Home Recording thread

nyarlathotep · January 07, 2016, 04:58:45 PM

Currently working on converting my basement into a recording studio... the primary focus is just a rehearsal space but since I already have all the electronics I figure it's not much more work. Having trouble getting a solid soundproofing solution... the guy who owned my house before me was an electrician and decided to put junction boxes everywhere with vents and piping criss-crossing under the joists... on a 7" ceiling. I suppose as long as the sound doesn't get outside the house it will suffice.

Any good DIY baffles/acoustic panels tutorials out there? Preferably ones that focus on materials easy to get off-the-shelf?

black aspirin · January 07, 2016, 06:17:22 PM

Been re-working that track in Logic Pro X, and I think the sound has improved a lot now that I'm learning more. See what you think. First version is the track in Tracktion 3.

Second track is in Logic Pro X, and I re-recorded the bass. For some reason, the swirling synth doesn't play in Logic Pro X when you bounce part of the tract, it has to start from the beginning for the synth to play (Corey Y, do you know why this is?).

Lemme know if you think the new version sounds better, I'm very happy with the improvement in sound quality.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/black-aspirin-1/fourpointfive[/soundcloud]
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/black-aspirin-1/fourpointfive-soundcloud-test[/soundcloud]

Corey Y · January 07, 2016, 06:50:47 PM

Quote from: black aspirin on January 07, 2016, 06:17:22 PM
Been re-working that track in Logic Pro X, and I think the sound has improved a lot now that I'm learning more. See what you think. First version is the track in Tracktion 3.

Second track is in Logic Pro X, and I re-recorded the bass. For some reason, the swirling synth doesn't play in Logic Pro X when you bounce part of the tract, it has to start from the beginning for the synth to play (Corey Y, do you know why this is?).

Lemme know if you think the new version sounds better, I'm very happy with the improvement in sound quality.

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/black-aspirin-1/fourpointfive[/soundcloud]
[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/black-aspirin-1/fourpointfive-soundcloud-test[/soundcloud]

I don't mess with synth stuff too much in Logic, but sometimes the synth presets have a bunch of effects and there are settings for bouncing with and without plugins/effects, so it could be tricky. Plus, I've noticed that some delay, reverb and modulation stuff, if you don't start it running at the same points they don't kick in right when switching between soloing tracks and stuff like that. If all else fails you can always bounce in real time and monitor what's working or not. Typically I only do live tracked stuff and a little bit of midi sequenced drum samples, so there's a lot of ins and outs of the instrument/effects stuff I almost never use.

nyarlathotep · March 02, 2016, 12:08:26 PM

Home studio progress continues...starting to plan out the technology side of things now. I've already got a basic rack and tons of mic cables, but my goal with the new space is to avoid everything getting tangled into a huge fucking mess within two days. Looking into getting some snakes (Monoprice sells really cheap ones) and maybe a patch bay to try and keep things as clean and modular as possible.

I think my 'control room' is going to be pretty unorthodox -- I don't have room in the basement to set one up and I'm not really looking to spend money wiring up a complicated snake setup to route it upstairs.

Instead, there's a Reaper plugin called ReaStream that will let me stream the audio from one Reaper to another - so, basement Reaper (laptop) will stream audio to upstairs Reaper (desktop pc), which will be the "control room". Basically no documentation for this but it actually works pretty well. Considered setting up a upstairs->downstairs stream for talkback but I think walkie-talkies might be easier...

I also bought a $5 app for my long-unused Android tablet called TouchDAW, which functions as a remote control surface for Reaper. Took a few minutes to setup but also pretty easy to use. The interface would be hell to try and use as a 'real' control surface, but it will work great for starting and stopping playback/recording and soloing/muting tracks, so I'm aiming to mainly use it when trying to record drums solo or practice to a click. In combination with my 'control room' it would give me limited control over recording too.

Danny G · March 03, 2016, 07:03:34 PM

Scored an iMac from a good friend.

Have Garage Band but haven't really messed with it yet (have past experience). Still need a USB interface but may have to wait til end of the month.

