51m0n

[quote name='lanark' post='1275162' date='Jun 19 2011, 07:54 PM']So - to keep the budget down as much as possible, and massively increase the range of options we can choose from as far as recording studios go, would it be possible to: i) record the rhythm section and vocals first (assuming that we're extremely well rehearsed and the length of any horn solo are known in advance) - to avoid bleeding into the percussion mics, we have the bass and keys DI'd straight to the desk and the band wearing headphones to hear the rough mix live as we play. We then take this away and the horns practice with this rhythm section recording and later .... ii) the horns come into the studio at a later date, to record their sections to the pre-recorded rhythm section recording, which they'll be listening to through headphones to avoid the earlier recording being heard on the horns' mics. Have I got that anything like straight? The two sections would then be taken away and mastered (what on earth goes on in the matering process by the way - and does it come before or after the "mix"?) and mixed or whatever black art gets practised on them before you get the shiny silved disc? Would that sort of thing be practicable, as we've ascertained that for an unsigned band of our size, it would take a friendly millionaire to bankroll the ideal recording setup.[/quote] Close. Process is more like this:- 1) Track the main percussion, keys and a guide vocal 2) Overdub the horn section 3) Overdub the real vocal 4) Overdub any backing vocals, assorted odds and sods of extra percussion, the kitchen sink etc etc 5) Mix down of the track, where the myriad individual tracks are blended together into a 2 track stereo recording 6) Repeat 1 -> 5 for all the songs 7) Send all the songs to be mastered, where they will be balanced together for volume and frequencies, put into a final running order, faded together or split wiht the required amount of silence and an ISO and disc burnt with UPC code and PQ codes. Ready for.... 8) Duplication, the process of making many copies of a CD - you also need to provide artwork for this....

[quote name='Finbar' post='1275435' date='Jun 20 2011, 12:02 AM']If I use too many VSTs in a project on Reaper, my playback starts stuttering, which makes it hard to do much more. If I turn stuff off, then it works fine again. I'm cool with that, as I don't need everything on all the time. But is there a way of seeing which VSTs use how much CPU, so I know which ones it is most efficient to leave off etc? I use Reaper. Thanks [/quote] ctrl-alt-p Or View-> Performance Meter Will give a complete breakdown of where the load is. Learning to group tracks and st up aux sends to tracks to conserve CPU power is really vital, Reaper is particularly superb at this kind of routing shenanigans. A good read of the excellent manual is a very good idea!

[quote name='lanark' post='1273652' date='Jun 18 2011, 12:23 PM']Perhaps it would be easiest to organise a live gig recording and overdub any serious fluffs / audio issues. But then I imagine that would open a whole different can of worms.[/quote] IMO if you want to get a reasonable recording for getting gigs in the first place you would do a lot worse than buying a Zoom H2, setting up in a nice sounding practice venue (make sure the vocal is dominatingly loud through a good PA!!!!!) and record that (make sure the levels are good) If you are looking to get something for merch at gigs then you need a 'proper' recording, however that is achieved. Recording a gig is really really hard to do, and overdubbing is not at all easy, not a plan I would suggest at all.

[quote name='PapillonIrl' post='1272485' date='Jun 17 2011, 10:23 AM']While I would agree with your approach regarding instruments being tracked first, I would not not be so quick to dismiss headphones entirely. If the bass amp is heavily isolated as you say, one or more of the musicians may find they need to hear more of it while tracking. Sometimes headphones are a vibe killer, sometimes multiple headphone mixes are what is needed to make a band comfortable. ----///-----SNIP---///---- It is nice to have options in case one approach isn't working for some reason though. I would look for a space with a decent sized live room, good mic selection, one or two separate booths or small rooms in addition, and at least the capability to provide a few cue mixes if you hopefully won't need them.[/quote] Err I didn't dismiss headphones at all (have another read of the first bit of my post), quite the opposite I suggested they would be required, precisely because the bass will be isolated, in another room, DI'ed (who knows). The keys will in all likelihood be DI'ed too. No need for extra spill in the percussion from a keys amp unless its a Hammond, in which case get it out of the room if possible. Unless the studio has either a massive live room or a separate second live room then the horns will have to be overdubbed, otherwise you will get a mass of horn spill on the percussion and vice versa. Given the OP's question I would imagine this is self funded, and therefore the budget isnt stratospheric, so they probably aren't looking at studios with huge live rooms, or multiple large enough live rooms. SO back to getting the rhythm section down minus the horns. Of course you could also track a guide horn part from the control room if the engineer has some ear defenders....

Always room for another Brightoner!

