The Recording Thread

[Seshmeister]

Hey, I've posted drunken cover band videos here...who cares if someone who can't/doesn't flames on you (unless you suck out loud sober like DisgrACE) ? We were drunk, as was the majority of the audience, so they didn't care...and we got paid!
Really, the key is pointing out your mistakes in advance, too...lol

I'll take you up on that big style which was my point and please noone take this out of context - the context is everything.

Looking at it again the video which surfaced is all over the place(drunk camera man) so I'll just post the audio.

As I said the context is everything but I think it's kind of vaguely interesting and I always like to see other people posting music but it's all too rare.(That's 10 years now Elvis... )

Background is a birthday party in front of a 100 or so people.

Equipment used is minimal. Ibanez RG thing with the Tonezone pickup I added (after asking for advice too late here) going straight into a Pod Plus via a mixer into the disco PA! Bass DI'd and similarly a Roland kit. In other words our equipment could have travelled to the gig in a motorbike and sidecar.

Recording was through the microphone in a fairly cheap video camera.

I came up with the great idea of the no rehearsal required guitar bit. A few years back Prince had recorded an instrumental variation on Whole Lotta Love. The beauty of this was all that was required was to tell the bass player to repeat the same 2 notes and let the drummer hear it on an iPod briefly and we were read to go.

The best laid plans and so on.

Couple of major strategic errors.

1) I didn't allow for the fact that I would obviously be drinking a lot.

2) And that I hadn't played in front of an audience for ages.

Anyhoo 5 strong beers and a couple of vodkas later....


http://www.filexoom.com/showfile-22544/whole_lotta_booze.mp3

So anatomy of a drunken guitar solo.

00.00 I quickly realise this was probably a bad idea. There is a strong chance of fucking up in front of a bunch of people who I see regularly and who have never heard me play before.

00.05 I realise I am pretty drunk, get tentative

00.31 First Mistake which I just about get away with by pretending it was a grace note

01.00 Initialise the Wah wah, friend of the sloppy player and the drunk. As I said I am only using the Pod thing. I don't think the wah sound is too bad on it. Fast picking through a wah wah is an effective scam I always think and surprising easy to get almost Vai For The Love of God kind of vibe.

01.48 I suddenly realise I only had something planned for the previous bit and now I'm out into the scary world of improvising, live and with booze. I do what everyone does in that situation and go Pentatonic.

01.56-02.05 The 9 seconds of this whole thing I quite like.

02.06 Back on topic I discovered a while ago you can set up the delay on the Pod Plus to act as a harmonizer.

02.13 I thump back to earth trying to do a Vaiesque fill and making a complete fucking mess of it.

02.24 Now things start to fall to bits. I try to stamp on the pedal to end the harmonizer preset and somehow switch off my guitar????

02.29 It is actually illegal to play an Ibanez RG thing for more that 2 and a half minutes without a divebomb trem thing. This one is mediocre.

02.38 Disaster Strikes and I pull a MASSIVE Ace Diamond. Looking back I think I was thinking about how the fuck 02:24 happened and somehow I fail to remember to play E to A and play E to G!!!! It's bizarre. I swear I realised immediately and was smart enough to do a few so that it looked deliberate, the audience probably never realised but jesus shitting in my grandmothers mouth that was bad. I start to give the mad head nods to the the drummer to stop this asap before I make a total dick of myself.

02.55 It's all over. The great thing about a drunk audience where people know you is that chances are no matter what you will get an ok response. Retreat to the bar and bask in the glory...

[Diamondjimi]

So, was this supposed to be Whole Lotta Love?
Your melody line reminded me of "American Woman".

Not to worry dude, somewhere out there in every town there is an alcohol fueled jam going on that sounds exactly like this one. Fun is the key.

So, how did ya make out at the bar? Any Poontang?

[jhale667]

Agree with DJ, and also wonder...

So, was this supposed to be Whole Lotta Love?
Your melody line reminded me of "American Woman".

