Got new recording gear, ready to record!!
Survo-
Posts: 72
Ok just got a mixer, 3 sm 57 mics and a beta 52.
Add that to our tascam and we are ready to go!
Anyway we were messing around with the new stuff today, and were trying to get a good sound with the sm-57/s and the guitar cab, and we couldnt get a decent sound for the life of us. We tried all sorts of positioning and even went by the chart that came with the mics on placement for guitar cabs. Then I decided I wanted to try a binaural recording. WOW! The clean and acoustic guitars sound very very warm and clear, simply amazing. I also got the best distortion sounds with the binaural method using the two sm-57 mics. Anyway I am wondering what I am doing wrong here.
The problem with recording everything binaural is there is no seperation or panning of instruments, atleast I dont think.
Could my problem be having one guitar part in total center pan?
Dont most professional recordings double guitar parts and pan them?
IDK! All I know is that we are trying the mic placements everyone suggests and no luck.
Add that to our tascam and we are ready to go!
Anyway we were messing around with the new stuff today, and were trying to get a good sound with the sm-57/s and the guitar cab, and we couldnt get a decent sound for the life of us. We tried all sorts of positioning and even went by the chart that came with the mics on placement for guitar cabs. Then I decided I wanted to try a binaural recording. WOW! The clean and acoustic guitars sound very very warm and clear, simply amazing. I also got the best distortion sounds with the binaural method using the two sm-57 mics. Anyway I am wondering what I am doing wrong here.
The problem with recording everything binaural is there is no seperation or panning of instruments, atleast I dont think.
Could my problem be having one guitar part in total center pan?
Dont most professional recordings double guitar parts and pan them?
IDK! All I know is that we are trying the mic placements everyone suggests and no luck.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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i have a few tips...what sound are you after...if its a high attack, or smoothe mellow, there are way different techniques....elaborate on what you need, i should be able to help...this is my area (and strats)
2005.09.05
"how many people did die from that?...did P.Diddy kill them?" - Eddie Vedder 2006.02.19
No... Don't sweat that at all. There really is no instruction manual on how to make an album. I mean, there are of course some tricks of the trade... like using 57s on guitar cabs for example, which is very common. But at the end of the day the one and only thing you should listen to when it comes to trying to make a good recording is your ears. It sounds like you're doing that already and if things aren't sounding good to you right off the bat honestly I'd say that's a really good sign. It means you are willing and able to be critical of your own work, which is a good thing. You'd be surprised at the number of people who accidently make a mono recording with digital clipping (sounds much worse than tape/analog clipping) and don't even realize it.
Some quick basic thoughts, which you may already know about, but maybe not since you are working w. four track...
1) Have you got the impedence matched up? Mic's are at mic level (LoZ) and a lot of four tracks only have Line level (HiZ) inputs.
2) You mentioned having a mixer AND a four track. This sounds interesting. Most Tascam four tracks I know of have their own mixers. Are you sure that you've tweaked the 'Gain' settings on both?
3) Some boards have a "cut" switch, to lower the gain (volume)... just make sure nothing like this is thrown.
4) How does it sound if you go direct to the four track... without the Mixer? Does it sound better? If so... try double checking the mixer set up.
5) Are you familiar with compressors and compression? This is a recording effect which narrows out the distance between the loudest and softest moments, and can make everything sound "fuller". In spite of what I wrote above about how there are no rules, compressors are pretty common in recording, and might make a difference.
6) Lastly, have you tried putting the mic flush against the speaker grill of your amp slightly to one side of the center of the (a) speaker cone? This tends to be a 'famous' / 'bullet proof' sm57 guitar cab position. If you have more than one driver in your amp, pick ONE and point the head of the mic straight at it, maybe a little off to the side of it's center, but with the business end of the mic flat up against the speaker grill (if your cabinet has one) or maybe just an inch or two away (if your cabinet doesn't). Don't worry, the sm57 can take the volume from that close. That's what it's for.
Good luck!
Well I am the drummer of the band, and I am not exactly sure what sound the guitarist wants, but I would say maybe a sound like on the song Habbit or Mankind.
Also, Metallicas Black Album is also a sound I want to know how to imitate (i realize that I wont be able to match a million dollar sound of a PJ or Metallica album)
I am not sure... we are using SM-57s. Can you tell me how to check this?
2) You mentioned having a mixer AND a four track. This sounds interesting. Most Tascam four tracks I know of have their own mixers. Are you sure that you've tweaked the 'Gain' settings on both?
Our tascam has 2 mic inputs, and not enough for drums, so we go through the mixer, and send the main outs into the mic inputs of the tascam and pan hard right/left.
3) Some boards have a "cut" switch, to lower the gain (volume)... just make sure nothing like this is thrown.
We use a 80hz and below cut. Is this bad?
