any advice for new recording adventure?

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 7:11 pm

I'm completely self taught in recording. I've only really recorded stuff for my band (search "Steelscape" on youtube to see what i've done so far). I've always used my line6 toneport for for guitars and bass and never really mic'd cabs or anything mostly because i a)never could get it to sound as good at i could with gearbox/line6 and b) don't exactally have a studio space or anything. It's really easy to mask shortcomings with equipment setup and live drum recording quality when there are super high gain guitars in the mix almost constantly. So i've a friend who is in an indie band with lots of clean guitars and generally more chill music. I definitely want a new challenge so i'm stoked on it but at the same time not exactally sure how i want to do it. I've been dorking around with micing my amp and trying to see what works best but im still not 100% happy with how its sounding. The main thing im worried about is micing the guitars vs using line6 for it. I'm almost leaning towards hanging out with the guitar players and creating patches in gear box that they like before we actually sit down and record and using that but theyve some sweet gear that sounds great as is and don't want to tell them to ditch it for what i have simply because i dont feel comfortable i can get a good sound out of it. not because their gear sucks, but because i just dont know what im doing with it haha. so yeah... any random tips or anything will help. I've a pretty good grasp on the mixing/mastering part as long as i can get a good raw take on the tracks.

UlricvonCatalyst · Post by **UlricvonCatalyst** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 10:42 pm

The obvious thing is to try some different mics if you have a few to choose from. The no-brainer budget choice for guitar is a Shure SM57.

It's good to spend some time searching for the sweet spot for mic placement, though it tends to be less obvious with clean sounds than with the fuzzy variety.

If there are two guitarists, try the SM57 on one and a condenser on the other (if that's an option) to help with greater separation in the mix.

If you're tracking the guitars separately, try a close mic and another one further back and experiment with blending them. Likewise, send a line to your TonePort and blend that with your mic(s).

Buy an old-skool metal dustbin, cut the bottom out and put one end close to the speaker (creating a tunnel) and a second mic in the far end. Also good on a bass drum. Other metal cylinders are available.

vierphoria · Post by **vierphoria** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 10:53 pm

I'm also pretty newish to everything related to recording, but one thing I've come to learn is that a digital approximation of actual amps and gear doesn't compare at all. At least not when creating the sort of soundscapes we've been recording. If you have the patience, try to learn how to record by micing.

And keep it loud when you press "Record". I mean really, really loud.

Al_ · Post by **Al_** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 12:26 am

Yep, play with position a bit. You can have mics close to the grill; but don't point them right at the dust cone on the speaker; a better spot is often at the interface where the dust cone hits the main speaker body; and a bit off axis. If you have enough mics/channels to work with, you can also try using more than one mic at a time. Sometimes the blend between a couple of different mics can sound better than either of them on their own.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 1:52 am

All helpful advice. I've a 57 that ive been messing around with for micing into my toneport. ive been messing with the positions and its sounding better. Is louder better when close micing? i mean should i crank my amp up? its at a decently loud volume when im doing stuff i just didnt know if i could overload the mic from having it too loud. When i record im tracking basically everything. Starting with drums then guitars and bass then vocals probably last. I've a phonics 16 channel firewire mixer that pushes individual tracks into audition/cubase for the drums. Since ive never had a good room to record drums in is what i do it eq the kick, snare, toms with basically no bass. this makes kinda a "click" track. Then i sample each drum individually and make 9 or ten samples. then i go back with drumagog and basically trigger the sampled hits using the live recording "click track". I make sure i get a good OH sound when we are recording then use the triggered tracks to fill it in. Its nice because i dont have to worry about bleed on anything except where i want it (overheads and hi hat). This is how ive gotten around having to use a good drum room.

UlricvonCatalyst · Post by **UlricvonCatalyst** » Mon Feb 27, 2012 8:58 am

Mattsican wrote:Is louder better when close micing? i mean should i crank my amp up?

If, as you stated earlier, you want to record clean guitar sounds, there's no particular advantage to cranking your amp. A close-mic'd fairly quiet amp should sound more-or-less the same and won't annoy the neighbours. If you're anything like me it might even coax a better performance out of you (I feel quite self-conscious when I'm making a racket that the whole neighbourhood can eavesdrop on) and a good performance>a perfect recording every time.

If you are recording a loud amp, though, don't worry about your SM57 not being able to handle it - dynamic mics are built to handle high SPLs.

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:20 am

Always get a DI with every guitar track for reamping later. Always DI bass too.

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:22 am

Even doing high gain shit, amps don't have to be very loud, but sometimes they sound better that way. The best thing to do is through rules out the window and just do what feels best.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 5:48 pm

Sloan wrote:Always get a DI with every guitar track for reamping later. Always DI bass too.

