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Silly questions from a complete novice

3K views 20 replies 7 participants last post by  Devo 
#1 ·
hey folks.

just got cool edit pro recently and have been recoding a bit and its working nicely :D .

just wondered if anyone has some tips for recording guitar parts, ive been recording each rhythm guitar line three times and mixing them left 75, right 75 and the third one dead centre. ive also been lowering the volume on teh centre guitar cause it sounds wrong being equal level with teh left and right guitars... is that normal? i tried using one line and doubling it out of phase a couple of thousanths but it sounds wrong... or somthing...

also im normalising all my individual wave files to 96% and then adjusting volumes on the little mixer so tehy sound balanced ... is that how your supposed to do it?

what is a good eq for drums? boost which frequencies...? i keep playing around but im going deaf to what sounds good and what sounds terrible.

do you ever put reverb on a bass guitar?? do you ever double bass lines left and right?

mmm some of these questions are rather stupid but at the moment i feel like asking them... so any helop is much appreciated

Steve
 
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#2 ·
First off, asking questions is good. That's the only way people will learn new things.

You should use the dB scale, rather than the percentage scale. You never hear anyone go "can you turn that down 12%". It's always "turn that down 5 dB."
I normalize to -.3 dB, then adjust everything on the "faders".
I like to record 2 tracks of rythm, and pan them over 80% or whatever happens to work. For a really heavy, intense part, I'll do 4 tracks. 2 panned over 100% and 2 more about 30% over.
Taking the same track and moving it out of time will create a stereo field in stereo, but when you listen to it in mono, you'll have phase problems. Running 2 seperatly recorded tracks alleviates many of those problems.
Normal is whatever happens to work and sounds good.

When it comes to drums, the weakest link in the chain is usually the drum itself. I'm stupified by the number of drummers that don't know how to tune their kit's. So that'd be the first step. Good heads, good drums, tuned, and a good drummer. Secondly is mic selection and placement. If you get these down, you won't need much EQ, and this is a good thing. If you do need to EQ it, there's no set guidlines. Just boost or cut whatever needs to be boosted or cut to get it to sound good.

A lot of times I'll run 1 bass DI line, and 1 mic. Then pan them over to whatever sounds good. This keeps it thick, but gives it a stereo field.

Good luck.
 
#3 ·
hey doink thanks for your reply!

ok I threw somthing together just starts with bass on its own then i put in some drums and guitars and then a key line. and then normalised to -.3db and everything has a flat eq.

A1.mp3

its not very interesting musically (its not meant to be) but should give a good example of the kinda sound im getting.

the guitar was miked using a sennheiser e835 directly infront of the bottom speaker of my legacy cabinet.

any tips mix wise would be really really helpful

how would I go about making the guitar sound bigger?

is anything too quiet/too loud?

Thanks again

Steve
 
#5 ·
yup drum and bass and keys are midi, tis all i got

I dont necessarily want to make the guitars bigger, was just wondering how to go about making it bigger incase the need arises somewhere else.

ill try turn the guitars up a bit. that should help.

thanks for the help man, its great to get help from people who know what they are talking about.

Cheers

steve
 
#6 ·
Devo,

There are some good live drum loops out there that really make the difference to what you're doing you just drop them into Cubase or Cooledit or whatever at a close enough time signature & then stretch 'em in, they're mader in chunks so you can timestretch without damaging. It really fattens up your sound with professionally recorded drums - unfortunately I have no speakers on my work computer so I haven't heard what you're getting drumswise, but I'm willing to bet this would be a help. I'd be happy to let you have them (for evaluation purposes before you go out and buy of course) and could post you the CD of the ones I've got if you want.

I'm going to start looking around for more too so will keep you posted.

Let me know,

Jamie
 
#7 ·
Cheers Jamie,

i never thought of doing that, thanks!

ill have a look for some loops now.

if you get a chance check the little demo out, the piece is in alternating 5/8 and 6/8 so would it not be hard to find samples to fit?

I think midi gives me a little more control, seeing as everything i write tends to jump around time wise.

though if I could splice these samples together to give uneven time sigs like 11's and 17's etc then I think it could work.

has anyoe done this before?
 
