1. Signal Path, Gain Stages, and Phase RelationshipsUnderstanding input signal path| 00:00 |
The basics of audio recording starts with
signal flow.
| | 00:03 |
Getting the signal from the mics or the
input sources to the recording device is
| | 00:08 |
the first stage of recording anything.
Now here at my studio, Jackpot Recording,
| | 00:13 |
we've got a huge patch bay, almost a
1,000 points.
| | 00:17 |
We have signals coming in from the
microphones, we have inputs to the
| | 00:21 |
console, inputs to Protools, microphone
preamps, equalizers, compressors, you
| | 00:27 |
name it.
All those things show up on the patch bay
| | 00:30 |
and we patch things in to each other from
one to one to one to one.
| | 00:34 |
But let's break that down to something
simple.
| | 00:36 |
This thing scares people, this doesn't.
Now you know what a microphone is.
| | 00:42 |
You put it in front of musicians, you put
it in front of instruments, you put it in
| | 00:45 |
front of singers, everybody that's making
sound in a room is probably recorded with
| | 00:49 |
a microphone.
The output of a microphone has a really
| | 00:53 |
low voltage, a low AC voltage, and that
signal can go down the mic cable for a ways.
| | 00:58 |
But it has to be turned into a higher
voltage, what we call a balanced line
| | 01:02 |
level signal.
We do that with a microphone preamp.
| | 01:05 |
A preamp can be built into your console,
part of the front end of a, of a DA interface.
| | 01:11 |
But basically, they all do the same
thing.
| | 01:13 |
They take that low voltage level, they
make it a nice line level output signal.
| | 01:18 |
There's a gain stage involved.
Turn that up, you'll see the meter moving
| | 01:22 |
a little bit on this guy.
Now we have a nice signal coming out of
| | 01:26 |
the microphone pre-amp.
Now here, that signal's running.
| | 01:29 |
We can take this, plug it into the input
of a digital audio workstation through an
| | 01:35 |
analog to digital converter.
We could plug this into a tape deck.
| | 01:39 |
But I'm thinking today, we're going to
plug this into a compressor.
| | 01:43 |
Now we're going to take it from this
compressor.
| | 01:45 |
And the output of this could go to an
equalizer, it could go to other devices,
| | 01:50 |
but the output of this can also just go
right into your DA, into your tape deck,
| | 01:55 |
and you're ready to record.
But wait, what about instruments that
| | 01:59 |
don't actually move air?
Things that are not acoustic based
| | 02:03 |
instruments or amplifiers, like this bass
guitar here.
| | 02:07 |
Let's take the output of the bass guitar,
plug it in.
| | 02:11 |
Plug it into an instrument cable, and
we'll plug it into this DI box, a Direct
| | 02:15 |
Inject box.
This box actually takes the instrument
| | 02:19 |
level output and mimics the output of a
low-voltage microphone on its output here.
| | 02:24 |
So we're able to take that level, plug it
in to the back of a microphone pre-amp,
| | 02:31 |
and then it acts like it was a
microphone.
| | 02:32 |
We can record that directly into our tape
deck or our DA.
| | 02:37 |
In this case, here we are, going into the
compressor.
| | 02:40 |
Now we're going to take this signal and
we're going to go to tape.
| | 02:44 |
And boom.
We are ready to record.
| | 02:49 |
In the next movie, we're going to cover
gain structure in the studio, a very
| | 02:53 |
important part of the signal flow.
| | 02:54 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Gain staging| 00:00 |
Here at Jackpot Recording Studio, I find
myself mixing a lot of tracks that have
| | 00:04 |
been recorded by other people.
When I'm working on a song and I'm having
| | 00:07 |
a problem with a certain track in the
song, I'll actually find out a lot of
| | 00:12 |
times that it's due to a gain structure
issue.
| | 00:14 |
Now, it's really easy to have gain
structure problems and not know it.
| | 00:18 |
Think about it.
You've got a microphone going, it's
| | 00:22 |
running through a preamp.
You turn the preamp up.
| | 00:25 |
You might turn the preamp up so much that
it's distorting, you know.
| | 00:28 |
Maybe even the red light's coming on.
If you're not paying attention, you might
| | 00:32 |
not notice this.
Because, say what if you have a
| | 00:34 |
compressor going downstream?
Pre-amp feeds compressor.
| | 00:38 |
Compressor is attenuated.
Now we're sending a nice safe level into
| | 00:43 |
Pro Tools or onto a tape deck.
We're not seeing any red lights coming
| | 00:46 |
on, on the, on the tape deck.
We're not seeing any clip indicators in Pro Tools.
| | 00:50 |
We don't know visually that it's
distorting.
| | 00:54 |
But oh, it, it is.
Some pre-amps, unlike this one, might
| | 00:58 |
have actually two knobs on the front
affecting gain.
| | 01:01 |
One would be your input gain and the
other one would be either an output gain
| | 01:05 |
stage or a trim knob.
Now frequently, you can take that trim
| | 01:09 |
knob and turn it back say, quite a bit
and attenuate what is coming from your
| | 01:14 |
first gain stage.
And then you keep turning your knob up on
| | 01:17 |
your microphone level trying to get good
level the tape or in the Pro Tools.
| | 01:21 |
And you're actually distorting, just like
a guitar amp.
| | 01:23 |
When you turn the output of your guitar
amp down and you turn the input up, and
| | 01:27 |
you can get nice, controlled, low level
distortion.
| | 01:30 |
That's what's happening.
You need to be aware of what's going on
| | 01:33 |
with this kind of stuff.
Because one of the reasons is, is that
| | 01:36 |
transients can get smashed when you're
pushing your pre-amp too hard.
| | 01:39 |
The circuits inside are not working
optimally.
| | 01:42 |
They're not working efficiently, and
you're smashing transients on things like drums.
| | 01:47 |
Your, your circuits are working
inefficiently.
| | 01:49 |
They're not carrying the same bandwidth
in some cases.
| | 01:51 |
And your music is just going to not sound
as good as it could.
| | 01:55 |
So let's move over to a virtual or real
console, and see how the gain staging is
| | 02:00 |
working in that realm.
| | 02:01 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Console and digital audio workstation (DAW) signal flow inputs and outputs| 00:00 |
So several years ago I had a client
contact me about mixing an album he've
| | 00:04 |
been recording.
He sent me some MP3s to listen to, and
| | 00:07 |
they are all really fuzzy and distorted
and pretty wild sounding.
| | 00:11 |
But I thought, hey it sounds kind of
interesting, it will be fun job.
| | 00:15 |
When I got the files to mix, I brought
them up on the console through individual channels.
| | 00:20 |
And there was no distortion, everything
sounded very clean and sounded a lot
| | 00:24 |
straighter than I expected.
It turned out he hadn't created a Master
| | 00:28 |
Bus in Pro Tools and he had been
recording his tracks in, leaving them all
| | 00:32 |
at zero and just overloading the Mix Bus
on his Pro Tools system.
| | 00:37 |
So, I'll show you what he was doing right
here, this is an easy trick.
| | 00:42 |
Number one he didn't create the master
bus.
| | 00:44 |
We're going to leave one in place here so
that you can see what's happening.
| | 00:47 |
Here's some drums with all the drum
tracks gained up way too high.
| | 00:50 |
(MUSIC) You can see the clip indicators
on the master bus, and you can hear the
| | 01:03 |
distortion in the drums.
Obviously, all we gotta do is simply
| | 01:07 |
reduce the levels of these channels, play
it again.
| | 01:11 |
(MUSIC) And everything's fine.
Another thing that it can happen is this.
| | 01:21 |
Those tracks can be gained up really hot.
And you simply attenuate (MUSIC) to make
| | 01:25 |
up for it.
In this case, amazingly, we're able to
| | 01:35 |
turn that master fader down, and actually
not have a distorted mix.
| | 01:39 |
There's enough head room in the math
involved in Pro Tool summing to make this
| | 01:43 |
possible, but I wouldn't advise working
this way.
| | 01:46 |
I would always start with a master fader
at zero, for unity, and bring all the
| | 01:50 |
other faders back down, of course.
(MUSIC) Buses can cause other problems.
| | 01:56 |
Here we've got several buses and a reverb
on the drum track.
| | 02:02 |
Now, I would actually just push the heck
of these buses here to make them really loud.
| | 02:08 |
It's going to distort going into the
reverb bus, and what we're going to get
| | 02:11 |
is distortion on the reverb.
This might not be an obvious problem at
| | 02:15 |
first, but it can be a problem.
(MUSIC) Actually, it sounds kind of cool,
| | 02:21 |
but just something to keep in mind, this
could be causing problems in your mix, so
| | 02:31 |
attenuating these bus sends will make
this work much better.
| | 02:37 |
Be aware of all the gain staging involved
in a virtual console like this, and when
| | 02:41 |
it's working for you and not working for
you.
| | 02:44 |
The same stuff happens in the real world,
out here in an analogue console like this.
| | 02:48 |
You can bring your faders up and be
making a mix and be hitting your output
| | 02:53 |
bus too hard.
In this case, you're dealing with
| | 02:56 |
electronics, not math.
So the electronics involved in many cases
| | 03:00 |
do not have the headroom to handle an
overload.
| | 03:03 |
If your meters are pegging on your output
buzz, and you simply bring back your
| | 03:07 |
master tray, your master volume and trim
it back, you're actually creating
| | 03:11 |
distortion in the console.
In some cases, like some of the classic
| | 03:15 |
Neve consoles, people have used this
effect to create totally rockin', awesome mixes.
| | 03:20 |
But in other cases, like with, with less
expensive consoles, or depending on the
| | 03:24 |
head room and the circuits involved.
These consoles can actually clip and
| | 03:28 |
distort and cause really unwanted
artifacts.
| | 03:31 |
So be aware of your gain staging, at the
console stages, at the input stages, It's
| | 03:36 |
all really important, and it helps you
get really good recordings when you
| | 03:40 |
understand what's going on.
| | 03:41 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Understanding phase| 00:00 |
Understanding phase in the recording
studio is one of the most important
| | 00:04 |
concepts, in my mind.
When I first started recording, I didn't
| | 00:08 |
ever check the phase, like the polarity
buttons, and check phase on drums, or
| | 00:12 |
anything like that.
Anything miked with two microphones, or a
| | 00:17 |
DI and a microphone.
Can have phase issues between those two
| | 00:20 |
sources, and I didn't understand that.
So, one day I got a call from a mastering
| | 00:24 |
engineer, and he said, hey your snare's
out of phase with your overheads on your
| | 00:29 |
drum tracks.
And I said, what do you mean?
| | 00:32 |
And he ran me through the process.
He said, oh yeah, I got some other
| | 00:35 |
records from the northwest that had the
same problem.
| | 00:38 |
Well, guess who recorded that one too.
So, first of all, I'll show you the real
| | 00:40 |
basis of what I'm talking about.
If you put two mics on the source and the
| | 00:42 |
mics aren't right next to each other
capturing the audio at the same time,
| | 00:52 |
they may arrive at the mics at different
times.
| | 00:54 |
When this happens you're actually going
to have a phase relationship that's not
| | 00:58 |
lining up.
And you'll need to examine this.
| | 01:01 |
We have a bass track recorded here.
And this is a duplicate copy.
| | 01:06 |
So, you can see these two wave forms here
are identical.
| | 01:09 |
When we hear them together.
(MUSIC) We hear the bass guitar as it was recorded.
| | 01:12 |
With a three DB slight volume boost,
because there's two of them playing at once.
| | 01:21 |
If I invert one of these wave forms, 180
degrees, which is easy to do here, with
| | 01:28 |
an invert plugin.
I highlight it.
| | 01:32 |
I render it.
Bam, look at that.
| | 01:34 |
You see, the wave form there, go 180
degrees, out of whack with the one below it.
| | 01:40 |
So now when we play those together what
do we get?
| | 01:45 |
Nothing.
Silence.
| | 01:47 |
These frequencies are pushing and pulling
in complete opposite directions.
| | 01:50 |
And they're cancelling each other out.
So we can switch that.
| | 01:54 |
Right now I have these same two tracks
coming down here through the console.
| | 01:58 |
If I go and flip my polarity switch on
the console.
| | 02:01 |
(MUSIC) You can hear that change.
