'how do you...' sucks

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Downside Studio

Downside Studio

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Well, that's what I think anyway.

I've read tons of books, and articles....and personally (read PERSONALLY) I 'never' found any advice to be as good as intended.

If somebody asks..what is a good effect for lead vocals, what is a good mic for drums , what is a good preamp for tubemics.....there are conig numerous answers, but basicly all are based on personal experience.

I own TLaudio comps and I think they are unbelievable good.
I own TLaudio preamps and I think they sound equal to my board preamps. I even think they sound terrible when the tubes are being really used.
I own AT mics and think they sound great.
I own Groovetube mics and I think they sound perfect on overhaed and acoustic instruments, I think they suck on male vocals.

That's my opinion, and i guess there are a lot of people that totally disagree with me. That makes me think about the value of my opinion to advice others about what to use.....

Basic conclusion......TRY TRY TRY TRY TRY TRY TRY







Whats reverb is ok for vocals?.....rent or loan a couple of units and decide yourself.

What comp settings are ok for lead vocals?.....everybody states that compression should be used very subtile, but I myself am using the TLaudio's to compress the hell out of lead vocals. Setting of threshold at -20dB and ratio of 15:1 are quite common. The needle of the reduction VU meter is smashing the left of the housing......and it sounds really good. And this is for commercially released albums, and other engineers are complementing my studio about the sound of the lead vocals. So TRY TRY TRY TRY TRY TRY


Now I'm getting a glass of wine!.....(cheap wine......tastes great..TRY TRY TRY)







:D
 
You are sooo right...

I misunderstood your title, thought you meant the guys who did not understand the basics and want to have them explained. So I entered this thread to flame you, but everything you write is SO F***IN DAMN RIGHT!

Why are these guys like that? Too lazy or to anxious to try out themselves? Wannabe star engineers from the start? Well most of them have spend so much of their parents dough (and I'm EXPLICITLY not talking about people like Zeke Sayer or so!) they wanna have the results now. Most of their questions are dumbass questions with a smartass attitude. They are sooo professional that they wouldn't even think about posting in the newbies corner...

Ok, it'S over now, I have calmed down... Your post was really cool!

aXel
 
I 100% agree with you.

Forums can a least give us some ideas, some cues about a lot of things.

But when it's about buying new gear, from mic to monitors, what we read worth almost nothing. lets say I based myself on about 2% of what I can read here.

And you know what? Today I discovered a new audio store I asked the price of the TC Powercore, and the salesman (is this a good word??) told me that I can take it home, try it a week or two, if I like it, I buy it and if not, I just bring it back. No charge...nothing. Just a piece of paper with signatures.

I'll go back to this store! Try home before you buy!

oh and..I'm getting a glasse of wine too. ...cheap wine, of course. I bought some gear today so, I'm broke for a few weeks :D
 
but sometimes (especially with boutique gear you can't get at the local music store) you have to depend on the advice of others.

during those moments, i find its best to depend on people whom you feel make quality sounding music. not necessarily the same style of music that you like, but quality sound.

i bought the roland xv-3080 because i saw a picture of a JV-1010 in DJ Jazzy Jeff's studio.

i bought the Ensoniq/Emu ASR-X because i heard that it was used on a hip-hop song in which i thought the beat was fantastic.

i bought the FMR Audio RNP based on reviews given on this board.

so recommendations and such do have its place if you can weed through the pitch-men who come around from time to time.
 
Yeah. I agree. I'm only posting in here so I can get an avatar for the dragon cave.:D
 
But reviews and 'how can I compress my vocals to get it fatter, I need exact settings, I do some unusual stuff' is somehow different...

aXel
 
But the difference between the following posts should show what I mean.

'can you recommend me any cheap red wine for under 5€'
and
'I think I am a real wine specialist, and all my friends tell me I buy and drink the best wines. The only problem that I have is that I have problems to properly hit my mouth with the glass. I either pour everything onto my trousers or into my eyes. How long do I have to lift the glass and how fast shall I move it in direction to my face. Please give me exact numbers as I don't wanna mess around with this shit any longer. And all posters who wanna tell me to learn something about drinking - please shut your mouth...'

:D:D:D

aXel
 
volltreffer said:
The only problem that I have is that I have problems to properly hit my mouth with the glass. I either pour everything onto my trousers or into my eyes.
Click to expand...

In this case I would say you had too much cheap wine ....


;)
 
Volltreffer is actually right on the target, but I think people understand what i was meaning to say. I recall the days I was studying and a teacher in the studio didn't have a proper kickdrummic. So he just used a SM58 for showing were to put the mic. Only he forgot to say this loud enough for the class to hear.

So i watched 20 students writing down like zombies that for kick recording you should place a SM58 at this and that location......it never got to anybodies attention that the mic was wrong (inless you have no other mic) and place is depend on sound and ears, and not on a teachers example.

But I guess you all got that...... right?
 
Ooohh, and another problem I'm seeing on this webboard (though I can not prove this).....

Q: How do you mic a vocal ?
A1: Put an SM58 in front..
A2: Always use condensor mics..
A3: indeed condesnormics but never the NT1, it sucks..