Not to worry dude, somewhere out there in every town there is an alcohol fueled jam going on that sounds exactly like this one. Fun is the key.

So, how did ya make out at the bar? Any Poontang?

Did people (cough poontang) buy you more alcohol after?

I kinda heard the "American Woman" thing in there too...

[kwame k]

Yeah...a 57 in that application would maybe capture a paper-thin section of the kick drum...not what that mic is designed for....

A 57 is great for a snare and hi-hat and guitar but a bass drum or lower frequencies instruments , I agree, a 57 isn't designed for that. A 58 would be better for toms or bass but even that isn't what I'd use.

I like the Shure mic kits http://www.shure.com/americas/produc...6-drum-mic-kit

or the AKG mic kits http://www.pssl.com/!0g6EY8P87gpZOF8...7ea142164:0000

Really, I want a really good bass drum mic and a good snare mic. I want 2 tracks dedicated to bass and snare and at least 2 tracks for overhead/distance miking. Bass and snare drive 90% of a song so I want isolation and control on those two. Distance miking the rest of the kit is great for overall sound and unless I'm recording a song that is drum driven like "Everybody Wants Some" you can get away without having to mic the toms. Depends on the song but that's a good all around miking setup, IMHO.

[jhale667]

ooooh pretty. And useful.

Nice... I dig that Shure kit.



The D52 does indeed kick ass. Actually, if I were to use my 2nd Pro Tools licensed install on a laptop (other than the office one, would be "frowned upon by management"...lolz) I'd get one of those packages and do the aforementioned guerrilla 2-tracks-off-the-board in a rehearsal studio into the Mbox II - drum track approach. And could use the 52 on a cab for guitar tracks too.


My Pro Tools set up also came with an AKG condenser mic- a Perception 220 (not their flagship but decent)...I need a new (or old) SM57.

[kwame k]

As you also made good ones..for a drummer. Speaking of drums, I've also heard of people doing sub-mixes on their drum kits on say an 8-track outboard mixer going to both inputs of an MboxII and just printing them as a stereo track - the drawback there being much like printing w/effects, you're stuck with your mix...

I've done stereo tracks before and when I had my first 4-track that's what I did.....plus a ton of bouncing. I've tried placing the bass and snare in the center of the stereo mix and panned the right side of the kit left and the left side right, so it would represent what your ears would hear if you were standing in front of the kit. Like you said, you're stuck with what's going to tape and that's why I like using at least 4-tracks for a good drum sound.

The room is going to play a huge role in how you're going to mic the kit, though. We all know how "When The Levee Breaks" was recorded and look at the impact that hallway/room had.........If, for instance, you have an isolated drum room with no bleed from the other instruments, you can use a 1 or 2 mics and get a passable drum sound. If you're recording in a room where there's other instruments being recorded and little to no isolation, I'd record multiple tracks, close miked.......trying to minimize the bleed.

It also comes down how you're recording and how many tracks you can record at once............when I write with my college buddy from Oregon, we use scratch tracks to get the song nailed, using click tracks or making my own click tracks using a Yamaha DTXPress electronic kit to get the tempo down. We'll either find a click track at the right BPM or use one of mine. Then we record a good rhythm guitar or bass track and rebuild the song from that point. Recording acoustic drums and layering the rest of the instruments from there.

Usually we end up with 2 rhythm guitar tracks, 4 drum tracks, 1 bass track, 1 lead guitar track, 2 lead vocals tracks, 2 or more background vocal tracks, and 2 or more tracks for various extra instruments like keyboards, acoustic guitar for fattening up the sound, percussions, weird FX's and so on. Depends on the song of course but that's about a standard track list for us. Since we have unlimited track space using Sonor/Cakewalk, we do eat up tracks.

For the my newest project I'll be using a ton of live tracks with the band recording together.........I'm doing more of an organic kind of thing right now. More acoustic kinda thing...... Mandolin, acoustic guitars, piano and etc. I may even contradict everything I've said here and record the whole band live with just a few mics like they did way back when

That is the reason for having your own recording equipment........not having to worry about studio costs frees you up to experiment with so many different recording techniques. All you've lost is your time if exploring an idea/theory doesn't work out

[kwame k]

Nice... I dig that Shure kit.