If I even change the volume of one of
| | 02:13 |
these tracks against the other track
you'll hear this change as well.
| | 02:25 |
(MUSIC) So that is the fundamental
concept at work, two tracks playing
| | 02:29 |
together out of phase, canceling each
other out.
| | 02:33 |
Now, one frequent place that we get this
problem is when we have a bass amp and a
| | 02:39 |
DI track playing together at the same
time.
| | 02:41 |
Just like the thing we saw right there
with the duplicated track, we're going to
| | 02:45 |
have frequencies canceling, just
slightly.
| | 02:49 |
What we have here, and it's really
visible, is the top track is the DI, the
| | 02:54 |
direct recording of the bass guitar, and
the bottom track is the microphone on the amplifier.
| | 03:01 |
Now you can see right there that these
things are happening at different times.
| | 03:05 |
Here is the beginning of the DI track,
and down there at the bottom on the
| | 03:09 |
microphone track nothing is happening.
When we play these together you'll hear
| | 03:13 |
both tracks playing at once.
(MUSIC) Now if I flip polarity, on one of
| | 03:21 |
those tracks, I'm going to flip polarity
on the amplifier track.
| | 03:24 |
180 degrees.
Like we did with that plug in earlier.
| | 03:28 |
(MUSIC) And here, listen to it again.
I'm going to flip this in and out and
| | 03:36 |
you'll hear the tone change.
(MUSIC) You have this space and time, the
| | 03:43 |
difference that you see there on the
screen.
| | 03:47 |
Now certain frequencies are going to
cancel at different points based on the
| | 03:51 |
space and time that's between these.
The polarity difference, and the timing difference.
| | 03:56 |
Just remember, time and air and space all
kind of inter relate in this whole
| | 04:01 |
situation with phase.
If you watched the movie we did on
| | 04:04 |
recording bass guitar, you'll actually
see how we can adjust the DI to fit
| | 04:10 |
better with the mic track too.
And that's a really great little thing.
| | 04:13 |
So there's some situations, like that one
is definitely one in point, where you
| | 04:17 |
have some issues with phase that are not
quite resolvable by flipping 180 degrees.
| | 04:23 |
You run into the same thing here with
piano.
| | 04:26 |
We mic'd the piano from the rear in this
example on the sound board, and this is a
| | 04:33 |
spaced pair of mics, so they're sitting
at different points on the back of the piano.
| | 04:38 |
I'm just going to play it and switch in
and out with the phase button on one of
| | 04:41 |
the channels.
Phase is a relationship between two
| | 04:45 |
sources or more.
So we have two sources on the piano.
| | 04:48 |
We flip polarity, which is which way the
wave form is going.
| | 04:52 |
Up or down, like we looked at, at first.
We flip the polarity switch.
| | 04:56 |
To see what the phase relationship is.
These words get interchanged a lot, sort
| | 05:01 |
of accidentally.
And I'll even do it.
| | 05:03 |
I'll find myself saying phase switch when
that's not a phase switch.
| | 05:06 |
Phase is the relationship, polarity is
the switch.
| | 05:11 |
So here I'm going to play this back, and
I'm going to hit the button a few times,
| | 05:14 |
and you'll hear the different tone.
It's not going to be perfect one way or
| | 05:18 |
the other, you're just going to have
different sounds happening.
| | 05:20 |
(MUSIC) So that's kind of the conundrum
of, certain phase relationships.
| | 05:38 |
You can't, really get in there and just
dial in a perfect like 180 degrees, in or
| | 05:44 |
out, that fixes everything.
It got a little brighter when I pushed
| | 05:47 |
the phase button then, on the right hand
track.
| | 05:50 |
But we also lost a little bit of mid's,
but it got brighter, and then it got a
| | 05:54 |
little darker when it was back out, but
it sounded a little deeper.
| | 05:58 |
There's not really a win-win, you have to
maybe decide what's going to work in the track.
| | 06:02 |
Maybe just use one of the mikes.
It's a situation we deal with quite frequently.
| | 06:07 |
acoustic guitar and vocal recorded
together will have the same kind of issues.
| | 06:12 |
We're going to hear a track of that.
First, we gotta find it.
| | 06:16 |
There it is.
Let's upload these up.
| | 06:23 |
Okay.
So here, we've got our acoustic guitar
| | 06:26 |
and vocal takes.
Up here is the vocal track on a Heil
| | 06:31 |
PR20, and then we have a Langevin CR3A on
the guitar right here.
| | 06:38 |
So lets hear these together, and while we
listen to these I'm going to do the same thing.
| | 06:41 |
I'm going to flip the polarity on the
acoustic guitar mic, and we'll see what
| | 06:45 |
that's doing.
(MUSIC) Don't talk so loud, just to hear
| | 06:50 |
your own voice.
You'll cloud will move on, and we'll all
| | 06:58 |
sing along, to your words.
So, in that case, actually throwing the
| | 07:06 |
acoustic guitar out of phase with the
vocal mike made both of them sound a
| | 07:10 |
little richer.
Which is good because, think of this
| | 07:13 |
example you have of voice showing up on
the vocal mike, and in here also the
| | 07:17 |
voice showing up on the acoustic guitar
mike and vice versa.
| | 07:21 |
And you have spay different times that
they're reaching these mics.
| | 07:24 |
They're never going to be quite in phase.
Same thing with a drum kit.
| | 07:28 |
You have multiple parts of a drum kick.
Kick, snare, toms.
| | 07:32 |
They all arrive at all the different mics
at all different times.
| | 07:35 |
The close mics, of course, hear the
sources first.
| | 07:38 |
The mics that are further away hear the
sources later, unless you have all these
| | 07:43 |
interwoven phase relationships.
So what I like to do is just, I'll show
| | 07:47 |
you real quick here, if I kick the, the
kick drum and the snare track out of
| | 07:53 |
phase with the rest of the kit, 'cause
I've already put these all in phase, all
| | 07:57 |
nice and proper when I was recording 'em.
So now we're going to listen back, and
| | 08:00 |
I'm going to flip these outta phase, and
you're going to hear the drum kit get a
| | 08:04 |
lot thinner sounding.
Here we go.
| | 08:07 |
(MUSIC) So, you could see where I put the
buttons down on both of those tracks and
| | 08:22 |
reversed the polarity of the Giggins
snare, that the track got thinner and wimpier.
| | 08:40 |
That's exactly like the track that I sent
to the master engineer many years ago.
| | 08:45 |
Be aware of all these kind of
relationships.
| | 08:47 |
Any time you have a DI and a mic on a
source.
| | 08:50 |
Any time you have two mics on a source,
or multiple sources, two or more mics,
| | 08:55 |
drum kits, pianos, mics across the room,
mics nearby, anything that has more than
| | 09:02 |
one and especially more than one source.
Check the phase relationships.
| | 09:07 |
A lot of times you can move mikes around
and dial it in a little closer.
| | 09:11 |
Make sure you get those things dialed in
good, and you'll have a much stronger
| | 09:15 |
sounding recording, and eventually a
better mix.
| | 09:17 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Checking phase on a drum kit| 00:00 |
I'm going to run you through what I do
when I'm checking phase on a drum kit.
| | 00:04 |
So here, what I first do, is isolate just
the overhead mics.
| | 00:13 |
I'm going to put those in mono, you can
hit a mono switch on your monitor
| | 00:18 |
controller if you want.
What I do is pane them up to the center
| | 00:21 |
so there both coming through, mono.
And I'll listen to a little bit of the
| | 00:28 |
overheads by themselves.
(MUSIC) Then I'll flip the polarity on
| | 00:33 |
one of the overhead tracks, obviously not
both because then they would still have
| | 00:36 |
the same relationship to each other.
(MUSIC) Well, I bet we can say (MUSIC)
| | 00:43 |
that that sounds better.
What I'm listening for all the way
| | 00:49 |
through here is to see if there's phase
cancellations that are suckin' out the
| | 00:54 |
low parts of the audio.
And you heard right there, those tracks
| | 00:58 |
thinned out.
They should, because they were recorded
| | 01:00 |
with two mics on a stereo bar in an XY
configuration, so the mics were very
| | 01:05 |
close to each other and picking up all
the sound at the same time.
| | 01:07 |
We're not going to be so lucky with the
rest of the drum kit.
| | 01:10 |
And so we have to sit and listen, and see
what tracks are in phase or out of phase
| | 01:14 |
with each other.
What I'll do next is keep those overheads
| | 01:17 |
in mono, and then I'll go and play the
kick drum (no period) And the inside mic
| | 01:22 |
on the kick drum against the overhead
tracks here and we'll see what that
| | 01:26 |
sounds like.
While we're listening I'm going to slowly
| | 01:28 |
flip the kick drum mic 180 degrees in and
out of phase against the overheads.
| | 01:33 |
(MUSIC) (MUSIC) So what I heard was that
when I put the phase button in on the
| | 01:43 |
kick drum track that its relationship to
the overheads made it sound deeper.
| | 01:56 |
So that means that our overheads and our
kick drum mic are out of phase with each other.
| | 02:01 |
But, I'm not going to do it like this.
I'm going to go the other way.
| | 02:05 |
I'm going to undo the polarity switch on
the kick drum mic.
| | 02:10 |
Leave it as it was recorded.
And reverse the polarity on both of the
| | 02:13 |
overhead drum tracks.
Now, why am I doing this?
| | 02:17 |
I believe that I recorded the kick drum
properly.
| | 02:20 |
The mic wasn't wired weird, the cable
wasn't wired weird.
| | 02:22 |
The pre-amp was wired properly.
And I'd recorded the sound of the kick
| | 02:25 |
drum as it was happening.
This should cause the speakers and our
| | 02:29 |
monitors to have excursion pushing the
cone out.
| | 02:33 |
Now, this isn't something that you would
normally really hear.
| | 02:37 |
Whether a speaker's pulling in or pushing
out.
| | 02:40 |
But I know that the tack, and the first
transient of the kick drum should be
| | 02:44 |
pushing the speaker out.
So, I leave that track alone.
| | 02:47 |
I will leave the polarity on the kick
drum as recorded, I change the polarity
| | 02:51 |
of the overheads against the kick drum.
So now we have a good relationship of the
| | 02:55 |
kick drum in the overhead.
(MUSIC) That sounds proper.
| | 03:02 |
What I'll do next is mute the overheads.
I have the speaker mic that I also had
| | 03:07 |
outside of the kick drum, and I recorded
the low end of the kick with that speaker
| | 03:11 |
mic, so I will turn that track up and try
to hear the relationship of the
| | 03:16 |
subharmonics of the speaker, in the real
deep, low end, against the straight kick
| | 03:21 |
drum track here.
(MUSIC) It sounds like it's better when I
| | 03:32 |
have the switch inverted on the speaker
mic.
| | 03:44 |
Let's zoom in on the wav forms and see
what it looks like there.
| | 03:48 |
Boy, those look totally different and
they do seem to be somewhat inverted.
| | 03:54 |
You can see that the kick drum mic track,
this track here, as a wav form starting
| | 04:01 |
on a peak going up and that the speaker
mike has one going down, and also arrives
| | 04:07 |
a little bit later in time, which makes
total sense, because the mike inside the
| | 04:10 |
kick drum should be arriving first, and
this one is arriving outside of the kick
| | 04:12 |
drum, so the sound should be arriving
later.
| | 04:18 |
So now we've inverted the phase on the
speaker mike against the inside mike on
| | 04:23 |
the kick drum.
I'll try to be careful and keep all this straight.
| | 04:28 |
Now, let's put the overheads back in.
They're still in mono.
| | 04:31 |
Let's hear the top snare mic, and see
what's going on there.
| | 04:35 |
As I listen, I'm going to, once again,
slowly flip it 180 degrees in and out of phase.
| | 04:40 |
If you're in a (INAUDIBLE), you could be
doing this with, like, the trim plugin,
| | 04:43 |
or any plugin that has a phase button on
it.
| | 04:46 |
And that usually looks like a zero with a
slash through it.
| | 04:49 |
If it doesn't have a thing that says
polarity.
| | 04:51 |
(MUSIC) (SOUND) I'm having a harder time
hearing that, so I'm going to listen one
| | 05:20 |
more time. (SOUND).
(MUSIC) I think I like how it was already recorded.
| | 05:40 |
So I'm going to leave that alone.