[quote name='PapillonIrl' post='1270757' date='Jun 15 2011, 10:21 PM']More than likely a click track is not appropriate, as stated above, but what if (assuming live tracking)there is an electric bass which everyone wants to hear while tracking, but there is to much bleed from the bass amp into the instrument/drum mics, and the bass player wants to be beside the drummer, who has a 6 piece kit ? All of a sudden you may need to track with headphones and isolate the amps in another room, which potentially means a studio with 10 headphone mixes and 32 channels of input. That should narrow down the selection somewhat.[/quote] This will need to be tracked with headp[hones, bleed from a bass amp would need to be prtetty heavily isoalted IMO unless you are in a really great space, with an amp that sounds perfect. "Fixing it in the mix" will not be possible to any great extent without compromising something else. [quote name='lanark' post='1270884' date='Jun 16 2011, 12:39 AM']When rehearsing the only amplified instruments are my bass, vocals and an electric piano, but obviously when playing live, everything - including percussion and horns - are mic'd up. Line up: Rhythm Section: Bass (most important, obviously) Timbales Congas Keys Miscellaneous percussion played by vocalist or timbale player (maracas, clave, cowbell, guiro eto) Horn Section: Trumpet Trombone Sax Flute Plus vocals (including backing provided by other instrumentalists)[/quote] I would expoect to need to put down at the very least the following:- Rhythm Section: Bass (most important, obviously) Timbales Congas Keys Guide Vocal In one go. Ideally I'd want the horns down as well, but you are looking for a huge live room to do that, and this is almost certainly outside your budget. Could the horns overdub their parts??? Their being able to do that is really going to make or break the result.

Oh boy, you will need a BIG room. It must sound great. You need a veryugood tracking engineer, who understands how to get the necessary amount of seperation, not too much not too little. You then need a guy to mix the tracks who knows the genre at least a little, who understands the technical requirements completely, and has good ears. The question is how can you tell all this? Visit the studio. Talk to the engineer, if he is all about mic selection, placement and room acoustics, he is your man, if he's all about the spec on his computer, he may not be. Ask him to try and record as clean as possible of he starts gating the kit a lot ask why, its something you can choose to do later at mix down if you want, but you cant undo then so he'd better get it bang on for every track (a lot of fannying about that!). They will need a fairly big desk/bunch of pre's, and good mics (and lots of them), check out the gear list on their web page. Doing a big salsa band will challenge a lot of project studios, if they start talking about overdubbing all the percussion you may be in the wrong place, its hard to capture that feel when you arent all playing together - at least the core of the rhythm section should ideally put down the basis with a guide vocal IMO. Click tracks may not be appropriate - certainly not if anyone cant play to one in the band. Make sure the studio is happy for you to take away the stem tracks from the session unmixed. Back in the day you could walk out wiht the multitrack tape if you paid for it, this is the equivalent thing, it means you can get someone else to mix it later if you dont like the studios efforts. A protools or logic project/session isnt as good, its tied to a specific piece of software you see, you want the individual wavs at whatever quality they recorded them at, with no fx on at all.

[quote name='tauzero' post='1269519' date='Jun 15 2011, 12:51 AM']Can a dual compressor (I have a dbx 266xl to hand) be used as a compressor in stage 1 and a limiter in stage 2?[/quote] It can get close. Output from channel 1 into input from channel 2 for a start, channel 1 is your compressor, channel 2 is you limiter. Bypass channel 1 for now. A lot of compressors can be set to be rather like a limiter. Its not difficult. Turn the threshold all the way up (such that nothing is happening) Turn the attack as fast as possible, we want to catch transients! Turn the release to be fast. Turn the ration up to infinity:1 Bring down the threshold until you see some GR action on the meter. A couple or 3 dB would be plenty, you shouldnt really hear it though. Leave the make-up gain alone, on 0dB. Now you are catching peaks. The reason its not a true limiter is the action will be slower than the fastest limiters, and the circuit that senses if a signal has gone over the threshold will be looking at a longer average RMS value typically. Bypass the compressor n channel 2. Set up your compressor in fornt of it on channel1, pay attention to the makeup gain, then turn on channel 2 again. You should see channel 2 catching some peaks when you dig in still. You shouldnt hear it. This is more headroom, at this point you can bring upyour makeup gain on the limiter by maybe half the GR you see on the limiter meter, if you really need to.

