On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 8:06 AM, James Stone <jamesmstone@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >>> I had a quick mess around with a bus with TAP reverb, and only 1 >>> reverb.. It gave the track a more "live" sound to my ears - more >>> real maybe, but lacking some of the dynamics of a studio >>> recording.. any idea where I am going wrong? >>A >> Absolutely impossible for me to tell from a simple email. Possibly you >> are expecting too much at this point in the process? Maybe it's real. >> We can talk through it, for weeks. I like this stuff. It hardly gets >> discussed around here. I am all for more. > > That's really great. Thanks for taking the time with this. > >> OK, breaking it down, how does the room compare to your studio >> experience? > > More bunker-ish, less studio-like! Room has reflective concrete walls, > I am using the PA mixer to mix the mics, Although turned down very > low, there is also the PA output coming back into the room!! (is there > a way around this without buying my own mixing board?? - I guessed > that disconnecting the speakers from the PA might not be very > advisable for the health of the amplifier??) > >> How do the mics compare? > > I have a condenser mic (Samson C01) which I could not use because of > the feedback from the PA. Everything was recorded with 1 or 2 Shure > sm58s > Well, OK, I'm starting to get a picture in my mind. And not a very good one, but at least it's a picture and place to start, so let's start... :-) In general there are two ways I approach getting a new piece of music on disk - record it live and then work on the pieces or start from scratch and build it up track by track. Assuming that I correctly understand that you are part of a band and you're new to this I'd suggest the former and building from there. However that probably comes a bit later. I'm now going to snip ALL the interesting but possibly distracting stuff in the middle and focus on the ONE thing I'd suggest you do. <SNIP> > > One thing I was considering, if you are amenable, is to post both > songs in their raw (ardour) form - the first (professional-ish) one > was done in protools, but I have imported individual audio tracks into > ardour and have got pretty much the same sequence as far as I can > tell. The second has all the tracking problems I mentioned - bass > guitar for example, which was recorded by micing the amp in the > low-budget version has some boom where it hits the resonant frequency > of one of the nearby toms! Drums (although recorded with 2 mics only > has one track as the mixer/PA had no pan function!) I would really > appreciate it if you could listen to the raw form and then say how you > would approach them (could repost the mixed versions if you have the > time?) I would find this really educational, but I realise it is > asking quite a lot, so I am happy either way. > > James > For me anyway I don't think this would be productive, at least not yet. If your problems are primarily tracking, (or at least initially tracking) which they sound like they are right now, then why mess with a whole mix? Far too complicated. What I would do is, for the purpose of discussion, focus on getting one single good track on disk. Sorry, but I don't remember what you said you play. (Or if you even play! I'm old an hardly remember dinner last night.) None the less, let's say you played one of the guitars on the studio production. I'd suggest we concentrate on duplicating that sound as best we can. We don't need the PA at all, assuming you are playing through some sort of amp. If you simply listened to the studio mix and played your guitar along with it, recording it into Ardour, then we'd get an initial indication of how the room, guitar, guitar amp, mics, preamps, A/D and Ardour are working for you and what you're able to do so far. We could then work on ideas for improving it. As I reread your email, I'm now confused as to whether you are using a mic preamp of some type or are using the PA itself as the mic preamp and driving Ardour from that. If that's the case I think you're going to have a very hard time getting the results you are looking for and might want to consider even an inexpensive stereo USB preamp. If you need to go that way then make sure you check out Linux compatibility carefully as so little stuff really works under Alsa. But, to be clear, if you are using your PA then post a single track of the guitar playing the same part as something in the studio mix and we'll go from there. And no, you don't absolutely need to buy a hardware mixer to make good mixes. Ardour has more than enough capability in that area. But you can't make a good mix if you can't get good sound on the individual tracks. If you're interested in doing this then drop a note back. I understand it might take a bit of time to get to it. Cheers, Mark P.S. - I'll give you one hint... From my experience you won't get the best results recording guitar or bass with a drum set in the same room. ;-) _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
