Members honeyiscool Posted July 14, 2011 Members Share Posted July 14, 2011 If it's made by Fender and has a traditional look, I don't know how it becomes a Super Strat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bee3 Posted July 28, 2011 Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Any of you ever go over to GearSlutz.com and do reading up on acoustic treatment for home studios? Holy hell... I'm in over my head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted July 28, 2011 Members Share Posted July 28, 2011 Any of you ever go over to GearSlutz.com and do reading up on acoustic treatment for home studios? Holy hell... I'm in over my head. Yeah ... yeah.... Try and get a reference recording of your room so at least you know what you are dealing with. Put in bass absorbtion if you can. Take half your budget for nearfield monitors and invest in good headphones in case your room is really terrible. Double check your mixes by listening to them in your friends studio. If you find yourself constantly boosting the bass frequencies STOP and double check in a different room or on those nice headphones. Other than that, don't worry about it. Just record and be happy - life's too short - the perfect is the enemy of the good - etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 29, 2011 Members Share Posted July 29, 2011 Any of you ever go over to GearSlutz.com and do reading up on acoustic treatment for home studios? Holy hell... I'm in over my head. Nah... basically you just want to tame those 'big' standing waves -- the low frequency resonances that, where the waves 'criss cross,' form nodes that reinforce or cancel each other out and produce the comb filtering effect that produces a nasty boost in one area and a dip in another at the resonance frequency. Of course, every set of facing parallel walls will have its own resonance. The one thing I'd like emphasize is don't feel overwhelmed and then let that lead you into getting conned by manufacturers (some with fine old names that once really meant something in the industry but are now owned by Harmon Kardon, the bargain hunting holding company that has trashed so many great names like JBL and a raft of others) who sell bogus technologies like "self-EQ-correcting monitors." Trying to treat room response problems with EQ is a generally a fool's errand -- because very small changes in position -- mere inches, simply leaning back in your chair or moving your chair a few inches in one direction or the other can then cause the EQ "correction" to add to the problem rather than "correct" it. I didn't respect Harmon-Kardon back in the 60s when I was a hi fi nut kid -- and now that they've bought so many old line companies and turned them into purveyors of trash technology, I really hate 'em. APPENDED: Also, you want to put up something on any hard surfaces to the side between you and the monitors so there's no sidebounce early reflections -- in a typical home-size room like your basement, side-reflections will be early enough to confuse your ear and cause phase and directionality issues (Haas effect-related). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ido1957 Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Most rooms lack treatment which can really affect the overall quality of a recording. Nice Rode mic in that one pic...I use NTK.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Most rooms lack treatment which can really affect the overall quality of a recording. Nice Rode mic in that one pic...I use NTK.... I think I should point out that while room treatment is also very important in the live room -- if you are lucky enough to have a separate live room -- that my primary focus of concern in my comments was the grave disadvantage in mixing in a poorly treated room. Depending on what kind of recording you are doing, a given room could have all sorts of 'problems' when considered from the point of view of being a mixing environment but still, through careful attention to placement and miking provide very positive results in tracking. But when it comes time to mix, working ina room with standing waves or excess side reflections (reflections from the monitors off of sidewalls that hit the mixing position sweet spot on the first bounce) can make it very difficult to get an accurate idea of what you are doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Great thread although it's slowly turning into the Studio Lounge forum lol .....would like to hear more about everybody's process from germ of a song to finished mix ~Do you start recording it before the song is finished?Or do you wait days, weeks, months until you are sure the song is complete and ready? ~Are your alternate mixes (acoustic mix, male version-female version, rock version-ac version, instrumental, whatever....) the same song with mutes or is it a separate song? ~Do any of you using tape, da88, adat format have concerns about converting to a DAW file? ~When you HAVE to have a certain instrument tracked that you don't own do you rent? borrow?buy?hire someone? ~How much time/energy do you invest in your recording process versus your writing process?We all have to find a balance..