I still have my Wonbles vinyl too.... Tobermory was a great track

[quote name='slobluesine' post='1268949' date='Jun 14 2011, 05:53 PM']yeah, yeah, but???? would you pay/want to see them at Glastonbury? now! really!!![/quote] If the audience rushed the stage and ripped them apart? Hell yeah )

I saw them (nearly) in 1974 at Withdean Stadium in Brighton The whole natural amphitheatre of the place was covered in kids sat with mums and dads. The Wombles wombled on out, got about halfway down the middle of the atheltics 'field' (the pitch as used by Brighton and Hove Albion for the last few years). They all looked very happy, waving at us on the surrounding grassy hillocks. As one there was a moaning squeeling roar of delight from the yoof who were present as we all rose to our feet and ran pell mell at them, dunno why we did, but we did, just trying to get some Madame Cholet fur to show our mates at school or something. Honestly it was like a feral tidal wave of kids with the destructive power of 3000 of the little buggers, or one Japanese tidal wave. The poor sods in their suits did what any of us would do in the same situation nowadays, they turned as one and ran howling back into their dressing room under the stand (the one that had Zoo on it from the days when Withdean Stadium was actually Brighton Zoo). Happy days!!

What make and model device is it exactly? Unless you put your system under very heavy load while recording (ie playing back a complex mix during overdubbing with a lod of vsts on all the channels etc etc) there is no reason to that USB2 would nopt manage to record 8 tracks at once. An i5 processor should be fine with a reasonably well configured system. But what is the device in question....

I mix almost exclusively on cans, and master on very large floorstanders. My mixes never suffer from a lack of bass....

Get GOOD cans. Get either [url="http://www.112db.com/redline/monitor/"]112dB monitor VST[/url] or something similar - focusrite bundle something like this with their interfaces. It mixes in some of the left to the right channel and vice versa, iut does a few other things as well. Mix with this as the last effect in the stereo master buss. Remove before rendering the mix. Buyrn a cd and listen on speakers. OR get some Behringer truth monitors, the big active ones, they are far better than they have any right to be for the money, and search on gearslutz for tips on sorting out your room acoustics - basstraps, broadband absorbers and a a cloud all come to moind. Because it really doesnt matter how good your monitors are if the room is acoustically gash then your mixes will not translate to other playback devices and situations.

He did some of Stings stuff. He's superb....

Good mastering engineers cost a fair chunk of change, look at least £250 for a 60 minute album. More for CD pressing and artwork, glass master yada yada yada.... A gash mix is a gash mix, its crap, it could be levels, compression, eq, stereo field, anything.... [url="http://www.wesonator.co.uk/"]Wes Maebe[/url] is no mean mastering engineer.

Get it mastered elsewhere if you are serious. A really top mastering engineer may send it back if the mix is gash, with some suggestions as to how to improve it. A good mastering engineer will get more out of it than you can imagine, and have the kit, experience and ears to make it better than you could imagine.

If you want a super simple crystal clear box then the TC Electronics NDY-1 Nova Dynamics would be great, it has a 3 band compressor designed to be transparent.

[quote name='LawrenceH' post='1264133' date='Jun 10 2011, 04:51 PM']Sure. I think with those types of live bands though, the other artefacts are pretty effectively hidden by the rest of the band! It's the odd notes jumping out and others disappearing that are what an audience will pick up on, and where the compressor does compensate effectively for poor technique. It's never going to work in a jazz settingof course. The most audible aspect of poor technique to be highlighted by compressors is inadequate muting IME.[/quote] Agreed! Esp the muting (and fret noise w. newer strings). A well set up transparent compressor can work wonders in a jazz setting though. As a very very general rule of thumb I find that lower ratios with lower thresholds are often more transparent than higher ratios with higher thresholds, when achieving the same dB of gain reduction. Not always the case though....

[quote name='PauBass' post='1264099' date='Jun 10 2011, 04:27 PM']51m0n very helpful info, thanks! Quick question, have you had a chance to try the Aguilar TLC? [url="http://www.aguilaramp.com/products_tlc_compressor.htm"]http://www.aguilaramp.com/products_tlc_compressor.htm[/url] If so what's your opinion? What would you consider to be a good setting with those controls?[/quote] I've not had the pleasure, but it ticks a lot of boxes, not all the controls I'd hope for and no metering (can't think of many or any stompboxes that do). I would expect it to be a decent bit of kit. I'd also try the Markbass Compressore and the JoeMeek FloorQ if you want a full featured stompbox compressor. [quote name='73Jazz' post='1264464' date='Jun 10 2011, 10:39 PM']here is a really good overview of nearly every comp..the reviewer knows his stuff as well..you may take a read and find some answers or suggestions [url="http://www.ovnilab.com/"]Ovnilab[/url][/quote] Yup, ovnilabs is my first port of call if I want an opinion on a compressor I haven't had a go on, or even if I want a second opinion on one I have. Bongomania from TB is the chap behind the site, and he definitely knows his onions.

