No low budget forum

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dani Pace
  • Start date Start date
I'm discovering that as a home recorder the cheapest and most effective way for me to improve my recordings is by treating the rooms I'm recording and mixing in. DIY can be really affordable. Go out and buy some insulation and just put it up in the corners as bass traps. Treat the recording room and the mixing room, if they're separate. This is an area that's so often ignored by home recordists because we don't properly understand it, but it's so important and really not that hard to figure out.
 
Some of these ideas are simple, quick and cheap, I like it! The mic in the closet and the amp in the closet are both great and highly effective. Another simple thing (especially if using a square or rectangular room) is to set amps at an angle to the wall, not flat against it. Another thing I sometimes do is to use extra gear (PA speakers) set around amps to help isolate sounds or set amps back to back (it looks weird) to seperate sounds. A bunch of hooks around the walls and on the celing also come in real handy for keeping wires and cables off the floor and out of the way.
 
grn said:
yes, I know... but it is difficult to find in the first place.
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Finding a truley killer sound is no easy task, I agree 100%.
 
Here's another one someone might use. To get stereo from a mono mixer (PA head for example) use the line out for one chanel and use the monitor line out for the other chanel. The volume control works like the pan for one side and the monitor send works for the other side. You just have two seperate controls instead of a fader to work with.
 
There is nothing you can't record well with an sm57. This is the "desert island" microphone. After years of sampling dozens of mics ranging in price from $10 to $10,000, this microphone is the shit.
I haven't heard it said here yet, but I'm new here.

It's not the gear, it's the ear.

Deal with what you've got, and beat, strangle, kick and punch the great sound out of whatever the hell you've got for gear. Turn every knob, push every button, try every microphone---do whatever you've got to do to make yourself happy with the sounds.
Neves Nuemanns and Studers are great, but if all I've got is Mackie, Shure and tascam, then that shit is gonna sound great too.
 
Don't forget to pin up heavy blankets- or a couple layers of thinner blankets- over the door to your recording room. Make sure they cover the edges of the door and doorjam. Helps a LOT with sound bleeding into the room as well as reflections in the room. Helps over windows, too.

Buy and use a cheap shock mount. Here's one I like that I bought off ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Universal-Shock...ryZ29948QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Even if you're using a dynamic mic, it'll keep the truck rumbling down the road from vibrating through your house up your mic stand and into your mic. It'll save the take when the kids come home and slam the front door just as the last note is fading on your once-in-a-lifetime perfect take. :)

And ditto on Deafsound's praise of the 57. It'll grow with you- one of the very few mics that exists well in all classes of gear and skill. And if you have a 58 and wish you had a 57 because they're so cool.... just take the ball end off the 58. They are the exact same mic except for the ball end on the 58. I'm not sure if this is all true of the Beta models.

And you DO keep your gear covered when you're not using it, don't you? A little prevention goes a long way to preserving your investment.

- Chris
 
Computers are the future man. I predict within ten years almost all recording gear will boil down to computer programming. Programs like REASON will save you TONS of money by giving you access to expensive instruments, drums, synths, effects, samples, and mixing equipement. Use REASON along with Cubase/Protools some amps and mics and your good to go. Using the program is like learning an instrument, the more you practice the better you get. Large expensive studios will soon be a thing of the past.
 
10 years ago people were saying that same thing:D Some of it has started to happen, a little....
 
Yeah, things are still, and always will be limited by the fact that software is not the real thing. Even if software actually can progress to the point where it does sound and behave exactly the same as the real thing, the perceived difference between the computer and the real thing will ensure the expensive recording studio will always have its place, albeit significantly diminished.

However, at this point software is nowhere close to emulating the real thing. Try finding a realistic piano sound, or a keyboard with a very realistic piano action. I have yet to find that combination. And even if someone here has found it on a very expensive keyboard, your pedal action is still completely unrealistic. I can say that without a doubt because MIDI has yet to support a linear damper release. It's just on or off. Much less programming the sound of a piano with the dampers halfway down, and all the harmonic content changes that occur with that. Then all the points in between. Don't tell me we're anywhere close to seeing that. Ten years, nope. Maybe twenty.
 
