No Monitors or Room Treatment?!

[SubYeoman]

Good deal, Subman. Your next questions should along the lines of monitoring systems and room treatment. have you got those things taken care of yet??? Most important part of a studio, ya know!!

peace,

Actually, I hadn't planned on doing anything in the way of room treatment or monitoring... I was going to record exclusively direct to PC, through headphones. Is that bad?

My situation is:

1. I live in a townhouse apartment so I can't be too loud
2. My music equipment doesn't use any amps or mics (except for my SM58 for vocals, which is probably my last priority)
3. My recording setup is in my basement which is quite large, has concrete walls, and doubles as a laundry room and workout area (gym) i.e., horrible acoustics even if I was to put effort into trying to make it better

I have a set of electronic drums, An acoustic-electric guitar, a Yamaha P-85 digital piano, the SM58 mic, and an electric guitar via the Digitech RP255 pedal, all going directly into the USB interface, which I monitor through a pair of Ultrasone 550 Headphones. I record drums and Acoustic clean, and the piano is either clean or MIDI so I didn't see the point of amping and micing them. As for the electric guitar, the main reason I bought the guitar pedal was because it has a built-in equalizer and it also emulates various amps, stacks, effects pedals, etc., so I figured that any benefit I could get from an amp I could get from this pedal. I know the quality isn't going to be the same, but in my situation I figured this was the way to go. As for my vocal mic... well, I figured I'd just have to put up with whatever I got there. This experience is mainly about getting better at playing and recording music, and vocals are more of an afterthought anyway.

As you know, I am very new to all of this, so if this setup is way off base, or I'm missing something please set me straight!

 

[tmix]

If there are no micrphones involved and you are not listening to speakers in the room...the room acoustics wont matter.

The room only matters if it is going to flavor what you hear or the microphones hear.

 

[Wack]

Hey welcome to HR, you'll find a lot of good info here. Even being just a project if you want it to sound at least semi decent, you will want to do some kind of treatment. Weather it be bass traps, a few pieces of angled plywood, or even building a small vocal booth. Recording guitar without an amp (to my experience anyway) sounds very raw and hard to make sound right. Almost like it's not powered enough. You want to make sure the set up is not by any thing like the furnace, washer/dryer, etc.. The sure is only dynamic so it shouldn't pick up EVERY noise in the basement, but it will probably come pretty close. Like I said I'm new, been recording for about a month now and am getting better by the day, excuse me if the facts are not right. Good luck!

 

[jab2980]

If you are not/cannot use monitor speakers, I would highly highly recommend listening to your mixes via different sources other than your headphones before your final finished product (car, home stereo, computer speakers, etc). Use this to compare to other recordings that you are familiar with to get a good base for your eq.

 

[Chili]

Hey Subman, your set up is similar to mine. I use ezdrummer instead of edrums, but everything else is the same application; guitar modeler, DI the keyboards and bass. I mic just vocals and acoustic guitars and I don't generate anything too loud.

About acoustic treatment, a couple of things come to mind.

First, the large room is ideal for vocals, with or without treatment. Try to minimize the room noise from laundry, HVAC, etc.

Second, you really want to do your mixing through monitors in a well treated room. You need to hear what is happening in your mix and headphones will not convey everything. Headphones are good for listening to details like crossfades, reverb tails and such, but are not good for overall tonal balance. So, you want to use monitors but they work best in an acoustically flat room. There are tons of threads on this subject in the Studio Build forum.

I always recommend that a one-man, one-room studio should treat for mixing, not recording. Remember, we're not talking about sound isolation, but frequency response. And it's surprisingly cheaper than you might expect to treat your room, especially if your a DIY'er.

 

[The Cancers]

Second, you really want to do your mixing through monitors in a well treated room. You need to hear what is happening in your mix and headphones will not convey everything. Headphones are good for listening to details like crossfades, reverb tails and such, but are not good for overall tonal balance. So, you want to use monitors but they work best in an acoustically flat room. There are tons of threads on this subject in the Studio Build forum.

There are certain things that happen when speakers are playing in the room that just can't happen with headphones.
You can't hear certain phase issues coming out of different sides of the stereo spectrum through headphones, it only happens when you hear the sounds interacting in the air.
Or something like that.

I'm really not sure about the specifics, and am paraphrasing (poorly, mind you) things I've read elsewhere.

Which brings me to the question of the potential validity of this sort of thing:

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst_isone_pro.htm

Anybody used something like this (I'm pretty sure Focusrite has something similar integrated into some of their smaller interfaces), and if so, have any comments on it?

Plus, there's a free demo of it, so, for the OP, you could try it out and see what it does for you (if anything).

 

[SubYeoman]

Thanks for the feedback... I'm a long way from the mixing phase, but great things to think about for when I get there.

 

[jlewis]

Indeed, get some monitors, bass traps and panels for your first reflection points for when you are mixing. If the room sounds decent, I might also suggest that you get a condenser mic and set up an x/y stereo pair with the Shure for your acoustic guitar. I think you will be pleased with the results and you might also want to use the condenser for your vocals.