How would you record with this setup?

4

4tracker

Guest
The recording is on a Tascam 244 4-track in a bedroom setting.

So, I have a guitar that is electric and will be played at line level for reamping later. My girlfriend is going to play percussion, and I'm going to play along to her beat.

So the guitar is easy, DI it in. Now, her instrument will need a mic on it, so this is where it gets tricky...she will probably be picking up my guitar in her mic, and also, I only have one pair of headphones, so how would you go about monitoring one another? I can't figure out the best way to do this...I want an organic sounding recording so I don't want to have to double her percussion track afterwards just because it picks up guitar bleed. Any solutions?

Thanks!
 
To be completely honest, I would have both of you play together and record the DI track then play the di track back to her in headphones and rerecord it. That will give you the most options in the end. But if you want that guitar bleed kinda vibe, then just put an omni condenser in the middle of the room and have a little "camp fire session" around the mic.

Best of luck!
 
RT_Productions said:
To be completely honest, I would have both of you play together and record the DI track then play the di track back to her in headphones and rerecord it. That will give you the most options in the end. But if you want that guitar bleed kinda vibe, then just put an omni condenser in the middle of the room and have a little "camp fire session" around the mic.

Best of luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks man. I will consider that idea some more.

Yeah I kind of wanted a campfire vibe, or something "organic sounding", as I am just tired of tracking individual tracks and wanted something simple and open and loose sounding.

Do you think, since I am reamping the guitar, it will drown out whatever level of my guitar is picked up by her mic? I have never reamped so not sure what to expect there. Would there be phase issues since technically my DI will ultimately be a mic'd track? She is going to play a shaker, by the way. We do have a ribbon mic available, so I wonder if I angle it off my guitar if that can result in none of my guitar bleeding into her mic?
 
4tracker said:
Thanks man. I will consider that idea some more.

Yeah I kind of wanted a campfire vibe, or something "organic sounding", as I am just tired of tracking individual tracks and wanted something simple and open and loose sounding.

Do you think, since I am reamping the guitar, it will drown out whatever level of my guitar is picked up by her mic? I have never reamped so not sure what to expect there. Would there be phase issues since technically my DI will ultimately be a mic'd track? She is going to play a shaker, by the way. We do have a ribbon mic available, so I wonder if I angle it off my guitar if that can result in none of my guitar bleeding into her mic?
Click to expand...

Ribbons are usually figure 8, so it'll probably get your guitar. Cardioid mics will probably be your best bet for isolation.
Set up some isolation between you and then the reamped track will most likely drown out any bleed in her track.
 
Heck...if all she's going to play are shakers...why not just record your guitar to a click...then have her add the shakers afterwards.

Solves the bleed and headphone problem.
 
Greg_L said:
Ribbons are usually figure 8, so it'll probably get your guitar. Cardioid mics will probably be your best bet for isolation.
Set up some isolation between you and then the reamped track will most likely drown out any bleed in her track.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Greg. I wound up using trial and error and came to the same conclusion (cardiod sounded best). There was almost zero bleed.
So, a follow up question: her mic did pick up a little bit of my guitar and even though I recorded DI, I still picked up some of her shaker (extremely low, probably like -30bl)...I'm thinking it is tape bleed since this was DI. So the question is: will these remnants on each track lead to phase issues when reamping?

miroslav

Heck...if all she's going to play are shakers...why not just record your guitar to a click...then have her add the shakers afterwards.

Solves the bleed and headphone problem.
Click to expand...

We tried that beforehand and didn't like the mechanical feel of it. We are going to try a few other options, though, like putting headphones on her with a metronome will playing percussion as a guide, but since she's human it will be a little off time-wise but also the volume of the accents. Might make it more human, which is what we want. I went in depth with programming drums and still didn't think the "humanize" options sounded right. I might have to ultimately settle for something like that because I have a shitty setup, but I want to exhaust all options first. I was looking at timing graphs of classic rock bands like the Stones and Zeppelin, btw, and there were so off tempo. Then I looked at a chart for Kraftwerk and it was 100% (i.e. a drum machine). Ginger Baker was at like 98%, and their conclusion from that was he recorded to a click. Ginger Baker sounds very on time to me, but he doesn't sound robotic, so I am thinking that might be a good compromise. There's a website that allows you to upload a track for analysis to see if it was a human drummer or not -- I thought it was an informative and cool idea. Also, on some songs she is going to play more than a shaker. That's just for this one song.
 
Another quick question: my low E string on my electric guitar is "buzzy" when strumming it un-amplified. When I recorded it DI, there was a lot of grumbling in the low strings. Would the DI/preamp pickup string buzz?

