Methods- Marginally Off Topic

Yeah, I found this thread really encouraging - for me, it points out how there isn't just one way of doing things to get a good result. When I started out recording, I was always wondering if I was doing things THE RIGHT WAY. LOL
 
I took it over to Syntrillium and the response I got there was that with software like Cool Edit that operates in 32-bit floating point, changes in the volume levels don't affect the integrity of the original wav file.
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How do you do a digital volume adjustment on a file without math? I don't doubt that it doesn't affect the original file, but what about the one you hear when you bounce? A lot of the "pro" studios still do analog mixes because they feel it sounds better. There must be something to it besides anti-digital bias. I still hear things on my good vinyl that I don't on CD's, despite the higher noise floor.

I'm struggling to understand this stuff myself, and it seems as if the "experts" don't really understand it that well sometimes either. All I know is the more I drop my faders, the flatter the mix gets. Things get "cloudy", and imaging suffers. Even I can hear that with my tinnitus, and 15K roll-off.:D

for me, it points out how there isn't just one way of doing things to get a good result. When I started out recording, I was always wondering if I was doing things THE RIGHT WAY. LOL
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I'm sure you've heard the old saying: If it sounds good, it is good. Very, very true.;)
 
chrisharris said:
Lastly, can anybody tell me a good way to get that cool soft "ssss" that is created by plate reverbs without hollowing out the vocal with the rest of that crappy plate sound?
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Sure.....run your 'verb thru an EQ and pull out everything except that sssssssssssss sound.
 
You want tails?

Another verb trick, I just picked this up from another forum but it works, is to put two reverbs on the Aux bus. Set one predelay for 5ms and another longer, say 20ms. Put the EQ after both to focus in on the dark or light sound you want to emphasize and you get these lucious tails.

For even more dramatic effect put a 100ms (this should vary by the beats per minute - get your delay calculators out boys) delay ahead of your verb. This drops a nice delayed reverb sound behind the vocal.

Jumping over to compressors, another nice sound I have come across is to put an 1176 emulation in front of a LA2A emulation plug in. Put these on an Aux bus and mix up lighly under the vocal. Gives you a pleasant warm vocal. I use the Ultrafunk compressor and it responds very well with this setup. Takes the digital edge off.
 
dobro said:
Yeah, I found this thread really encouraging - for me, it points out how there isn't just one way of doing things to get a good result. When I started out recording, I was always wondering if I was doing things THE RIGHT WAY. LOL
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My approach depends on what I’m trying to accomplish, almost always different. I think it would get boring if I did it the same way every time…I’m an experimenter. There are, however, things that have to be done the same within the total process to ensure maximum results. Levels seem to be the most important of these things. Then EQ, then pan & effects, in that order. Some effects need to be recorded initially, which will automatically move them up in importance, others can be added later. I think experience relative to your own goals will bring about improvements in that area, as it will in all areas. As an analogy, I’ve taken my guitar to be worked on a couple of times to this music store tech. He’s into types of music I’m not into, and he always wants to set up my guitar for his style, which scares me away without letting him touch it. I think recording is similar, in that we each want different results with our different styles, so it would stand to reason that we each have different approaches to recording, not to mention different processes and technique confines due to the varying types and range of our gear.
 
I think when you break it down to the most basic level you have two camps:

Those that use the recording studio simply as a way to reproduce their music as true to the original source as possible. This is pretty much an impossible task IMHO, but I still try anyway.:D

Then there are those who use the studio as part of the music, and there are basically no-holds-barred as far as what is acceptable practice in manipulating the music with the tools available.

