*HELP* rec. comando style: sound forge, FLoops, Kristal

[Fetusborg]

hi,
yeah, newbie, yes.

whats up all, looks cool here, let me "cut to the chase" homies.

im starting to record all my music at home (of course you are).
i have no racks, compression units or even a mixing board/preamp for that matter, although tomorrow i am going to try and fix an Alesis Studio24 console thats lying around here useless.

plugging guitar into regular solid state amp, and lining out into computer, i have a SB live! [FFEO] sound card.

i record the rythm and lead guitar tracks into SoundForge 6.0, and then open that .wav file into Kristal audio engine (its free!).

for base guitar(which i dont actually own), im really stretching... recording it on guitar use top strings into SoundForge, then importing into Kristal, and using the Bass Boost plugin to try and make as similar to a bass as i can. mediocre but acceptable results so far.

vocals i have only tested, but will most likely be done in the same manner as above.

drums im doing on Fruity Loops Studio 5. still havent figured out a way to send all the patterns into kristal yet, but will find out soon by trial and error.


so what my question is........ AM I RETARDED?
is what i am doing really not very ordinary, meaning i could be getting a much better sound and a much faster rate using other programs or simply doing them in a different manner? i've no money to purchase anything yet, so keep that in mind. at most i'll fix the Alesis.

also, i have yet to "render" my sound, either on kristal or on soundforge. i havent EQed a thing, cause i dont really know how. i like the tone i got right off hand, but im sure i could dabble a bit. is there something really basic i should do and cannot go without?

im trying for a lo-fi sound. my songs are rock, strokes, radiohead, muse, libertines, bloc party influence.


ok, this has gone on far enough. lets talk. thanks for ANY reply, really. each paragraph here is open to give me your best shot, for better or worse.
(and yes, i spent about 3 hours searching around this site. its great )

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

I think it's pretty admirable that you're using the resources available to you and finding solutions to get stuff down.

If you have no money at all then I don't see there's much you could do differently that would get you a better sound in terms of the way you're doing things, can you not record straight into Kristal though? Reading around this place and trying out using eq, compressors, verbs etc. in Kristal you'll at least be able to develop some skills and get an idea of the effect those things have on your sound. Here are some links to some pretty decent free plug-ins which you can download and use in Kristal.

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5

http://www.kjaerhusaudio.com/classic-series.php

And here's a really good resource for All areas of recording, plenty of reading material here:

http://www.theprojectstudiohandbook.com/directory.htm

If you do come by some money your priorities in my opinion would be a dynamic mic (to mic that amp), a mic pre (the mixer should give you some of those) and a half decent soundcard.
Good luck with it.

 

[Fetusborg]

hey kevin, thanks a lot for the help

recording straight into Kristal is SHITE. i lose the tone i actually am aiming to get. using sound forge isnt THAT much greater though. i basically shift from clean, to 2 types of overdrive then back to clean during my songs. the overdrives are very overblown on sound forge... meaning they come out a lot more muddled than what i'm actually hearing through the speaker.

this forces me to turn down a bit the overdrive/gain setting on my pedal to acheive the sound i want. cause that just comes with the software territory, or the sound card territory.

what do you think it actually is?

oh, and while we're here, enjoying eachothers company (hey baby hahaha)... let me ask you another question:

what are your thoughts on kristal? i like the platform... how the instruments and waves are setout aesthetically... but i also know its a new program. any other better FREE ones out there?

thanks again man

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

No probs,

I played around with Kristal for a bit but I've never used it extensively. It seemed pretty decent to me, I'm not aware of anything better for free.

I don't understand about the difference in sound quality between recording into Kristal and recording into sound forge, there shouldn't be a noticeable difference. Do you mean the quality of plugins available with each programme?

I don't use a lot of overdrive/distortion type VST plugs but I've not been that impressed with the ones I've heard. Some free ones here might be an improvement on what you already have:

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm

To be honest if you have a decent overdrive pedal or two i'd just stick with those and not bother with the effects in the comp. With electric guitar you really want to get the sound right before it goes into the box.

There's an MP3 mixing clinic on this board, why not put some tunes up there and you should get some advice on improving your sound?

 

[Fetusborg]

yeah, there is CONSIDERABLE sound difference from recording directly to kristal than to sound forge. kristal basically suffocates my tone, don't know why. but i have no problem recording into sound forge and .waving it to kristal. thats the least of my worries.

i dont dare touch overdrive plugins... i'd rather rely on my pedal, which i have worked hard to get the tone i want.

thanks for the the site you sent though... i alreayd d/led it, and am interested in the amp plugins.

do you know anything about fruity loops studio 5?
sorry to bother again, but damn, i cant seem to record my drums to render over to kristal, and put everything together. i've set up 4 patterns on FL, which i want to render all together onto kristal.

ok man, thanks again

 

[Kevin Deschwazi]

yeah, there is CONSIDERABLE sound difference from recording directly to kristal than to sound forge. kristal basically suffocates my tone, don't know why. but i have no problem recording into sound forge and .waving it to kristal. thats the least of my worries.

i dont dare touch overdrive plugins... i'd rather rely on my pedal, which i have worked hard to get the tone i want.

thanks for the the site you sent though... i alreayd d/led it, and am interested in the amp plugins.

do you know anything about fruity loops studio 5?
sorry to bother again, but damn, i cant seem to record my drums to render over to kristal, and put everything together. i've set up 4 patterns on FL, which i want to render all together onto kristal.

ok man, thanks again

I reckon it must be some settings or something in Kristal but if it's working out they way you're doing it then go with it I guess.

Sorry bud, I know nothing about FL. I guess if you can export them as wavs you should be able to import into Kristal? I am guessing though because I know zilch about working with loops. You could try a seperate thread in the computer recording forum?

 

[Strryder]

That difference you hear between the amp's speaker and the recording is most likely mainly due to the fact that you're using the line output from the amp instead of a mic/mic preamp to get the sound into the computer, line outs on guitar amps almost always sound like ass compared to mic'ing them.

It's also true that no matter how you are getting the sound in to any recording setup, analog or digital, heavily distorted guitar sounds tend to record a little too distorted, so backing the gain down a bit to get the recording to sound good is very common.

 

[Fetusborg]

nice tip strryder, cool

you think once i get my "preamp" (ALESIS STUDIO24 MIXING BOARD) working... and pass all my guitar signals into it FIRST before going to soundcard/pc... you think i can improve my guitar sound... and actually not have this distortion problem im having in sound forge?

i use a dual overdrive analogue pedal (visual sounds jekyll & hyde, if you've heard of it)... and i can get 3 different overdrive/distortion sounds in one sitting (without messing with the knobs). im afraid that if i have a song with all these distortion sounds... its all gonna come out one big mess in sound forge.

but with the mixing board... im hoping it will be different.

opinnion on that?

cool

 

[moi]

plugging guitar into regular solid state amp, and lining out into computer, i have a SB live! [FFEO] sound card.

My husband is new at this as well and I just wanted to issue one word of warning... he went guitar --> amp ---> line in on SB soundcard and it recorded by not near the quality he would like. What he did get after a while of this though was a blown power supply on his computer Lesson learned.