Members OverDriven Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 So my thread on sidechain thread inspired this thread. Post your unusual recording techniques...things different from the usual double track the guitars, compress the bass, EQ the drums and run the whole shebang through a limiter. How about things like double tracking certain parts of the drum set, or an unusual way you mic your guitar cabs, for example? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ENdtime Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 I was just going to say I use mics.. Seems to be a dying art.. Everyone goes direct and impulses it seems.. And not unusual, but I used to record guitars with the hi-pass filter engaged on my pre's. I've come to prefer it with it set to off or flat. I prefer to capture everything and hi-pass in post.. Also if your preamp has an impedence switch, mess with it. It is very useful in controlling the hi end on certain mics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members OverDriven Posted January 3, 2012 Author Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 I was just going to say I use mics.. Seems to be a dying art.. Everyone goes direct and impulses it seems..And not unusual, but I used to record guitars with the hi-pass filter engaged on my pre's. I've come to prefer it with it set to off or flat. I prefer to capture everything and hi-pass in post.. Also if your preamp has an impedence switch, mess with it. It is very useful in controlling the hi end on certain mics. My preamp does have an impedance switch, but I've never messed with it. Will have to try that. Thanks man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thefyn Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 Put a blanket over the whole cab when you mic it. Make sure the mic'd part is tented square so all the speakers are not muffled. The clip in my sig was recorded this way. I don't need to do it now since I got an iso box, but it worked for me in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Charlie_Sheen Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 i practice a lot before recording. unlike the last two bands i've recorded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PaoloJM Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 i practice a lot before recording. unlike the last two bands i've recorded. Damn you, I came in to say that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members thefyn Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 i practice a lot before recording. unlike the last two bands i've recorded. I warm up by recording two tracks of the song. I keep them and use them for pasting should I need it when I do the serious takes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cirrus Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 Damn you, I came in to say that. haha! Yeah this tends to be a good idea. I really drill the other guys in my band to be prepared then spend hours in the studio doing my own parts over and over again basically writing as I record. Nothing like a good dose of hypocrasy!I don't really know what I'd call unusual. Over on the Womb forum someone recently said that "miking things is like sex, you use whatever position works best at the time", and I really like that because it's true you've just got to use your ears and do the best you can with what you've got.On this album we're doing at the moment I did a few things that I've not done before. In a couple of songs I put a mic right up in the top corner of the room, actually pointed into the corner, and compressed it heavily. The fact it was pointing directly away from the drums has given it this wierd boomy, entirely ambient sound that's gonna be really fun sitting in the track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members PaoloJM Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 haha! Yeah this tends to be a good idea. I really drill the other guys in my band to be prepared then spend hours in the studio doing my own parts over and over again basically writing as I record. Nothing like a good dose of hypocrasy! I don't really know what I'd call unusual. Over on the Womb forum someone recently said that "miking things is like sex, you use whatever position works best at the time", and I really like that because it's true you've just got to use your ears and do the best you can with what you've got. On this album we're doing at the moment I did a few things that I've not done before. In a couple of songs I put a mic right up in the top corner of the room, actually pointed into the corner, and compressed it heavily. The fact it was pointing directly away from the drums has given it this wierd boomy, entirely ambient sound that's gonna be really fun sitting in the track. Srsly. These days with the easy access to information every musician is an expert on what compressors/eqs to use, intricate details of getting guitar tone, how to edit parts into time and pitch etc. The techniques of rehearsing a part properly, orchestrating each part so it functions as a whole, working out arrangements that keep to listener interested etc. really are becoming unusual recording techniques. A good enough sound coupled with a great performance and arrangement will always trump a great sound with an ok/good enough performance/arrangement. No competition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members maggotspawn Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 I use a direct box on guitar. Send one out to the amp that's miced and one clean signal to the DAW for reamping or amp sims. Sometimes I'll run into an AB/Y box before the direct box and run into 2 amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members newholland Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 hrm. i dunno if i use any 'unusual tricks' recording. i do know that i record pretty much full band-live, which is seemingly the MOST unusual thing to do anymore... but not to me, anyhow. i think the only idiosyncratic things i do are all drum recording 'tricks'-- which really aren't tricks at all- but old, time tested methods which've kinda gone out of favor in the world of 'if you can't control it, replace it'. i usually just use two overheads, a crotch mic, a kick mic, and a room mic. the rest of it is all dovetailing the mix together. vocal mic technique is important.. i probably favor more room sounds.. use figure 8 ribbons on stuff, use blumlein recording. just a lot of the old textbook stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cirrus Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 A good enough sound coupled with a great performance and arrangement will always trump a great sound with an ok/good enough performance/arrangement. No competition. This is the truth. The song rules, and the performance comes close second. In the past it was someone's job to worry about the song and someone else's to worry about what mic sounds best where. Now it's usually the same person doing both those things and it's easy to