Now what I'm going to do here is, once
| | 05:44 |
again mute the overhead mikes.
Bring in the bottom snare mic and see how
| | 05:48 |
that sounds against the top hat snare
mic.
| | 05:51 |
What I should hear is these being out of
phase, because we have a mic on the top
| | 05:56 |
and a mic on the bottom of the same sound
source, pointing in opposite directions.
| | 06:00 |
So, this should be 180 degrees out of
phase, to some extent.
| | 06:14 |
(MUSIC) (MUSIC) Definitely that sounded
better.
| | 06:15 |
You could hear the low end coming back
into focus and we're not sucking the life
| | 06:20 |
out of the snare.
because I usually have that down a little
| | 06:22 |
bit lower, too.
So the same with the speaker mic.
| | 06:24 |
Now, let's mute the snare mics, we've
muted the kick drum mics.
| | 06:30 |
Let's listen to the toms, we want to see
if those are in phase or out of phase
| | 06:36 |
with the overheads.
We'll unmute the overheads.
| | 06:39 |
All this stuff I'm doin' in the console,
by the way could be done in the mix window.
| | 06:44 |
On your dock, you'd have to use plugins
in some cases, like with ProTools to
| | 06:48 |
change the phase relationship between
tracks.
| | 06:50 |
But you can do the same exact things.
Consoles just fun 'cause you can just put
| | 06:54 |
your hands right on it, do it easy.
All right, let's see where's a good track
| | 06:59 |
where there's some floor tom action?
And here we go, I'm going to do the same thing.
| | 07:03 |
I'm going to put the floor tom and this
rack tom in mono.
| | 07:06 |
First we'll listen to this floor tom
section Play it against the overheads,
| | 07:10 |
and see what it does.
(MUSIC) Let's repeat that.
| | 07:23 |
(MUSIC) Okay, so here it is as recorded.
(MUSIC) (SOUND) And here it is, inverted.
| | 07:34 |
(MUSIC) I hear a little bit more low-end,
sustained, sounds better inverted.
| | 07:43 |
So let's see what happened with the Rack
Tom microphone.
| | 07:46 |
Where is a good Rack Tom hitting as on.
Click the same area here.
| | 07:50 |
>> (MUSIC) One more time.
That (INAUDIBLE) was recorded.
| | 07:57 |
This is inverted.
(MUSIC) Okay, as recorded.
| | 08:04 |
(MUSIC) Inverted.
(MUSIC) Sounds better inverted.
| | 08:14 |
Now, I'll put all the tracks back into
the mix.
| | 08:17 |
I'll pan the overheads back out.
I'll pan the toms a little bit.
| | 08:23 |
Roughed out kind of a little drum mix
here.
| | 08:26 |
Let's listen to a section of this, and
what I'm going to do now is take the room
| | 08:31 |
mics in and out of phase against the
whole mix and see what that does.
| | 08:34 |
I'm going to put them in mono, put 'em up
here, and we'll hear the whole drum mix.
| | 08:40 |
We'll take these guys in and out.
See what happens.
| | 08:42 |
(MUSIC) So, inverting the room mics
actually made the low end sit a little
| | 08:56 |
better in the whole mix.
So that's good to know.
| | 09:00 |
Now you might not think that, that
matters.
| | 09:02 |
Those mics are across the room.
Phase relationships like this sometimes
| | 09:06 |
don't really matter when there's a long
distance between the mics.
| | 09:10 |
But in this case I could hear a
difference.
| | 09:12 |
So I'm going to flip the polarity and
keep the low end intact in our mixes.
| | 09:16 |
Put that back in place there.
And here's a split second of the drum kit
| | 09:22 |
with everything hopefully in phase.
(MUSIC) Cool, so things are working
| | 09:37 |
better that way.
When I set up to record a session, I
| | 09:40 |
usually check all the polarity and phase
relationships on a drum kit and try to
| | 09:44 |
record it that way, so, if I'm not the
one to mix it I don't have to remember to
| | 09:48 |
go in and set the console every time and
reset the polarity switches.
| | 09:52 |
You can do this at the recording stage,
you can do at the mixing stage, sometimes
| | 09:57 |
I double check myself.
Before I start mixing, make sure I did
| | 10:01 |
catch all those relationships beforehand,
I always check it, always check this face
| | 10:06 |
relationships on your drums, follow this
process, you will be in a good shape, and
| | 10:12 |
keep everything in faith.
| | 10:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Getting the Most Out of Your Tracking SessionsSetting proper microphone levels| 00:00 |
Larry: So we're finally in the recording
studio, now we're going to set our
| | 00:04 |
microphone levels.
Now this is part of the process that, I
| | 00:07 |
used to think this must be really simple.
But there's a lot of little details
| | 00:11 |
involved that can lead to good or bad
recordings and so I'm going to run you
| | 00:15 |
through some information that'll really
help you when you're setting the levels
| | 00:19 |
of your microphones in the live room,
getting your levels set straight.
| | 00:23 |
So basically there's kind of four
different types of microphones out there.
| | 00:27 |
We're not going to go into crazy detail
on them, but I'm going to do a little bit
| | 00:30 |
of information that'll help you out.
Dynamic microphones, like this Shure
| | 00:35 |
SM57, they've got kind of a medium output
level.
| | 00:38 |
They're good on loud sources.
They don't clip right away internally.
| | 00:41 |
There good for guitar amps, drums.
We all know that.
| | 00:44 |
We've seen this mic a thousand times,
most likely.
| | 00:47 |
Ribbon microphones, like this Royer
R-121, they have a lower output level and
| | 00:53 |
require a little more gain on the
preamps, in general.
| | 00:55 |
They'll work great on sources like
percussion, room mics, drum overheads,
| | 01:00 |
guitar amps, a lot of different things.
A little different on vocals sometimes,
| | 01:04 |
but you definitely have to have a good
mic preamp with a lot of gain for these.
| | 01:09 |
Condenser, large diaphragm condenser
mics, like this Langevin CR3A, they're a
| | 01:12 |
very sensitive mic.
They do usually have a lot of output.
| | 01:17 |
If you put 'em really up close on a loud
sound source, sometimes they'll even clip
| | 01:21 |
internally, so that's something to be
really aware of.
| | 01:23 |
They might be actually kind of blowing
out on their own electronics inside.
| | 01:27 |
And then small diaphragm condenser mics,
like this Neumann 184 right here.
| | 01:32 |
These mics, they're sensitive in the same
way, but they're better on like brighter
| | 01:36 |
sound sources and more detailed sound
sources.
| | 01:39 |
They kind of react differently.
And they also have a high output in most
| | 01:42 |
cases, so you have to be aware that with
the condenser mics there's going to be a
| | 01:46 |
lot of level coming down the chain into
the preamps, so you gotta see where
| | 01:49 |
that's set at.
So let's go into the control room where
| | 01:52 |
we're going to start looking at the mic
preamps.
| | 01:54 |
So microphone preamps can be built into a
mixing board or console.
| | 01:59 |
They can also be built into the interface
for a doll, like an all-in-one unit that
| | 02:04 |
connects to your computer and allows you
to record.
| | 02:06 |
And microphone preamps can also be out
board preamps like these.
| | 02:11 |
In our studio they're all external
preamps.
| | 02:13 |
We have none built into our console and
we have a lot of varieties of preamps
| | 02:16 |
here as well.
We have tube based preamps like these
| | 02:19 |
guys, there's solid state ones like we
have there.
| | 02:23 |
There's Germanium ones.
Which have kind of a wild tone and are
| | 02:26 |
fun to work with.
One thing to remember is you've got your
| | 02:30 |
microphone preamp and then you're going
to your recording medium, whether it's
| | 02:33 |
tape, whether it's a DAW, always make
sure you don't have something in the
| | 02:37 |
chain after the preamp like a compressor
that's going to be reacting and changing
| | 02:41 |
the actual levels that you're seeing.
Most times your preamps don't have meters
| | 02:46 |
built into them so if you have something
like a compressor in the circuit you
| | 02:50 |
would lose that level.
You wouldn't know what you were actually doing.
| | 02:53 |
So make sure you're doing that kind of
preamp to DAW, preamp to tape.
| | 02:56 |
Getting that level first and then
inserting stuff like that.
| | 03:00 |
So setting a level can be relatively
simple.
| | 03:03 |
It can be like this.
Hey, let's go on the drums there.
| | 03:06 |
(MUSIC).
Great thanks.
| | 03:07 |
So we got a decent level there.
Go on into Pro Tools.
| | 03:12 |
Now the thing to understand is that there
are other things at work, its not as
| | 03:21 |
simple as it looks sometimes.
So all of these have different kinds of
| | 03:31 |
gain staging.
This is something to be really aware of
| | 03:34 |
with preamps, if there's two knobs on the
preamp, one is like an input gain, and
| | 03:39 |
one is also either a second gain stage,
an attenuation stage, which means it's
| | 03:44 |
just turning the level down, like a fader
on a console.
| | 03:47 |
Then you need to know what these are all
doing with each other.
| | 03:50 |
If you take this output level.
Like this is a unity here.
| | 03:55 |
And this would be a slight boost.
This one actually has a gain stage in it
| | 03:58 |
which goes up about ten db.
If we turn this way down and attenuate
| | 04:03 |
the output of our microphone preamp and
then keep turning this up, we're going to
| | 04:07 |
be distorting the preamp most likely.
It's going to start doing a little bit of clipping.
| | 04:12 |
Now, in other mic preamps, like say this
Pacifica, it doesn't have a second gain stage.
| | 04:17 |
So we just turn the gain stage up.
On ones that have just attenuation, like
| | 04:22 |
say this RTZ mic preamp here.
We want to be careful and not turn this
| | 04:27 |
down and then set our inputs gain up
really high.
| | 04:30 |
We'll end up with distortion.
So, be really aware of how your mic
| | 04:34 |
preamps work.
Now there's another thing that comes into play.
| | 04:37 |
Sometimes our microphone sources are
giving us so much level that they're
| | 04:40 |
hitting the input of the mic preamp too
hard.
| | 04:45 |
Dave let's hear the snare there.
(MUSIC) Cool, thanks.
| | 05:03 |
I can't even turn this up because it's
hitting Pro Tools too hard and it's
| | 05:07 |
coming in from the mic that's on the
snare too loud.
| | 05:10 |
So with the Germanium preamp, I have a
pad switch here.
| | 05:13 |
I'll simply engage that.
Now, that puts a couple of resistors in
| | 05:17 |
the circuit on the input, before it hits
the first input stage, reduces the level
| | 05:21 |
coming off of the microphone, and we're
going to have a safe level for the snare track.
| | 05:26 |
Let's hear the snare again, Dave.
(MUSIC).
| | 05:27 |
Level's far reduced.
(MUSIC).
| | 05:30 |
Cool, thanks.
So what the pad switch allowed me to do
| | 05:37 |
was to bring the output of the microphone
level down, before it hit the input gain stage.
| | 05:48 |
I then turn the gain stage up a couple of
clicks just to get a nice, good level
| | 05:52 |
going into Pro Tools here.
Works great.
| | 05:55 |
If you have a preamp like the Great River
guy here, it doesn't have a pad switch
| | 05:59 |
built in.
Which is fine.
| | 06:01 |
Because we can do this, we have external
pads which we can plug in to the cable
| | 06:05 |
after the microphone before the preamp.
It drops the level just the same way with
| | 06:10 |
a little resistor network.
And that allows us to set the levels here
| | 06:13 |
properly in the mic pre.
It's a great trick.
| | 06:18 |
Now in the old days when we were working
on tape only, we actually were running a
| | 06:24 |
lot of electronics in the studio at a
lower level.
| | 06:27 |
With digital recording it actually allows
us to go into the DAW a lot hotter and a
| | 06:32 |
lot of times I find that people are
turning their preamps up too far.
| | 06:35 |
If you have a preamp that's built
somewhat less expensively than some of
| | 06:39 |
these boutique preamps.
It might actually stress a little bit if
| | 06:42 |
you're trying to get really hot levels
into your recording platform.
| | 06:46 |
So it's really advisable to kind of back
off a little bit and one reason to back
| | 06:50 |
off on your levels is to preserve the
transients.
| | 06:53 |
If you're pushing a preamp really hard,
you're going to flattening out some of
| | 06:57 |
its response characteristics.