You could also be somewhere in-between.;)
 
M.Brane said:
I Then there are those who use the studio as part of the music, and there are basically no-holds-barred as far as what is acceptable practice in manipulating the music with the tools available.
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Okay, I'm THAT guy, lol. I've got enough live recordings of me, lol...I want somebody who sounds BETTER than me. :D

Dobro - Since we're basically recording with the same tools (i.e., cool edit, an acoustic guitar, and ASSLOADS OF AUTOTUNE...oh, wait..)... Anyway, I think some die-hard rules from the analog world don't translate precisely to the digital; on tape, you wanna' record as hot as you can, b/c any room that's taken up by sound on the tape can't be occupied by hiss...which is ON the tape...it's like an assault against hiss. But there's no hiss on my harddrive, lol...so I tried something awhile back when I got my preamp. I recorded a vocal with the preamp set as low as it'll go and still be on. I had to get right in the mic, and I had to sing out quite a bit to even hear myself...so I dropped the rest of the mix down 10 db...it's just a temporary background mix in CEP anyway, so that's why there's no harm in downing the fader...nothing "happens" until you actually mix down, which I do exactly one time per song, since I have unlimited tracks, lol. So anyway, I turn the whole mix down in the multitrack by 10db so I can hear myself, and I record the vocal, and it's this itty bitty, pathetic looking wav. Okay, so I turn it up 10db in the multitrack session and solo it...ZERO hiss on that file. Cool. So then I turn my mix back up 10db, and the vocal sounds great.

Then, I left the rest of the mix where it was, and I turned the gain on my preamp up 10db to send "as hot a signal as I could" to "tape" - ...I could hear myself, but I was dodging clips (no pre-card compressor),...but I got through it. HUGE HISS on that track.

The weird part, to me, is that if I take the hissy track and do nothing to it, it sounds horrible. But if I take the little tiny pathetic looking wav file and actually process it by increasing the amplitude by 10db, there's STILL NO HISS...

I only recorded on an analog machine for about :20 minutes before the whole "panning knob L/R don't forget to fix this each time you record something" thing pissed me off and I joined a band instead. So almost ALL of my "experience" has been in digital, and I'm thinking that this particular concept may be exactly opposite of what analog folk do.

Or, I just need a quieter preamp, lol.

Oh, and on the compression thing...90% of my mix may sound like ass, but I don't get a lot of complaints on my vocal sounding too compressed, lol. That's one "instrument" that needs to be tamed, whether it be in the tracking, or post tracking...Hell, go to a studio, sing a vocal that has a variance of 3db total...you know what'll happen? They'll mash the living shit out of it anyway, lol. One of my biggest pet peaves are vocals that jump out and then go hide in a mix...as long as it's not PUMPING, I say do whatever works for you, to get the sound YOU like. If anybody else likes it, that's a bonus. If not, they don't have to use Autotu...I mean, compression.

Lt Bob and Middleman - See, this is where my lack of analog background hurts me, I think...I don't know how to use the bus knobs on my recording software, b/c I guess I've never needed them...I've also never had to run FX through a send/return for recording (I do live, obviously), so I don't even know HOW to "run reverb through an EQ."

HOWEVER, I really REALLY want to be able to do this, lol, and while I'm no genius, there are dumber people (Jamal), so help me out. Now, I DO have the ability to run a vocal track through an EQ and kinda' preview the reverb only (100% Wet - 0% dry), and I can sort of limit the frequencies that the reverb is going to effect (but I can't limit them as much as isolating ONLY the SSS @ 4500Hz). I guess I could actually save THAT as a seperate track and mix it in with the original vocal with volume envelopes so it only shows up on the SSSs's...but there HAS to be a simpler way...so dummy it down for me?

Thank you,
-Mr. Preset
 
Chris:

Create an aux. track. Use a send from your vocal track as the input on the aux. track. Insert a reverb on the aux. track 100% wet. Blend to taste with the rest of your tracks. Add EQ, compression, whatever sounds good. There are a couple different ways to hear just the verb. You can pan the tracks, and listen to just the side with the verb, or use a pre-fader send and mute/lower the fader on your vocal track.

Experimentation, brother. That's what it's all about.:D

Hope this helps.:)
 
Chris, wouldn't the hiss be a gob of room noise, or the preamp itself? What kind of preamp is it?

I don't know, you guys could be right. What I've been doing is just getting a decent signal, and then moving faders all over the place! I don't even know what it peaks at (I'm sure it goes above -12, though),Oh well, I try not to worry about that stuff. :rolleyes:

Thanks,
Macle
 
chrisharris said:
It does, and it freaking works too!!! Thanks a lot, man.

