51m0n

I'd avoid any holes int he plasterboard you can., it wint help the target goal of a properly quiet exterior with the band going full tilt....

[quote name='EdwardHimself' timestamp='1327056344' post='1505671'] I was bawn wivvin th' saaand of bow bews y'knaw me ol' china. (naaah joking lol) Mate, this is looking pretty good so far. The space doesn't sound too bad really. I assume though that you're going to have to sacrifice a bit of that space in order to set up nonparallel walls within to reduce standing wave build up and all that jazz? Is it going to be just the one room or 2? [/quote] Something like this:-

I would avoid a kick drum mic (too heavily eq'ed to suck the mids out). Coupled with a decent DI any good dynamic mic to capture the mids (which is where the majority of the interestin harmonic info is) will sound stellar in a mix. An SM57 or 58 can do this fine, any decent dynamic will do though. The art is in the freqency split between DI and mic - and keeping everything phase aligned.. I'm assuming you dont want to spend the earth, if you did feel the need to splash out then a HEil PR40 is the absolute canine under carriage on bass.

Excellent stuff!

Bilbo, whack new strings on, record it and see how it goes. You will get masses more harmoinic inof that will really help, you will need to turn down the treble some and let your ear get used to the difference too though. The piano is wooden like a cricket bat mind, and I found it really distracting!

Yes you can get by with a cheap electric kit. However drummers I have talked to hate them, with a passion. They dont feel the same or pick up the nuances etc etc etc. In fact I have had the same conversation from a drummer over a top of the range Roland kit, and that is seriously expensive stuff, more expensive than doing a lot towards sorting out the acoustics within a space, which seems to be what the OP was really after. Actually sound[i]proofing[/i] a room is very (I mean massively) expensive (proper floating floors on seperate concrete slab etc etc), you dont have to go that far, obviously, but if we are talking about doing a lot to help the acoustic in a room instead that tends to actually not cost anywhere near as much if you go down a DIY route and accept that you wont achieve the same results as spending a huge amount of money on a big build. One thing you get from sorting out a rooms acoustic (at any volume) is a vastly improved ability to hear each other in the space. Now if you like working in cans then that isnt really a problem, but most would prefer to not work in cans if they can () if working towards a live gig I think. The other thing to remeber is if you do sort out the acoustic (or significantly improve it) then you can use that space to track demos in without too much hassle these days.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/click_online/9675963.stm Now that is going to completely redefine the price of molded ear buds!

You can get into acoustic room measurement very easily these days too, you would do well to read the info [url="http://www.gearslutz.com/board/studio-building-acoustics/610173-acoustics-treatment-reference-guide-look-here.html"]here on the subject of sorting out acoustics[/url].

For improving the acoustic carpet isnt the way. You need to build some broadband absorbers, to kill the flutter echo, and some basstraps to tighten up the low end. If you do it reasonably well you end up with a double whammy, because you clear up the sound in the room everyone plays quieter, simply because they can hear themselves a lot better, so the sound is improved further. Net result, less pain, less tiredness and better rehearsals. The second bonus is you can put up a 2 track recorder in the room and get a really superb sounding recording of each practice. Building these absorbers isnt difficult, there are loads of good examples of DIY absorption panels at gearslutz.com. Basstraps are equally simple too, superchunks are trivial but take a lot of rockwool, double layer across the corner basstraps require less material but are trickier to construct:- Really low frequency bass trapping requires membrane/panel or hermholtz absorption, which is a bit trickier, but if you search backwards through the BBC whitepapers on their website they have plans for some excellent modular panel absorbers. Just remember a simple rule of thumb, velocity based absorption is anything with foam, rockwool or pink fluffy stuff, and it works by slowing the air molecules down. As such it works only where the molecules are moving, so not right up against the wall. To work at its best it must be placed the same distance from the wall as its depth (not always achievable). Pressure based dampeneing (panel absorbers) work on the pressure wave, and so work best right next to the wall where the pressure is highest and the velocity lowest. A crude example of a layout for aborbers and bass traps looks a bit like this:- The absorbers in the middle of the room are hung from the ceiling. Make them all big, at least 2' by 4', but 4' by 6' is really good. The green line represents internal double layered plasterboard though, which you probably arent looking to add to the room. It is laid out as it is here in order to help break up any parallel walls, thus heklping to diminish the effect of standing wave build up. Ideally you would go to the bother of building these too.