So bringing those input levels back a
| | 07:01 |
notch and getting nice trim on your
output levels can actually give you more
| | 07:05 |
dynamic recordings and better sounding
recordings.
| | 07:09 |
One thing you really want to avoid in the
digital realm is to avoid digital overs.
| | 07:12 |
These things are evil.
I'm going to give you a good example of
| | 07:16 |
that right here.
Go ahead and play the kit.
| | 07:32 |
(MUSIC) Give me a couple more hits.
(MUSIC) Woo, cool.
| | 07:36 |
Thanks!
You can hear a lot of crazy stuff going
| | 07:47 |
on there.
Partly the mic pre is distorting, but
| | 07:49 |
also you're hearing the input of the
analog to digital converter clipping and
| | 07:54 |
having all sorts of oddball
characteristics and gross sounds.
| | 07:57 |
So, always watch your levels.
Watch your levels going into your DAW or
| | 08:01 |
going into tape.
Make sure you're preserving transients.
| | 08:04 |
And make sure you're optimizing the gain
structure of your mic preamp.
| | 08:08 |
And your recordings will be that much
better.
| | 08:09 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mic'ing snare drums| 00:01 |
When recording a drum set, to me the
snare sound is one of the most important
| | 00:05 |
and iconic parts of the drums.
I really spend a lot of time focusing on
| | 00:09 |
capturing great sounds there.
There's definite sounds that you hear on
| | 00:13 |
snare drums that define styles of music.
That define eras of music.
| | 00:17 |
Think of the 80's.
And you really want to make sure that
| | 00:20 |
you're capturing something that works for
the stuff that you're recording here.
| | 00:24 |
What I go for is generally like a very
natural, strong recording.
| | 00:30 |
A very clear recording of what's
happening with the snare.
| | 00:32 |
And I want to do the best job I can, even
if I'm going to be doing stuff with the
| | 00:36 |
gated drums later and samples layered in
over the top of my snare recordings.
| | 00:41 |
I'm going to go for a really strong,
clean snare sound to begin with.
| | 00:47 |
Picking microphones to use on a snare is
important.
| | 00:50 |
I like to go for a dynamic mic generally
for the snare.
| | 00:54 |
Top sound because I've used condensers in
the past and brought them in here.
| | 00:58 |
And I can get a wonderful, crisp, top
hand, a great attack of the snare.
| | 01:03 |
The stick hitting the top of the head.
But also, I get sometimes too much high-hat.
| | 01:06 |
And that can enter the mix in a really
nasty way like, I used to think of it as
| | 01:11 |
ice picks in my ears when they got
recorded improperly.
| | 01:14 |
So that's always something to consider.
Another thing is, is that a dynamic mic
| | 01:18 |
can handle really a lot high SPLs.
So you know, that's why we typically see
| | 01:23 |
like an SM57 or such on the snare while
you're recording it.
| | 01:25 |
And another thing to consider too, is
damage.
| | 01:30 |
If you put a very, very expensive mic on
the snare, if it gets hit, you might have
| | 01:35 |
to repair it, or maybe you'll owe someone
a new mic, and that can be a little bit
| | 01:39 |
of a problem there.
So, let's talk about the positioning of
| | 01:44 |
the microphone on the snare drum.
I got my friend Dave here, he's come in
| | 01:48 |
to play drums with us.
He's going to help me out.
| | 01:51 |
Now, a lot of times if you go to like a
live show or something, you'll see a
| | 01:56 |
microphone pointing towards the center of
the snare head.
| | 02:02 |
What I find is that captures a little bit
too much of, just a thud, the hit at the
| | 02:07 |
center of the, of the track.
Let's hear that.
| | 02:09 |
(MUSIC).
Now, what I started doing, the first time
| | 02:14 |
I recorded I would put it like that
because that's what I'd seen the sound
| | 02:21 |
men do at shows and it didn't sound right
to my ear.
| | 02:24 |
So I started experimenting with it, and I
kind of came up with a position that I
| | 02:28 |
really like where I angle it down towards
the edge of the shell here.
| | 02:32 |
Let me move this out of the way so you
can see a little better, too.
| | 02:38 |
Now, this might look a little crazy, but
I really like the tone I get here.
| | 02:42 |
Partly I hear more of the shell, I hear a
little more of the bottom of the snare
| | 02:46 |
wires down here (SOUND) coming through.
And I get a good crack.
| | 02:50 |
I get enough of the top head to hear
that.
| | 02:52 |
Let's sort of get a few hits on that,
Dave.
| | 02:53 |
(SOUND).
That's a good, easy, basic place to start
| | 03:03 |
with a snare sound.
One thing I like to do as well, is to add
| | 03:07 |
in a bottom mic.
I got this funny little mic, an EV
| | 03:09 |
Electro-Voice DO54 vintage mic, I found
real cheap awhile back, and I'll put it
| | 03:15 |
down here.
kind of point it towards the center of
| | 03:20 |
the bottom, where the wires are, you
know?
| | 03:22 |
Go for that.
Now when you got two mics on a snare like
| | 03:26 |
this, one thing you gotta remember, first
off is that they're going to be out of phase.
| | 03:30 |
They're both pointing basically in
opposite directions on the same source.
| | 03:34 |
So they're going to be 180 degrees out of
phase.
| | 03:37 |
You can flip the polarity on this mic and
these two will work together much better.
| | 03:41 |
Alright, let's go ahead and hear a little
bit of that.
| | 03:44 |
(MUSIC).
And that's pretty cool.
| | 03:46 |
One thing to think about too, while
you're mixing especially, is you could
| | 03:52 |
gate this track down here, so only when
the snare's being hit do you hear the
| | 03:59 |
bottom, and that way you kind of clean up
your snare sound.
| | 04:04 |
It doesn't rattle when you're hitting
just the toms and things like that.
| | 04:07 |
That can work out pretty cool.
So my friend, Andy Hawn told me this
| | 04:14 |
trick that he uses.
He takes an omni-directional, small
| | 04:17 |
diaphragm mic like this Earthworks TC 30K
and he puts it about a quarter inch from
| | 04:23 |
the shell.
I know this looks totally crazy.
| | 04:27 |
Really close, pointing right at the shell
of the snare drum and as long as the
| | 04:31 |
stand doesn't rattle or move around too
much or we hit the mic, we're safe.
| | 04:35 |
Now, this sound is kind of cool.
It picks up a lot of the kind of full
| | 04:39 |
picture of the snare.
It's not quite the same impact that a
| | 04:42 |
dynamic mic is going to get, but it is a
really neat tone.
| | 04:45 |
So let's hear a little bit of that.
(MUSIC).
| | 04:46 |
Cool.
And that's a totally different way to
| | 04:50 |
capture the snare.
So I'd, I'd suggest taking all the mics
| | 04:56 |
you've got, trying them on a full drum
kit, recording the snares, see what other
| | 04:59 |
sounds show up in there.
If the other things bleed in too much,
| | 05:00 |
then it's not going to be a good choice.
If it's too expensive of a mic and you
| | 05:10 |
don't trust your drummer, be careful.
We have other movies also about treating
| | 05:15 |
the snare drum.
You should check that out.
| | 05:17 |
It's really fun.
You get to see some great techniques and
| | 05:21 |
yeah, go forth, try some different things
out, but make sure you always get a
| | 05:25 |
really good first recording of that
snare.
| | 05:27 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Treating snare drums for alternate sounds| 00:00 |
So now that we have the snare miked up,
it's time to look at actually treating
| | 00:03 |
the snare drum.
I used to think that the drummers would
| | 00:06 |
come in with the snares and the whole
drum kit ready to go.
| | 00:09 |
But a lot of time things needed a little
more attention than that.
| | 00:12 |
Especially the snare drum.
So, think about this first.
| | 00:17 |
Look and check and see if they need a new
drum head of course on the top.
| | 00:21 |
Sometimes a little bit of wear is okay.
Kind of, the snare's been worked in a
| | 00:24 |
little bit, and it'll be alright.
Double-check the bottom too.
| | 00:30 |
The snare wires here, first of all, if
there's any missing here, get a new one.
| | 00:34 |
You'll see sometimes broken off pieces
splayed out.
| | 00:38 |
Clip them off, throw it out, get a new
one.
| | 00:41 |
Make sure that these, these edges here of
the snare wire are not hanging over the
| | 00:46 |
edge of the wood too.
If they were hanging over the edge of the
| | 00:50 |
shell, that could be causing problems
with the sound.
| | 00:52 |
Check the tension on the strainer here.
A lot times people have it set too tight
| | 00:57 |
or too loose and that can change the
sound quite a bit.
| | 01:03 |
Those are all pretty rudimentary things.
Tuning is something I don't want to get
| | 01:07 |
into too deep.
Basically, you want to have an even,
| | 01:10 |
amount of pressure pulling on every one
of these lugs.
| | 01:13 |
And you want to have a nice even tone to
the snare.
| | 01:16 |
Now, what happens a lot is that, the
straight snare, like this, has got a lot
| | 01:20 |
a ring in it, even when it's tuned well.
You can hear that right now.
| | 01:26 |
(SOUND) Hear that kind of ping and that
aftershock sound there?
| | 01:31 |
That's the ringiness of a snare.
Now in some situations that's a really
| | 01:35 |
great tone, and it really livens up the
snare.
| | 01:39 |
Works great in the mix.
Other times, it's not so great.
| | 01:43 |
One of the things I'll use all the time
almost is, moon gel.
| | 01:48 |
Now moon gel is some funny little rubbery
stuff.
| | 01:52 |
kind of like those gummy hands that they
sell kids in gumball machines.
| | 01:58 |
It's stretchy, sticky rubber.
And I'll put it on the snare head like that.
| | 02:03 |
(SOUND).
Tap it into place.
| | 02:08 |
Now check out the sound of that.
(SOUND) All that ringing and decaying of
| | 02:12 |
the high ping is gone.
It's pretty cool.
| | 02:16 |
You can add extra pieces of moon gel.
You can cut it in half and use a small
| | 02:22 |
piece as well.
Common, a common trick too is the rings,
| | 02:27 |
the zero rings, those just lay here on
the snare.
| | 02:31 |
(SOUND) I quieted it down even more,
little less ring.
| | 02:33 |
One thing I don't like about these is a
lot of times, it seems to damp it down
| | 02:35 |
too much.
We don't hear as much life in the snare.
| | 02:45 |
And for some songs, that could be great
or for some styles of music that could be great.
| | 02:49 |
But I don't tend to use the rings very
often.
| | 02:51 |
I tend to stick to the moon gel.
Classic trick is this, the wallet trick.
| | 02:59 |
So, this is a fun one.
Take the wallet, you gotta have a fat,
| | 03:02 |
heavy wallet like this full of cash.
And believe me, this isn't my wallet.
| | 03:06 |
Hang it over the edge of the snare.
Press it down on the head.
| | 03:11 |
Listen to this.
(SOUND).
| | 03:12 |
Ooh, that choked it in real nice and
good.
| | 03:13 |
That's a pretty fun one.
And then there's the classic.
| | 03:23 |
I think the, the Beatles would talk about
putting tea towels on, on Ringo's drums.
| | 03:27 |
But since we're in a studio that doesn't
have any tea towels handy, we got T-shirts.
| | 03:32 |
So let's throw one on here.
You gotta hear this.
| | 03:35 |
Totally different.
(SOUND) Dead.
| | 03:37 |
So that's pretty cool.
That's a real neat different way to
| | 03:42 |
capture the snare drum.
Now, sometimes you're fighting with the
| | 03:47 |
drum, you know?
You put up the original drum that's
| | 03:50 |
brought in.
You're just, maybe they're playing the
| | 03:53 |
whole kit and the drum just doesn't sit
right in the mix.
| | 03:56 |
It doesn't sit right with the rest of the
drum kit.
| | 03:58 |
Well, you know what you do then?
You just grab a different snare drum.
| | 04:04 |
And you know blue's going to sound a lot
better anyway right?
| | 04:08 |
Put it in place.
Maybe we'll put the wallet on this one.
| | 04:12 |
(SOUND) Different sound.
Always keep that in mind.
| | 04:16 |
And when you're arranging the songs, if
you're helping with that part, think
| | 04:20 |
about that.
