Turtlerock Forum

G`day Guys,

My questions will make you all roll your eyes and groan, but please please answer? :) I've trawled through almost every forum topic here, but most of it's all a little too advanced for me.

I've recorded bands (very amateur only as a hobby!) for many years using digital recording consoles. My current is the BOSS BR-900 Digital Console. I always use brand new (but very cheap) bass and guitars. Vocal Microphone is a 'Studio Projects C1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone'. All equipment is new and working correctly. I have no formal training, and the Digital Consoles I use have no Meters.

My method is that I painstakingly cross-reference every bit of recording/mixing with a famous CD of a band/song that sounds like the one I'm recording.

If you listened to them (and when I listen to them) they sound "adequate at best" but never "great". Obviously I've hit a wall (there's only so far one can go without sound engineering knowledge). So, can I pls ask these questions of you:



Q1) I have only ever experienced digital recording - is analogue really much better? Is this the first improvement to my approach I should make?

Q2) Is a brand new (but dirt cheap) bass and guitar much worse than some $4000 Gibson etc? If it's brand new then surely it can't be too bad...? Or is there really a direct correlation between bass/guitar cost and recording quality?

Q3) I plug the cord of the guitar (or the bass or the vocals microphone) directly into the BOSS BR-900 Digital Console. Should I be plugging my (for eg) guitar into my marshall amp - and then putting a mic in front of the amp - and then plugging the mic into the BOSS BR-900 Digital Console?

Q4) What do you all mean when you refer to 'clipping' in a song (you've mentioned in other forum topics that you don't like songs that are overly-clipped)?

Q5) The biggest problem I always face is recording vocals. The volume of the performance jumps up and down all over the place. Mixing a vocal track takes me ages as I have to remember every single peak and trough, and adjust the volume manually upon mixing. Is this what you all have to do?? Or is there some simple way of avoiding this? I was told to use a condenser, but the C1 Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone does have a condenser ...


Please be gentle!
D.

OK, I'll bite first but there's guys with much more experience and knowledge than me around here, also, remember that we're dealing with things that can be or are influenced by personal preferences so you may get varying answers.

Q1).......I run both digital and analogue machines and my take is that one is not necessarally(sp) better than the other, obviously, there are degrees of quality within both formats.

Q2).......With instruments, I always go for quality..........this should almost guarantee good electronics and tuning/intonation stability, etc. The C1 is not a bad mic for your level but like a lot of Chinese manufactured mics, it tends to be a bit bright in the top end, that said, if you happen to match it with the right sound source it will shine.

Q3).......I prefer to "amp" guitars but bass can run direct without losing so much of it's character.

Q4)........I'll defer to others for a sensible answer :-)

Q5)........The first thing I always think of when I encounter shifting vocal levels is either poor mic technique or perfomance skills. BTW, the C1 is a condenser mic, not "does have a condenser".


What you haven't described is probably the most important thing and that is your recording environment. If you haven't got that under control then you're behind the eight ball to start with.

Thanks mate!

3) OK I think I need to start amping my guitars then

5) From now on I`ll spend some time with vocalists up front to make sure their technique is better

Regarding my rec environment - it`s a room 4m x 5m with carpet on floor, walls and roof. But now that I think about it, the studios at Turtlerock don`t have anything carpeted ... maybe carpet isn`t such a great idea ...

With regards to your vocal level jumping all over the place, what you need to use is a compressor. It's basically an automatic gain control that keeps things nice and level. Of course there's more to it than that technically speaking but basically that's what you need to solve that issue.

Whatever you do, don't ask the analogue vs digital question around here. It will start a long winded debate that is never, ever resolved. :-) Digital sounds like it will be fine for what you're doing.

A new guitar will not make any difference to the quality of your recordings. Depending on who you speak to, the older the better. A good guitar is one that stays in tune all the way up the neck, has good intonation.

When people refer to "clipping" it is in reference to digital distortion. When the signal goes over the maximum level possible it will be "clipped" which presents itself as audible distortion.

fwiw..... I don't think carpet is going to kill your mixes.

Hope that helps.

Dave,

Regarding your room acoustics (and other "stuff"), have a look at these two sites.........:

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/index.php


.............the SAE reference material was written by John Sayers, the second link is his studio design forum, where if you're prepared to wade through all the info there should give you some ideas about improving your recording environment.

While I agree with Kris about using a comp, I still feel that the wise person looks at the source of the sound first........get that close to right (unprocessed) as it goes to the recorder and everything else following can be so much easier.

Even when micing an amp, there's a learning curve.........every amp/speaker combination will be different as will every mic, etc. Moving a mic 1" can alter the sound so be prepared to spend time finding the sound that you need. If you're recording "distorted" guitars try reducing the amount of distortion to a level somewhat below what would be the normal "live/stage" level.