The D52 does indeed kick ass. Actually, if I were to use my 2nd Pro Tools licensed install on a laptop (other than the office one, would be "frowned upon by management"...lolz) I'd get one of those packages and do the aforementioned guerrilla 2-tracks-off-the-board in a rehearsal studio into the Mbox II - drum track approach. And could use the 52 on a cab for guitar tracks too.


My Pro Tools set up also came with an AKG condenser mic- a Perception 220 (not their flagship but decent)...I need a new (or old) SM57.

Having an SM57 is essential!

There's nothing wrong with that AKG.....yes, it's not their greatest mic but I bet it would get some great vocals and acoustic guitar sounds.

[kwame k]

On the subject of recording a band rehearsal or the whole band at once...........we've had success with putting guitar cabs in other rooms, vocalist in the bathroom, running the bass direct and having the drums in the same room we were jamming.

Recording the whole band in the same room with all the instruments in the room too, can and has worked for years of recording. That's how it was done way back when. The only time I've ever had success doing this was when all the guys in the band were on board recording that way and we could balance the room, so to speak. Making sure everything could be heard equally and no one instrument was overpowering another instrument. You have to be willing to have give and take in that situation and willing to do whatever is best for the overall sound of the band, not the individual player.

I'd have to choke my drums way down and use thin cymbals so the cymbal decay was fast and not too loud.

[Diamondjimi]

Recording the whole band in the same room with all the instruments in the room too, can and has worked for years of recording. That's how it was done way back when. The only time I've ever had success doing this was when all the guys in the band were on board recording that way and we could balance the room, so to speak. Making sure everything could be heard equally and no one instrument was overpowering another instrument. You have to be willing to have give and take in that situation and willing to do whatever is best for the overall sound of the band, not the individual player.

I'd have to choke my drums way down and use thin cymbals so the cymbal decay was fast and not too loud.

I've done this type before. It def. takes a band effort.
I've gotten some great results using 2 PZM plate mic.s hung on opposing walls.

Speaking of PZM mics. Have you ever duct taped one to your chest for recording your drums?

See Neil Peart below.




I've always been curious about the results of this technique...

[kwame k]

I've done this type before. It def. takes a band effort.
I've gotten some great results using 2 PZM plate mic.s hung on opposing walls.

Speaking of PZM mics. Have you ever duct taped one to your chest for recording your drums?

See Neil Peart below.




I've always been curious about the results of this technique...

Cool clip, Jimi

No, I've never done the old duct tape the mic to your chest trick........I gotta imagine the logic behind using it is that it's as close to what the drummer "hears" sitting on the kit without duct taping the mic to your face

Love those Pressure Zone Mics for getting room sounds and for recording piano!

[Diamondjimi]

Cool clip, Jimi

No, I've never done the old duct tape the mic to your chest trick........I gotta imagine the logic behind using it is that it's as close to what the drummer "hears" sitting on the kit without duct taping the mic to your face

Love those Pressure Zone Mics for getting room sounds and for recording piano!

[GAR]

if I were to use my 2nd Pro Tools licensed install on a laptop (other than the office one, would be "frowned upon by management"...lolz) I'd get one of those packages and do the aforementioned guerrilla 2-tracks-off-the-board in a rehearsal studio into the Mbox II

Why not just install a virtual-machine on a USB stick, then plug the fucking thing in anywhere you want and have at it?

[jhale667]

Why not just install a virtual-machine on a USB stick, then plug the fucking thing in anywhere you want and have at it?

'Cause it'd probably be too slow that way?

[Diamondjimi]

He truly has no fucking clue....

[GAR]

So, was this supposed to be Whole Lotta Love?
Your melody line reminded me of "American Woman".

Wow, you picked those out! Good for you..