UstadKhanAli

Yes. Beautiful, glorious 8-bit. That thing, buggy as it was, had a certain magic in its deliciously grainy audio.

The thing is of the matter is that my old computer could get a great sound with one processor tied behind its back... But yes, a C4 with hard drives that have green marker drawn around the hard drives, just for good measure. Yes, that warm, vintage 8-bit sound. Blooop! Bleeeep!!

Yes. Why, I've even heard of some people who have gotten 8 1/2 years of service life out of a single-processor computer!!! Yes, scientists call them "Neanderthals". :poke: Y'know, Phil, some of just really prefer that vintage sound.

Compression can be useful for not only dynamics control, but also envelope shaping - reducing or accentuating the perceived attack of the singer's notes, etc. It's also useful for bringing out intimacy or "breathiness" in a singer. Riding the faders can accomplish the control of the dynamics, but it's less appropriate for those other tasks; Largely because it's a pain in the rear and largely time-consuming!!!

IMO, a fairly fast dual core CPU and 4 GB of RAM (on either a Mac or PC) should be sufficiently powerful to provide a good 2-3 years of service life, even for users who place fairly high demands on their system. Yes. Why, I've even heard of some people who have gotten 8 1/2 years of service life out of a single-processor computer!!!

thanks for the advice guys~! woah, i never really thought of that. great idea! wow im late to the game arent i It used to be sometimes referred to as "gain riding", at least when we were all recording analog. What we would sometimes do is when recording vocal takes, we'd have the lyric sheet in front of us and we'd know the song really well. When recording, while the vocalist hit high notes, we'd turn the fader down. When the vocalist moved in with really low notes, we'd turn the fader up. Obviously, this means that you need to know the song really well. The advantage of this, though, would be that the vocal would already be "compressed". Then, of course, tape would compress it slightly. And then you could ride the fader some more during mixdown if you needed to, so you really wouldn't have to squish the vocal that much with a hardware compressor unless you WANTED to. But you can do this with Volume Automation as well, and the advantage is that if you screw up, you can simply hit UNDO. I'll automate the vocals, then bring in a compressor just to kind of impart a certain sound and compress it a little, but I tend to go really easy on the compressor most of the time, often around 3-4dB maximum compression if I want a natural sort of sound. For rock vocals, I tend to squish the vocals more, mostly because it does sound really good that way sometimes.

Yes, absolutely! I do volume automation BEFORE I ever touch a compressor. For vocals especially, I absolutely love volume automation. I call it Intelligent Compression ™.

When you gain experience, you can dial in the sound much faster. The more experience you have, the quicker and better you can get your sound. But to get there, you have to do a lot of listening and learning.

but anyway, whats a good ratio for vocal compression? any magic tips to make my vocals sound halfway decent and not dead? maybe a little reverb? thanks! There's not really any such thing as a standard good ratio for vocal compression given the wide range of singers, genres of music, and microphones. Dynamics tend to to react less to transient peaks than condensers, so bear this in mind. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, either. I have no idea what kind of music you are doing or what your voice sounds like, so my generic advice would be to start at a low compression ratio of 2:1, tweak the threshold so that you can see it firing at, say, 2-4dB of compression, and fix the attack to a relatively quick setting and see if that evens everything out and makes your vocals more present. Use that as a STARTING POINT and then tweak and listen and tweak and listen and tweak and listen and...well, you get the idea. Mess with the threshold control and the attack control, listening, listening, listening very carefully. Record some passes and see what's working for you. Make sure that you don't hear overt pumping and breathing (unless you want that). You really have to listen. Or did I mention that already? See, the thing with compression, reverb, EQ, and other things is that although there are some general guidelines and settings, they all require that you put in the hours and sit there and really listen. And if you are not listening intently and hearing what you are doing, your recordings will suffer.

44.1kHz makes sense for a lot of things...no conversion at all. If I did a higher sample rate, I'd make it 2x the amount (88.2kHz) so the conversion is simply halved, hoping that the "math" in the computer is simpler and easier and better sounding.

24/44.1kHz.