I always DI bass. I've recorded myself for my band plenty of times using my Sansamp BassDriver DI. Thing is legit. As far as DI guitar, I tried it using my buddys 6505 with a line out into the mixer to try IR's for cab simulation before. Is that basically the same thing? We ended up not using the tracks so i really have no experience with DI guitars and reamping. Could I use my sansamp (since it is a DI) in bypass mode or with the blend knob and all the settings neutral instead of buying another standalone DI? Would i put it at the very front of the signal chain? Now youve got me thinking all sorts of crazy stuff haha

Al_ · Post by **Al_** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:27 pm

For re-amping, the best approach is to have a dedicated re-amp box (several manufacturers make them--I've got one from a copmany called Little Labs that is cool and I like--basically a one man shop and all around cool dude). The one I have doulbes as DI box as well (its switchable). On the cheap, you can just run a DI box "in reverse", but as DI boxes aren't really designed to do that, there are some limitations (not real sure on what they are, but a google search should come up the the particulars).

Most DI boxes give you a parallel output, so you can send one signal into your recording interface and a separate one on to a guitar or base amp. This would give you the ability to record both a "wet" signal from the amp (mic'd} as well as have a "dry" signal for later re-amping. Re-amping is cool because you don't need a new perfromance to work on perfecting the tone. Once the take is good, you can play it back out through an amp and mess with settings, mic positiioins, etc. And it actually works great on a lot of things--bass is a gimme, particularly because it's often recorded direct; but you can get some cool tones and more heft oftentimes playing it through an amp. It tends to sound good in some cases blending the direct and amp tracks together during mix time. I've re-amped a wonky snare track in the past too--essentially using the snare track to trigger a percussive-tone output played through a speaker that the snare drum sits on--then micing that. Lots of possibilities!

Al_ · Post by **Al_** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:33 pm

Here's the box I have, but mine's an older model. This one has some cool additionial features (where you can use the DI and re-amp simultaneously). Maybe a bit spendy ($270) but definitely cool.

http://littlelabs.com/redeye.html

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 1:17 am

i did a little testing and turns out i can use my line 6 toneport to do it with. I can record two tracks, one with my normal setup in gearbox and another completely dry, at the same time. I can then play back the dry clip out of my analog out, into my head then back into my toneport via the mic input. Ive also been messing with some VST heads and cabinet IR's... working pretty well.

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Wed Feb 29, 2012 4:07 am

^yes.
i now pretty much exclusively track guitars using free vst amps and cab impulses. it makes it awesome when you can seamlessly edit some dude's 5000 DI takes together into something usable before you just decide to track it yourself and just tell him he's awesome at guitar.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:03 am

Sloan wrote:^yes.
i now pretty much exclusively track guitars using free vst amps and cab impulses. it makes it awesome when you can seamlessly edit some dude's 5000 DI takes together into something usable before you just decide to track it yourself and just tell him he's awesome at guitar.

haha yeah. Ive been messing with the Nick Crow VST heads and theyre pretty legit. Know where i can get any good VST amps to try out?

Sloan · Post by **Sloan** » Thu Mar 01, 2012 1:28 am

Mattsican wrote:
Sloan wrote:^yes.
i now pretty much exclusively track guitars using free vst amps and cab impulses. it makes it awesome when you can seamlessly edit some dude's 5000 DI takes together into something usable before you just decide to track it yourself and just tell him he's awesome at guitar.
haha yeah. Ive been messing with the Nick Crow VST heads and theyre pretty legit. Know where i can get any good VST amps to try out?

http://lepouplugins.blogspot.com/

mastermorya · Post by **mastermorya** » Sat Jun 09, 2012 6:03 am

Can I hijack this thread and ask for recommendations for a cheap DI A/D converter that I can plug into my computer for Reaper or whatever? Well, I guess I just did that. I'm inclined to use the line out on my pathfinder for stuff.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:05 am

mastermorya wrote:Can I hijack this thread and ask for recommendations for a cheap DI A/D converter that I can plug into my computer for Reaper or whatever? Well, I guess I just did that. I'm inclined to use the line out on my pathfinder for stuff.

haha

Awstin · Post by **Awstin** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 6:53 pm

Rock Band microphones hahaha...

aen · Post by **aen** » Thu Jun 14, 2012 7:56 pm

Sloan wrote:Even doing high gain shit, amps don't have to be very loud, but sometimes they sound better that way. The best thing to do is through rules out the window and just do what feels best.

I just tracked the best metal shit of my life last night, and the Twin Reverb was on like 1.5. It was tricky to get feedback, but the riffing was tits.

Mattsican · Post by **Mattsican** » Sun Jun 17, 2012 5:58 pm

This is a few years old now but using the toneport/gearbox has always worked well for metal. just theow the screamer infron of a hi gain head and ALWAYS use the vintage 30 cab
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