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 I'm on the road so much that when I'm home I don't have time for "home studio" days unless it's something I can't do on the road.Lately most everything gets written here : while I'm driving or riding (usually without an instrument)The driving is good for keeping left brain/right brain in check for lyricsI use the riding is for programming and mixingSometimes it's nice to have a guitar if a tune needs a riff so that gets done at soundchecks.Most recording gets done on days off in the hotel room Mbox2 with a Mac and a 57 on the road At home I've got a condenser, pop screen, bass, and Emu to trigger midi that don't travel w/ me and there's no permanent set-up...I just whip them out when a track needs something.It's not ideal but works well for now.The demos are usable but they're not masters. There's too much debt to make $1000 master demos for EVERY song right now so they get this (which is fine for now)http://www.jpaulmusic.com/Audio/Fallen%20Again.mp3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stickboymusic Posted July 30, 2011 Author Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 At home I've got a condenser, pop screen, bass, and Emu to trigger midi that don't travel w/ me and there's no permanent set-up...I just whip them out when a track needs something.It's not ideal but works well for now.The demos are usable but they're not masters. There's too much debt to make $1000 master demos for EVERY song right now so they get this (which is fine for now)http://www.jpaulmusic.com/Audio/Fallen%20Again.mp3 Did you record that song on the link with just the mbox?? I just cant get that nice full sound from the mbox pres alone i need to go through so sort of preamp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Great thread although it's slowly turning into the Studio Lounge forum lol .....would like to hear more about everybody's process from germ of a song to finished mix ~Do you start recording it before the song is finished?Or do you wait days, weeks, months until you are sure the song is complete and ready? ~Are your alternate mixes (acoustic mix, male version-female version, rock version-ac version, instrumental, whatever....) the same song with mutes or is it a separate song? ~Do any of you using tape, da88, adat format have concerns about converting to a DAW file? ~When you HAVE to have a certain instrument tracked that you don't own do you rent? borrow?buy?hire someone? ~How much time/energy do you invest in your recording process versus your writing process?We all have to find a balance..... Ha! Just ask these guys about me (in my SW forum mod role) typically trying to direct these topics to the appropriate forum.* But I also know folks like to see what their pals are doing, so I thought I'd let this thread unfold here, rather that slipping it through a time-space continuum warphole into one of the other forums. *And the reason for that on-topic-compulsive moderating is just because, in my well over nearly decade and a half of prowling songwriting forums (often looking for places to hype my own efforts, frankly ), I slowly but surely became aware that the problem with most was that they were soon overrun with promo and spam [just like mine ] or discussions of not really related topics. So, when someone else volunteered me for mod duty here, I decided job one was to keep the focus on songwriting. Kind of like an old west gunfighter turned sheriff... BTW, JPaul, that's a nice little song in that link. Maybe it's just residual fatigue/damage from listening to some what I guess I'd have to call glitch-chill (seems like an oxymoron, eh?) just now trying to help someone sort out the sounds and techniques behind it -- much of it seemingly related to some form of enhancer/exciter and a liberal dose of pre-hard-clipped treble sounds as a sort of digital artifact high frequency rhythm track component -- or maybe the fan I have running in in a window -- which really jacks up my tinnitus but which I really need to cool things off when the afternoon sun hits the broad wall and large window by my work area -- but the actual sound of the quite lovely track seemed a trifle muffled. (Hmm, just put on the Mambo Sinuendo album by Ry Cooder and Manuel Galban and it doesn't so I guess I still have a couple shreds of hearing.) No reflection on the music though. And maybe it's more the 128 kbps mp3 losses than an actual dullness in the guitar and high hat sound. Ah, shucks... see what happens when you start talking sound around a old RE? LOL Like a firehorse hearing an alarm bell... Anyhow, nice track! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Did you record that song on the link with just the mbox?? I just cant get that nice full sound from the mbox pres alone i need to go through so sort of preamp Yeah that's just the Mbox by itself I know what you mean....the source just seems to sound thinner than it should. ....from what I understand the latest LE update will allow a different peripheral to be used with Protools so you can try a Joe Meek (or something) instead of using the Mbox as the Pre I might move that direction myself soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 PS -- on the ADAT thing... my first DAW rig actually grew out of my old 16 track ADAT/BRC rig. As soon as the first ADAT interface cards were announced (in those days, strictly an i/o option to go from ADAT lightpipe into the computer -- yet which cost ~$700 back in '96 when I bought mine) I started planning my long-dreamed-of plunge into direct-to-HDD recording. And, in fact, I'd already moved from doing radio documentary production on my ADATs -- where it was a colossal pain because of the less than slick dub-style 'editing' one had to do on those tape based machines (and, actually, my client, a German public radio stringer who specialized in short American culture pieces was usually more oriented to just going and punching, which was probably easier on both of us) -- to two track editors first the awful one that came with my old SoundBlaster AWE32 package and then, thank heaven, the far superior CoolEdit and CoolEdit 96. Anyhow, once