#9 ·
cheers dave,

i actually used 'live' hits organised into a soundfont that sounds pretty reasonable, did you check it out its not too shabby for midi?

im trying to find better ones at the moment, i just downloaded all the samples from the sabian website (pretty good quality), and am hunting for some good kicks and snares to assemble a new kit. will sound even more realistic.
 
#11 ·
Reason's great. For myself and I can't speak for the rest, I am only using drum loops and programmed drums as a backing to assist in writing & concentrating on what I do which is play the guitar. Eventually it all gets scrubbed anyway when the song is finished, and then we put live drums down & rerecord finished version. So I don't see much of a point in going too deep into it if its getting erased eventually. I run Cubase SX which copes with REX files and allows me to fit these loops to whatever I want. I find it a better solution than any MIDI drums as its a quick and easy way to shove in the drum loops, fills and pauses, and get back to the structure of the song. If you were never going to put live drums down, definitely check out Reason & Recycle 2, not to mention Fruityloops, Battery and I am sure there are tons more.
 
#12 ·
Yeah, I do my drum sequencing in Fruity Loops. It's free, and once you get the hang of it you can get great results if you've got a good set of samples.

Generally, I try to keep the center of a mix free for the lead guitar (or your vocals, if that's what you're doing). double tracking and panning the guitars left and right is the best way to do this I've found, and it gives you a massive guitar sound, compared to a single track. So, I start with a stereo drum track, two tracks of guitar, usually panned at least 30% left and right. Bass a touch off to whatever side the kick drum isn't slightly off towards (we're talking tighter than 11/1 o'clock, only slightly off center). I don't generally record with kwys, but sometimes I'll harmonize, loop, and process the hell out of a few tracks of guitar to get a synth pad like sound, and i'll usually have that panned to sort of swirl around the mix subtly. Idunno, i just like the effect and sense of space it gives.

Also, correctly-used EQ and compression can help parts "sit" better- I generally roll off the bass below 120 or 160 Hz or so- right at the point where you can just BARELY hear a change in the low end if you're listening for it, but nothing that changes the "sound" of the guitar. This frees up room for the bass in the mix, so the two instruments don't "clash" in their frequency bands. this will, as unintuitive as it might seem, give you a fuller sounding low end. Likewise, if you compress the guitars, not to the point that you can hear any real audible difference but to smooth out the transient peaks, you'll be able to mix the track hotter before it clips, and even if you choose not to, it's best not to have it pushing 0dB if you don't have to.

-D
 
#13 ·
And another tip Devo which you may or may not have heard yet, when recording your acoustic, one channel for the pickup, and record a second channel from a mic - then pan them 30-50% left & right.

Drew - when you double-track the guitar does that mean you record it twice? Or simply duplicate the track and pan it? And does this work only for single-lines / solos? If yes, then any tips for a good rhythm/backing guitar sound too?

I'm fairly much a novice at this too. Cheers for the tips all.
 
#16 ·
hey jamie,

his website is

http://www.guitarmaker.demon.co.uk/

Should have all his contact details on it.

I really cant recommend him enough, his work is absolutely top class and as he is relatively new on the 'scene' his prices are still low (I used to own no 36 i think, and the guitars can only have improved).

I also recommend if you can, to try get to his workshop to check out his guitars. See if he still has the 11 (individual, yes thats 7 inches of fingerboard) string classical guitar.

Good luck

Steve
 
#18 ·
mmm no processing, just as I described above with one left 75 one right 75 and one centre at really low volume.

mike is sitting right infront of the bottom right hand speaker of legacy cabinet pointing slightly off centre, and runs straight into the sblive drive in front of computer.

the settings on the legacy were : P6.5, T6.5, M6, B7.5, G8.5, (volume ~ 1)
7DBK brigde pu, full tone and volume. jazz III pick ;)
 
#19 ·
wrote a new song there about two weeks ago and put some guitars down today and they have a real crackly sound... like im pushing a mike into a pile of plastic bags. It must have been mike placement cause I used the same settings I had used for a number of tracks including the demo above.

Can anyone recommend where to point the mic, and why? and how far fromt the speaker it should be??

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

Steve
 
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