The Jam Room Blog Thread.

[MichaelZodiac]

I gave my guitarist the gear he was using anyway as a gift for his birthday. It felt good.

[RAGER]

That's a nice gesture.^^

Man it seems like I never have the time to play lately.  The other night we had some friends over and we were sitting in the living room and they asked about my reel to reel.  I told them how I used it as an amp.  They asked if it sounded good so I said yeah let me show you.  So I plugged in and kinda got lost for about 10 minutes.  I look up and they're just kinda lookin at me and I'm thinkn "damn I'm just gettin warmed up".  Coulda sat there and played for a while but had to "entertain" company not entertain company if ya know what I mean.

[mortlock]

[JemDooM]

That's really nice Michael

Rager you need to get back on it!!!

[MichaelZodiac]

I also said to the dude that I'm not really feeling it anymore. He's my best buddy and the drummer too but making music together just doesn't work all the time. This sucks.

[RAGER]

That's really nice Michael

Rager you need to get back on it!!!

Totally got lost jammin this morning for about a half hour and was almost late for work.  Not that it would be a big deal but I like to be on time.

[Instant Dan]

I have had that happen to me too many times, RAGER. If it happens, I just lock myself in my room for about 45 mins to an hour starting at the beginning of the week and by the end of the week I am in good shape.

Anyone got a reccomendation for a good analog delay for no more than $120-$130 for echoplexish/tape sounds that won't get lost in the mix.

[Pissy]

Carbon copy?  Great delay for $150 or so new.

[JemDooM]

I also said to the dude that I'm not really feeling it anymore. He's my best buddy and the drummer too but making music together just doesn't work all the time. This sucks.

That does suck considering you're all best mates :*

I'm looking for a delay pedal too, this will sound silly but I really love the delay that I add to my leads through studio one, my DD3 pedal doesn't sound as good, my leads are sounding better on record than live we've even had a review saying so which was disappointing but true, it's not to do with the actual playing of them because I can throw em down live or recorded just fine but it's the actual effects making the difference so I need to find something good....

[Instant Dan]

Carbon copy?  Great delay for $150 or so new.

That is at the top of the list along with Ekko 616 and this guy.

http://www.youngpedals.com/adm.html

[RAGER]

I have both the Carbon Copy and the 616 and also keep a DD3 on my main board but just for a breadth to my sound not so much for delay. 

[JemDooM]

I think the DD3 is way better for that purpose rager, I might keep it and work the settings for that instead...

[RAGER]

Yep just a slight repeat with the level and feedback rate pretty low.  I haven't fallen in love with any reverb pedals so far so that's kind of what I use it for. 

[liquidsmoke]

Not analog but this thing can do awesome weird stuff as well as classic regular delay sounds.

[RacerX]

She's 8 years old.

[AgentofOblivion]

Do you guys run your delays through an FX loop or in front of the amp?  I can never get delays to sound good in front of an amp unless it's a clean channel.

[AgentofOblivion]

In other news I re-discovered my Furman PQ-3.  It was in a closet at my drummer's house and before that sat in a basement for several years.  Anyway, I ran it last in my chain before my amp input, cut anything below 50 Hz, boosted the mids around 1k and the highs around 2-3k.  Holy hell it sounded good!  It cleaned up the entire band's sound since I wasn't competing/muddying up the bass and had a distinctive frequency range bump that placed me in the mix nicely.  It also caused my amp to distort all the right frequencies and made it seem like I flipped the "Alive" switch.  If you guys have some EQs laying around and play in a band setting, I recommend playing around with it.

[black aspirin]

My goal for today is to figure out what the fuck is wrong with my guitar recordings.

I'm recording out of an isolation cab, so I get my mic (or two of them) in there, fuck with positioning until I get a good sound, play along with the rest of the mix through my headphones, and the guitar sounds great...really heavy, and prominent in the mix.

Do a take, go back to listen to it, and not only can I barely hear it, but it sounds all weak and shitty.  I'm setting the recording level at about -5db (as I am with everything else) for headroom when I'm mixing it later.

I don't get it.  I've done this in the past and gotten really good recordings; I must be doing something wrong that is very basic, but I dunno what yet.  Any ideas?  If it sounds great in the headphones with the rest of the mix, then why does hitting 'record' change everything?

[AgentofOblivion]

Is the phase flipped on one of the mic's?  Try changing the phase on one of the mic channels and see if it sounds better.

[black aspirin]

Is the phase flipped on one of the mic's?  Try changing the phase on one of the mic channels and see if it sounds better.