I like the sound of DR Lo-Riders. I've doen enogh listening to different strings (Ed Friedman did a great shootout on them) to know that its much of a muchness, but I do really like the sound of my bass with them on. However I love the feel of DR Lo-Riders, they are flexible enough without being too flexible (Hi Beams!), and far more flexible and less awkward than some (D'addario!), which I find very unpleasant to play. If someone can find a cheaper set of strings (I get mine from the states too) that sound as good (note, not the same,. just as good) and feel as good or better then I would switch. Of course find this out for myself would cost a load in discarded strings (even if they are cheaper) so its probably a false economy for me since with the use of my meths tube I buy strings every 3 or 4 years.....

[quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1326361442' post='1495868'] Some excellent [Free] Impulse Response files here for your convolution Reverb. [url="http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/"]http://www.samplicit...ulse-responses/[/url] Garry [/quote] Yup they are superb, there is also a bunch of high end lexicon impulses out there if you search with the google. All the Kit Richardson work I did made extensive use of these reverbs running in SIR (4 or 5 different verbs per song, up to 3 on the lead vocal alone), and the Bootsy Variety of Sound Epicverb vst.

Love the Banshees, and when I listen to ablums like Juju, Tinderbox and Dreamhouse its the drumming that gets me as much as anything. Interestingly when I was at Stainbridge Farm I found out they did a lot of their pre-poduction there, and Bob who ran it and was a drummer himself originally really didnt rate Budgie, largely because he didnt play 'properly'. Which is exactly why I like his playing so much!

I use an H4n a lot. I've used it as:-[list] [*]a notepad for quickly jotting bass ideas down:[i] it starts faster than a full recording rig so the 'juices' can keep flowing rather than having to get right into studio engineer head and losing the musical creativity[/i] [*]as a notepad for rehearsals: [i]its exceptional in this role, coping with massive volumes and[/i] because it records to aan sd card the transfer times are as long as it takes to plug in a £3 USB to sd card adapter and mounting the volume on your machine. [*]as a guerilla recording tool: [i]have used it to track drums in a rehearsal space with a couple of dynamic mics for kick and snare pluged in and the onboard condensors as an O/H pair, the results where exceptional IMO[/i] [*]to capture classical performances: [i]it does a reasonable job at this, obviously its not a 'proper' high end rig, but it does a pretty good job of standing in for one, and the limitations are not as bad as not getting a recording at all, plus it costs less than a tenth of a high end rig[/i] [/list] I've not really used it as an audio interface though, it may be quite good at that too though. As a standalone tracking device with a very easy means to get material back on your PC its very very good though, and for the money its superb.

However if you are using it as a limiting device (ie v. high ratio, high threshold, ultra fast attack) to prevent any nasty spikes hitting your amp/speakers, then its best put after everything else since pedals (particularly filters) have the ability to cause huge spikes in signal.

S12T works great with MB heads, the Hartke LH heads and the Shuttles too IME. As for something that can do everything, well a MB Little Mark 3 and a Sansamp VT Bass would have everything you need in terms of clean verses growly.

If its a pedal I'd put it in front of the amp, if its a rack device then put it in the fx loop...

[quote name='Monckyman' timestamp='1325360867' post='1482602'] An SM58 tip. replace the basket foam regularly. They solidify over time and it affects the tone,making them sound duller and less responsive. [/quote] +1!

