Total newbie here trying to figure out what he's doing...please help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lyfephorm
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Lyfephorm

New member
Alright, I have several questions for anyone that wants to help...first of off I know I'm at the bottom of the food chain when it comes to equipment...lol, I have a small Fender amp, a Fender Stratocaster guitar, a Zoom 505II effects pedal, 2 stereo mics, a 4-channel mixer, 2 mics and a computer which I record it all into using Goldwave, and add drums using the Fruity Loops sequencer. That's it...lol. Amazingly I HAVE been able to record stuff with this, and some I might say even sound halfway decent...but my main hold-up now is that really I'm gonna be lacking the money for a while to get any professional equipment...so I'm just gonna have to make due with what I have for now (unless there's something relatively cheap I can buy that would help me a lot). But what I'm trying to figure out now is to record my stuff in stereo. I started off recording directly from the effects pedal into my computer...but when I recorded it to a CD and listened to it it sounded like total crap...everything was centralized, whereas all the professionally recorded stuff had guitars and everything that sounded like they were coming from every direction. Well, I soon discovered that this was because it was in mono...and someone told me I should buy 2 mics, one for the right speaker and one for the left, and arrange them in a certain way in front of my amplifer and record it like that. Well, I've tried EVERYTHING...and I simply cannot get 2 stereo mics to work the way I want them to. I don't know if I'm wiring it wrong or if it's just because I'm using 2 stereo mics instead of 2 mono ones...I have no idea. Could someone PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE help me out? Any advice as to what I should look into buying in the future would be nice, too =)...thanks a bunch

Oh...I uploaded the latest song I recorded too (all done except I haven't added vocals yet)...so you can hear what I'm talking about.

13rian
 
Goldwave is a 2 track editor, how do you assemble all this?

Check out N-Track

www.fasoft.com

I think you will have an easier time. It sounds to me like your not panning. Once you get the appropriate application, I think you will find this all much easier.
 
Yup, get some multitrack software and learn how to pan your tracks. Yup.
 
I'll elaborate a bit on the replies above...

Your friends who say "you need to use stereo" are partially correct. The posts above that say you need to pan your tracks are absolutely correct. So, how do you pan your tracks? Will panning allow you to get your sounds to come from "all over the place"? (yes)

Here's the nutshell: (oversimplified)

  1. Get some multitracking software (n-tracks (mentioned above), cooledit, vegas, the list goes on...)
  2. Record each of your parts (lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, vocals, backup vocals) as a separate mono track
  3. Put them all together in the multitracking software you chose in step 1
  4. Figure out how to pan in that software, look for a knob or slider that has L and R (left and right)
  5. Push some of the tracks a little left and some a little right, leave some in the middle
  6. Preview the panning, using speakers attached to your PC
  7. Now "Render" or "Mixdown" or "Save" the thing as a stereo .wav file
  8. Listen to it, Wow! You've got sounds coming from all directions!!
  9. Pat yourself on the back, then go back in and adjust the panning, cuz you want to move some things...
    [/list=1]

    Queue
 
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