Bobbsy
Boring Old Git
Welcome to the club for people who have discovered that the best way to solve recording problems is during the actual recording, not with fancy or time consuming fixes when you mix!
DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Hey, on my OWN music, when I'm recording myself, I'll always take the time to get the part right, and I'm a firm believer that great mixes start with great tracks.
Recording other people, you don't always have that luxury. It took us several hours to get a couple "good enough" takes that I was confident I could edit something together that would sound reasonably well performed, but, shame on me, I didn't really hone in on how obtrusive that breathing was going to be in the mix.
I'm really amazed by how good a job the Spectral Editor did. It's not perfect, and I'm going to want to spend another night on it really honing in on the smaller breathing noises now that I've addressed the major ones, but it absolutely allowed me to save a take and avoid several hours of tracking headaches while we tried to get another, cleaner performance down, with a guitarist who isn't used to recording or playing several hours at a time so we'd be severely compromising his ability to work on new music afterwards.
Anyway, thanks for the help, guys! I'll try to post up an "after" version of the first clip in a day or two, once I finish cleaning it and replace the scratch bass performance.
DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Spent some more time with this last night. On one hand, it's in pretty good shape, WAY better than it was, and in a pinch is totally usable now, so for the time being I'll keep moving forward with this take as if it's a keeper.
On the other, it's still not a great performance, and it was so quiet when played that basic ambient "white noise" is audible in the recording (especially as it's a two-track stereo recording in a sparse mix), and I've never REALLY been impressed by how transparent noise reduction audio repair plugins are. So, when we next get together, we've got one more track lined up to record, and assuming we get through it with enough time to spare I'm going to suggest we tackle this song again - I'd like a better guitar AND vocal performance on it, and I guess as a silver lining if we're working on this track, it's easier to push back on going back and re-recording all of my uncle's (excellent) earlier vocals. :lol:
Anyway, I'll have to bump this once I have a final recording. Thanks for everyone's time and help!
On the other, it's still not a great performance, and it was so quiet when played that basic ambient "white noise" is audible in the recording (especially as it's a two-track stereo recording in a sparse mix), and I've never REALLY been impressed by how transparent noise reduction audio repair plugins are. So, when we next get together, we've got one more track lined up to record, and assuming we get through it with enough time to spare I'm going to suggest we tackle this song again - I'd like a better guitar AND vocal performance on it, and I guess as a silver lining if we're working on this track, it's easier to push back on going back and re-recording all of my uncle's (excellent) earlier vocals. :lol:
Anyway, I'll have to bump this once I have a final recording. Thanks for everyone's time and help!
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LivingEdge
New member
Do it right the first time...
The mic for the job is NOT always your best studio mic.
Sometimes you just don't want to pic everything up!
Using a lesser mic, turning down sensitivity, tilting the head a smidge on puffs (p's), and having the singer sing a little louder will work wonders.
Experiment a little with different mics, and use multiple mics if you want and eq the mixes.
You'll get there, but recording is where you fix it, not afterwards.
The mic for the job is NOT always your best studio mic.
Sometimes you just don't want to pic everything up!
Using a lesser mic, turning down sensitivity, tilting the head a smidge on puffs (p's), and having the singer sing a little louder will work wonders.
Experiment a little with different mics, and use multiple mics if you want and eq the mixes.
You'll get there, but recording is where you fix it, not afterwards.
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
Sure.
But sometimes 'before' is not an option, and all you have available is 'afterwards'.
J
jjinvegas
New member
Surely there must be an acoustic guitar lying around with a pickup on it. Now mic it up as well as direct inject. You will have the microphone performance as a sonic blueprint for easy comparison to adjust the tone of pickup signal, blend in some of the mic panned away to create a wider image, get the details of the performance from the pickup, and use the mic track with a filter to reduce the breath noise. One thing about the DI track, you can gobsmack that thing with compression or whatever, breathing will not be a factor. Hope that helps.....
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NeilE
New member
The way round this, IMHO and in my experience, is to use figure of eight pattern mics. Even when recording singing guitarists I have been able to use two ribbon mics set at 90 degrees vertically so that one points at the vocalist and the null at the guitar and the other points at the guitar and the null at the vocalist. There is bleed, can't be helped, but it is really low enough to be treated as non-existent. If just using one mic pointing at the guitar the breathing can be in the null and therefore minimised.
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LivingEdge
New member
Sure.
But sometimes 'afterwards' is not an option, and all you have available is 're-do'.
Running compressors too hot can cause problems, too.
I can tell you this... I record my wife on guitar w/vocals using only one mic.
My favorite is through a TC-Helicon Voicelive Rack w/no harmonies, just effects.
I dial in what we want for the song and print it! No messing around.
I get totally rid of 'afterwards' for single acoustic/vocal takes; works for me!
But sometimes 'afterwards' is not an option, and all you have available is 're-do'.
Running compressors too hot can cause problems, too.
I can tell you this... I record my wife on guitar w/vocals using only one mic.
My favorite is through a TC-Helicon Voicelive Rack w/no harmonies, just effects.
I dial in what we want for the song and print it! No messing around.
I get totally rid of 'afterwards' for single acoustic/vocal takes; works for me!
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
The context is important.
Yes . . . 'afterwards' is not an option if the input has been totally screwed, and the only way to fix it is to re-record.