[url="http://www.heilsound.com/pro/products/pr22/"]Heil PR22[/url] - is an update on the 58 in terms of technology in a dynamic mic. The 58 is a good mic but doesnt suit everyones voice, try a Sennheiser e845 as an option too, really suits some male voices a lot more than a 58.

If you want lots of break up at bedroom levels get a very low wattage tube guitar combo (say 6w) and turn it up till it sounds good, it will be way quieter than a big cab and have a far bigger tone than a big cab ticking over IME.

SO what happens if you take your super flat rig into a venue that has lots of heavy soft furnishings in and lotso of people too? Or tiled walls. Do you leave it all as it is or do you use eq to try and help tailor your sound to the venue?

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324289183' post='1472482'] Yeah...maybe a bit of proximity effect, but not a huge amount...Same goes for the other instruments. A snip of tape echo on the early stuff, a special room on the later stuff, a basic mic mixer without tone circuits straight into an Ampex high speed tape recorder. Later stuff was stereo with some more complex mic'ing going on...But much of it is extremely natural sounding stuff and you can hear that it is not done with much if you listen with a very revealing audio set up as the phase information from the room is still there from the microphone. i shall be putting new strings on the Warwick. Whether i take the fresh edge off the strings or try to capture them with that first few hours of brightness still intact will be dictated by when I can put them on. We are very cognizant of the interaction between bass and other instruments, in fact I have modified my bass lines many times to remove or re-voice a note or chord that is interacting with some other part of the mix. However, the classical guitar does tend to stay well away from much of the bass lines...I am trying for a sound which uses bass as the 'floor' of the soundstage, using sustained chords to provide a rich backdrop, arpeggio'd chords to provide a ripple over that, the guitar putting the sparkle into the air and the vocal a lyrical ribbon flying through it all... f***, that sounds pretentious, but hey, shoot for the stars, right? [/quote] No, plenty of proximity effect, the singer wa right on top of the mic, the rest of the band up to 20 feet away in your old school 50's mono recording. Tape was pretty lo tech in the 50's, plenty of noise and if you ran high speed you lost bass, if you ran low spped you lost top, the noise was consistent at least. All the desks were tube desks, masses of coloration, they were still striving to get uncoloured tube desks in the 50's. WHen less coloured desks turned up they were solid state, one of the first studios to switch was Motown and they HATED the new uncoloured desks. Alot of spring reverb on the guitars, and plate reverb on the vocals was not uncommon, not to mention reverb chambers, which although they function by literally using air in a chamber as the effect are not really natural (the attic at Motown would not be a place to play as a band). The point I keep coming back to is it sounds natural to you as you perceive it to be natural. The fact is that it isnt actually a very natural sound, it is the sum of all the colouration of the choices made by the engineer and producer up to that point (yes even in the fifties) as well as the musicians.

[quote name='guildbass' timestamp='1324320995' post='1473023'] Fair enough. Horses for courses...I already like the sound of my bass so I use amps which add as little as possible to the instrument's sound, and I use a cab which again adds as little as possible. sadly, I can't afford digi amps so my amps weigh about the same as my car...Hey ho...:-) [/quote] What cab is it you use that is so incredibly flat. I am truly intrigued at this point.