-Mr. All The Best Stuff I've ever Learned, I Learned At 3.a.m.
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That's what I was saying on page five of this thread about blending the wet and dry vocals right after you asked the question. ;) ..lol.
Of course M.Brane explained it much better and in more detail. :p

I now officially knew one thing about recording :D

Again, thanks for this great thread. I'm sopping it up like leftover gravy!
 
Without thinking about it, and since my readout is so small.

I had to go check, seems I've been using 8db headroom without even knowing it. Anything less, for me leads to overs.

Thanks to this thread, I got up, put on my reading glasses and looked. Yup, 8db.

Unless you like compression, which at this point, I really don't, maybe just a little on bass, It would seem that headroom is your best friend.

Good thread!!

GT
 
...........Also.............

For eq, I actually ended up using an eq, that works best in my truck, and that seems to translate around nicely, weird!!

When it comes to gear, I really think, less is more.

Less eq, and try to stick with subtractive.

I personally like more headroom, as opposed to more compression.

Totally agree, make things sound as good as possible while tracking, especially eq.

I do think a good final eq, is great for removing some overall coloration. Works for my truck!!


GT:D
 
skids said:
That's what I was saying on page five of this thread about blending the wet and dry vocals right after you asked the question. ;) ..lol.
Of course M.Brane explained it much better and in more detail. :p
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LOL...yeah, I just saw yours...the "new" thing for me is the bus send...that kicks total ass.

Macle - Yeah, it's just room noise. I'm ALL ABOUT room noise, lol.
 
I'm in awe of some of you fucks. You're light years ahead of me. I'm just groping around and bumping into things by comparison. (I've run out of wine, too.)

That thing that Chris did with the quiet little digital waveform he boosted later with no hiss - what a good experiment. I'd never have thought of trying that. That's worth looking into.

And there's this from M Brane: "Create an aux. track. Use a send from your vocal track as the input on the aux. track. Insert a reverb on the aux. track 100% wet. Blend to taste with the rest of your tracks. Add EQ, compression, whatever sounds good."

You're speaking a foreign language - I don't track with a mixer or mix with one- hardly ever use one. What's the advantage of mixing two tracks (one wet, one dry) over a simple application of the desired amount of reverb to a track using software reverb?
 
dobro said:
What's the advantage of mixing two tracks (one wet, one dry) over a simple application of the desired amount of reverb to a track using software reverb?
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It's so you can alter the 'verb sound only. If the 'verb is on it's own track, then you can EQ it or use compression on it or do anything to the 'verb without altering the base track.
 
I have a couple of older, but cool, mixers (I like the sound I get from them), but I use them mostly just for listening, and not very often, for input. It’s like I don’t seem to need a mixer with Cakewalk. There’s a console view in Cakewalk I use, so why do I need a mixer? For example, I can do what LtBob is talking about there with the “base” track and “verb” track, and mix them inside Cakewalk. Just copy the “base” track, and tweak the copy…no?
 
I finally got around to reading this very interesting thread, and I thought it was worth clarifying, in case some folks are confused:

If you're working with 32 bit files (as you should be) and if the internal mixing process is done in 32 bit (as in Cool Edit, & others), than volume adjustments are not going to harm you at all. If you are using 16 bit files, there is some internal dithering happening, but if you're doing any processing, you shouldn't be using 16 bit files anyway.

Wheras recording at low volumes (like -12) is definitely going to result in some loss - whether you can actually hear it or not is another story of course, and will depend on your ears. But the wisdom from most pros seems to be, regarding digital: get a good hot signal without clipping.

Chris
 
dobro said:
You're speaking a foreign language - I don't track with a mixer or mix with one- hardly ever use one. What's the advantage of mixing two tracks (one wet, one dry) over a simple application of the desired amount of reverb to a track using software reverb?
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I don't use an analog mixer either. I mix in-the-box with PT. The PT mixer is set up like an analog mixer though, so since I come from an analog background it was easy for me to learn. I would probably do analog mixes if I could, but I don't have the gear for it.

Another advantage to running FX on an aux. track is if you want to use the same effect on more than one track, but not the whole mix. Simply bus sends to the aux. and blend it in. I bus my drums pre-fader to a single stereo track to simplify the mixing process and save on system resources.
 
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