Room Ambience

[Thorguitarist]

I currently have my amp in an entertainment center, I also have my bassists (windsofthor) amp next to the entertainment center. Everything is in a 8ft wide by 6ft deep cubby with a 6.6ft floor to cieling a put carpet padding on the cieling and the walls are wooden paneled. Anyway i was wondering when recording if it's better to Have a lot of echo or to have things dampened? And I also have a Sennheiser e609 mic to mic my amp and a Sennheiser e835 for the bass amp, how far away from the amps should they be

 

[goldfish]

Dampen as much as possible. For bass I would recomend using a DI box or line out from the amp, if its available. Bass cabs dont really do much for recordings. Guitar, you will want to point the mic towards the center of the cab. Get it as close as you want. If its distorting the mic, back off a bit.

Rule of thumb is : when recording, have no room ambience at all. Add the reverb afterwards. That way you can better control reflections and reverb and such, after recording.

 

[Thorguitarist]

Thanks, although how does the DI box work? My bassist the SWR LA-15 it's one 15" speaker at 100watts. He also has the MXR distortion which i think might have a DI built into it...I just don't understand what connects to where with the DI box?

 

[mixsit]

A mixture of close/dryer tracks and some with more ambience, whether from pulling the mic(s) back a bit to include some room or from verb effects, can combine to make front-back depth in a mix.
So either are good.


"Dampen as much as possible."
With in reason. Some control and balance works too.

"Bass cabs dont really do much for recordings."
They tend to have a lot more character than direct. Might be a bit tougher to deal with too, but...?

"Guitar, you will want to point the mic towards the center of the cab."
...if you want the brightest possible sound.

"Rule of thumb is : when recording, have no room ambience at all."
Some of what you get with a bit of spillage you can't get in a box.

Anyway, some more broad opinions for ya.
Wayne

 

[mixsit]

Thanks, although how does the DI box work? My bassist the SWR LA-15 it's one 15" speaker at 100watts. He also has the MXR distortion which i think might have a DI built into it...I just don't understand what connects to where with the DI box?

Some of the SWR's have an XLR or 1/4" line out on the back, maybe with a switch that selects either after all the head's controls but before the master volume, or from before the controls. The later would be closer to pluging the bass into a D/I box; where the 1/4 out continues to the bass head input, the XLR to the recorder, usually at 'mic level'.

 

[Thorguitarist]

Ok thanks...I guess I'll have to buy some studio foam...and try those techniques

 

[mixsit]

Ok thanks...I guess I'll have to buy some studio foam...and try those techniques

Fiberglass is cheaper.
Now back to the cubby (didn't get it at first). Being in a box may make for some odd peaks in the sound in the lower end, but you won't control anything down there with anything less than 3 or 4 inches of fiberglass. Forget 1/2" padding, it just kills some highs. On the other hand, the wood paneling is good on lows, probably a good sign. (wild assed guesses )
On thing home rooms like that have going for them is a fair amount of diffusion.
I'd say experiment with it. Maybe build some gobo/partions that you can use to control parts of the room or sections around the mic/vocal/amps?
Also check out the Studio Building forum.

 

[Thorguitarist]

Fiberglass? Never heard of using that! should I maybe move the bass amp and the guitar amp away from each other, maybe in seperate rooms even?

 

[goldfish]

Isolating the gear is ideal if you want complete control over the mix. If you wanted complete isolation, you would have bass amp in one room (if your micing it, not DIing it... more on that in a minute) guitar in another, with everyone sitting in one room with their instruments and headphones monitoring the whole lot. That way you get minimal bleed from the bass onto guitar mic, and vice versa. And the worst problem is having guitar in the same room as the drums, as you'll get a heck of a lot of bleed onto all the drum mics.

Don't go crazy buying foam and stuff and turning your room into a padded cell! You just wanna make sure that big flat surfaces are covered up with somthing. A couple layers of blanket fabric would stop harsh reflections.

All of the stuff I said above (and in my previous posts) would be a general direction to go in, didn't mean for it to be too specific. To expand on some of the points I've been quoted on

"Dampen as much as possible."
With in reason. Some control and balance works too.

Indeed! Naturally volume matching each other is a very good idea when recording and playing live. That way you can get a natural mix and make less work for yourself afterwards.

"Bass cabs dont really do much for recordings."
They tend to have a lot more character than direct. Might be a bit tougher to deal with too, but...?

Depends on the setup. If its a fantastic cab, then it will add a lot of charachter, as it should do. But chances are if its a mediocre setup, then you'll get just as good results DI as you would micing it, without all the hassle.

"Rule of thumb is : when recording, have no room ambience at all."
Some of what you get with a bit of spillage you can't get in a box.

True.. but the room ambience of my sitting room isnt going to be as nice as the resonance of a recording studio ... All to a certain extent

I have yet to experiment with fiberglass... could be interesting! heh

 

[Thorguitarist]

I have actually put the amps in separate rooms believe it or not, The bathroom and closet of my basement. I did have more control over the sound insted of just estimating on the levels. I just wasn't sure if that was the right technique. Both rooms are pretty small so not a lot of reverb in there.

 

[goldfish]

I have actually put the amps in separate rooms believe it or not, The bathroom and closet of my basement.

Argh, bathroom?! Surley thats got lots of flat surfaces (like a bath..? unless youre talking about a toilet.. darn yankees ) and it would echo like hell! Well, as long as you're happy with it, thats the main thing

 

[chessrock]

i was wondering when recording if it's better to Have a lot of echo or to have things dampened?

If a lot of room echo sounds better to you, then go with that.

If it sounds and works better for you dampened, then go that route.

I also have a Sennheiser e609 mic to mic my amp and a Sennheiser e835 for the bass amp, how far away from the amps should they be

Move them around and place them where they sound the best.

It's very common to close-mic guitar cabinets for various reasons. For bass amps, you'll see a lot of different approaches, distances, and angles, and there are a lot of reasons for that, also.

 

[abooganza]

what rules........?

Sometimes complete isolation of instruments means that you miss out on some really interesting stuff resulting from spillage/bleeding.As long as you have no phase problems I wouldnt worry too much.
It can be a problem falling into the "I'll fix it in the mix" mindset.Get it sounding good with your basic setup and only try to "fix" whats broken.

Personally I solved a lot of my problems by reducing the number of mics on the drums.With 6 mics I ran into phase and bleed problems all the time,now I use 3 or 4 -:kick,snare,and 1 or 2 overheads(condensors)
I've even just used 1 Condenser flown about 3 feet over the drummers head(this usually only works with quieter styles (accoustic,folk etc)

By D.I 'ing the bass and having the guitar amp(s) behind gobos I am
able to to achieve better and better results as I experiment more and more.(usually learn something new every day..........)

What a GREAT job!!

Good luck mate,have fun........regards - matt