How hot should the track be recorded?

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4ever

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The signal from Q10 is very hot. I'm happy with it. I recorded vocals at almost red. When I played it back it's OK by itself. When I played with other tracks though I got an unpleasant result with some type of distortions. So how hot should the track be recorded? Or how do you handle a situation like mine.

Also, is inserting a compressor (or any effects, for that matter) in Sonar for live or playback only. If it's for live howabout when you play the track back... I'm wondering if it'd become a double compression?

Also I have a hard time tracking bass guitar as well. My monitor can't handle the sound even though the signal is only half way.
What should I do?

Thanks in advance.
 
Try opening up the Q10 software control panel and watch the out put meters as you add tracks, you will probably see that the output level is fine with just vocals but goes into the red when other tracks are added.

At this point you probably need to bring the level of some tracks down until the output mix stays out of the red zone.

In general it's a good idea to record individual tracks as hot as possible, the idea behind this is to get the best signal to noise ratio you can, however, that doesn't mean you have to use all that volume when it comes time to mix.

Compression - you can record your signal through a compressor or add the compression later, your choice. The disadvatage to doing it during recording is that you can never take it out. Lots of folks prefer to record a track dry, then play it back through a compressor to see how it sounds. If they like it, they print the compressed track, if not, they take the compressor out.

Don't know shit about recording bass...

Hope this helps, others with more experience will probably chime in.
 
As already mentioned, you should record your signals as hot as possible for better S/N ratio.

To record hot tracks, add an external limiter when tracking, but only use the limiter to avoid infrequent peaks. Don't use it to squash the signal. The limiter should hardly be working. Thus, you can record a hotter signal without ugly digital clipping and without adding any meaningful compression. You can then add real compression during mixdown.

As also mentioned, bring all your levels down when experiencing distortion during playback so your output meters are less than red.

For bass, also bring down the output levels.
 
If you're recording guitars or vocals you ideally need a compressor such as a Joe Meek VC3 type thing.
Never go into the red. There's no way back.
 
Regarding compression, I will leave it alone as you have all the advice in the other posts but I will try to help with the bass guitar tracking. This should be an easy instrument to track but it depends how you are set up. Please describe your signal chain.
 
Paul881 said:
Regarding compression, I will leave it alone as you have all the advice in the other posts but I will try to help with the bass guitar tracking. This should be an easy instrument to track but it depends how you are set up. Please describe your signal chain.
Click to expand...

It's a direct line in from my bass to Aardvark Q10 sound card to Sonar. Set up in Q10 is L1 (ie. Line in). I have to significantly reduce the trim level in order to record. My bass has only two knobs. One for volume and the other for bass/treble. The treble is all the way up.
 
You are obviously playing the bass with too much gain, somewhere along the chain you need to reduce the volume. Are your monitors decent; until recently I had a pair of pap units that would honk if I put a bass through them. My cans were better, have you tried headphones yourself? If they are playing back enough to wake folk in the next county, then your signal needs reducing for sure. Maybe the other knob on your guitar, not the tone one:)
Not many small monitors can handle full on bass, have you got a sub-woofer?
 
Paul881 said:
You are obviously playing the bass with too much gain, somewhere along the chain you need to reduce the volume. Are your monitors decent; until recently I had a pair of pap units that would honk if I put a bass through them. My cans were better, have you tried headphones yourself? If they are playing back enough to wake folk in the next county, then your signal needs reducing for sure. Maybe the other knob on your guitar, not the tone one:)
Not many small monitors can handle full on bass, have you got a sub-woofer?
Click to expand...

I'm using a pair of Tannoy pasive monitors. My bass isn't that loud at all but I guess I can turn it down a little. The problem is with other tracks playing I would like to have my bass a little above the rest. Wait..I think I can use a direct box then out to both Sound card IN and Bass amp for monitoring purpose. How's that sound?
 
4ever said:
I'm using a pair of Tannoy pasive monitors. My bass isn't that loud at all but I guess I can turn it down a little. The problem is with other tracks playing I would like to have my bass a little above the rest. Wait..I think I can use a direct box then out to both Sound card IN and Bass amp for monitoring purpose. How's that sound?
Click to expand...
Sounds like a good idea! That should work... Just pay attention on those levels.
 