There's an article in the Friday LA Times telling about how many of the restaurants are experiencing large drop-offs in the amount of customers, and how many of the chain restaurants' stocks have dropped by 1/3. The effects of the economy are definitely felt by them! As far as the sport thing goes, there's already some good answers here. For some of us, luckily, the economy doesn't affect us quite as badly. I'm a teacher, for instance, so I'm not affected as much as someone in a service industry or someone working for Godiva or a chiropractic office, where people choose to go or not go. I'm saving money, just like anyone else, but I've been able to purchase a new mattress and several other items lately. I'm certainly not rich, but no matter - I'm extremely grateful that my job is stable and don't ever take it for granted.

Gotta be quick around here...

Is there really a noticeable difference between channel 1 and channel two in your Porticos and RNP's? That sounds like a quality issue if so. There shouldn't be. I'm yankin' alla y'all's chain.

Loud vocals have other attributes besides just being "loud", and depending on the variables, one mic might work great, while another might not. A soprano might be a little different from hardcore vocals, fo' instance.

... Oh, me too. If I have a CD with fifteen songs, I'll record vocals with the mic preamp on the left side of my Neve Portico. Then I'll have another song with the NP's right mic preamp. Then, I'll switch to the Peavey VMP-2. Just to switch it up, I'll use the right mic preamp on the VMP-2, then for another song, the left side. Of course, I have two FMR RNPs (one purchased from Mercenary, the other I found after it had fallen off a truck)...four mic preamp for four more songs...

Yeah, it was a good post, but no surprise - Ken's known for them. I am? Wow, cool! Thanks! Loud vocals have other attributes besides just being "loud", and depending on the variables, one mic might work great, while another might not. For a loud, thin or reedy vocalist, or a thinner sounding screamer, try a SM7b or a RE20 into a Neve (or Neve inspired) preamp. The above would likely work extremely well, and that's kind of what I was getting at with the Heil/Neve Portico combination. Nice and smooth. Might be able to try a ribbon. You get the idea.

I'm totally digging the setup, and I am getting some great demos. I notice that the mic works exceptionally well when I crank the pres and use more of a 'bodied' and breathy vocal. The mic seems to sound a little thin when the pres are set lower during my powerful/screamy & even on loud clean type vox. Are there particular mics/pres that are known for 'powerful' vocal work (whether it be loud and raspy, or loud and clean)? The current pre/mic combo is still fine for the 'powerful' work, but would a coloured tube be more beneficial to loud/powerful/raspy vocals? The current setup sounds gorgeous on my less aggressive vocal takes... Does your voice thin out as you go into powerful/screamy or loud & clean type vocals? I ask this because, quite frankly, most people's voices do. And so it's possible that the mic/mic preamp combo may be accurately picking up what you are doing. After all, it's not distorting, right? Are you singing directly into the mic when you do these kinds of vocals, or is it slightly off-axis? What kind of room are you singing these kinds of vocals in? Personally, when I do these screamo-type vocals (I used to do a lot of hardcore), I'd listen to the voice. If there's a lot of "raspy" top-end stuff going on that might sound shrill, I'd choose a slightly darker combination of mic / mic preamp at first, although I'd probably set up several combinations and test each one, just to be sure. I don't believe one has to necessarily a tube mic preamp. For example, the Neve Portico does not have a tube, but it does have a lot of girth. I'd choose a microphone that didn't have a lot of "fizz" on the top end (so possibly the NTK might not be the greatest choice for this kind of thing). I'd also make sure that I put a dynamic mic out there, such as one of the Heils, just to see how that did. Sometimes, there's nothing like a large diaphragm dynamic for really loud screamo or hardcore vocals, and I frequently end up going for one of these. Has some "natural compression" (bear with me, you know what I mean!) when compared to condensers, and sometimes, that's just what's needed. ~~~~~~~ I don't have a huge mic preamp or microphone locker, so these following suggestions are what I would do with what I have, not necessarily saying that it'd be "the best" (not that there's any such thing anyway). When I encounter screamo/super loud/hardcore vocals, I usually set up the Neve Portico and Peavey VMP-2 tube mic preamps and the Lawson L251 (just because everything seems to sound damn good through this) and a Heil P40 or whatever the hell it's called (large diaphragm dynamic) and see if those worked, switching mic preamps to see what would happen. Usually one of those combinations is golden. If not, I've got a 421 and a modified AT4060, both of which would be appropriate choices for the task at hand as well.

