Advise and methods on Recording

XCalibur

New member
Lookin for input. Suggestions ....

Ok. I'm gonna "try" to 'splain how I my recordings.
HardWare :
----- EchoGina 2(inputs) 8(outputs)
----- SBLive (only used to feed MIDI output)
----- Yamaha 24 channel mixer. [ Each channel has 4 <eq>
------------ L/M/M/H ] and the Final output has a master 16 band eq.
I typically start with a drum line (canned or modified).

I record a track bass or guitar using the Echo(1/2). I use all real effects from some quality MesaBoogie/Roland equipment. So I seldom if ever use any of sonars effects on Guitar or Bass.

Ok .. for simplicity ...lets say I've only 2 tracks-wav (guitar/bass) and the midi. Now I assign the guitar track to outputs 1/2. The bass to 3/4 (assuming stereo - generally I do).

I plug these from the echoCard into my Yamaha mixer using the same numbers so as not to confuze meself -.

Now the drums come off the SBLive Cards output plug(stereo) and into the Yamaha mixer at 5/6.

Then I let listen and MIX WITH MY YAMAHA ... not sonar at all. I adjust my levels ...my High's and Lows' for each (guitar/bass/drums). As I'm doing this I listen thru my PA system (should get a small pair of monitors ...but I'm poor now).

I tweak my output (16band) Eq on the Yamaha to taste (not getting very carryed away because its eazy to do that).

Now I plug the output of the Yamaha Mixer into the EchoCard (1/2 input) ..create a new track in Sonar ... Hit the "Mute" button on the Gina24 1/2 er else I'll get WICKED loop (ouch).

Select Record on the track and record it.

Now I have the recorded final - I trim the ends ( fade or whatever). Select the track, Normalize it.

Export the wav.

I use Lame to create an MP3 walla.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My Problems:
a) Normalizing - I have to thru this process of mix and record over and over to achieve a FAT WAV. Many many many times I just don't have the output because some level was too high, or boosted too much somewhere. This gets into the subject of
Frequency Filling. WinAmp has this "frequency" bar that it displays while your playing an mp3 file. A Good Mix will have a uniform amount of boost from Low to High. A bad Mix will appear all low and have "spikes" at varying freqencies. I can look at really solid mixes like GodSmack - Very uniform - This gives the total sound a SOLID PUNCH. I'm have a WORLD of trouble trying to achieve this. How come Sonar doesn't have a Freq analyzer built in? I've tryed to use Cooledit to look at this stuff ...but it analyzes per point in time ...or applyes some bizzare transform thats difficult to comprehend. EEk!

b) Compressions - I've recently talked with some PROS ...they compress all tracks. I'm kinda new to this consept of compression so I don't really understand it. I "could" use cakewalks compression utility to compress my guitar tracks prior to the mix ...but then I'm really dealing with "original data" anymore. What do you think? Compress or not?

c) I use 44.1khz and 24 bit all the time. Wav files at 24 bit aren't recognized by hardly any software. They seem to choke on it. When I go to CD - I have to convert to Mp3 first using.

Listen to some stuff at
http://www.kytty.com/~walt/index.htm
 
A couple of thoughts. First, I used to have a Gina and pretty much did it the same way as far as sending tracks back out to a analog mixer and I still do (except now I use a MOTU2408mkII and ADATs as D/As). The stuff I listened to is played well and all but it sounds one dimensional. What I do if I have canned drums is to have them recorded onto individual tracks (kick on its own track, snare on its own track, toms/overheads in a stereo pair of tracks) and assign them out thru Gina to the mixer (again, kick to mixer channel 1, snare to mixer channel 2, overheads to 3 and 4). For me, I find it easier to get them "in your face" like this as the kick and snare are on dedicated faders so tweaking is a bit more intuitive plus I can use my outboard reverbs and such.
As far as compression goes, no hard and fast rules but I wouldn't use any on crunchy guitar as they're already pretty much compressed (they're already sort of a square wave and there's some compression that goes on thru the amp/speaker combination). Clean guitar on the other hand begs for compression as does bass guitar. Canned drums probably don't need it as they're most likely already processed but use your ears on that. If any is used, I'd look to the kick and/or snare.
There's lots of things you can do to get some depth into your stuff, it sounds like you're on the way.
Now when it comes to mix time, again I sometimes do it exactly as you describe, make a new stereo track and patch the main out from the board to it and record, ending up with a 24 bit, 44.1KHz stereo "master". DO NOT make it into a MP3 first to do your sample rate conversion. You're shooting yourself in the foot with that step for sure. If you have a two track editor like SoundForge 5 or Wavelab you can do the sample rate conversion there. I use Waves C4 compressor on the two track to level it out a bit and to get the overall level up while still at 24 bits and then just dither it down to 16 bits and its raedy to make a CD.
I did this tune more or less as described. Listen to "Back At You".

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/8/1331/singles.shtml
 
Last edited:
>Now when it comes to mix time, again I sometimes do it exactly
>as you describe, make a new stereo track and patch the main
>out from the board to it and record, ending up with a 24 bit,
>44.1KHz stereo "master". DO NOT make it into a MP3 first to do
>your sample rate conversion. You're shooting yourself in the
>foot with that step for sure.

I just figured that one out last night after reading a bunch of other stuff. Don't have soundforge or that other thing ...could 'export' to 16/44.1 since thats what CD xpects.

But what about the "FATNESS" thing ..and normalization and frequency filling issues? Do you know what I'm talkin' about?
 
>Now when it comes to mix time, again I sometimes do it exactly
>as you describe, make a new stereo track and patch the main
>out from the board to it and record, ending up with a 24 bit,
>44.1KHz stereo "master". DO NOT make it into a MP3 first to do
>your sample rate conversion. You're shooting yourself in the
>foot with that step for sure.

I just figured that one out last night after reading a bunch of other stuff. Don't have soundforge or that other thing ...could 'export' to 16/44.1 since thats what CD xpects.

But what about the "FATNESS" thing ..and normalization and frequency filling issues? Do you know what I'm talkin' about?
 
But what about the "FATNESS" thing ..and normalization and frequency filling issues?
That's what I use the Waves C-4 compressor for. I don't EQ the two track, hopefully I got that right during mixing. To get the overall level and "fatness" up, judicious use of a quality compressor will do that.
 
wandering dog said:
perhaps the waves L1 ultramaximizer or t-racks or similar products are the kind of thing you're looking for to boost your recordings volume,presence and percieved "fatness"

Learning learning learning ...
Wow ...that stuff is $$$$$ X-PENSIVE $$$$$

Whats a "limiter" do anyways? for that matter, whats a compressor do?
 
By limiting or reducing only the peaks in a piece of music, you can turn up its overall level. Of course there's a fine line between compressing a tune to make it a bit louder and squashing the living shit out of it as is the fashion now a days it seems.
 
Back
Top