In the meantime I will import tracks from my 8 track and practice mixing it

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jibberish · March 04, 2016, 05:26:46 AM

nyar, you have some cool ideas for me to ponder. thx.

danny, used USB interfaces are getting very common as time goes on. you should be able to find a nice model/brand for $50 or less now.
but IMO, get one with nice pre-amps and A/D converter since that is the essence of your digital sound.

also. IMO, monitor from either the interface or even your board. don't monitor from anywhere in your computer due to propagation delays which always causes timing fuckups and latency issues. computer circuits all function at different rates due to different tasks needing various amounts of clock ticks to perform. you cant even keep a DAW and external devices synched for long songs without master clocking. it just drifts microsecond by microsecond until it adds up

I monitor off my board fwiw

Danny G · March 04, 2016, 09:09:31 AM

Yeah used would be better price, but I may have to use a credit card at Guitar Ctr (and I have some giftcards)

Plus, the paper trail = tax write off #notmyfirstrodeo \m/,

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eyeprod · March 06, 2016, 01:34:51 PM

I got a new laptop that doesn't work with my old usb interface, so have been recording into the digital 8 track, dragging to the laptop and mixing in reaper. Just making some simple demos with a drum machine (volcA SAMPLE), but it's great for writing because the drums are so isolated from the other instruments. Way different than trying to record a band, with all the bleed and noise. I can actually play with ideas with this setup.

I make a drum pattern (pretty much all variations on a motorik beat), figure out a tempo that works, then record that going through a moog low pass filter I picked up cheap. Twist the cutoff a little while it's going to add some color changes. Then I just jam over that drum track. I'm all about using hardware to get the sounds/tone I want then there's much less work to do in reaper. So I spend a little time eq-ing guitars and bass, dialing in synth sounds, using different amps, pedals, or none. Also running vocals through hardware and very little plug ins are needed. A bit of auto pan on some synth tracks or maybe guitars. Sometimes add a little reverb or short delay plug ins. Mainly I use a compressor plug in and maybe some final eq on the mix. It's working well for my needs at the moment. Ben doing some new wavey post punk shit.

black aspirin · March 06, 2016, 07:49:47 PM

I'm getting ready to put my old Roland VS-2400 digital recorder up on EBay. Simply no use for it any more, and they still bring around $700.

jibberish · March 07, 2016, 02:42:28 AM

BA, does that thing have the nice twin Roland effects chips in it?

I use mine as an "EQ effects" unit sometimes. I have an old VS-880.
those roland effects are pretty nice and the mixer is handy sometimes too

black aspirin · March 07, 2016, 03:56:36 PM

Ummm, I don't know about the chips, LOL.

It did come with a bunch of extra plug-ins, and they are indeed terrific. Some of them were mic simulators, so even though I was using an SM57, I could mimic certain Sennheiser mics, etc...pretty cool. But I really don't need it any more, so I'll try to get some money out of it while I still can.

giantchris · March 07, 2016, 07:51:17 PM

Quote from: nyarlathotep on March 02, 2016, 12:08:26 PM
Home studio progress continues...starting to plan out the technology side of things now. I've already got a basic rack and tons of mic cables, but my goal with the new space is to avoid everything getting tangled into a huge fucking mess within two days. Looking into getting some snakes (Monoprice sells really cheap ones) and maybe a patch bay to try and keep things as clean and modular as possible.

I think my 'control room' is going to be pretty unorthodox -- I don't have room in the basement to set one up and I'm not really looking to spend money wiring up a complicated snake setup to route it upstairs.

Instead, there's a Reaper plugin called ReaStream that will let me stream the audio from one Reaper to another - so, basement Reaper (laptop) will stream audio to upstairs Reaper (desktop pc), which will be the "control room". Basically no documentation for this but it actually works pretty well. Considered setting up a upstairs->downstairs stream for talkback but I think walkie-talkies might be easier...

I also bought a $5 app for my long-unused Android tablet called TouchDAW, which functions as a remote control surface for Reaper. Took a few minutes to setup but also pretty easy to use. The interface would be hell to try and use as a 'real' control surface, but it will work great for starting and stopping playback/recording and soloing/muting tracks, so I'm aiming to mainly use it when trying to record drums solo or practice to a click. In combination with my 'control room' it would give me limited control over recording too.