I started on the DAW in '97 when Cakewalk Pro Audio 6 came out -- the first native DAW in Windows, I, personally, pretty much never went back, but I did dump a couple projects from ADAT to the computer -- but in those cases, it was quite 'transparent' since I simply moved them from the ADAT tape recorders into DAW tracks. They'd already had a mix of audio on the DAW and MIDI on the computer, playing through my small army of keyboards and MIDI modules. Ah the 90s. I really was glad to leave them behind, technologically speaking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 wow lots of teknikul werds Anyhow, nice track ! yeah thanks man Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Ah the 90s. I really was glad to leave them behind, technologically speaking. Yeah, everyone was.I've recorded and made albums on tape to vinyl in the 80s and ADAT to CD in the 90sbut it wasn't until 2000ish that I actually dove in as a recordist/engineer/producer type and I'm so glad that I waited, I missed all the format changes and promises and debt incurred from the 90s ugh transition (I guess it could be called). I think it's stablized now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LeonardScaper Posted July 30, 2011 Members Share Posted July 30, 2011 Anyhow, nice track ! Very cool track, indeed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members tbry Posted July 31, 2011 Members Share Posted July 31, 2011 Just was sitting out on the back porch watching the chicken burn on the BBQ. Always have a guitar out there. Sat down and something new just came on strong. Served up the chicken and slipped into the studio to put down that fresh tune as a one take mono track. You know full well that I shall burden you all with it in a week or so. Very cool track, indeed. Yeah, but your good...you make all your stuff sound good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted July 31, 2011 Members Share Posted July 31, 2011 Like I said, see what happens... But back to the 128 kbps mp3 thing... I'll bet if you were to go back to that master mix file and compare, you'd hear a little more high end definition in both the guitar and 'hat. I'm a big fan of mp3 and other perceptual encoding algorithms (I just threw that term in for you, J.Paul ) that have made the online music revolution possible -- and for years I put my music in that format and listened to huge amounts of music in that format, but goosing the quality (and size -- it's all about tradeoffs, of course) up a little to 192 or 256 or more than a little to an almost virtually CD-quality 320 kbps (still 4-1/2 times smaller than a full wav file!) can provide a big jump in detail and definition. Of course, as you suggest, if the detail isn't in the original, it's just not, so it's something that only you can really decide from giving a good side-by-side listen. (Or course, there are other reasons some folks stick with the one-time online standard of 128. For instance, my current favorite online music sales site [please do not ask how much I'm selling, I don't want all the people I owe money to to found out I've made almost enough money off my music in the last year or so to buy myself a cup of black coffee], Bandcamp, whose standard sale package offers lossless FLAC and AL [Apple lossless] as well as smaller formats, restrict their free streams to 128 kbps, hoping to further encourage sales. But, honestly, I've always felt that, in today's scene, people buy music primarily because they want to do the right thing and support the artist.) Speaking of the correlation in bitrates and perceived audio quality (We were, weren't we? It's all so confusing for us old guys, sometimes...), I just switched my streaming music subscriptions because -- even though I had huge loyalty and affection for my old service Rhapsody. Rhapsody had provided me with an enormous amount of streamed music for a paltry ten bucks a month for several years -- and who, unlike my two previous providers, have a great selection of classical. But when I compared the sound of Rhapsody's streams (which seem to mostly be ~160 kbps via their desktop app player [but, I swear now seem more like 128 via their otherwise quite decent browser-based player]) with those of relative newcomer MOG* (who've been streaming about a year and a half now and who offer a full selection of 320 kbps streams [although, if your 'net connection bandwidth isn't up to snuff, it will dumb down to 128 kpbs]) and the difference was, to these old ears (and they are, my hearing fades rapidly above 10 or 11 kHz, I'm afraid) simply stunning. I wasn't 45 minutes or so into my free 2 week trial before I decided to jump ship to them because of that difference. Since their selection seems roughly the same as Rhapsody -- and they seem very responsive to catalog suggestions, even having a user forum devoted to them (!) as opposed to Rhapsody who appear to try to minimize interactions with users and who as far as I know provide no mechanism other than tweeting (which has seemed to work for me on at least one occasion and is, after all, quite public, if not exactly a sure form of communication) to communicate catalog addition suggestions -- it was pretty much a no-brainer, brand loyalty notwithstanding. *For those concerned about artist rights -- and I think we all should be, we are, after all, songwriters and musicians, both Rhapsody and MOG are strictly legit and pay out to labels and artists. MOG, in fact, has among its investors, record labels Sony and Universal Music, and famed producer Rick Rubin sits on the board of directors. Compare that to the new Spotify for the US which (when they were Europe-only) has