Does the song even need a snare drum at times?
| | 04:25 |
I've worked with songs where we throw the
snare out and do hand claps, wood blocks,
| | 04:28 |
different instruments that could mean,
you know, lend a different sound to the
| | 04:31 |
track and make it unique.
So always think about that.
| | 04:35 |
Don't take the instruments as they're
brought to you, or don't think of a
| | 04:39 |
source as being pristine and you can't
mess with it.
| | 04:42 |
Go in there and try treating the sound at
the source and you'll get some really
| | 04:45 |
great rewards.
| | 04:46 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Comparing four common vocal mics| 00:00 |
Larry: Choosing a vocal mic for a
recording session is one of the most
| | 00:03 |
important things you can do for the
vocalist, for the song and everything.
| | 00:07 |
There's no wrong or right.
A lot of mics have different qualities.
| | 00:11 |
Singers have different qualities, like my
friend Erin Sutherland here.
| | 00:14 |
Everyone sings differently, and they sing
differently on different songs.
| | 00:18 |
The mic's reactor for the different
singers.
| | 00:20 |
I've spent tens of thousands of dollars
amassing the collection of mics that I
| | 00:25 |
have available to me right now.
It took a long time, it took a lot of work.
| | 00:29 |
I've got em now.
And what I'll do frequently is put up a
| | 00:32 |
few mics, in this case four, and just
hear what they really sound like on the singer.
| | 00:36 |
And what they sound like in the song.
Sometimes you'll use, like, one mic for
| | 00:41 |
an entire album with a certain vocalist.
Other times you'll try some mics out and
| | 00:45 |
go, you know, this would be great on
slower songs.
| | 00:47 |
This would be great on faster songs.
There's no right or wrong, like I said earlier.
| | 00:51 |
But there's just a lot of choices you can
make, and you can make your mixing a lot
| | 00:55 |
easier if you pick the right mic in the
first place.
| | 00:58 |
It'll fit in the track, it'll sound
great.
| | 01:00 |
And it'll work wonders.
So what we're going to do is we're
| | 01:03 |
going to have Erin sing on part of a song
here.
| | 01:05 |
And we're going to go down through all
the mics and I'm going to go in the
| | 01:08 |
control room and listen to what she's
doing and listen to the different mics
| | 01:12 |
and figure out which will be the best to
pick to do the whole song with.
| | 01:15 |
You ready for that?
Erin: I'm ready.
| | 01:16 |
Larry: Okay so I'm going to go in here.
Okay.
| | 01:29 |
How you doing in there.
Erin: Great.
| | 01:31 |
Larry: Cool, alright, we're going to try
the 251 first.
| | 01:34 |
You ready?
Erin: I'm ready.
| | 01:38 |
(MUSIC) So, for the first step, let's
power down.
| | 01:43 |
Tell me.
Larry: So you can heard a little bit of
| | 01:50 |
sibilance (CROSSTALK) And that sound,
right, right there.
| | 01:55 |
But that mic also has a real nice
richness to it.
| | 01:59 |
There's a certain sort of tone that it
pulls out, the rich part of her voice,
| | 02:04 |
which I really like, so that was the
Sound Deluxe 251.
| | 02:07 |
This next mic is a Telefunkon U47, the
new one that's being made in the U.S
| | 02:14 |
right now.
Alright, here we go, on the next mic.
| | 02:32 |
(MUSIC) So that, that definitely had a
little more forward, like a mid range,
| | 02:39 |
more forward sound.
Still kind of sibilant like the 251 was
| | 02:43 |
but it brought something a little more
forward of the track.
| | 02:46 |
Same exact level, it looks like it's the
same level on the track right here that
| | 02:50 |
we're recording to, which is really
interesting.
| | 02:53 |
If you're hearing it feeling louder, and
the track's actually recorded the same
| | 02:57 |
level, then something's going on, it's
slightly different.
| | 03:00 |
Different mics, different sounds,
slightly different results.
| | 03:03 |
Alright, cool, let's do the third mic,
there, you ready?
| | 03:05 |
Erin: Mm-hm.
Larry: Alright, this is an Audio Technica
| | 03:07 |
4050 a somewhat affordable mic compared
to the other mics here.
| | 03:13 |
But also has a pretty good sound.
Erin: (MUSIC) So for the first step,
| | 03:19 |
let's power down.
Larry: Really sibilant.
| | 03:26 |
(MUSIC) But a little, a little more
chesty tone to it.
| | 03:32 |
A little richer in the bottom end, which
is kind of interesting.
| | 03:36 |
On a different song or different singer
might be the choice.
| | 03:40 |
It was really jutting out with some of
the s's and a thick, thick s sound, which
| | 03:45 |
made me a little worried if I was trying
to mix that in the track it might be
| | 03:48 |
jumping out in a weird way.
Now sometimes what I'll do in a session
| | 03:52 |
is just put a, a cheap or a really
affordable mic I should say.
| | 03:57 |
This is shure SM58 and a shure SM58 is
like you know see it live on stage all
| | 04:03 |
the time.
It's a $100 mic so in way it's nothing
| | 04:06 |
special but then again it also just works
really well all the time on stage and it
| | 04:11 |
can really focus and bring in the mic the
singer in a different way so we'll see
| | 04:15 |
what this does.
Erin: (MUSIC) So for the first step lets
| | 04:22 |
power down.
Larry: Then you'll hear the sm 58 does a
| | 04:31 |
passable job but its a little less
exciting than the condenser mics that we
| | 04:37 |
heard before.
All those other mics are large diaphragm condensers.
| | 04:40 |
The first two are tube-powered
condensers.
| | 04:42 |
The Audio Technica 450 of course is
phantom powered.
| | 04:44 |
And this mic, (UNKNOWN) 58 is just a
dynamic mic, like a handheld stage mic.
| | 04:53 |
You hear what she's doing.
I mean, she's a good enough vocals so it
| | 04:55 |
cuts through really well.
But you don't hear the kind of excitement
| | 04:58 |
that you hear on the year 47.
If I was tracking this I would
| | 05:01 |
definitely, probably go for the year 47,
maybe the 251.
| | 05:05 |
But 40, 50 was, was getting a little
weirdly sibilant, like I said earlier.
| | 05:09 |
But all the sounded pretty good.
You could probably make do with what you
| | 05:13 |
got there.
There's nothing like hearing the, the
| | 05:16 |
vocalist on, on the mic actually singing
the track.
| | 05:19 |
After working for years with some of the
same mics I can make good guesses on
| | 05:24 |
what's going to work, but the reality of
hearing someone singing the actual track
| | 05:28 |
through the mics that you're trying out.
Really gives you some information that's
| | 05:32 |
excellent and perfect to use and will
make your mixing so much easier in the
| | 05:37 |
long run.
| | 05:37 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording live performances of acoustic guitar with vocal| 00:00 |
Larry: Recording acoustic guitar and
vocal lives in the studio can be one of
| | 00:03 |
our most difficult task.
Frequently, artists come in, they've been
| | 00:07 |
practicing that way at home, they've been
performing shows playing acoustic guitar
| | 00:12 |
and singing live, and they think going to
studio going to be just as easy.
| | 00:15 |
But a lot of times it's not.
The problems are that if we put two mics
| | 00:19 |
up on a performer, we're trying to
capture both the vocal and an acoustic
| | 00:23 |
take but we've got bleed between the
mics.
| | 00:25 |
That can be an issue.
So I've got my friend Ryan in here today,
| | 00:28 |
we're going to have him help me out.
Ryan Heise, he's also in the band System
| | 00:31 |
and Station.
He's written a little verse of a song for
| | 00:34 |
us to To make make them run over and over
with, here.
| | 00:38 |
And I'm going to run you through a few
different ways of recording acoustic
| | 00:40 |
guitar and vocals that can help you out
in the studio and give you some options,
| | 00:43 |
and sort that out.
The first really simple one, is to start
| | 00:48 |
off with just a single mike.
And this way, you're not going to have
| | 00:51 |
any phase issues or problems there.
But It's kind of hard to get a good balance.
| | 00:55 |
So, what I like to do is this.
Listen on the headphones while we're
| | 00:58 |
moving the mic around and see what sounds
good.
| | 01:01 |
So, let's try this out here and play a
little bit of that song there.
| | 01:06 |
Ryan: (MUSIC) Don't talk to loud, just to
hear your own voice, the cloud will push
| | 01:15 |
on, and we'll all sing along to your
word.
| | 01:20 |
Take it easier, just to fill in the
sound, and to hold on to your plan, and
| | 01:28 |
you just let.
You walk around so proud, darling don't
| | 01:34 |
you jump out from this cloud.
Larry: Cool.
| | 01:39 |
That sounds really good.
Let's try another take with it in that position.
| | 01:48 |
I'm going to angle a little more and just
run through the first part of the verse there.
| | 01:58 |
Ryan: (MUSIC) Don't talk so loud, just to
hear your own voice.
| | 02:05 |
The cloud will move on.
And we'll all sing along to your word.
| | 02:13 |
Larry: Man, and that's a nice balance.
That sounds good.
| | 02:18 |
But what if you are putting it in a mix
where there are some other instruments
| | 02:22 |
and all of a sudden you're like, oh I
need more acoustic guitar, I need less
| | 02:26 |
acoustic guitar.
You can't change the blend of the
| | 02:29 |
instruments since you've only recorded
one tract with one mic.
| | 02:33 |
So what we might do then is go in and add
two mics.
| | 02:37 |
Bring in another one here.
And use this one just as a vocal mic.
| | 02:44 |
This is a Heil PR20.
It's a good dynamic cardioid stage vocal mic.
| | 02:51 |
And then put the, this guy down here.
Now, both these mics are cartioid pattern
| | 02:58 |
right now.
They pick up what's in front of them, so
| | 03:01 |
the idea is we're pointing them at the
sources that we want to capture.
| | 03:04 |
The problem that we're going to run into
with a configuration like this, is that
| | 03:10 |
they also still pick up what's coming
from, from the sources they're not meant
| | 03:13 |
to capture.
So, we're going to hear some of the vocal
| | 03:15 |
down in this mic, and we're going to here
some of the guitar coming into the vocal mic.
| | 03:20 |
And that can be problematic at times.
What we also get is phase issues between
| | 03:31 |
these two mics, the vocal, the vocal's
arriving later at this mic than it is
| | 03:35 |
with this mic, and vice versa with the
guitar.
| | 03:37 |
Goes sooner to the guitar mic than it
goes to the vocal mic, so with two
| | 03:41 |
sources that are arriving at the mics at
different times, you can never quite get
| | 03:45 |
the phase correct on them.
Sometimes you'll set up a configuration
| | 03:49 |
like this and it sounds great.
Other times it might have a little bit of
| | 03:51 |
a problem.
Let's just, let's run a little bit in and
| | 03:54 |
check it out.
Ryan: (MUSIC) Don't talk to loud, just to
| | 03:58 |
hear your own voice, time will push on,
and we'll all sing along to your word.
| | 04:06 |
Larry: And the good thing about this,
this will give you the separation when
| | 04:14 |
you're mixing you can adjust these
levels.
| | 04:19 |
But what I've come to do is to start
using different patterns on the mics here.
| | 04:25 |
I'll use a figure eight mic instead of a
cardioid mic.
| | 04:28 |
And that allows me to something really
neat and magical.
| | 04:33 |
Alright, here come the figure eight.
So I put this guy up on the vocal.
| | 04:46 |
Thanks for being patient Ryan.
Ryan: Yeah.
| | 04:47 |
You bet.
Larry: This is the fun part of recording
| | 04:49 |
where the artist has to sit there and
wait for the engineer.
| | 04:56 |
So these are both set to figure eight.
When you got a mike set for figure eight,
| | 05:02 |
it's got, it picks up on the front and
the back sides of the microphone.
| | 05:06 |
What's great about it is that where it's
not picking up, on this mic it'd be where
| | 05:10 |
this little bar is here, is called a null
plane.
| | 05:13 |
That's where the two lobes of pick up,
the positive and negative sides meet and
| | 05:18 |
cancel out.
So there's actually less sound being
| | 05:20 |
recorded or being picked up here.
And then there is from the front and back
| | 05:24 |
by quite a bit and less sound even on the
backside of a cardioid mic in most cases.
| | 05:29 |
So this way we're able to take these null
planes, and we have one here too as well,
| | 05:33 |
and point them towards the vocal or the
instrument, whatever we don't want.
| | 05:37 |
So this is the guitar mic.