But it seems that in this particular case, the 'before' option is either not available or not practical, so to preserve what you have to deal with the 'afterwards'.
Doing this does not in any way diminish the desirability of getting the 'before' right in the first place.
L
LivingEdge
New member
Quoting the OP:
I'm kind of at a loss what to do about it. I know the RIGHT thing is to just re-record the acoustic guitar on this
Quoting you:
the 'before' option is either not available or not practical
Me:
The "before" option is both "available" and "practical", unless I'm totally missing something.
OP, just do it right from now forward and the jokes will go away.
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LivingEdge
New member
but, okay... for arguments sake let's fix the audio the best we can.
Perhaps try using Spectral editing in Reaper.
There's a full video on how to do it: here
...and more videos for help on other topics: here
i.e., like how to de-ess in Reaper using automation: here
$60 will get you quite a bit these days,
and Reaper keeps getting better.
Perhaps try using Spectral editing in Reaper.
There's a full video on how to do it: here
...and more videos for help on other topics: here
i.e., like how to de-ess in Reaper using automation: here
$60 will get you quite a bit these days,
and Reaper keeps getting better.
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DrewPeterson7
Sage of the Order
Well, this got a little heated after I last posted. 
Quick update - we got together for one final session with a fairly short to-do list, with this being one of those items. My uncle practiced his ass off, and delivered maybe 3-4 pretty good takes, out of which I was able to comp together something that was quite a bit better, both in performance and in audio quality, than the original I'd been struggling with.
The Spectral editor is a pretty damned cool tool, and while this particular track has been on the backburner while I work on drum sequencing for the others (I had shoulder surgery in January and then I'm just getting to the end of cycling season, so there hasn't been much progress here since then aside from that one session where, thankfully, I didn't have to play all that much myself, just run the recording process), I may have still used it to clean up one or two errant sections. But, for the most part, I was able to get a good enough performance in tracking that it didn't require much work afterwards.
Since we're getting into the philosophical side of this... I guess my attitude has always been to completely separate the recording and the mixing sides of the process. While wearing my proverbial recording engineer hat, I'm a complete nazi about getting the right tone, the right take, the right performance, the right vibe, whatever, and going at it basically as if there's no safety net, and you have to get it perfect up front. Then, when I switch gears and put on my proverbial mix engineer hat... The sky's the limit. Spectral editing, slip editing, comping a performance out of several takes, whatever. The only place I tread a little carefully is anything manipulating the lead guitar performances since I primarily write and record instrumental guitar material and for a variety of reasons but not the least of which the fact that digital recording has led to a LOT of artists releasing music they can't actually perform, but even then I'd be lying if I said there weren't a handful of notes that i shifted a few miliseconds one way or another on my last album, because they were just slightly out of the pocket in a take I otherwise thought something pretty cool was going on.
Idunno. So, I think you can definitely go at it both ways... But, that becomes harder when you're not yourself the artist. For me, it's a simple matter of either re-recording the part until I get it right, or if I can't, simplifying or rearranging it into something I CAN play... But, when you're recording someone else and you've got a one-day session to track a couple songs, you can ask people to have their parts down cold in advance, but once the red light is on it's out of your hands.
Quick update - we got together for one final session with a fairly short to-do list, with this being one of those items. My uncle practiced his ass off, and delivered maybe 3-4 pretty good takes, out of which I was able to comp together something that was quite a bit better, both in performance and in audio quality, than the original I'd been struggling with.
The Spectral editor is a pretty damned cool tool, and while this particular track has been on the backburner while I work on drum sequencing for the others (I had shoulder surgery in January and then I'm just getting to the end of cycling season, so there hasn't been much progress here since then aside from that one session where, thankfully, I didn't have to play all that much myself, just run the recording process), I may have still used it to clean up one or two errant sections. But, for the most part, I was able to get a good enough performance in tracking that it didn't require much work afterwards.
Since we're getting into the philosophical side of this... I guess my attitude has always been to completely separate the recording and the mixing sides of the process. While wearing my proverbial recording engineer hat, I'm a complete nazi about getting the right tone, the right take, the right performance, the right vibe, whatever, and going at it basically as if there's no safety net, and you have to get it perfect up front. Then, when I switch gears and put on my proverbial mix engineer hat... The sky's the limit. Spectral editing, slip editing, comping a performance out of several takes, whatever. The only place I tread a little carefully is anything manipulating the lead guitar performances since I primarily write and record instrumental guitar material and for a variety of reasons but not the least of which the fact that digital recording has led to a LOT of artists releasing music they can't actually perform, but even then I'd be lying if I said there weren't a handful of notes that i shifted a few miliseconds one way or another on my last album, because they were just slightly out of the pocket in a take I otherwise thought something pretty cool was going on.
Idunno. So, I think you can definitely go at it both ways... But, that becomes harder when you're not yourself the artist. For me, it's a simple matter of either re-recording the part until I get it right, or if I can't, simplifying or rearranging it into something I CAN play... But, when you're recording someone else and you've got a one-day session to track a couple songs, you can ask people to have their parts down cold in advance, but once the red light is on it's out of your hands.
D
drak00
New member
yes really it is a great job of the Spectral editor and regarding the breathing noises it is not so great to the point it should be interesting
it remains my personal opinion
cordially
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noobUser
New member
Maybe changing mic placement or using a electroacustic guitar...