instrument sounds before you hit record, it will fall together easily without a lot of processing. It will probably take a lot of experimentation to find your sounds, but once you do it will be so much easier.
The best thing to do when evaluating others' advice is to focus on why, not how. If the person giving the advice is recording a 30 year old Crate amp with a radio shack mic and has found a way to make it listenable, unless you start with the same thing it's not going to be helpful information. of course the guy has to use 3 EQ's a multiband compressor and a cabinet sim...he started with garbage.
Another issue is that in this thread, you seem to have 3 different tunes, all with different issues. You tend to apply advice for one song to a completely different song that probably didn't have the problem that the first one did. You're kind of all over the place and never stay in one spot long enough to fix the original problem.
Back to the overall issue. There are many ways to get a decent instrument sound and to get sounds to fit together. The easiest way is to record the sound you want in the first place and chose the sound of each instrument such that they all fit together. one problem that I have seen a lot of people have is they have a tone in their head that sounds good to them, and they give every instrument that same sort of sound. when you do that, it becomes hard to tell anything apart. (like making the kick and the bass sound the same, or the guitar and the bass have the same midrange content as each other and the vocals) Once you have recorded like that, you will get the advice to use EQ to make room, but you only have to do that if you don't pay attention to what you are recording in the first place.
I didn't mean to write a book. But if you plan out the instrument sounds before you hit record, it will fall together easily without a lot of processing. It will probably take a lot of experimentation to find your sounds, but once you do it will be so much easier.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
It wasn't fixable. The guitars had to be recorded again. I added a voice instead of a lead guitar jingle. Figured it would have more learning value.
That's the same beat progressively shorter.
I only need to find one.
Gtoboy
Well-known member
I tend to take any audio from You Tube with a grain of salt since subtle stuff really doesn't come across well on their bandwidth limitations. What I do(did) is try the procedure on my own rig to experience it in context.
As far as this particular instance I used a 670 style compressor plugin and put two instantiations on two guitar tracks that traded rhythm riffs. I put both guitars dead center. I adjusted the first comp of each track to get 6-10 db gain reduction with the release set at "1" and the second comp on each track got the same settings except the release was set on "4".
By having each track use one comp, I can get the effect of moving the apparent placement of each forward or rearward. Since they were both panned center it made the change obvious and it also made the parts sound less one big wash and more two separate instruments. YMMV
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
Using the VSTs /pluggins without a basic starting sound is frustrating. I had an opportunity to change things around in my front room. My main concern is boominess. In my experiment, I placed the microphone(p420) in the middle of the room. I did not use any dynamics and keep things feet away. From the middle of the room I think it sounds the best I have gotten yet. No boom. Any bass from proximity sounds horrible if you monitor with a subwoofer. So I set up and jammed some pop songs like a practice, with a microphone placed centrally, this is the best I got so far. Or not..
Far away the recording does not sound thin from a low cut. Far away is more natural and light. I think I could be on to something. Is that the answer? Room mic only?
Oh...there's more..
Far away the recording does not sound thin from a low cut. Far away is more natural and light. I think I could be on to something. Is that the answer? Room mic only?
Oh...there's more..
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