Than one day later I see the dude asking the question advising somebody else to never use a NT1 because it sucks (actually it does, but that's a former dogass threat that I do not want to recall although is was quite funny....a poedel with a ECM in his bottom...:D)

Now this second dude is surely going to advice others, and before you know it everybody is making advices based on what they read in stead of what they knwo from the real world and hand on experience.


This is the first time I think I'm actually making sense, so I'll try to give myself some star-ratings.....(is that legitimate?.............is that a real word?)
 
Damn...how does the star-rating work?

Could somebody ask Roel, he seems to be the most intelligent person overhere.
 
Did somebody call my name here?

Ah. The rating system. That's one of my specialties. Here's how it goes; somewhere at the bottom of this page, there is a line saying "Rate this thread", with under it a box saying "Select a rating" and a "go"-button. Now here comes the tricky part. You click on this box, and there will appear a bigger box with 5 options. This is the hardest part now, since this actualy involves making choices. Making choices is about the thoughest thing in the world, you can believe me on this, I'm smart.
Once you made that choice, you click the "go"-button, and you're done.

Now how's that for an answer? Pretty okay huh? Well, I actually did it using an old Macintosh performa 6200 powerpc. I don't really like it for most of the studiowork, but it's okay for these things. Just find the right settings. In fact, there's gotta be even better settings for this, it can barely handle this site... Bah! But it's not mine, so I don't really care. It does the job... Sorta....

:cool:
 
I've found a lot of the tips from various people here really helpful, but generally they're more technical than audio related, or just reaffirming that I should keep trying.

On the other hand, you can get "analysis paralysis" from hanging round here sometimes - too much time reading posts and not enough actually figuring out what works.

When I started recording on a Roland VS840 (upgrade from a Fostex cassette unit) I knew so little about recording it wasn't funny. That was 1998 - 9 months after buying that machine I'd recorded a full CD, which I released - OK it was instrumental guitar music and so I didn't need to fiddle with vocals and drums and the really hard stuff. Didn't own a microphone.

I was so impressed that I recorded another one the year after.

People seem to like them - no-one's ever told me my recordings sucked.

Since that time I've spent thousands upon thousands on equipment, have mics, preamps, AW4416 etc etc, and no new CD! Go figure.

The more I learned, the more ambitious stuff I tried - I'm now wrestling with miking acoustic guitars, with limited success to date. If I knew in '98/'99 what I know now, I never would have made those two CDs - it all came down to just listening to what sounds good, and playing around until you get it right.

While I really appreciate the advice I get from time to time here (check the number of posts and the time I've been on this board!) you really do need to work it out for yourself a lot of the time.

Cheers
 
I think a major problem with testing tons of gear for some people is that they don't have access to it. In a rural area there may only be one or two music stores, and they often won't focus on recording. While I agree that your own ears should be thhe deciding factor, getting to that stage can be difficult. I'm doing pretty well financially for a college student, but I know I couldn't afford to order a bunch of gear and ship back the stuff I don't like. The shipping money that I would lose could kill me. :)

I agree that asking for advice on a complete setup is a bit silly, but I don't see a problem with asking advice from people who's tracks you've heard and admired. Especially if you state clearly what you're looking for. Sometimes those expert opinions can really help narrow things down.
 
It's also pretty important to not forget where a lot of people are coming from. The first time I plugged in most of my stuff together, it didn't work. And everything I tried didn't seem to help. So I got some help. Then it started to work. For me, it was a fun challenge. But to some folks, it's actually kinda scary. So, rather than plunge ahead, and make every mistake in the book, they're hoping that they can leapfrog some of that "scary stuff", and start doing what they want to.

The trouble is that "Making good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions". I know that over in the mic forum (which is where I spend most of my time lurking), the advice is always doled out that any recommendation must be taken with a grain of salt, because until you hear it, you cannot know whether it will be the right mic, etc. (notable bashing of NT-1 and C1000S aside ;-). I think that it's very important for everyone to keep hearing things like "well, here's a couple of things that I've tried which work, but I only got there after f*&%ing it up 30-40 times. My suggestions probably won't work for you, so go out, f*&% it up 30-40 times, and you'll probably find something that will really rock your world." The great thing about this advice is that while f*&%ing it up, you're also working on your ears, and training your critical listening skills, and getting intimate with your monitors, which many folks don't take the time to do.

Great thread, great thoughts.

-mg
 
:confused: 'how do you...' sucks

Here's something else to think about........


How is it that people with 2 or 3 or 4 thousand posts on these forums ever get time to practice what they teach/preach?

It seems to me if one is on the computer all day, when are you recording/playing/sound personing/ etc????



da MUTT



P/S Muttley has a few boxes of cheap wine too.
It's a studio standard of coarse.
 
Well, like most musicians they don't have a real private life, and can work 24hours a day because nobody misses them. Fun thing about this forum is that you can do it while you're drinking and eating chips.
 
<crunch, crunch>
I must agree with Downside's point of view, but I know I learned a lot by just reading here and surfing around to find answers to some questions.
Mostly questions concerning acoustics and studio building though. When searching for info about sound, sound quality, as with microphones, consoles, outboard, converters, etc. ... there is NO substitute for real-life experience.

How did the great AE's get to what they are? Experience. Not by reading the internet.


Cheap wine sucks. You should come to Belgium and try our beer.
You'll never leave.


Herwig
 
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