somehow start to believe that the most important thing is what mic you use to record something as band limited and distorted/ compressed as an electric guitar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nwright Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 Nothing real unusual for me, but I did spot mic cymbals on my bands last CD, no true stereo overheads, just a mic on each cymbal. I had a LOT of people telling me it would suck, I would have phase issues, etc. but I was REALLY glad I did it and really liked the result. I could control where all the cymbals were in the stereo field a lot better and adjust individual cymbal volumes without resorting to compression or expansion or EQ tweaks to get things where I wanted it. In the end I was able to not have to hi pass or filter near as much, nor did I have to resort to compression to fix anything. I sent all the cymbals to their own buss and compressed there for a bit of glue, and hi passed around 200Hz. obligatory example vid: -LWEYhO3chg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cirrus Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 I could control where all the cymbals were in the stereo field a lot better and adjust individual cymbal volumes without resorting to compression or expansion or EQ tweaks to get things where I wanted it. That's cool and if it worked for you on that project no one can argue with the results. I wonder though why you felt the need to have all that control in the first place? What was your thought process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitarbilly74 Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 Our demo is full of "unusual" recording techniques, mainly because we don't care enough to spend money on proper recording {censored} since we're not trying to take the band anywhere further than the local gigs we're playing for our friends.... but just to list a few... Guitar - took the line out from the Randall into a Ultra-G cab emulator and straight into the DAW Bass - just plugged in straight into the DAW, no amp Drums - recorded at the rehearsal room with a Tascam DR07 in the center of the room and just loaded it into the DAW as a single stereo track Vocals - SM58 straight into DAW, recorded in my bathroom Best part is we're really happy with the results, but then again we're not trying to do anything super professional Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nwright Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 That's cool and if it worked for you on that project no one can argue with the results. I wonder though why you felt the need to have all that control in the first place? What was your thought process? I only really did it because I wanted the control. Our drummer has a prominent china in the center of his kit. It's higher pitched (smaller) and REALLY cutting. On our last CD we used stereo overheads and then seperate hi hat and ride mics (modded Oktavas all around). Having that china in the center, there was really no easy way around it's sound dead center of the kit in some of the songs. he has a bigger china off to the left and I would have preferred to have been able to leave the center a little more unclogged and move that smaller china to one side or the other. With a stereo pair, there was no real easy way around without doing more harm than good (to me and my ears and my experience anyway). The stereo spread on this particular recording with the cymbals was a little different as well. the hi hat and ride are 70% out left and right, the outermost crashes are 100% left and right and the innermost cymbals are still 70% L and R...So all of them are pushed pretty far out to the sides, but yet I personally don't feel like the middle is missing anything and I had complete control over all aspects of the cymbals...which in the end allowed me to do LESS with them in post other than panning and volume for the most part. They ended up being the most raw overheads I've ever had. Granted, most of the work took place in placement, but once we got them where we liked them, it made everything else a whole lot easier. I tend to keep cymbals/overheads low in my mixes, and I pushed these a little louder than normal, and I personally dont find them as fatiguing as a lot of other overheads mixes I've done - and these are the loudest. May not make any difference to anyone else, but for me, I really am glad I tried it. I used KSM32's, AT3035's and Studio Projects matched C4's for the ride and hio hat. I would have preferred to use more KSM32's in place of the 3035's, but I didn't have enough. I looooove KSM32's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nwright Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 Bass - just plugged in straight into the DAW, no amp I've used nothing but bass DI's for a good while now in most projects Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nakedzen Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 I usually use an A/B-splitter to get a raw di track and reamp that later. Not that unusual. But lately I've started recording vocs with two mics (both at the same time), a condenser and a dynamic and mix them to taste. Works really well for death metal vocs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JBTubehead Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 The wierdest thing I ever did for recording a guitar solo was... -put a 4x12 in a back room of the house, aimed at the door -left the door cracked open -laid a piece of 3" PVC pipe, 16' long, on the floor with about 6" of it going inside the door -put a SM-57 in the other end of the pipe, blended with the close mic -used a Phase 90 into the front of the amp (JCM 800 cranked) The tone I got to tape was perfect for the song's solo; kind of a swirly, screaming, oragasmic bitch-in-heat tone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jesse G Posted January 3, 2012 Members Share Posted January 3, 2012 ^^Lol, I think I'm going to try that. This one is pretty strange, and has to do with how what you're hearing from the amp while playing changes the "feel", in this case what you're hearing through the mic Once I was trying to record a lead when I first got the 6505+ and it was just too stiff for me to be able to play one lead section as cleanly and fluid as I wanted. My shortcoming, not the amps- I was used to playing line 6 stuff at the time. I was going for a marshally, punchy, explosive midz kind of lead tone and I didn't really have the chops at the time to really have my way with that tone. It was making it hard to make the guitar my bitch, y'know? I had a e906 set on the cab to sound good and that's what I was monitoring as I was playing. I ended up EQ'ing the track(post fader, of course) to be really dark and muffled, and then, was able to nail the take. Then I put the EQ back to how I originally wanted, and it was perfect. It's fascinating how the timber of what you're hearing affects the feel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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