What else?.....................Nah, that should be enough to keep you busy for a while :-)

Q1, yes, no, maybe, each format has its pro's and con's, the pro's of 1 tend to be the con's of the other, bottom line, you have the gear you have, thats what you work with. personaly, a combination of digital and analogue works for me..
Q2, yes, no, maybe, does it sound better????????, generally, theres a reason a $4,000 gibson costs $4,000. When recording something, you cant make it sound like something costing 3 or 4 or 5 times the price, you CAN make something sound different but if it sounds like shit in the first place, the best you can do is make it sound like different shit in the last place.
Q3, do some reasearch on impedance matching.
Q4, clipping is driving the level into distortion, in the digital domain, clipping is baaaaaaaaaaad, ugly, and to be avoided at ALL costs, when you drive the signal past the point of 0dB in the dig domain, you get a flat line, and that is an exceptionally ugly noise.
There is 4,876 pages that could be written on this, and 8,745,972 pages that already have.
Q5, as stated before, get a compressor, thay are designed to deal with exactly this issue. On the other hand, dont over compress, its a balance you need to learn, experience will teach you this.
Q5a, a C1 LDC IS a condensor mic, if you do some research you wil learn the difference between a condensor mic and a dynamic, and the various other types of mics out there, its not rocket science.

Hi David,

Q5) as stated - compression is the ticket here - your BR-900 has 2 compressor/limiters available as digital insert effects which you can use to learn about compression.

Are you mixing songs on the BR-900 in addition to recording them on it?

the BR-900 records audio in a compressed format (MT2) on the hi quality setting. This could contribute to the lacklustre sound you are experiencing. You may eventually need to move away from the BR-900 to improve things.........something to think about......

Peter

Guys,

Thank you so much. That`s really decent of you guys to lend a hand.

This forum is the best. It`s really good of you guys to throw a guy a bit of help.

Thank you, and thanks again!

D.

In reference to cheap guitars, any guitar, provided it is well set up and intonated can sound like an expensive guitar with a good set of pickups. You can buy some custom shop strat style or gibson burstbuckers on ebay for a few hundred bucks. Yes, micing an amp will give you better results, however, there are many things to consider, Mic, Mic placement, volume level etc. It may be better for you to invest in an emulated guitar rig, such as a pod or similar. You may get more satisfying results.

You can get a vast improvment in sound by lowering you input recording levels. There is no need to record digital hot. Noise is not a problem but digital distortion is. Try to keep your input levels at around -12dbs. -20 dbs is 0db on the old analogue VU meter.

As already stated, a compressor is a must, even a cheap one will yield a more "pro sound".

Good luck. Keep asking and you'll keep learning.

Cheers
Peter Houghton
http://www.tunetown.com.au

Hi Dave,

In relation to your Q1... I run a repair workshop and over the last year we have had a run of people bringing in old analogue tape recorders for repair and/or refurbishment.

Some of these people have been older guys who had always worked with analogue, liked it and were prepared to pay to have old machines worked up. What interested me, though, was that some of these recorders were brought in by younger clients who had never worked with analogue and were at the stage where they had been tempted to try it out.

One client in particular sticks in my mind as he brought in an old Ta@#$% 8 track that he had acquired but that had been knocked around and wasn't in the best cosmetic condition. We reworked the machine and got it going pretty well. This chap was a student at a music/recording college and had only ever recorded with Pro Tools. He rang me up about a week after getting the machine back and said that to him, the recordings he had just made on the analogue machine sounded better to him than his Pro Tools recordings.

Now, that is just one person's opinion, but I did find it interesting. There are volumes that could be written about the virtues of analogue and digital and I think most people have arrived at a point where they don't see it as an either/or situation.

There are also factors too numerous to mention that you should take into account in making any decision. As an example, our experience is that analogue machines will generally require more attention than digital (think: $).

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Just to add a quick 2c worth on your clipping question.

Digital distortion or "clipping" happens when the recording level exceeds the maximum signal level the converter can handle - called 0dbFS, or 0db Full Scale and not to be confused with any other 0db. As others have said, digitial distortion sounds really bad. It is NOT like guitar or effect distortion. This more like speaker blowing noise.

Incidentally, one reason people like analog gear is that it doesn't have this problem - when it gets a level too hot to handle, it tends to distort in more "musical" ways (by adding harmonics rather than glitches).

In practical terms, this means you should be recording at a level where just the first 2 bars of the BOSS level display are shown, very rarely hitting the third bar. It will seem strange to you at first, but trust me, turn up the headphone volume before you up the record level.

Its a steep learning curve, but its all worth it when you begin to understand how it all fits together. And always remember, its talent, passion and knowledge that makes great recordings - the gear is important to some degree, but only once the rest is in place, and even then perhaps not as much in your world and mine as it is in the mega-studio.