Of course the equiptment available was used to add and subtract stuff intentionally. They used proximity effect, and the root mean square rule, to mix the band for one mic in the room. My pont is every choice you make when recording a band effects the timbre of every instrument to some degree, and how all the instrumetns are perceived, whether you track with one mic in a room or 100 hundred tracks overdubbed and mixed later. You dont hear the whole tone of any instrument in a mix (any mix) unless its playing on its own. Its tone is obscured by other things in the mix unless they are seperated by frequency sufficiently - and sufficiently is gerneally several octaves apart. With as simple a mix as the one you describe there is a lot less to compete with your bass. If you like the way it sounds with absolutely no eq then thats brilliant as there is less to go wrong for you. In a mix of such clearly seperated instruments: acoustic guitar will only step on the mids and zing of your bass (but that is enough to require a bit of eq to help them stay clear), and will probably be seperated in the stereo spread to make room for the real star, the vocal, which if its a female will have a fundamental around 200Hz, and if is male more likely 100Hz give or take, and you can bet that if your bass is hot in a region that the voice is your bass will be eq'ed to move out of the way. My Roscoe solo doesnt need any eq to sound fantatic to my ears, it is very very punchy, which I prefer to super deep, especially for live. Of course with a tiny bit of eq and pickup selection I can radically change the timbre to suit the song, especially coupled with differences in playing style, and strings. However there isnt a chance that anyone could play it such that it needed no eq or compression or anything else in order to deliver the best possible result in a busy mix. There is simply too much going on. Bass doesnt need a tonne of fx to sound great, it does need some careful sculpting (both frequency and often transients) to fit in a mix. I dont really understand the OPs original point since I dont hear much bass that has been processed for the sake of it. Its processed enough to work in the song it resides, if it happens to be an old style funk track then it is processed accordingly with the amps and cabs and mics used, if it happens to be some indie anthem then its generally a dull thud, if its a 'bass-centric' thing there may be more flavour from fx, think Bootsy. Its what works, if you were playing an old school Motown track you want a dull thud, duller the better, super old flatwound strings etc, then the harmonic content of the sound comes from the small tube amp and cab that are being driven hard, and the aggressive plucking pushing the pickups hard too. You dont mention whether you intend to use new or old strings, and that is in my opinion the single biggest timbre changing tool you have on a bass. If you ise old strings the harmonics simply arent there, and boosting the treble will not bring them back. If you ise new strings there is a mass of harmonics making a rich and complex sound, and even if you cut the treble and upper mids they still add flavour to the sound. The same bass will sound worlds apart with different quality, construction and age strings. I would suggest that the choice of string/condition is the first step toward bass tone, since it is the only part of the instrument you can readily change to fundamentally alter the timbre of the ntoe produced.

Funny you should mention a ribbon mic. Interesting bit of kit that against a more modern mic. The ribbon is heavy as far as mic membranes go, and very inflexible (its actually corrugated). Back then they couldnt deal with too much SPL either. The result is a mic that by its very nature severely colours the tone, it loses a lot of top end, more importatnly though te mic cant reproduce very fast transients at all, in effect its a limiter in and of itself. Now you may think this is a mad or bad or dangerous thing to use on a asource if there is some other device available that can do a better job of reproducinbg the real sound for you. Well sometimes, but not always, Bruce Swedien delivberately used ribbons when recording fast percussion deliberately because of this limiting effect, it meant he could get a much louder mix with louder percussion without having to resort to further processing. Now that is what I mean by every thing you use has an effect, everything colours the sound, so your Buddy Holy single ribbon mic recordings, apart from the huge amount of eq that is inherent in a recording to tape at any time (boost highs going in cut them coming out to help with the hissss, also the biasing as well) would have been helped with nice Pultech style eqs and almost certainly some form of compression (yes even then). You dont seem to grasp what goes in to a mix to make it sound natural, at the very very least you will be eq'ed (probably some fairly drastic cutting so you and the kick fit together), almost certainly you will be further compressed. There may well be other tricks too (ducking the bass of the kick to get more clarity and perception of tightness, not to mention a couple of dB of extra level attainable in the entir emix as a result). Then there qwill be the rest of the band too. It isnt done to justify the equiptment its done to make it sound better, and if you dont do it you end up with a vastly inferior mix every time. I'd happily prove it to you. You ask what the Royal Albert Hall adds to a sound, well in fact it has always suffered from a massive echo, which initially was extremely detrimental, until the work on the vellarium and mushroom design and placement in the late 1990's started to get things under control [url="http://peutz.fr/lacoustique/articles/salles/PaperIOA02.pdf"]reference[/url]. There is nothing helpful about that, but its natural I guess.