Some Advice

[J_Gaylord]

Hello to all you Home Recorders,

I wanted to make a suggestion after having read a lot of the questions in here. It sounds like many people have signal chains (the equipment placed in between the original source - like a keyboard or guitar - and the final destination - the computer or tape deck) that are unnecesarily long. It seems like a lot of the questions that are coming up have, potentially, their source in the signal chain, as in something (probably something unnecessary) is doing something funky to the signal and you can't figure out what it is.

My suggestion would be to take the shortest route (this doesn't mean plug you're electric directly into the computer though - always mic your amp unless (1) someone has a gun to your head or (2) you've got some amazing Line 6 equipment that simulates an amp) from sound source to final destination. The less complicated the chain is the easier we'll be able to answer questions, and the purer your sound will be.

Once you get a good handle on the basics, then you can fool around with adding things to the signal chain, but only because it actually adds something to the sound. Maybe everyone doesn't agree with me, but simplicity is key in the complex world of sound.

 

[homestudioguy]

Sometimes it is the "Unecessarily long" signal chain that provides the artist the sound or "character" that the artist wants!

 

[J_Gaylord]

Fair enough. I can completely understand that, but then the element needs to be purposely introduced into the signal chain for that very reason. When problems arise, I'm seeing ridiculously long signal chains explained in posts, and very frequently the elements of the chain don't "seem" (I could be wrong! I admit it!) to be flavoring the sound any particular way. So, to amend the first post, if you've got something in there because you like the way it changes the sound keep it, but if it's in there and doesn't need to be, I suggest removing it and making life a little simpler.

 

[homestudioguy]

Fair enough. I can completely understand that, but then the element needs to be purposely introduced into the signal chain for that very reason. When problems arise, I'm seeing ridiculously long signal chains explained in posts, and very frequently the elements of the chain don't "seem" (I could be wrong! I admit it!) to be flavoring the sound any particular way. So, to amend the first post, if you've got something in there because you like the way it changes the sound keep it, but if it's in there and doesn't need to be, I suggest removing it and making life a little simpler.

Thus we have digital recording.
Send the signal in and use plug-ins to modify the sound.

However, there are still a lot of people who like to do it the "old-fashioned way"! On top of that, there is an entire sector of pro-audio retail business dedicated to making it (stay) that way!

 

[Lance135]

Two Schools of Thought

The school of thought to "just get a clean sound into the computer, then mess with it after" is a fairly new one. I think for anyone that's really new to recording, it's good advice. After quite a few years with a home studio rig, I still mostly record this way.

However, I think the very best results are when you get an "almost finished" sound immediately on playback of the recorded track. This takes some experience and experimentation, but I believe it's worth it.