When I play the same guitar through a sim ("amplified"), I don't notice that buzz. I thought might be too hot a recording causing it, but the VU meters were well below 0, probably in the -5db range. When imported to the DAW that area of the track was the hottest, but the DI signal was pretty low overall, so it's hard to believe it's distortion. Any ideas?
 
4tracker said:
We tried that beforehand and didn't like the mechanical feel of it. We are going to try a few other options, though, like putting headphones on her with a metronome will playing percussion as a guide, but since she's human it will be a little off time-wise but also the volume of the accents. Might make it more human, which is what we want. I went in depth with programming drums and still didn't think the "humanize" options sounded right. I might have to ultimately settle for something like that because I have a shitty setup, but I want to exhaust all options first. I was looking at timing graphs of classic rock bands like the Stones and Zeppelin, btw, and there were so off tempo. Then I looked at a chart for Kraftwerk and it was 100% (i.e. a drum machine). Ginger Baker was at like 98%, and their conclusion from that was he recorded to a click. Ginger Baker sounds very on time to me, but he doesn't sound robotic, so I am thinking that might be a good compromise. There's a website that allows you to upload a track for analysis to see if it was a human drummer or not -- I thought it was an informative and cool idea. Also, on some songs she is going to play more than a shaker. That's just for this one song.
Click to expand...


You are talking about her playing just shakers...right...? :D

For the record...using a click has nothing to do with it not sounding "human".
It's just a reference...you can still shake the shakers with human feel around the click beat.
One reason click came into use is for the exact type of situation you have...not being able to record everyone/everything all at once. The click serves as the absolute timing *reference*.,..how on or off the click beat someone plays is still on them.
AFA overall tempo...well, I would think most times, most songs you would want the tempo to be steady, and not drifting up/down.

Anyway...you may be overthinking it. ;)
It is just shakers, right? :)
 
4tracker said:
Another quick question: my low E string on my electric guitar is "buzzy" when strumming it un-amplified. When I recorded it DI, there was a lot of grumbling in the low strings. Would the DI/preamp pickup string buzz?

When I play the same guitar through a sim ("amplified"), I don't notice that buzz. I thought might be too hot a recording causing it, but the VU meters were well below 0, probably in the -5db range. When imported to the DAW that area of the track was the hottest, but the DI signal was pretty low overall, so it's hard to believe it's distortion. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Take a screw diver...or just use your fingers if the bridge has large thumbscrews...and raise the low E side a 1/4 turn. Retune your strings and test. If still some buzz...raise another 1/4 turn...etc.
The action may be just a tad low on that side.
I get the same thing at times, because I have the action low, and if I attack the strings too hard, they buzz, 'cuz the low stings travel further as the vibrate than the highs. You often have the low string side a tad higher action than the high string side.

AFA that buzz getting reamped...well, if it's in the dry track...it will be reamped.
 
miroslav said:
Take a screw diver...or just use your fingers if the bridge has large thumbscrews...and raise the low E side a 1/4 turn. Retune your strings and test. If still some buzz...raise another 1/4 turn...etc.
The action may be just a tad low on that side.
I get the same thing at times, because I have the action low, and if I attack the strings too hard, they buzz, 'cuz the low stings travel further as the vibrate than the highs. You often have the low string side a tad higher action than the high string side.

AFA that buzz getting reamped...well, if it's in the dry track...it will be reamped.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's what I did (raised the action on that E string), but it didn't seem to work.

The odd thing is that when played through the sim amplifier I don't hear them buzz (only hear the buzz acoustically in the room but not in the amp sim signal), but when I recorded them DI into the 4-track, there is distortion/buzz in those low strings. Does the guitar's pickup actually pickup the low E-string buzz? I thought that was only audible if you play it without amplification.

The click serves as the absolute timing *reference*.,..how on or off the click beat someone plays is still on them.
Click to expand...

Yeah agreed, and you are right, I am probably overthinking that part.
 
Intelligent exploitation of distances, mic patterns and some sort of gobo should make this doable live. Maybe invest in a couple of cheap pairs of earbuds and a splitter.
 
Get a Y cable or a headphone amp and another set of headphones.

Get a long mic cable.

Move one of you to the next room, or out in the hall.

Hit record.

Play.
 
if you have a figure 8 mic, try facing it directly from the side. that is your highest rejection point so you will have the least amount of bleed that way. You shouldn't have any phase issues when you reamp because you will mute your DI track when you are finished reamping.
 
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