4) How does it sound if you go direct to the four track... without the Mixer? Does it sound better? If so... try double checking the mixer set up.
We have not tweaked any mixer settings, just pure sound.
5) Are you familiar with compressors and compression? This is a recording effect which narrows out the distance between the loudest and softest moments, and can make everything sound "fuller". In spite of what I wrote above about how there are no rules, compressors are pretty common in recording, and might make a difference.
Yes we are, but the original sound just sounds a little.... low quality or muddy.
6) Lastly, have you tried putting the mic flush against the speaker grill of your amp slightly to one side of the center of the (a) speaker cone? This tends to be a 'famous' / 'bullet proof' sm57 guitar cab position. If you have more than one driver in your amp, pick ONE and point the head of the mic straight at it, maybe a little off to the side of it's center, but with the business end of the mic flat up against the speaker grill (if your cabinet has one) or maybe just an inch or two away (if your cabinet doesn't). Don't worry, the sm57 can take the volume from that close. That's what it's for.
We have tried right up on the grill, 4 inches away, 6 inches, 12 inches and 18 inches, We have followed directions on placement that came with the SM-57.
As far as volume and mic input go... should we have high cab volume and lower mic input? or Lower cab volume and higher mic input.
1) The sm57 is LowZ as are pretty much all mics. Are you using mic inputs for the mics? You mention the Tascam has two mic inputs. Does the mixer have mic inputs as well? If you are using mic inputs then this shouldn't be an issue.
2) Hmm... sending the outputs from the mixer to the mic inputs on your tascam might be a problem. Probably not, but just to be sure, send the outputs to the LINE inputs on your Tascam. The Mixer output is is probably HiZ, converted from the LowZ mic input... again assumming you are plugging the mics into mic inputs on the mixer. If the mic's aren't going into mic inputs you need to go to radio shack and get a LowZ to HiZ impedence converter. About $10 per.
3) No that's fine. There are frequency cutoffs and gain level cuts. I was talking about a gain boost / cut. The frequency cut is fine if you are looking to subtract low level bass rumble.
4) Well try this just for the heck of it. Maybe do a test recording of JUST guitar, with the mics direct into the mic inputs on the Tascam, and then see if the sound is / isn't better.
5) Ah... well, at the end of the day you are still going into a Tascam. Some of them sound really great it's true. The 244 is a great piece. But some of them are just not going to give you sound like you'll hear off of a PJ album. If you are getting a muddy sound, try using the EQ to dip sound around 300 Hz. See if that helps. Also, the more you put between your signal (mic) and the tape, the more places it can get dragged down. Is the mixer a good one? Again, just for the heck of it, see what results you get going direct into the four track. If they are significantly better, the solution may be either a new mixer... or as someone else wrote above, better mic preamps.
6) Cool just checking. See if any of the above points are relevant / help. GREAT things are possible with 57s and guitar cabs. I'm listenning to some runs I made using a 57 on a Roland JC 120 just the other night and they sound terrific... but then I've got mine plugged into a really nice pre amp and a fire wire computer based IO with a really nice digital to analogue converter. Point being the mics are probably not your cause for concern. If you are trying to mic a guitar cab/amp you've got a mic that's more than up to the job in the sm57.
Hope some of this helped.
Dumb point, but your guitar player knows the mic isn't going to change the sound of his / her rig and make it sound like any one song or another right? The mic's job is to try to take the sound you are hearing in the room when he / she plays and then get something in the same ball park down on to tape. If you want to change the guitar sound the place to do it is with effects, or the amp. You can use EQ of course, but you can't use EQ to dial up a sound that wasn't there to begin with. All EQ can do (esspecially on an Analogue rig like a Tascam) is make parts of the sound you recorded louder or softer. That's IT. If there is a part in the high frequencies you want to hear more of... the EQ will do the trick. Put if you wish the guitar sound was completely different the mic and the EQ won't be able to pull that off. IF that's the issue the place to tweak is the amp / pedals.
We are having a huge session right now, we will fiddle around.
I just got my drums sounding excellent, so we know the mics work!!
Thanks both of your for your input.
what's wrong with hard panning them?
Doesn't matter now anyway we figured out why It sounded to awful.
We remember from...
Ok sorry for the interuption, but I felt someone nudging on my elbow and it was my dog. I had to let her lick the crumbs off my plate before she would leave me alone :-P
Anway we remembered that you want to go high volume until you hit the sweet spot of the cone you are recording, to get the cones unique tone, and go low distortion. I think we were at volume 7 on the cab, but put distortion on like level 1 or 1.5, rather than 7 we had it on before. That, and finding a sweet spot for the mic... I think I have nailed the sound on Habbit after I dip some mid tones out with EQnig.
Ill post our recording when we finish it, should be over the weekend some time.