Sounds cool Ted you guys going to self-record next one? How are you guys doing now that Matt left I haven't seen you posting many shows but that one first weekend in April. I'm waiting to get my guitars setup tomorrow to start my next solo recording and Hypnochron is almost ready to record the next full-length.

Random tip - the GLS sm57 cheap knockoffs work great for toms, snare, or for the beater on kick.

nyarlathotep · March 08, 2016, 03:38:43 PM

Quote from: giantchris on March 07, 2016, 07:51:17 PM
Quote from: nyarlathotep on March 02, 2016, 12:08:26 PM
Home studio progress continues...starting to plan out the technology side of things now. I've already got a basic rack and tons of mic cables, but my goal with the new space is to avoid everything getting tangled into a huge fucking mess within two days. Looking into getting some snakes (Monoprice sells really cheap ones) and maybe a patch bay to try and keep things as clean and modular as possible.

I think my 'control room' is going to be pretty unorthodox -- I don't have room in the basement to set one up and I'm not really looking to spend money wiring up a complicated snake setup to route it upstairs.

Instead, there's a Reaper plugin called ReaStream that will let me stream the audio from one Reaper to another - so, basement Reaper (laptop) will stream audio to upstairs Reaper (desktop pc), which will be the "control room". Basically no documentation for this but it actually works pretty well. Considered setting up a upstairs->downstairs stream for talkback but I think walkie-talkies might be easier...

I also bought a $5 app for my long-unused Android tablet called TouchDAW, which functions as a remote control surface for Reaper. Took a few minutes to setup but also pretty easy to use. The interface would be hell to try and use as a 'real' control surface, but it will work great for starting and stopping playback/recording and soloing/muting tracks, so I'm aiming to mainly use it when trying to record drums solo or practice to a click. In combination with my 'control room' it would give me limited control over recording too.
Sounds cool Ted you guys going to self-record next one? How are you guys doing now that Matt left I haven't seen you posting many shows but that one first weekend in April. I'm waiting to get my guitars setup tomorrow to start my next solo recording and Hypnochron is almost ready to record the next full-length.

Random tip - the GLS sm57 cheap knockoffs work great for toms, snare, or for the beater on kick.

Yep, the plan is to at least give self-recording a shot - we've got all the equipment and a little bit of knowledge from our past endeavors. With Matt out we're continuing as a 4-piece for now... we don't really see ourselves as having an 'ideal' configuration so no real hurry to bring in another guitar. Keyboard would be cool though

If I can get a good drum sound out of my room I might try and track drums more frequently... not sure that I'll have the time or the skill required but I'd like to lend 'real' drums to a project here and there.

giantchris · March 13, 2016, 10:39:47 PM

Keyboard is always cool you guys would fit well with someone playing an organ/synth through a tubescreamer like Ghost. Or some tripped out electric Rhodes stuff if you do any Downtempo songs.

Self-recording is the way to go man you can get exactly the sounds you want if your willing to spend the time learning how to make them. The great thing about doom is you don't really want pristine recordings anyways. I don't know a super large amount about micing drums personally but for mixing them do a side chained drumbus on kick/toms/snare and compress the shit out of it and play it low level to give the attack a ton of bite. Started doing that towards the end of recording my last one and for the new Hypnochron stuff its making them sound huge.

CID Vicious · March 18, 2016, 12:27:36 PM

Intel MacBook & Presonus Firepod, GarageBand or Logic 9, SM57 & a pair of cheapo Cascade SDCs.

Melody Maker w SH5 > Tech 21 Tri A.C.

Sometimes DI. Better with an amp though, later I had a Guitar Research 1x10 that I ran clean and flat with the Tri A.C. out front.

Garnish with Crybaby, Deltatone TS clone, Line 6 LiquaFlange, DigiDelay.

"The Harness" & "Radiation Sunshine" are that setup with the GR Combo powering a Peavey XXX 412, & a Blue mic for vocals.