Nah, that wasn't it.

I feel pretty overwhelmed with trying to fumble my way through this stuff.  Took a free class at GC on home recording, but it really didn't teach me that much.

I hope y'all don't get irked, because I'm probably gonna be asking some very stupid questions for a while, haha.  I started with the drum track, which was sequenced in Tracktion 4 and then I applied the BFD2 plug-in.  Separated it into two tracks, one with cymbals, and the other with kick, snare and toms so I could EQ them separately.  It sounds really good.

The level on each was at 0db when I first created it, and that didn't drive the overall level into the red.  Then, as I added synth tracks, then bass and guitar, all at least -5db individually...the drum track started going into the red.  With each successive track that I add, I have to lower the initial level of the drums, which is now down to -14db to keep from going into the red (as well as the overall level of the mix).

Apparently, I don't understand how this all works...I can understand why adding tracks would make the overall mix level increase, but why would adding tracks make the level of the drums by themselves increase?  Overall, once I adjust all the levels of the mix after the guitar tracks were added, the guitars don't sound as bad as they initially did (although not as good as I want yet).  I'm learning by trial-and-error about how to tweak everything in the mix, but it's really frustrating.

[AgentofOblivion]

I can understand why adding tracks would make the overall mix level increase, but why would adding tracks make the level of the drums by themselves increase?  

Put simply, that doesn't make sense and you're correct to be confused.  Something must be set up incorrectly.  What software are you using?  It sounds like your new tracks are going into the input of your drum track.  Perhaps you've accidentally chosen to route things in a weird way?  Have you set up buses or anything like that? 

Or perhaps when you say "creating tracks" you're not doing what I think.  Are you adding tracks in whatever virtual instrument software you're using, or are you adding them with your DAW like Reaper?  If it's the former and you're using a single DAW track to play those back then that's your problem.  If you want more help then we'll need more information.

[black aspirin]

Put simply, that doesn't make sense and you're correct to be confused.  Something must be set up incorrectly.  What software are you using?  It sounds like your new tracks are going into the input of your drum track.  Perhaps you've accidentally chosen to route things in a weird way?  Have you set up buses or anything like that? 

Or perhaps when you say "creating tracks" you're not doing what I think.  Are you adding tracks in whatever virtual instrument software you're using, or are you adding them with your DAW like Reaper?  If it's the former and you're using a single DAW track to play those back then that's your problem.  If you want more help then we'll need more information.

Aaargh, my brain must be fried.  Apparently, it is not increasing the level of the drum track when I add new tracks.  I'm mis-remembering everything I did.  I double-checked it by creating a new project, and starting a new drum track with all of the same particulars...kit, compression, reverb, phaser (all at the same settings as before), and I had to lower the level just as much to keep it out of the red.

So, now I gotta get back into the guitar recording issues.  Gonna read up some more in my home recording books, and spend the rest of the night trying different things and making a log of each effort to see what works and what doesn't.

Thanks for the help; sorry it was just as I figured...me being stupid, haha.

[AgentofOblivion]

Man, sure sounds like you're doing a lot of work just to record.  Don't get burned out on the details!  One mistake I've made is spending way too much time mixing and trying to get the perfect tone when the goal of the recording was just to remember the riff or to demo.  Or I'd get one track sounding perfect and then when I added another instrument I had to change it all anyway.  My point is, know your goal and don't waste your time.  You'll learn all the tips and tricks when you need them.

[liquidsmoke]

Do you guys run your delays through an FX loop or in front of the amp?  I can never get delays to sound good in front of an amp unless it's a clean channel.

In front but my amp is clean. Aren't effects loops usually for a rack level signal? I read all about that stuff earlier in the year and promptly forgot most of it.

[black aspirin]

Man, sure sounds like you're doing a lot of work just to record.  Don't get burned out on the details!  One mistake I've made is spending way too much time mixing and trying to get the perfect tone when the goal of the recording was just to remember the riff or to demo.  Or I'd get one track sounding perfect and then when I added another instrument I had to change it all anyway.  My point is, know your goal and don't waste your time.  You'll learn all the tips and tricks when you need them.

Well, I'm recording to get it to sound as good as possible in the end.  I don't have any plans on ever going into a studio or anything, just writing songs that I like and getting them recorded as best I can by myself.  I recorded some things in the past that I think sound pretty good.  It's for fun, not some future goal of releasing a studio album.

Thanks for listening to me, though.  Got much better guitar tracks recorded last night (not keepers, but at least the sound is better), so I was pretty happy.