Help with recording

[tubadude95]

Hi everybody. I am pretty new to all of this and I have lots of questions. I have been trying to multitrack record some tuba quartets (yes that is right, TUBA quartets) and I have experienced several different problems. I am recording on Audacity with a Behringer C-1 mic for the record.

problem 1: Probably pretty easy to fix. When i turn on the mic I can hear a lot of background "fuzz" coming from the room, and when something creaks it is quite evident on the recording. Is there a way to fix this so that it only records what is being played?

problem 2: I notice that it seems like the sound is highly compressed together. You can't really pick out the individual parts. After awhile of listening it almost starts to give you a headache.

problem 3: Ties in with the headache thing. For whatever reason, during recording I can hear the sound coming out of both headphones but when in playback mode, it only comes out of the left. No matter how much I pan a track to the right it doesn't help. This also probably has something to do with the things expressed in problem 2.

problem 4: It just seems like my overall sound quality in the recording is bad. I have had myself professionally recorded and it sounds great! But in here the quality is very lacking and it distorts really easily. Any suggestions on how to record brass better?

Thanks for any help!

Jim Andrus

 

[Phrasemaker]

I'm not convinced that that mic you are using is ideal for your recording situation. It's a large diaphragm condenser which will basically suck in a lot of unwanted flotsam unless used in optimum conditions. You will get noise with pretty much every mic, you answered it with your "coming from the room" remark, if it's there a large diaphragm condenser will grab it. I'm currently working on my vocal recording area, so I've temporarily taken to recording lyrics with a dynamic mic, which is more directional and has to be nearer the sound source, hence greatly reduced unwanted background noise.

I don't know the details of how you are recording, but if you are using audacity and have a single mono track or for that matter a stereo track with only the left or right having a signal on playback, have the track open twice in audacity and use the drop down on the top of the start of each track to make a mono track of each if in stereo, confirm you have mono audio playing on each track, then use the selection to make a stereo track from two mono tracks. Then export in chosen format to a saved file. A single mic is not going to have stereo imaging, so a two channel mono track is not going to rob you of anything. In actuality, a tiny bit of reverb applied to one track before making them into a stereo pair will give a mild stereo effect. You can then pan individual takes to position them to some extent left to right which will give improved imaging of each instrument.

If not able to experiment with equipment, on a limited budget. Get a cheap plastic bucket and line the inside with old carpet after having cut an 8 inch round hole midway up somewhere in the bucket's circumference. If you have enough carpet cover the outside too, obviously leaving the hole in the side unimpeded. Find some way of attaching your mic inside the bucket so the diaphragm is facing out of the aperture and the mic sits centrally in the bucket, you could hang the mic on its cable having threaded the cable through a hole in the bottom, middle of the bucket and having the bucket upside down, stood on a tall stool of similar with another sheet of carpet placed on the stool to form a the one remaining surface of the enclosure. If you need it higher, stand the stool on another object.

It's quite easy to get distortion with tracks cranked up in audacity, as it is also easy to get too big a signal from that mic. Unfortunately a lower signal will increase the noise to signal ratio. Find a happy medium in respect of level, with the mic isolated and if need be use something like wavepad, free download to increase the track volume, as that issue does not seem to arise with that software unless one is being daft with the levels. You can export and import your tracks using audacity regardless of the fact you may use additional software to treat individual tracks.

You don't say how many instruments you are recording at once, one at time is probably your best option, then mix it down in audacity which will give you decent amounts of headroom while recording. Obviously you will have to do multiple takes and have a means to get the first instrument piped into headphones and be able to include the sound of subsequent instruments in that output while they being recorded. You'll find the noise reduction in software unless it's some fandango program, will eat into the wanted sound, best not get the unwanted noise in the first instance.

The one mic in a room with a quartet is never going to replicate what can be achieved in a professional studio, but some ingenuity and persistence will get you some half decent recordings.

Good luck

Tim

 

[Armistice]

Don't use Audacity, it is not multitracking software. Pad the mic, if this option is available. Pan & Eq different tracks. Learn the craft. Did you think it would be easy? It isn't. Welcome to home recording.

Apologies for brief reply, using phone.

 

[mjbphotos]

No one has asked (so I will). What are you using for an audio interface? I'd recommend movng upfrom Audacity to a full-featured DAW like Reaper.

Tubas are LOUD. If you are recording 4 of them at one time, you need a room that is well treated for sound. The reason you are hearing 'compression' (that's not really compression) is the sound is bouncing all around, the low notes are creating standing waves from the corners of the room, and this is overall muddying up the sound. Yes, this will give you a headache, especially if listening on headphones.

 

[tubadude95]

mjbphotos: Thanks, I will look into reaper. I am only recording 1 tuba at a time. How would you recommend fixing the muddy sound problem?

Armistice: I am working on learning the trade. There is a lot to take in and I am just getting started.

Phrasemaker: Thanks for the really long reply. I will try all that!

 

[xbxrxixtx]

Mics are made to pick up sound, so without a well-treated room, you will get noise in some form. Like another post said, a lot of the noise you are probably hearing is just the loudness of the tuba bouncing off of your walls. If you are standing in the middle of a room with no treatment then you will have sound bouncing all over the place. Usually I would suggest recording in a closet, but with the size of a tuba that may not be an easy option by the time you get a mic and all of that set up as well. I would try taking some blankets and building a small walled off area to perform in. The blankets will help the sound that is coming back to the mic. The idea basically being that in a smaller area there isn't as much room for the sound to bounce and get redirected back to the mic, and that the soft wall of blankets will also help keep those sounds down. Is it going to be as good as a professional isolation booth? No, but its worth a try. The worst thing you can do is stand in the middle of a big empty room and play, especially with an instrument like the tuba. A garage with concrete floor and squared walls will have sound bouncing all over the place off of all of that. If you can afford it, look into bass traps. That will help clear up some of that muddy-ness in the low end.

Aside from that you can try using a filter, and EQ to get rid of some of the unwanted aspects. More than likely your problem is bigger than just fixing it with a processing, but its something to try, and learn a bit because it can come in handy once you have resolved bigger issues.

Also, once you have recorded the track, go back and get rid of the dead air that you recorded. If you aren't playing, cut it out. This will help get rid of some noise, especially when you are using multiple tracks. This will get rid of chair creeks, and things like that which can be heard in the dead air.

One of the other posts brought up the question about what your interface is. It's a good/valid question. The interface deals with the conversion from analog to digital. What you are using may not be great at doing those conversions, and as a result will bring down your recordings. You may want to look into a better DAW. Also, a new DAW will likely give you a chance to use better software than audacity.

As far as only hearing the audio on the left, it may be a mono/stereo problem. Perhaps you are recording a mono microphone using a stereo track. In this case you would only get half of the audio track. Try using a mono track. Then you can make two tracks and pan them hard left and right and make it stereo that way.

 

[TimOBrien]

C-1 is a sensitive bright vocal mic, not what you want to use on brass.

A dynamic is better on brass (I use an MD-421)