"The Harness"
https://youtu.be/SmAKjxsJMa4

"Radiation Sunshine"
https://youtu.be/HlcIb8yVVUQ

The rest here - "I Am Nothing" is pretty Doomy. "Welcome To America" is my first multitrack rock recording, Ministry type industro thrash. Apologies for the "drumming", my budget limited me to using "musical keys" aka the Mac keyboard to punch them in. Harness & Radiation I moved up to a LPD8, but had only owned it for like a month. These are all 2011 or older, & demos.

www.soundclick.com/mettayax

Danny G · March 18, 2016, 01:23:25 PM

I still haven't even had a chance to try importing some older 8-tracks recordings and remixing them in GarageBand on the new iMac.

Because SXSW :/

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Dinx · April 01, 2016, 06:49:02 AM

Sometimes Id just like to have tracks for mixing practice... so if anyone has something for me that would be great!

giantchris · April 01, 2016, 08:18:16 PM

Out of curiousity do any of you guys have any amp sim VST recommendations or weird effects that are relatively cheap? I've been primarily using PODFARM 2.5 effects and stacking a bunch of them but I'd kinda like some different stuff. That and all the good amp sims are super modern sounding 6505 or mesa stuff.

black aspirin · April 05, 2016, 02:28:24 PM

Quote from: giantchris on April 01, 2016, 08:18:16 PM
Out of curiousity do any of you guys have any amp sim VST recommendations or weird effects that are relatively cheap? I've been primarily using PODFARM 2.5 effects and stacking a bunch of them but I'd kinda like some different stuff. That and all the good amp sims are super modern sounding 6505 or mesa stuff.

I don't really use amp sims, but have a decent array of effects and other plug-ins, many of which are free downloads. If you have an idea of what kind of effects you're after, let me know and I'll try to help.

giantchris · April 07, 2016, 12:02:09 AM

Quote from: black aspirin on April 05, 2016, 02:28:24 PM
Quote from: giantchris on April 01, 2016, 08:18:16 PM
Out of curiousity do any of you guys have any amp sim VST recommendations or weird effects that are relatively cheap? I've been primarily using PODFARM 2.5 effects and stacking a bunch of them but I'd kinda like some different stuff. That and all the good amp sims are super modern sounding 6505 or mesa stuff.

I don't really use amp sims, but have a decent array of effects and other plug-ins, many of which are free downloads. If you have an idea of what kind of effects you're after, let me know and I'll try to help.

Hey there, I've been using PODFARM 2.5 which admittedly is pretty awesome. Just looking for some different modulation/reverb/delay tones to get different layered sounds. I also have the Schwa Phaser which is pretty nice. I'd like something along the lines of some of the Earthquaker or Malekko effects just stuff that's random and unique sounding. For my next solo effort I'm writing it about dreams so I'm trying to do like weird modulation effect layers where the pulses all line up differently and stuff like that. If that makes any sense to you. OR some cool guitar synth pedals or w/e. Just neat original sounding stuff I can layer with what I got and make cool tones with.

Dinx · April 12, 2016, 10:17:47 AM

I am still using pod farm 1 for most of the recordings of my demos. besides that GuitarRig5 and amplitube are quite good. I also think that Amplitube has a
Vintage Amp Pack.

everdrone · April 12, 2016, 04:22:52 PM

still gotta plug in my new computer, its gonna be more powerful for video editing and more audio plugins ALLZ AT ONCE!! muwhahaha!!!!

I finished mixing this doom metal tune today:

[soundcloud]https://soundcloud.com/earthalliance/vortex-mind-wav-rons-original-tune-genre-doom-metal-date-20160412-no-2[/soundcloud]

nyarlathotep · September 22, 2016, 11:22:39 AM

Basement studio progress continues - although I'm not really done treating it acoustically I set up my recording rig to test it out again:

Works like a charm! Now if only I knew the first thing about engineering.

Looking forward to using this setup to record drums, however - by using my tablet as a control surface I should be able to do demo takes and re-takes without leaving my drum throne.