In the case of 1) and 3), then the McCain/Ken Lee approach is the only logical one to take. John and I have solved the global warming crisis. He asked if I could be his running mate, but I said, "Thanks, John, but politics is not for me."

It's amazing that everyone seems to want a warming planet with catastrophe and rising sea levels. John, this is because many of us live further inland from the coast and want beachfront property.

I'm with Ken, I don't believe or disbelieve any particular theories regarding global warming. I read articles dealing with the subject all the time and every article brings new information and new ideas into the subject. I feel like I don't personally know enough about whether global warming is man-made or not to say, "Yes, I know the answer to this!" It's a complex series of issues, and although I read a fair amount, I don't feel like I can reach a conclusion. I'm well aware of the fact that most scientists feel that global warming is partially man-made. And in general, the warming does seem to be occurring. And so my take on this is what I wrote before: may as well try and pollute less, consume less, use alternative energies more, stimulate the economy more through alternative energies, use clean fuel sources whenever possible, and try and make the planet a little better for everyone, including our children.

+1 about fletcher But then again you may think I am a hack too. I just don't think I know enough about you one way or the other, so for now, I'll just assume that you have the recording engineering chops of a Roy Halee or a Bruce Swedien and leave it at that!

Could you please quote a source for that? I will. http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2007/09/antarctic-sea-i.html http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2007/09/12/record-antarctic-ice-levels-ignored-media Note that I don't believe or disbelieve or that this indicates where my position on global warming. I just like reading various viewpoints.

I realize I've posted this several times in this forum in the past few years. But anyway... Speaking as an American now, what I would love to see our country do is develop alternative fuels. Whether this is encouraged by the government dangling "carrots" and encouraging the private sector to develop cars that have 0% emissions, are affordable, and are easily mass-produced, encouraging the private sector to develop the means, if necessary, to support these new alternative-fuel cars with an appropriate support system, etc. etc., I would love to see this done. This would play to some of the strengths of our country. We have some of the most ingenious, most entrepreneurial people in the world. And we have the capability to mass-produce like few countries can. We have the ingenuity and the design know-how to be able to develop something that would have the rest of the world beating a path to our door, thinking, "Yeah, I want some of that." Right now, Third World countries are beating us to the punch. In New Delhi, India, many of the cars are already outfitted with an inexpensive CNG modification which has greatly reduced the choking pollution that once existed. Brazil is cutting back on emissions quite a bit. These things make such a HUGE difference in the quality of life for its citizens. Isn't that what's important? Why are these countries, with a much smaller economies, developing these things and we're not? I'm using cars as an example, but these sorts of examples could be all sorts of other things. Let's play to our strengths. Let's develop and mass-produce items that make us money, help the environment, give us leadership and respect, and help humans.

As this article really illustrated well, the thing for me about it is that water freezes at 32 degrees F. Not 33, no 32.1, 32F. So if the temperature of the earth was increasing at a rate our planet couldn't handle, it seems to me that the only evidence of this would be that it would cause so much ice in the polar regions to melt that the sea level would rise, flooding coastal areas that are below sea level. The last time I went to the beach, the sea was at exactly the same level it was 20 years ago when I went. Just to be sure, if you honestly feel that global warming is not occurring, this is probably not an argument you want to take. There are quite a number of islands that are in serious danger of being swallowed up by the rising of the ocean, including Tonga, Tuvalu, and other Pacific Islands. Many of the beaches here in California have gotten considerably shorter. And need I mention Bangladesh, where one million people a YEAR have been displaced by rising waters? Or New Orleans? Or Cape Henry? Or Cape Hatteras in North Carolina? I'm not making this stuff up. It's easily verifiable and, uh, Google-able. Seriously...it is absolutely unquestionable that the sea levels are rising. This is extremely well-documented. If you're going to argue that global warming is not occurring, this is a *really* bad tact to take. You'll want to indicate that global warming is not man-made. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I want to point out here that I have a very open mind about this stuff. I don't think there's much doubt that there's global warming. The question to me is how much of it is man-made. We're certainly not helping matters with carbon emissions and throwing crap in the air and polluting, so my position has always been 1.) I'm not a scientist, so I listen keenly to people who are highly trained and specialized and utilize the scientific method, which is a very specific method outlined earlier in this thread by blue2blue, and 2.) it certainly would help all of us humans to seriously cut back on pollution and start conserving energy and using much cleaner fuels