Newbie with some questions
Home > Home Recording Forum > Recording Techniques > Newbie with some questions
Posted on Mar 13, 2003 06:03 am
SplitSlim
Member Since: Mar 13, 2003
First off, fantastic forum! Please excuse the length of this post.
I've just recently started recording from home using the following gear;
PIII-450 (upgrading soon to AMDXP1800)
768MB RAM
Monster MX300 (I know, this needs to be changed, thinking about a Audiophile 2496)
Behringer MX802A (rented for now, maybe buy a bigger desk)
Apex 430 Condenser Mic
Sonar XL 2.2
FruityLoops
I basically create a drum loop in FL, then import it into Sonar, play my guitar on top of that (either electric going through Digitech RP100 and mixer, or acoustic using mic), then add vocals to the whole thing at the end.
My first problem is my drum loops. They sound SOOOO fake. Can someone give me a hand with creating a good loop, as mine are basic and don't change at all during my songs (basic kick, snare-hat, kick...kick, snare-hat, kick)
My second question is regarding levels. The LED's on my mixer never go above the 3rd green light, but on the channel monitor in Sonar I get clipping here and there.
Third question, Vocals. I add a light compression and reverb to my vocals after I lay the track (using Sonar Plugins, CompressorX and FXReverb), but they seem to "fade" into the track. I try to increase the channel volume, but it just doesnt' sound "right". Also I am recording my vocals mono, should I do something to make them stereo?
Last question (thanks to all who have got this far). What advice can you give me for recording acoustic guitar? I use the EQ to improve sound, a little compression and some reverb sometimes. Again, this is coming into Sonar mono, should I make it stereo?
Once I get these answered my posts should get a little smaller;-) Thanks in advance for any help!
[ Back to Top ]
Mar 13, 2003 06:19 am 1- THANKS, glad ya like it so far, I hope we can help ya!
2- Nice gear, the 2496 is a great card, I recommend it, it's what I use and it ROCKS with Sonar 2.2 (which I also use) as long as you enable the ASIO driver support in the audio properties.
Issues:
Drum Loops: kinda tough in Fruity to set sound changes on every hit, what you MAY want to consider doing is using one of the DXi drum machines that are included with Sonar, they are programmed via MIDI and can have velocity setting assigned to each hit making it sound more real.
Levels: if Sonar is peaking, leave it alone, the mixer may not be but thats fine, it's not a big deal, just raise you faders if it bothers you. It's the levels in Sonar you need to concern yourself most with.
Vocals: I would strongly advise you look into the compressor (see some in the Gear Bag) outboard unit and compress the vocals before they ever enter the PC to get thebest sound, many times once it's recorded it's far to late to do some things.
Acoustic: don't do it much, but I like a little chorus on acoustics, also, the recording tips has an article about EQ tricks. I believe in the effect and signal processing section, look for it, there are some great tips in there.
Mar 13, 2003 06:26 am Thanks for the quick reply! I'm sitting at work so I'm hanging around here all day;-)
I was contemplating buying the Behringer Composer PRO MDX2200 after reading a few posts here regarding compressing before hitting the PC. Will I hear a noticable difference hardware compressing my vocals over software after recording? And how is that unit?
Thanks dbmasters!
Mar 13, 2003 06:29 am Behringer makes some good compressors, I use the dbx266 myself and have for a long time, it rocks as well.
Hear a difference, well, it depends on how you use it, but what it will do is make the sound you end up recording far more managable, and you won't need to spend the processor power of your PC to do it.
You WILL hear the difference in the long run, and your originally recorded signal will be much more even and predictable,making it easier to work with from there.
Hang out all ya want, welcome to the gang! We are always glad to see new faces around here.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Mar 13, 2003 09:30 am Guitar,
For me it's first things first on recording accoustic guitar. I do a lot of futsing with the mic or mics when recording. There is a lot that can be done right there. Capture the sound from the "f" hole if you want depth and midrange. Up on the neck for finger squeek and fret sound. You can record multiple mics or mic(s) and pickup to seperate tracks if you want to massage the sound later for fullness or stereo (multiple) guitar effect. Generally speaking compression and reverb are the two most difficult effects to create in software so for those you might want to try hardware if you use those effects / conditioning. For me it's an ongoing process. I have developed my chops a lot since recording too. The desire to get that perfect sound recorded. The possibilities are litmitless!