We're pointing the null plane at Ryan's mouth.
| | 05:42 |
You don't want to hear his lousy words.
Ryan: (LAUGH).
| | 05:44 |
Larry: (LAUGH) And then we're going to
take the vocal mike, and we're going to
| | 05:49 |
point this so there are no points
basically pointing at the body of the guitar.
| | 05:53 |
kind of think of the sound holes like the
loudest part on the guitar there.
| | 05:56 |
So we're going to point a little more at
that.
| | 06:00 |
So there's null plane.
Keep in mind, just imagine there's these
| | 06:02 |
imaginary planes that you can't really
see.
| | 06:05 |
One's pointing at the guitar and a null
plane at his mouth and vice versa.
| | 06:10 |
So lets hear a little bit of that.
Lets check it out in the cans here.
| | 06:13 |
Ryan: (MUSIC) Don't talk so loud.
Just to hear your own voice, the cloud
| | 06:24 |
will push on, and we'll all sing along to
your word.
| | 06:34 |
It's easier to turn in the sand, just
hold on to your plan, and we'll, just
| | 06:47 |
land, you walk around so proud, darling
don't you fall down off this cloud, of
| | 07:01 |
this cloud.
Larry: Cool.
| | 07:05 |
So now, another thing you can do, which
will help even more, is even if in these
| | 07:10 |
are in figure-eight or cardioid, is to
try to point them even more away from
| | 07:14 |
each other.
I do this a lot with cardioid mics, in fact.
| | 07:16 |
I'll take the mics and point them so
they're really Pointing away from each
| | 07:22 |
other and towards what we're trying to
capture.
| | 07:26 |
So a little more like, even like this at
times.
| | 07:31 |
And that can actually help you get less,
less of the offending vocal or guitar
| | 07:37 |
into the mics there.
And more tricks.
| | 07:42 |
If the player is comfortable with playing
and not looking at their fingers too
| | 07:49 |
much, which isn't everybody, keep in
mind.
| | 07:52 |
You don't want to torture your friends.
You can put a baffling here.
| | 07:57 |
Let's move this guy back up a little.
And that's okay, get some of the sound out.
| | 08:03 |
Really, one of the best things a Baffle
does is get the high, clicky part of the
| | 08:07 |
pick hitting the strings or the acoustic
guitar, get some of that out of the vocal mic.
| | 08:11 |
I'll even just go in and tuck it under
the mic like this, or use a smaller piece
| | 08:16 |
of foam.
And and that can help get some of the
| | 08:19 |
noise out of there and just get you a
little bit cleaner signal.
| | 08:23 |
How's that feel to play like that?
(MUSIC) Yeah.
| | 08:26 |
That's not too bad.
And that's definitely, I guarantee you
| | 08:30 |
there's, you're going to hear a little
less spill, a little bit less of the
| | 08:33 |
click, click, click, pick hitting there.
So More tricks, we've gotta have lots of
| | 08:38 |
tricks, right?
I'm here to show you all the great things
| | 08:41 |
that I know.
One of them would be using the built in
| | 08:45 |
microphone, I mean sorry, the built in
pick up that we have on the guitar here.
| | 08:54 |
So there's a, a sound hole mounted one
with an output here.
| | 08:57 |
So, we can plug that guy in, (SOUND) run
it into a direct box like this, take it
| | 09:02 |
to a mic pre-amp.
This gives us a signal that's going to
| | 09:05 |
have basically no vocals in it at all,
just the sound of the guitar.
| | 09:08 |
(MUSIC) The problem with that is that it
has sort of a clinky little sound
| | 09:14 |
sometimes like a piece of pick ups and
stuff, has a little bit of a grainy
| | 09:17 |
sound, it doesn't sound exactly like an
acoustic guitar.
| | 09:21 |
But if you have a track that you are
doing where someone sings louder than
| | 09:24 |
the, they are singing loud and the guitar
playing is pretty quite that you can
| | 09:28 |
bring some of that in, underneath the
guitar mike, it helps bring out the
| | 09:32 |
guitar a little bit.
Up that the next.
| | 09:34 |
Let's unplug you, though.
We're not going to do that, though.
| | 09:36 |
Why is it, play just a little tiny bit,
we should hear some of that.
| | 09:38 |
Ryan: Okay.
Larry: (MUSIC) Perfect.
| | 09:47 |
Okay.
That's going to go pop now when I unplug it.
| | 09:50 |
Ow.
Okay, and then another trick, let's take
| | 09:58 |
an old, I have an old Lavalier mic, an
old Sony mic here.
| | 10:01 |
Little tiny guy and this would be used
for interview type stuff.
| | 10:06 |
But you can take that and this is pretty
fun.
| | 10:09 |
Of course the guys with the really
expensive guitars get mad at you when you
| | 10:13 |
do this.
Ryan: Not me.
| | 10:14 |
Larry: (LAUGH) Not you.
Ryan: This also is an expensive guitar.
| | 10:17 |
Larry: Its not an expensive guitar.
Alright I put a little bit of tapes on
| | 10:21 |
the clips there too so it wouldn't be too
bad.
| | 10:23 |
So now the little tiny loud mic is
pointing right across the strings on the saddle.
| | 10:27 |
It can be a little bit weird.
It can be in the way somewhat.
| | 10:30 |
Sometimes I've even taped it up against
the body here.
| | 10:33 |
That's great if the guitar player, he's
moving around and he's getting kind of
| | 10:36 |
goofy, you know.
So you got, you're going to have some
| | 10:38 |
recording, capturing what's going on with
the acoustic.
| | 10:42 |
Especially if it's like, I don't know,
with the whole drum set in the room, and
| | 10:44 |
the acoustic guitar.
And it just keeps it right up on it real close.
| | 10:47 |
And you can actually use that track.
Okay, let's take this off of here.
| | 10:51 |
One thing to remember is that if you're
doing a two-mic recording technique and
| | 10:56 |
you want to re-cut a vocal part.
So, have the singer also play the
| | 10:59 |
acoustic guitar while they're cutting the
vocal.
| | 11:01 |
Record both mics, maybe?
Maybe record just the vocal mic.
| | 11:04 |
You get a little bit of doubling.
It might be okay.
| | 11:07 |
Just go ahead and check that out.
But you need to keep a little bit of that
| | 11:10 |
balance that you had on the initial
track.
| | 11:12 |
So, let's punch in like that.
You'll need to do that sort of thing, to
| | 11:16 |
have a nice continuity on the punch in.
So there's a bunch of tricks.
| | 11:20 |
I hope they work for you.
Try 'em out.
| | 11:23 |
All these work in different situations.
Depends on the song, the player, so many factors.
| | 11:28 |
Go ahead and try it out, and hope it
works for you.
| | 11:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Vocal recording tips| 00:00 |
Larry: When I first started recording
music, I really kind of would put the
| | 00:03 |
vocal mic up and, and not get really
choosy about the takes and, and all my
| | 00:09 |
techniques, as far as recording.
I'd just get a level and I really didn't
| | 00:13 |
pay that much attention to it.
It always seemed to happen late in the
| | 00:16 |
game, and it wasn't the most important
part for some reason, or didn't, we
| | 00:20 |
didn't spend so much time on it.
I guess, I should say, earlier on in my career.
| | 00:24 |
As I've moved along, I've gotten a lot
more picky about this whole part of the
| | 00:27 |
process, because I think the vocals
become one of the most important parts of
| | 00:31 |
most songs.
And I'm sure Erin would agree.
| | 00:33 |
Erin: Yes I would.
I hoped you'd say that.
| | 00:35 |
Larry: As a singer.
Erin: (LAUGH).
| | 00:36 |
Larry: (LAUGH).
we also, we have a movie on choosing the
| | 00:39 |
right vocal mic.
And you should definitely see that,
| | 00:42 |
because that's going to run you through
the process that brings you to this,
| | 00:44 |
where you've got a mic that you feels
going to work good on the singer and the song.
| | 00:48 |
That's always really important.
But there's a lot of other factors that
| | 00:51 |
come into play and help you get a great
vocal take.
| | 00:54 |
one of the first things that I came
across was pop filters.
| | 00:57 |
The first ones I had in my studio were
made out of pantyhose and and coat
| | 01:03 |
hangers and duct tape, and they were
pretty rough looking.
| | 01:05 |
Plumbers tape too, I think I had on
there.
| | 01:07 |
They're pretty goofy.
Erin: (LAUGH).
| | 01:09 |
Larry: And now I've got these ones I use
that are like a metal mesh that actually
| | 01:15 |
louvers the way out of the way.
But what a pop filter really does is
| | 01:17 |
keep, keeps the sound from creating giant
plosis on the mic.
| | 01:20 |
When you're singing into it and you have
a p-type sound, a burst of air comes out.
| | 01:24 |
Boom.
And it hits the mic, if you don't have
| | 01:26 |
something in the way, hits the diaphragm
and makes a big boom sound, a lot of low
| | 01:31 |
end energy.
It sucks the life out of the vocal track.
| | 01:33 |
We can hear like this, we're going to run
this section.
| | 01:35 |
Erin is going to sing a song, part that
has a lot of p's in it.
| | 01:51 |
(MUSIC) So did you hear those p's in the
headphones?
| | 01:53 |
Erin: Yes I did.
Larry: I could feel them in the room.
| | 01:55 |
They almost knocked me over.
Erin: (LAUGH).
| | 01:55 |
Larry: (LAUGH).
So, we put a nice pop filter up on this.
| | 02:00 |
The same exact singer, same positioning,
same tape, same song, everything.
| | 02:07 |
And you'll hear, one thing you gotta keep
track is, is, is don't put your pop
| | 02:12 |
filters like right up on your microphones
like this.
| | 02:14 |
The air, even with with with a fabric one
like a pantyhose one, even with one of
| | 02:21 |
those, it's going to actually let a bit
of the air still through and hit the
| | 02:25 |
microphone in a lot of cases.
So I move it back a little bit.
| | 02:28 |
This also helps keep the singer from
eating the mic.
| | 02:30 |
I mean, really close on it.
Sometimes people get nervous and they,
| | 02:34 |
they get, which I don't see you doing
that often.
| | 02:36 |
Thank you.
Erin: You're welcome.
| | 02:37 |
Larry: But you can use this to kind of
keep them off the mic, if you need to.
| | 02:40 |
So let's do another pass of this and see
if we can get rid of those pestering p's.
| | 02:56 |
(MUSIC).
Sounds better than headphones too?
| | 02:58 |
Erin: Yeah.
Larry: Yeah, cleans it right up.
| | 02:59 |
It's an easy trick.
I find this a lot on a tracks that I'm
| | 03:03 |
working on other people record it at home
or something.
| | 03:05 |
Sometimes they don't hear all these
sounds that their headphones don't have a
| | 03:09 |
lot of low end in them or they monitoring
situation does not allow for subharmonics
| | 03:14 |
to come through the mix.
So now, here's another way to avoid using
| | 03:17 |
a pop filter and this is kind of a
different sound.
| | 03:20 |
You can set the mic in an omni mode.
This allows the mic to pick up all the
| | 03:25 |
sounds around it equally, instead of
being focused on the cardioid mode, it
| | 03:29 |
also gets rid of the proximity effect,
the low end buildup as the mic gets
| | 03:32 |
closer to the mouth.
But, it picks up all the room around it
| | 03:37 |
quite a bit too.
You gotta be careful you don't get a
| | 03:39 |
crazy, roomy, vocal sound.
And it also seems a little, just a
| | 03:42 |
lighter in area or tone.
It's a less forced, focused front person
| | 03:47 |
vocal sound.
Let's hear how that sounds on this section.
| | 03:49 |
(MUSIC) Cool.
Another different tone.
| | 03:56 |
Another option.
So, the other trick I like to do is to
| | 04:08 |
tilt the mic.
And this is something that took me a
| | 04:10 |
while to figure out.
