> 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. > That sounds good. I have made some experiments with recording live with rather dismal results. The problem I get in the practice room is that the drums drown everything else out. We managed to get a live recording from one of our gigs from the desk, but that was pre-mixed so I guess its not possible to do too much with that? Some of the recordings are on our myspace page: http://myspace.com/kittencakeband > 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. Fair enough.. > > 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. I play bass, and for the studio recording, the bass was DI'd straight in, so I wouldn't think there would be too many problems reproducing that (aside from the fact I don't own a DI box yet!). I can certainly work on getting a good guitar sound though - although I'm not 100% sure how I would tell if I got one. By the way, the mix I made of the low-budget recording (no effects, no lead guitar yet) is here: http://drop.io/pretty_monster So you can maybe get an idea what the tracking was like? This was really a quick take (30 mins max) to see if this method worked at all, and I am pretty happy, although nobody liked their performances, and the click from ardour was not loud enough through the laptop soundcard to be used to play the drums to.. I can post one of the individual tracks from that if you want. > 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. Yes, I was using the PA to mix it. I do have a mic preamp but was not using it for the last recording.. I was just wondering what is the best approach of the two (I could only use one mic if I go down the mic preamp route) and whether I can safely unplug the PA speakers when recording from the PA mixer. > 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. > Thanks for all your help! James _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-audio-user
