The Clap, knobs, and a clean surface to play on...

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sonusman

sonusman

Banned
Heil the Clap!!!

Get your mind out of the gutter guys!!! I am talking about the hand clap.

I was helping with a session yesterday for a client I will be mixing soon as they are done tracking, and we got to the part where the producer needed hand claps for a couple songs. EVERYBODY was enlisted!!! 4 guys standing around the mic, clapping away (not always together, but THAT is what makes a GREAT clap track). What I was thinking at the time though was how we needed 4 "performers" and an engineer JUST for 1 TRACK!!!! I mean, for drums, you only need a drummer and an engineer, one set of head phones and you get anywhere from 4-10 tracks. Economical in a way. Any other overdub, performer/engineer, and usually 1 track (I would consider a stereo track 1 in the case). But for the ol' hand clap, alas!!! You have to have A LOT of personel to make it work. I don't think I can think of another single track of something rhythmic that requires so many people.

Anyway, it was fun. Used one of those GT mic in omni pattern with people space around the mic evenly and all about 3' from the mic. Nice blend of room and sound. I choose omni to remove any proximity effect from the mic, which for the nature of what we were doing seemed like a good idea.

Anybody got other ideas about recording the mighty Hand Clap? Please share. This is an important part of production that is NEVER addressed that I have seen....;)

I finally cleaned my knob. Goddamnit!!! Get your minds out of the gutter people!!! Geezzzzzzzzzzzz.....I am talking about the knobs on my Soundcraft Ghost console. Man, was this thing a freakin' mess after spending about 3 months in an all ages club! I found a nice thing to clean the 500 or so knobs. Seemed to work quite well.

Fill your sink with about 4 inches of the hottest water you can get.

Throw in a good amount of Amonnia (lemon scented is nice..:))

Toss those knobs in and start moving them around. Do this for a good 5 minutes or so.

Put all the knobs in a strainer (you know, like you use to strain noodles....) and run hot water over them while shaking the strainer (it is important to shake in a way were all the knobs at some point come to the top of the pile)

Lay out knobs on a towel until dry!

My knobs have never been so clean.....:)

I like to play with my knob on a clean surface!!! Okay, no more references to the gutter....;)

I fretted over how to clean the surface of my console, and do so in a way that wouldn't take all damn day. At least for my console, I found that a medium solution of hot water and Amonnia and a tooth brush worked pretty good. All of my Pot's on the console are sealed from the top, and the sliders are sideways mounted, so I didn't have to worry about water getting in the electronics. Man, did this work well! I used a cotton cloth the wipe of the areas that my finder could get into, and used Q-Tips for inbetween knobs where my finger were too big.

Feel free to share any easy ways to clean knobs and your consoles surface. Thank god I don't have to do this very often.

Yup, this is a full on geek post here folks!!!! :)

Ed
 
Yo Sonusman:

Clap & knobs? Yeah, man....keep away from the Clap and stay clean; good idea.

One thing a friend of mine illuminated for me was cleaning contacts of various sorts; like the RAM and ROM cartridges that go into my DX-7..... take the Cart apart, use a "white" eraser, and gently rub -- zingo! Voila! The contacts are clean. Try to brush away eraser residue with a Cue-tip or use a vacuum cleaner.

This process also worked on my spare portable hand phone; one day when I put it in the station to charge, the "red" light did not come on. So, I took out the white eraser and cleaned the metal contacts -- Shazam! Works great.

If I think of any more "little" cleaning tricks, I'll pass them on. Right now my cleaning lady is washing the floors.


Hee Hee
:D :D :p
Green Hornet
 
How about a reverse clap or a reverse clap echo mixed in.
 
With a big group, I have then standing around the mic but with their backs turned to the mic. This gives a nicer fuller sound then the more "full of attack" sound, IMHO.
I always double the hand claps with another track, only 4 people will sound like 4 people...
 
I was faced with the same thing a cople of days ago. 4 guys clapping. This took a couple of min. to do but was well worth the effort. I recorded the initial claps on one track. Put in a "work tape" bounced that one track to eight tracks and offset each (7) track by several ms. Then bounced that back to my original track. And went about my day. My claps were PHAT!! Try it.
Good luck with all that's musical.
 
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