But I think I mighta stole this from some
| | 04:12 |
other engineers that I interviewed, but
there's a different sound.
| | 04:17 |
If you really think about how the sound
is coming out of a person's mouth, the
| | 04:20 |
upper part of the mouth, and the nasal
cavity and such are going to be more of a
| | 04:24 |
head voice and more of a lighter tone
and, and looking down towards the mouth
| | 04:28 |
or towards the chest is sometimes
going to give you a deeper sound.
| | 04:31 |
So, we are going to set the mic up here
like flipping it around upside down
| | 04:35 |
because it looks traumatic and scary.
And we're going to flip it around upside
| | 04:40 |
down (BLANK_AUDIO) put it back into
cardioid mode.
| | 04:44 |
A lot of things to do here.
(LAUGH) Keep me busy, off the streets.
| | 04:49 |
(LAUGH) And move it up a little.
How's that going to work?
| | 04:55 |
Erin: Perfect.
Larry: Can I have you a little closer on
| | 04:57 |
that thing.
And I put the pop filter back because
| | 05:00 |
guess what?
It's going to have some poppin'.
| | 05:05 |
Sometimes pop filters can be problematic
and they don't stay in place.
| | 05:09 |
This one is doing pretty good today, but
I've had ones that just start sagging,
| | 05:12 |
droop, mount, mount to the mic stand
properly, all kinds of things.
| | 05:16 |
We're, we're having good luck with this
one today.
| | 05:18 |
Some of the heavier ones will droop and
have all kinds of issues, and I'll make
| | 05:23 |
little bits of duct tape to hold them in
place.
| | 05:25 |
Erin: (LAUGH).
Larry: So we're looking good right here.
| | 05:27 |
We're going to do a vocal.
We're going to see what kind of lighter
| | 05:29 |
sound we get.
We're going to run a bit of the verse
| | 05:32 |
here and we'll track that.
(MUSIC).
| | 05:33 |
Cool.
And now let's try another pass.
| | 05:56 |
This will be fun to listen to all of
this.
| | 05:57 |
You really get to hear whats going on.
Erin: Yeah.
| | 06:00 |
Larry: Now I'm going to move the mic so
it's facing down (BLANK_AUDIO) which
| | 06:04 |
becomes easy when you do this.
Oop, don't drop your mic on the floor.
| | 06:11 |
Erin: (LAUGH).
Larry: Especially if it's a nice telephone.
| | 06:17 |
Alright, lower this a little bit.
This is a pretty drastic, I mean I'm
| | 06:21 |
turning these pretty harsh angles.
Sometimes you can just put it at a much
| | 06:25 |
lighter angle.
And get a little bit of difference.
| | 06:28 |
Just open up the sound of it a little bit
by tilting it back.
| | 06:31 |
But I want you to really be able to hear
what's going on, on this.
| | 06:34 |
So we're going to do another pass in a
split second of the same section.
| | 06:39 |
And here you go.
Are you ready?
| | 06:43 |
Erin: Mm-hm.
Larry: Cool.
| | 06:55 |
(MUSIC) Cool.
Did that sound different in the
| | 07:05 |
headphones too?
Erin: It did, yes.
| | 07:07 |
Larry: Wow, interesting.
Erin: Mm-hm.
| | 07:09 |
Larry: I like that.
So here's another trick.
| | 07:11 |
(SOUND) Let's, let's keep the track we
just did (SOUND) and we'll do a double on
| | 07:15 |
top of it but I'm going to move you back
off the mic.
| | 07:18 |
And one of the reasons I like doing this
sort of thing, there's something' I found
| | 07:21 |
out early on.
I was recording a band and there was a
| | 07:24 |
lead vocal and there was a backing vocal.
And they were very different vocals, but
| | 07:28 |
I recorded them both just up close, like
we would do like this.
| | 07:31 |
And when I went to mix, the backing vocal
just kept jumping out more.
| | 07:36 |
It was a girl.
She had a higher voice.
| | 07:38 |
So it always felt like it was closer in
the mix than the, than the lead vocal,
| | 07:43 |
which seemed kind of weird.
So, what I figured out is I made her go
| | 07:47 |
back in the room.
I said just track, stand over here and
| | 07:49 |
track your vocal far from the mic, and it
adds a little bit of diffusion in the air.
| | 07:54 |
It opens, it makes it sound quite
different.
| | 07:56 |
It makes it sound distant.
So we're going to try that.
| | 07:59 |
So let's go back over, just stand.
(INAUDIBLE) Stand right about here.
| | 08:03 |
Yeah.
Erin: Okay.
| | 08:03 |
Larry: And yeah, let's try that.
We'll sing right over the verse there.
| | 08:07 |
(MUSIC).
Cool.
| | 08:27 |
And that'll add a nice layering.
It's always going to feel a little bit
| | 08:30 |
behind and and a different depth than the
other, than the lead vocal is.
| | 08:34 |
It's really nice.
One thing you can also do with something
| | 08:37 |
like that is to start singing closer to
the mic.
| | 08:40 |
And then as the part moves on, move
further back.
| | 08:42 |
And if the engineer wants, they can
actually ride the vocal level on the mic
| | 08:46 |
preamp, bring your gain up so that it
stays even and you hear the vocalist kind
| | 08:49 |
of getting more diffused and moving away.
Or vice versa, I've had people walk
| | 08:53 |
towards the mike as they're singing at
the beginning of a song and you get that
| | 08:56 |
sort of sound.
You can even hear that on, on Heroes by Bowie.
| | 09:00 |
You can hear the room sound open up as
the song goes on and creates a very
| | 09:03 |
dramatic effect.
Pretty cool stuff.
| | 09:06 |
Erin: Yeah.
Larry: A friend of ours did his fun
| | 09:08 |
track, trick on one of his songs, where
he actually physically treated his vocals.
| | 09:13 |
So while he was singing, he was actually
beating on his chest to create a tremor
| | 09:17 |
effect, something like this.
And in time with the song, you don't
| | 09:24 |
really hear the beat of your hand on your
chest.
| | 09:27 |
You just hear the vocal modulating as it
goes along.
| | 09:30 |
Pretty fun.
Erin: Yeah.
| | 09:30 |
Larry: Pretty fun stuff.
Other things, you know, cupping your
| | 09:34 |
hands, singing.
Get a funny little old time sound.
| | 09:37 |
Sing through a cardboard tube.
You know, sing at a wall, you get kind of
| | 09:41 |
a weird sound.
Find places, weird places, to sing in.
| | 09:44 |
Bathrooms.
Sometimes they're fun.
| | 09:46 |
Erin: (LAUGH).
Larry: kind of of dangerous though and
| | 09:48 |
lots of times I'll make people sing
through devices.
| | 09:53 |
I'll set up something like this, this
little smoky amp here.
| | 09:56 |
I have a vocal mic and extra mic running
through a little through a little, excuse
| | 10:01 |
me (LAUGH).
Through a little transformer like this,
| | 10:03 |
plug it right into an amp, and then
singing holding it up.
| | 10:07 |
(INAUDIBLE) So we do something like that
(SOUND) and create, whoa, (LAUGH) and
| | 10:14 |
create the sound right there on the
floor.
| | 10:16 |
It's really fun.
If you think about it and open your mind
| | 10:19 |
up, there's a lot of fun things you can
do with this.
| | 10:21 |
You can make a lot of great sounds and
record those while you're tracking is I
| | 10:26 |
thinking like, I want to going to do all
this later.
| | 10:27 |
And you're going to have a really unique
record at the end of the day.
| | 10:30 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording mic'ed bass amp and DI together| 00:00 |
Larry: So, let's talk about recording
bass guitar.
| | 00:03 |
One of the things that kind of struck me
when I first started working
| | 00:06 |
professionally was that a lot of bass
players would come in and say, I want
| | 00:09 |
like a really deep tone.
And it turns out really that a lot of
| | 00:14 |
what you want in a bass guitar when
you're mixing the song is mid-range articulation.
| | 00:18 |
Yeah, you want low frequencies.
You want all that stuff below 100 Hertz,
| | 00:22 |
those deep tones that kind of hold the
bass in there and work with the kick drum
| | 00:26 |
But you need that sound of what the bass
is doing, the harmonics and the, the
| | 00:30 |
upper tones of the bass.
A lot of this stuff is in the 500 hertz
| | 00:34 |
realm, 200 hertz, that kind of stuff.
So when recording bass guitar, I really
| | 00:39 |
like to use a bass amp.
We got an am peg b15 here that my friend
| | 00:43 |
has loaned me.
It's a fantastic amp for recording bass.
| | 00:46 |
But really, you can use all kinds of
different amps.
| | 00:48 |
I've used guitar amps.
I've used really small bass amps.
| | 00:52 |
I've used really big bass amps.
And it's just about getting the tones set.
| | 00:56 |
Don't be afraid to go in and change the
tones On the amplifier as well.
| | 01:01 |
But skipping back, what about the Bass
itself?
| | 01:05 |
You know?
The strings on the Bass.
| | 01:06 |
What kind of strings you're using.
Whoops!
| | 01:09 |
(LAUGH) That can make a big difference.
We have round wound strings in this bass,
| | 01:13 |
but flat wound strings can have a nice,
muted, mellow tone.
| | 01:16 |
Quite different.
And then think about, if you're playing
| | 01:19 |
with picks.
(SOUND) What kind of picks are you using?
| | 01:23 |
You know, what thickness are they?
What kind of tone are they making when
| | 01:26 |
they hit the string?
If you're playing with your fingers, of
| | 01:28 |
course that's a different thing.
I've even pulled out felt picks to have
| | 01:31 |
sort of a strange they're ukulele picks,
and I've used those to have sort of an in
| | 01:36 |
between, tone of like fingers and pick,
and that can be really fun.
| | 01:42 |
So with this sort of thing, I'll usually
go over the amp and look for the kind of
| | 01:48 |
tone I want on the amplifier itself.
How hard do you push in the speaker?
| | 01:53 |
(SOUND) If you push it hard, (SOUND) oh
you get a bit of a growl.
| | 02:03 |
On this song, I want kind of a tighter
sound.
| | 02:05 |
I don't want that sort of open big thing.
Now, what kind of microphone you're using
| | 02:07 |
on the base amp makes a difference too.
We're going to start off using the
| | 02:09 |
Dynamic mic, an EVR 820 and do a run
through of that.
| | 02:18 |
And we're also going to do a couple other
mics here real quick.
| | 02:35 |
(MUSIC) cool.
And let's try out a ribbon mic next.
| | 02:40 |
We'll move this guy off.
We've got the Royer R121 here.
| | 02:49 |
On bass guitar, you generally tend to put
it kind of towards the center of the speaker.
| | 02:56 |
There's a little bit of a honk and the
speaker cone there.
| | 03:01 |
And sometimes I'll like to hear a bit of
that.
| | 03:02 |
You know, poke the, poke the sound out a
little bit.
| | 03:05 |
Make it jump in the mix.
So here's the rhythm mic (MUSIC).
| | 03:22 |
Cool, that even sounded different in the
headphones too.
| | 03:25 |
It was a little meatier and throaty, had
a cool tone.
| | 03:29 |
Now, we'll try a condenser mic.
This mic unfortunately, I don't think
| | 03:35 |
this is, in the, no longer in production.
It's a Longeman CR3A.
| | 03:40 |
Made by the manly company famous for
their tube mics.
| | 03:44 |
But it's not a tube mic, it's actually
full of transistors.
| | 03:48 |
But I love the sound of this mic, it's
great on guitar amps too.
| | 03:52 |
So cool, we'll just try this out on the
bass.
| | 03:54 |
Condenser mic (MUSIC).
And that even in the headphones that
| | 04:10 |
sounded a little brighter.
So think about that.
| | 04:13 |
You know, the ribbon mic had kind of a
throaty, deeper tone.
| | 04:18 |
The condenser mic had a little mo-, bit
more of a bright edge to it.
| | 04:20 |
If that's what the song requires,
excellent choice.
| | 04:24 |
And the dynamic mic, the RE20, had kind
of a nice, filled in tone.
| | 04:30 |
You know, it was a nice kind of in
between both of those, a little bit.
| | 04:33 |
And it really focuses.
In my mind, the dynamic mics really help
| | 04:36 |
focus the sound.
Now, the other thing we can do here, is
| | 04:40 |
to set up a bass DI.
And we've got a track going here, we're
| | 04:43 |
going actually into our DI box here, and
then we're going to our amp over here.
| | 04:48 |
And this allows us to also capture, a
straight signal right off of the bass,
| | 04:53 |
through the DI box, and and our track.
