Making the most of what i have....
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Posted on Aug 05, 2004 10:39 pm
keevhren
Member Since: Aug 05, 2004
Hey, im still pretty new to the board, and have just been getting into recording for the past year. The following is what equipment i have as of yet:
Sonar 3 Producers Edition
M-Audio Mobile Pre USB
Behringer Eurorack UB2222FX-Pro mixer
Nady DMK-7 Drum Mic set
MXL 990 Cardioid Condenser Mic
apart from insturments/amps/etc... thats what i use.
I recorded about 6 months ago (my first attempt) and the results were, ok, but not that good filebox.vt.edu/users/robe...l%20A%20Lie.mp3 <--- sample song
Coming up in a week or two ill be back from summer classes at college and will be giving it another shot. Ive learned some more about sonar and my gear since the last try (such as making sure that the tracks dont clip like on those songs above). Are there any tips/ideas that can make the recording sound much better?
I run the 7 drum mics into the mixer then run the out's of the mixer into a channel on the M-audio. That is 1 track on sonar and the other in on M-audio is bass or guitar, then overdub the rest and such. Im saving up to buy a good audio card with 10 or so channels so ill eventually be able to record every drum on its own track..etc, but for now this is all i have. Hope you can help me out with some tips or what have you to get the best sound out of the actual tracking of drums/guitars/bass and vox.
thanks and hope to hear from some of you soon!
-Robert
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Aug 05, 2004 11:35 pm Hello Robert. There's plenty of tips in the recording tips section of this website that'll give you lotsa info about mic'ing drums, guitar, and bass to get a helluva sound. As for what you've got....as your post says, make the most of it. There are people here with less than what you've got making recordings that sound good. You've got to spend the time researching your equipment in order to utilize it to its fullest. Your link doesnt work for me. Get it working, and you'll get some more specific advise from the audio guru's here. But definately check out the Recording Tips first. There's so much invaluable info there that it's almost a SHAME that it's free!
The way you are recording sounds just fine to me as long as you keep the peaks down. There are lots of places for your signal to peak, so keep an eye out for all of them.
Aug 06, 2004 12:06 am hey the link should work now! and thanks for the help, ive been reading some of those tips and such. thanks!
Aug 06, 2004 12:45 am Good song. I really dig it. But man, the whole SONG peaks! Ha! Knock down those peaks, and I think you'll be doing allright. Is Offspring one of your bands influences? It kinda has an offspring vibe to me. Sounds good. Keep it up.
SonicoMember
Since: Apr 19, 2002
Aug 06, 2004 09:49 am I would record the drums in stereo with a click track for keeping the tempo and then bass, guitars, vocals, etc. (but that's because I like stereo drums)
I think that if you are careful with clipping and record one instrument at a time you will get a good sound.
Aug 06, 2004 11:34 am hey thanks for the help, weve all listened to the offspring at some point or another but personally im a MASSIVE Bad Religion fan, also along the lines of pennywise, nofx, anti-flag, etc...
thanks for the help, im gonna try doing some recording this weekend hopefully and see what it comes out like...
ill keep ya posted!
-Robert
Aug 17, 2004 11:35 pm hello fellow recorders! as promised, here is some recording of a band im working with this week, so far what do you think and please please please...any suggestions, critiques, tips are more than welcome as im not experienced with mixing/mastering and such.
www.drawnablank.com/flatline.mp3
cheers!
-Robert
Aug 18, 2004 12:29 pm Ok. You still need to work on the peaks. While considerably better than the first song you posted the song still peaks quite a bit. Now, on to the critique...
The vocals need some compression to help even out the sound a bit. I can hear when the vocalist moves closer and farther from the mic. I used digitalfishphones endorphin (has this plugin won an HRC Recommended award yet?) on the high end to mellow out those vocal peaks a bit and it sat in the mix a lot better.
Besides that, I would like to hear a bit more cymbals and more snare. Particularly the snare. It seems buried deep in the mix.
But it's a really good song. I found myself singing along after listening to it a couple times. Hope this helps.
Aug 19, 2004 11:52 am hey that helps a ton, sadly i cant turn up just the snare or any of the drums because i had to record them into a mixer and then the mixer into one channel as i only have 2 inputs to my computer :( i went back and compressed some of the tracks to hopefully reduce some of the peaks.
ill post a link to a few newly mixed songs once i get them posted online somewhere.
thanks for all the help, this forum is WAAAAAAAAY more helpful than the sonar forums on cakewalk.com
speak with you all soon!
Aug 19, 2004 12:15 pm are the drums recorded in stereo?
" and then the mixer into one channel as i only have 2 inputs to my computer"
Aug 20, 2004 03:49 pm umm, they were recorded into 1 input, but as for the mix, i believe the pan is Center so um... i really dont know. i assume that they werent just because i didnt run the mixer into both inputs making it a "m-audio stereo" input.
Aug 20, 2004 04:33 pm It didnt sound like it was mixed in stereo, which is why I asked. You should really try it sometime, stereo mixes are like ear candy.