Try to use this general settings:

Drums:

+9 dB LF

-12 dB MF at 400

+6 dB HF

Rhythm Guitar 1 (Cleanest)

+3 dB LF

+6 dB MF at 2.5 kHz

Rhythm Guitar 2

+1.5 dB LF

+6 dB MF at 4.0 kHz

+1.5 dB HF

Lead Guitar

+6 dB MF at 5 kHz

+3 dB HF

Lead Vocal

+3 dB MF at 3.5 kHz

+3 dB HF

Background Vocals

+1.5 dB LF

-6 dB MF at 3 kHz

+3 dB HF

Bass Guitar

+2 dB LF

+4 dB MF at 400 Hz

If there's two hot tracks pumping SAME FREQUENCY (also called Masking) it generate peak couple db higher than their both original. Say soloed track 1 pumping 3 db about 600Hz, and soloed track 2 also. When both being played together, it can pump ~ 7db in 600Hz, instead of 3 db. This way you should wisely use Eq. Instead of using peak level monitor, you better use spectrum analyzer for analyzing each tracks. See what tracks mainly pumping below 200Hz, what's in the lo mid range, what's in hi mid, and what's above hi freq. The art of recording is not only how to record your instrument/vocals. First you must know WHY they should be recorded, and what for they are recorded.
 
Hints...

I mean, every instrument in tracks you recorded has their own space. Let say Bass & Kick main space around 30 - 50 Hz, rhytm guitars pad around 140 - 400Hz, vocals around 400 Hz- 1,5 KHz, while lead guitars around 1KHZ to 5KHZ, cymbals around top high of the EQ, and so on... so when you mix them corectly and puting them on a right space, they wont hit each other. Then you'll get "full" fat result instead of thin noisy over peak sound. Balancing the sound is not only how good you place the instrument in L / R panning or back / front place, it also covers in where frequency should we "place" the track. Use graphic analyzer to get closer on where they are.

Here's my hint...
Ever wonder why any professional CD on the market sounds great ? Then pick one... YANI for example would be good. There's ALOT of instrument being played there, but none ever "hit" another. Go get the CD, copy one song into .wav. And play it while you watch the spectrum analyzer displaying it covers wide frequencies. Not loud... Wide... Hear ? See ?... that's it. The better you know about the frequency work, the better you can mix your work.
 
Question for Argo

Argo,
Your last two posts were extremely helpful, however, I'm a newbie, and I'm using Pro Audio 9. How would I give each track it's own space using Pro Audio 9? Does Pro Audio 9 have a spectrum analyzer?


Thanks,

Brad Graber
 
Moskus is right, the way to differentiate all the instruments and sounds in a mix, especially a crowded and busy one is to provide each sound with its own space. Using delay, frequency EQ and compression gives you the tools to do this. How you do it takes practice, talent, experience, skill....:(

I have been listening to Sailing to Philadelphia by Mark Knoffler (ex Dire Straits) plus Cold Play, A Rush of Blood to the Head lately and the production and engineering is superb. Simple yet so effective. Each instrument in its own space

The opening drums to "In my Place" by Cold Play is so cheesy, full of wet reverb, if I/we had posted this on the MP3 forum we would have had c"omments"...and yet in their mix it sounds "right".

There is an excellent book on Amazon illustrates sound Mixing in a graphical context, all in glorious colour. I rate it highly. its a great source of reference.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A...3734258/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-0257597-9827922

Its called The Art of Mixing by David Gibson. He was founder and owner of California Recording Institute in San Francisco and has taught Sound Engineering for many years. He also worked with Derek and the Domino's, the Doobie Bros and Herbie Hancock to name but a few. Its expensive but it is packed with information for the beginner and more experienced alike.
 
I'm appreciating every post here. Now I have downloaded the VST analyzers. Seems like you can analyse one track at a time. Initially I thought I would be able to analyse multiple tracks in one window in different colors, say for example, bass and drums at the same time. Now, I guess I just have to open separate analyzers from each track and put them side by side. That isn't that bad either.
 
Thats true...unless you bounce all your tracks that you are interested in down to one;)
 
Well, you can put the Spectrum Analyzer in one of the Virtual Mains. That way you can get the whole song, and solo the tracks you want (if you want to look at one or more independently)...
 
Yup, that's what I do. Stole my wife's laptop (she'll never miss it) and have a cable running from my mixer to the line in on the laptop. I can solo tracks when I want to eq a single one or look at the whole song. The nice thing is the analyzer is the only thing running on the laptop, I don't lose CPU cycyles on my tracking 'puter.
 
Oh, I just got how you're setup works... ;)

Yeah, that's a good idea, but the spectrum analyzer doesen't steal many CPU-cycles. I don't think you will notice it (I don't), but that's dependent on your tracking-computer-specs...
 
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