Cheap is relative ....

Cheap is relative, of course. Me, I ain't got zilch for a budget so I can't drop even $100 on most gear. The wife calls me recording music a "hobby" and keeps the budget low. I call it an "avocation" - but that doesn't increase the budget.

But here's some stuff I've done, keeping in mind you aren't about to hear anything I've recorded on the radio. (i.e. this is worth what you paid for it)

I picked up a book on how to make your own electronic effects for guitar and built some of the effects - they work well. Instead of using fancy enclosures, I built my own, which got me good stuff cheap. I happen to be an electrical engineer so this is maybe a bit easier for me than for most people, but if you can find the book I'm talking about, it explains all you really need to know and you can use it to build a lot of effects cheap.

For my recording studio - I use a linux distro - Agnula Demudi which gives me synthesis, DAW, mastering, etc. for FREE. But I got an Maudio Delta 44, which certainly was NOT free, but I snuck into the budget. The plus on the linux stuff is it is free - the minus is what you don't spend in money you will spend in time figuring the stuff out because the documentation is near nonexistent - but that's the price of a low budget.

I bargain with sales folks on used gear. I drop by a couple of local music stores that carry used stuff about weekly and I see what they haven't been able to sell for a month. I make 'em an offer - I got a great dual-channel compressor/expander/limiter for $59 that way, good as new.

I designed/built my own preamps, including a tube preamp. You can't get much cheaper than that.

Now, if only I had musical talent .... (*grin*)
 
corban said:
I hate to be the anal one, but that's not actually stereo. :o
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If you hook it up right it is definately stereo. Right and left inputs, right and left outputs, is there something more needed to create stereo sound?
 
Dani Pace said:
If you hook it up right it is definately stereo. Right and left inputs, right and left outputs, is there something more needed to create stereo sound?
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Signals that differ other than in volume?
What you're effectively doing (if I understand your solution correctly) is panning the entire mix. Not the same as a stereo mix, imo.
 
If there is only one set of signal to start with, no amount of outputs will make it true stereo. Stereo happens when the 2 output channels are capable of distinctly different signals and sounds. By using an aux send from the original channel that is also going to the mono output, you are creating a zoned mono mix.
 
Zoned mono mix, thats a new term to me, thanks. OK I admitt what I am talking about may not be "true stereo" but it's about as cloce as you can get without having the real thing. I intended the idea to help someone using a small mono PA head as a preamp to get a signal to the right and left and have control on volume and pan. Sorry for any confussion.
 
Well, I made the term up which is why you haven't heard it, but to those that do system work a lot, it would make sense.

I do see how your idea could work in a certain scenario though. If you have a PA head where ther is a mono output only for example. If you run a CD player into channels 1 & 2, feed the mono out from the PA head from channel 1 (CD L) and then on channel 2 send an aux send ( monitor send or whatever) instead of feeding the mono out then you would have stereo. Of course this means that one main speaker has to be fed from the powered head main mono out, and the other speaker has to be fed from the PA heads monitor or aux out. Very inconvenient and counter intuitive, but technically works.
 
Tim Brown said:
Go buy some - it's cheap. :D

Or, you could make one out of cardboard and a hot glue gun.

Just keep laying the cardboard on with the glue, you could make it really strong. The thing is - it doesn't have to be round.


I use a pair of $12 collapsable sawhorses that I got at Lowes with packing blankets draped over 2 pieces of PVC pipe.

Then you stick a speaker under there - close mic the kick drum, and use the speaker inside the kick tunnel, and prepare to get your balls knocked loose with low end. :D





Tim
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Hey Tim, you've been very helpful to me in the past. Just curious, what's the speaker for?? What kind of speaker? Is it hooked to anything? I've had great success with kick drum tunnels, but this is the first time I've heard about putting a speaker in there. Are you talking about the thing made by Yamaha?? Appreciate your insight, thanks in advance bro!
 
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