Mar 13, 2003 09:43 am How about the stereo thing though? In Sonar all my tracks (channels) are mono. Should I make them stereo or duplicate them and phase them a little?
Mar 13, 2003 10:40 am Or, you can duplicate the mono file and have two mono tracks to process seperately, that is what I usually do.
cooloFrisco's Most UnderratedMember
Since: Jan 28, 2003
Mar 13, 2003 11:46 am I'm definitely not an expert here, but I have noticed that when I go back and re-record a second track of vocals, and lay them over one another, I get a fuller sound. Sometimes I'll sing the same part 4 or 5 times and lay them all over one another, mix them down to one wav file and then add some reverb.
Mar 13, 2003 09:25 pm Yeah, keep all your tracks mono unless the signal is in stereo (A keyboard, for example.) When mixing you might want to double it up with some copy and paste action though. Recording in mono takes up half the space, and makes a ton more sense if your signal coming in is mono...
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Mar 13, 2003 11:07 pm Ditto! I prefer using mono tracks just for simplicity. Even whey I record a stereo output of a keyboard I use two mono channels. Key1 and Key2. Keeps things flexable and simple.
LokiCone PokerMember
Since: Apr 07, 2002
Mar 14, 2003 03:25 am For your guitar I'd reccomend placing one mic near the hole, one mic towrds teh fingerboard, and a mic a few feet back, have them all going to seperate mono tracks, and eq them all differently in Sonar.
I usually end up doing a few vocal takes and placing them over each other on their own tracks so that I can edit each one independatly.
Fruityloops is a great app, but it takes some getting used to. What I ended up doing for real drum sounds is record my friend playing his drums, just hitting each drum a different way, then I imported those sounds into fruitly loops and I now have all the sounds of a real drumkit. I don't use this too much though, as I personally like the sound of the fake kits.
Mar 14, 2003 01:04 pm Thanks for all the ideas!
I think I'll try using numerous mics on my acoustic, that sounds interesting. I was playing around last night with my acoustic track, using CompressorX, FXReverb,Timeworks EQ and Flanger (all included within Sonar), and I like the sound I was producing. However, I'm going to re-do the acoustic recording as I miked it to close to the sound hole and now I have sections that just boom.
I was a little frustrated with Fruity loops until last night when I figured out patterns and the song option. Now I can throw in fills and kicks where ever I want and make it seem a little more realistic. Also I found an excellent "natural" drum kit link on this forum, so I downloaded the files, and I must admit that the sound is fantastic.
For the vocals I think I'm going to invest into the harware Behringer Composer pro to compress the sound before it hits the PC.
Again I would like to thank everyone for their ideas and opinions!
Mar 14, 2003 01:13 pm Glad we could help. And yes, without the song composition option in FruityLoops it's hard to use it very productively :-)
Welcome to the community, hope you have fun, learn a little and stick around a while.
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Mar 14, 2003 07:43 pm Don't forget that you will be able to use the Behringer compressor to compress the Mic on the Acoustic guitar (especially useful for the one near the sound-hole) - this should help alleviate your "booming" problem :)
jues.
Mar 15, 2003 04:39 pm hey.
heres a suggestion: buy a drum machine. fake sounding drum loops were always a major concern of mine too. i had a copy of fruity loops once, and i didnt give it a chance. it turned me off right away. i suppose there are people out there who get it to do amazing things, but for me--not being a drummer--i needed something i could just hit with my hands so that i could start to understand how drums work. i went into mars one day looking to buy a drum machine but the salesman talked me into a getting a korg triton workstation instead...6 months later i had the money and my drumming is now much better and more natural than it was. i can sit there and just hit the bass and snare until i figure out what beats in the music need to be accented and how, then i program it (drum machines and workstations typically give the option of inputting drums in realtime or in slowtime, with the option to quantize after the fact. then i just fill in the blanks with rides, hi hats and crashes. so basically i just start with a severley limited set of percussion sounds: only the bass and snare, and i treat them as if they were the only things in my kit. i find that once i decide on a suitable bass-snare combo that really pushes the music in the right way, the other percussive arrangements become self-evident.
as for the mismatch in levels between your desk and your sonar, try turning down your computer's/soundcard's input gain until it matches your desk's levels.
Mar 17, 2003 01:07 am fortymile, what's really a trip is triggering Fruity Loops with a drum machine! I like to record midi notes into Fruity's pianoroll with my yamaha dd-5. that's a blast!