[quote name='Bankai' post='1263600' date='Jun 10 2011, 08:59 AM']You can record multiple tracks, and always have been able to. There is no limit on the amount of channels. All that limits a USB connection is the bandwidth, which is 400mbps I believe.[/quote] No not true, USB suffers in the same way as PATA harddrive drive interfaces in that it requires some CPU and that can become an issue when you start pushing (under certain circumstances not very) hard and you get close to the limit of bandwidth when the CPU is busy.

[quote name='Oggy' post='1262357' date='Jun 9 2011, 10:01 AM']Loads of interesing solutions and advice given on this subject so far, thanks to everyone who's taken the time to reply, it's going to take a wee bit of time to get to grips with it all. Thinking about all this last night in bed - as you do . Eureka, I’m pretty certain that I know what I’m looking for now on the Hardware front – probably doesn’t exist but here goes (enlighten me please). [b]Portable recorder (Main Basic Features)[/b] 4 – 8 inputs (vox mic. / guitar / drums etc.) Volume knob / slider for each input with indicator to control / monitor input level, just so you know that it's recording and not cliping. Each individual input track recorder as separate .WAV file onto memory card in unit. USB interface from unit to computer that would allow pick up and drop of individual track .WAV files from memory card in unit to either a ‘project folder’ on the computer or direct drop into timeline track in Audio software program the on computer. Effects, mixing facility, playback, monitoring – who cares, could do all that stuff in the Audio software program on the computer, I think - perhaps / maybe? Power – Mains, batteries, PSU brick, steam – who cares. So, it’s [b]not a portable recording studio[/b], it’s a multi track portable recording device without all the software bells and whistles - they exist in the Audio editing computer program. Any ideas?? Oggy [/quote] Easy a [url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/r16/"]Zoom R16[/url] or [url="http://www.zoom.co.jp/english/products/r24/"]R24[/url] Ticks all your boxes.

[quote name='xgsjx' post='1263074' date='Jun 9 2011, 06:55 PM']I think he's compressed the wife! BTW when I said I found it took away from my dynamics, I was trying to do what the OP was wanting one for & to get it to have that much effect to try & raise/flatten the notes is going to kill a lot of the dynamics (that's basically what he's trying to achieve in a way I suppose). & they was all sub £150 comps that I was using.[/quote] nope, she's having a nap Like I said if you are trying to judge it by ear alone then when you really hear he difference solo'ed you'll be squashing the hell out of it all the time, which will sound poo. Set the attack wrong and you really hear whats going on too obviously, set the release wrong and you can get pumping (which is too obvious) dont have a limiter and you cant control the peaks you've let through so that you cant hear how much the compressor is now working. My Compounder cost me 250-ish off ebay IIRC, I haven't found one cheaper that dos the job really very well yet. Having said that silverfoxnic has a nifty dbx desktop jobbie that cost peanuts and was really usable, so keep a look out for those! Don't think it had a limiter built in though IIRC. As with all things its the settings as much as the item of kit.

I disagree about the software always reaching up to the power of the machines. Some software is incredibly lightweight, I know I bang on about Reaper, but one of the main reasons it is so good is that it is ridiculously lightweight compared to the likes of protools and logic. I agree with Bilbo completely, these days the limitations are more than ever the knowledge of the engineer involved. really, not a lot has actually changed in mic design, Heil implemented some neat designs using neodymium magnets which are fantastic, but I cant think of a huge amount else. The old Neuman mics are still the benchmark for a lot of uses, Cole ribbons are pretty unbeatable etc etc Mic placement and understanding gain staging are key, as is a thoroughly in depth understanding of how any effects can be used to get certain results. We are left with a situation where anyone can own the kit (decent PC and £25 worth of software, an interface and [url="http://www.red5audio.com/"]some really good cheap mics[/url] ) to capture sound, if the only knew how and what to do with it. What you don't have readily available is a great sounding properly treated room to do it in, and the knowledge of how to do it. That is really what separates the good studios from the amateurs IMO.

[quote name='ShergoldSnickers' post='1263105' date='Jun 9 2011, 07:18 PM']In part it's due to the circle of expanding possibilities. Computers become more powerful and then programmers take advantage, so computers have to become more powerful again. And so on. The increase in recording bit rate seen over the years puts more stress on hard disk and processor performance, the demands of ever more realistic or powerful plug-ins and effects all take their toll, and it adds up. Oh bugger I think 51m0n is about to answer and show me up. [/quote] Not at all mate!