paid only about 1/5th what Rhapsody reportedly does. And even then, Spotify gives labels an 85% cut vis a vis 15% to artists -- compared to the much more favorable-to-artists 75/25 split of streaming pay-out from Rhapsody. Sorry, no specific info on MOG. [info based on this article: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2010/how-much-do-music-artists-earn-online/ ]) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members grace_slick Posted August 1, 2011 Members Share Posted August 1, 2011 Yeah, but your good...you make all your stuff sound good.:thu: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Marshal Posted August 1, 2011 Members Share Posted August 1, 2011 http://www.jpaulmusic.com/Audio/Fallen%20Again.mp3 Very nice song, by the way. (The drums seemed to loud in my flimsy headphones. They were bothering me instead of moving me a long. But the vocal was great and instrumentation was enjoyable). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members J.Paul Posted August 1, 2011 Members Share Posted August 1, 2011 Very nice song, by the way. (The drums seemed to loud in my flimsy headphones. They were bothering me instead of moving me a long. But the vocal was great and instrumentation was enjoyable). Yeah thanks. The 2nd chorus has a 3rd loop that comes in with some added meat, that might knock 100 hz up in those type of headphones, but the first 1:30 should be tight. I've been thinking about using those headphones (with the foam on them) as a mix source, as well as a TV speaker at home.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bee3 Posted September 8, 2011 Members Share Posted September 8, 2011 Attention HCSF fashionistas and interior decorating gurus! I'm building a mancave/pseudo-studio in my basement and am at the point where I need to finalize the really important stuff. I'm talking colors baby! I can't decide what color to paint the room. What are your thoughts on this incredibly important matter?I'm leaning towards a darker, blue-grey type of theme... like a dark slate. Originally, I wanted a brick-red theme... but I'm going to hang my guitars on the wall and they're all red. I thought that might clash.Oh, to stay on topic... this is really going to help with my songwriting. The vibe needs to be just right. So, what say you?(Here is some inspiration... not mine - I wish!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rsadasiv Posted September 8, 2011 Members Share Posted September 8, 2011 baby! I can't decide what color to paint the room. What are your thoughts on this incredibly important matter? I'm leaning towards a darker, blue-grey type of theme... like a dark slate. Originally, I wanted a brick-red theme... but I'm going to hang my guitars on the wall and they're all red. I thought that might clash. Oh, to stay on topic... this is really going to help with my songwriting. The vibe needs to be just right. So, what say you? (Here is some inspiration... not mine - I wish!) Somewhat seriously .... Basements are acoustically.....difficult. You are going to want to cover much of the wall area (especially the corners) with bass traps made from OC 703 rigid fiberglass panels (take some reference recordings of a sine wave moving from 20hz to 20Khz if you don't believe me). These bass traps will be wrapped in some kind of cloth cover. Decide out what you like as far as covers and then decorate around the traps. If you paint/organize aesthetically (or especially if you organize the room around your spouse's aesthetics) it will look terrible when you try to add bass traps afterwards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bee3 Posted September 8, 2011 Members Share Posted September 8, 2011 Somewhat seriously ....Basements are acoustically.....difficult. You are going to want to cover much of the wall area (especially the corners) with bass traps made from OC 703 rigid fiberglass panels (take some reference recordings of a sine wave moving from 20hz to 20Khz if you don't believe me). These bass traps will be wrapped in some kind of cloth cover. Decide out what you like as far as covers and then decorate around the traps. If you paint/organize aesthetically (or especially if you organize the room around your spouse's aesthetics) it will look terrible when you try to add bass traps afterwards. Yeah, I've spent the past month on gearslutz learning about all that stuff. I have plans for full corner superchunk floor to ceiling bass traps (where I have full corners - i.e., 2 of the corners). Then I'll be doing more standard rectangular traps using the OC703 to treat other areas of the room. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted September 8, 2011 Moderators Share Posted September 8, 2011 I went with a slate blue/grey feel. I think if I stay here (divorce unkown), I'll go for an update much like the gothy red and black theme above. Less gothy but warm, relaxed, funky and creative. A statement but not tacky. I had originally set my place up as a telephony studio and needed the corporate/creative feel to keep in line with the office at work, as I had bosses showing up to "help" i.e. eff it up . But now that that my home studio is strickly for music and I have on onsite telephony studio......bwahahah! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rhino55 Posted September 8, 2011 Members Share Posted September 8, 2011 a slate gray would be cool. I've been in a few that made use of creative track lighting, different colors on faders. It made for a cool aesthetic that you could change depending on what mood you were in Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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