How did this thread come back...COOOOOOL!!!
airdvl - I gotta' admit, I love talking about recording, mostly because I have very little to do with any of those tracks sounding like they do. They're the result of generous folks (online) donating their time and talents. As far as the basic tracks, (vocals/acoustics) all of those tunes were recorded with a cheap mic - AKGC3000 (NOT recommended, lol) - through a DMP3 preamp into the Soundblaster Audigy. I used to have a better mic, but a buddy borrowed it and...well, it's been almost 2 years now - I don't have a lot of hope that I'll get it back.
- All the strings are real...my daughter plays viola, so that helps, and there's another guy who hangs around here some (DavidK) who's a world class violinist, and he helped me out on the STS-107 song. The mandolin tracks were recorded by another online buddy (MCGitarz) in Germany through a (insert B Word here) microphone
- he's very talented, and just a helluva' handy musician to have around. And yeah, I got tired of using drum loops myself, so I'm firmly in the 'real drums make a difference' camp now. Recording drums is such a huge pain in the ass, so I've been VERY lucky to have some volunteers that just send me the tracks. I HIGHLY recommend it. In fact, the way I've been doing songs now is to just record the basic tracks (guitars, vocals, bass) and then posting them in the collaborations forum over at
www.recordingproject.com . Try it, you'll like it. Thanks a ton for the followup man.
producerkid - Thank you very much for listening. You're right about the verb, and you're not the first person to mention it, so it's going to change. The big holdup now is my daughter...she's 14 and perpetually doing anything besides recording, lol...and I can't blame her. She wants to retrack the vocal to this b/c she just doesn't like the way she sang it...I'm gonna' use a small plate on her vocal when she re-records it. Thanks again.
ecktronic - Another vote for "ditch the reverb," lol....you're right, and it's going to change (see comment to producerkid). The drums are the wildcard in this because when I bring them up, the problems with them become a little too apparent. See, this is the only song I've done in a LONG time where I didn't record it to a metronome, and the drums were done AFTER the rest of the recording, so there are spots where the drums HAD to be weird to fit...I think the guy that recorded them did an amazing job, but due to my sloppiness on the front end, they have problems. Funny about the deep percussion comment...my daughter mentioned it also and said we should put a dijembe in there. This track will never be done, lol...she still has to record the violin parts, in addition to resinging it, so your comments are very much appreciated. I'm renewed.