(SOUND) So we'll have two different
| | 04:57 |
tracks recording at the same time.
We'll have one track of the microphone on
| | 05:01 |
the bass amp.
And then we'll have a track of the DI.
| | 05:04 |
All right, cool.
So let's just run a little bit of the
| | 05:08 |
track here.
(MUSIC) And that's cool.
| | 05:29 |
I could even hear on the, on the
headphones there too.
| | 05:31 |
There's a little more of a clicky, sound.
More of a, the direct sound coming right
| | 05:35 |
off the bass here, which can add a kind
of clarity.
| | 05:38 |
The cool thing about doing that too, is
that having a straight, clean DI track
| | 05:43 |
might allow you to do some re-amping
later.
| | 05:46 |
It also might be the better tone.
You know, in some songs I've actually
| | 05:49 |
took, take the amp right out of the mix,
and put the DI in instead.
| | 05:52 |
So that can be pretty cool.
But the one problem we run into, let's
| | 05:58 |
turn that off, the one problem we run
into when we recorded DI and a base amp
| | 06:03 |
is that they're, they're actually
going to be always out of phase.
| | 06:06 |
The reason is, is the DI track is going
directly electronically into being
| | 06:11 |
recorded and the base amp is going
through the air.
| | 06:14 |
It's powering the speaker.
The sound is of course coming out of this
| | 06:17 |
speaker and getting recorded by the mic.
So, you have this little distance of
| | 06:21 |
going through the air, the whole process
of the mic, the speaker and the microphone.
| | 06:25 |
So, that track always shows up on tape or
in your DAW at a later time, and we're
| | 06:30 |
going to go look at that in the control
room.
| | 06:34 |
So we're in the control room now, we've
recorded a couple of bass tracks, we have
| | 06:37 |
the DI track, and we have the microphone
track.
| | 06:40 |
And what I need to do now is get the
tracks in phase, like I said earlier,
| | 06:44 |
they're going to be out of time.
So I'm going to actually patch the signal
| | 06:48 |
out (SOUND) of Pro Tools and back into
Pro Tools.
| | 06:53 |
And send it to this device called an IBP.
IBP stands for in-between phase.
| | 07:01 |
So what I like to use is the Little Labs
IBP, where I actually route the signal
| | 07:05 |
out to this box.
And I can turn the knob on it and kind of
| | 07:09 |
get in this weird in-between phase area.
It's really cool.
| | 07:12 |
So I can do like, I can do, first do an
180 degree flip on it.
| | 07:17 |
And and then turn the knob and we'll hear
the bass sound changing.
| | 07:21 |
(MUSIC) Flip the phase.
You can hear a big change there.
| | 07:29 |
Now, let's play with the knob, with the
in between phase (MUSIC).
| | 07:42 |
Amazing.
Big differences.
| | 07:44 |
I'm going to flip the phase back out.
(MUSIC) Cool.
| | 07:56 |
One of the things I really like about
doing that, using that box is that your
| | 07:59 |
hand's on a knob and you're just turning
it as you go along.
| | 08:03 |
Your, you just turning it and listening
to what you like the sound of.
| | 08:07 |
The funny things is, is he actually
records some of this (MUSIC).
| | 08:09 |
And then if you look at the wave forms.
We're going to move this up here next to
| | 08:21 |
the microphone track.
And, we'll zoom in and see, like where do
| | 08:26 |
these actual waveforms land?
And this will be interesting.
| | 08:30 |
A lot of times, they don't look like they
should be in phase.
| | 08:35 |
Somewhat in phase.
You can see this here, you can see the
| | 08:38 |
actual sine wave of the root note.
When you look on the screen here and it's
| | 08:44 |
still just a little bit, like if you were
lining this up by eye, which I'll show
| | 08:48 |
you in a second.
By visually looking at it, you would
| | 08:50 |
probably push this track, here, forward
to the left, a little bit like have it
| | 08:55 |
start just a little bit earlier.
But the thing is, you're turning the knob
| | 08:58 |
with your hand listening to what sounds
good on the track.
| | 09:01 |
So you might be adjusting the phase a
little bit out of phase, but actually
| | 09:04 |
sounds better the way things are
canceling.
| | 09:06 |
It's kind of interesting.
So let's go and see what we could do if
| | 09:09 |
we didn't have the wonderful little Labs
IBP, and we're just working in the box.
| | 09:14 |
We're going to mute that, we're going to
listen to the DI straight here, back in
| | 09:18 |
the mix.
And we're going to look, first of all
| | 09:20 |
look at the wave forms and see what is
out of phase look like.
| | 09:26 |
And we can see right here.
Let's just zoom in a little bit on these two.
| | 09:30 |
We can see right here that these peaks
are pointing in total different directions.
| | 09:34 |
You see that sound is going different
directions.
| | 09:37 |
So that means they're totally inverted to
each other.
| | 09:40 |
We play this as it is (MUSIC).
There's a bit of a hollowness to that sound.
| | 09:45 |
So what we would do here is just slide
the DI track back in time to the right so
| | 09:50 |
it happens a little bit later, and it'll
line up with the bass amp to some degree.
| | 09:54 |
Let's see how that sounds.
(MUSIC) Little deeper, so now there's
| | 10:00 |
more low end in the track.
You can keep nudging this back and forth.
| | 10:04 |
And listening and do it all day, and
you'll find different cancellations at
| | 10:08 |
different frequencies.
And you can probably get a good bass
| | 10:11 |
sound if you push it around long enough
and blend the two tracks together.
| | 10:15 |
And you can always just mute one of them
and use just this.
| | 10:18 |
Just the mic, or just the DI.
So there's a bunch of ways to take a bass
| | 10:24 |
guitar, record it, tailor the tone, make
it work great in a track.
| | 10:29 |
And then you're going to have a lot
easier time mixing and you're going to
| | 10:31 |
have a great sounding song.
| | 10:32 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using distortion with bass guitar| 00:00 |
So being a bass player and a recording
engineer I pay particular attention to
| | 00:04 |
the tone of the bass when I'm working on
a session.
| | 00:07 |
One of the things I really like to do is
use a little bit of distortion sometimes
| | 00:11 |
to bring out the tones of the sound of
the bass and really fill it in, in a
| | 00:15 |
different kind of way.
You can do really overt tones like this
| | 00:19 |
big muff here.
Ooh.
| | 00:20 |
(MUSIC) And that's a big fuzzy sound
that, you know, can kind of take over a track.
| | 00:31 |
You might want to be careful if you've
got a lot of guitars in there that have a
| | 00:33 |
similar tone.
Also like to do sounds that are a little
| | 00:36 |
more subtle, like I use this comp tortion
pedal by Tech 21 quite a bit.
| | 00:40 |
And this has got some really nice sounds
to it.
| | 00:46 |
(MUSIC) You can hear in that, that
there's kind of a muted tone where the
| | 00:49 |
low mids are really nice and full
compared to the big muff there earlier.
| | 00:53 |
And that can really sit in the track
where you sometimes don't even notice
| | 00:56 |
that it's really got distortion.
It just brings out the articulation of
| | 00:59 |
the bass guitar better in the mix.
Now, one of the things to watch out for
| | 01:03 |
in this sort of situation is if you're
running a DI on your bass guitar, and
| | 01:07 |
you're running a pedal into the DI, it
can actually sound kind of buzzy and nasty.
| | 01:12 |
And we'll hear a little bit of that right
now.
| | 01:14 |
(MUSIC) Now that's, that's going to give
you a kind of a, a rough edge to your sound.
| | 01:27 |
And maybe you don't want that in the mix.
And, but you want to get a nice DI track
| | 01:31 |
and keep some low-end to work with later.
So what I'll do in a case like that is
| | 01:36 |
swap the cables around here.
Just try not make too many noises here.
| | 01:40 |
And I'll go directly into the DI with the
bass guitar.
| | 01:46 |
I'll come out of the DI's through, which
is just kind of a mult of the base,
| | 01:51 |
allows you to go to an amp.
So, I'll come out of the DI's through
| | 01:55 |
output here, and I'll go into the
distortion pedal.
| | 01:59 |
Out of the distortion pedals, into the
bass amp.
| | 02:06 |
So now, what we're going to hear is the
bass amp distorted, but we're going to
| | 02:10 |
hear the DI clean.
Which is kind of a cool way to track.
| | 02:24 |
(MUSIC) Cool!
And that can give you options in the track.
| | 02:32 |
You'll have a clean DI track.
And you'll have a distorted amp track.
| | 02:36 |
And you could even re-amp the DI track if
needed later on.
| | 02:39 |
Things to watch for, when you're tracking
stuff like this, would certainly be like,
| | 02:44 |
how much high end is coming out of, off
of the track because of the distortion.
| | 02:48 |
So the bass sometimes can get a little
scratchy and weird with the high end.
| | 02:54 |
(NOISE) Those kind of sounds.
A really good way to address that is to
| | 02:58 |
take the tone knob of the bass, of the
stomp box down a little bit.
| | 03:05 |
(NOISE) Make those sounds a little lower,
and you'll get a different kind of bass
| | 03:07 |
tone, too.
(MUSIC) And those throatier bass tones
| | 03:11 |
work a little better at times, staying
out of the way of the guitar, like I
| | 03:17 |
mentioned earlier.
Another simple way to adjust that problem
| | 03:23 |
is to turn the treble knob down on the
amp here.
| | 03:27 |
So a little less.
(MUSIC) (SOUND) And another way to get
| | 03:30 |
pretty interesting bass distortion
sometimes is to bypass the stomp boxes
| | 03:34 |
and just push the amp really hard.
We're going to have to ask the engineer
| | 03:37 |
to turn the volume, the level down on the
mic for you a little bit here.
| | 03:41 |
This can get a little out of hand, but it
sure is fun to play it kind of loud and crazy.
| | 03:46 |
You ready in there?
(MUSIC).
| | 03:47 |
You can hear that amp driving really
well, it pushes the speaker harder.
| | 03:57 |
with an amp like the B15, it's got tubes
in it and it really kind of drives in a
| | 04:03 |
nice way.
It doesn't get ridiculously loud, but it
| | 04:05 |
gives you kind of an over-driven tone
which is really nice and rich.
| | 04:09 |
So that can just be an easy way to get
bass distortion as well.
| | 04:13 |
So there's a lot of tricks there.
A lot of ways to adjust your tone to make
| | 04:16 |
those bass guitars sit in the track
certain ways.
| | 04:19 |
Maybe even a part of a song needs some of
that.
| | 04:21 |
Go ahead and experiment.
Have fun with that.
| | 04:24 |
Try different pedals, and see what works
for you.
| | 04:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating an ensemble from one musician| 00:00 |
Larry: I'm going to show you a really
cool trick that, I've never heard people
| | 00:03 |
talk about that much.
It's real easy to do, and it's a really
| | 00:06 |
neat effect.
You can create a whole ensemble
| | 00:09 |
recording, using only one musician, as
long as you do this.
| | 00:13 |
Use a stereo pair of mics in a decent
sounding room.
| | 00:16 |
Now what I do, is I take the musician,
and move them.
| | 00:20 |
Acou-, leave the mics where they are, and
move the musician in the room, so that
| | 00:23 |
they're showing up in different parts of
the stereo field.
| | 00:26 |
This is a really great trick, and adds a
sense of depth and width to the recording.
| | 00:30 |
So we got my friend Erin back here.
We're going to have her sing a, a vocal
| | 00:33 |
part four times over itself, the same
part of the song, and we're going to move
| | 00:37 |
her left to right, across the sound field
while we record this.
| | 00:42 |
Or while, we'd run the different takes I
should say.
| | 00:44 |
So we'll move up here, and we'll start up
here, on the carpet here.
| | 00:48 |
And then we'll do the first take, and
then we'll do three more passes.
| | 00:51 |
And we'll have you just move to different
parts for these different passes, and
| | 00:54 |
you'll sound real wide, like there's four
people in a room, singing different places.
| | 00:58 |
You ready?
Erin: Yes.
| | 00:59 |
Larry: Cool!
Erin: (MUSIC) We're going to make this
| | 01:05 |
work, we're going to figure it out.
We're going to make this work, we're
| | 01:15 |
going to figure it out.
Larry: All right.
| | 01:22 |
Come over here.
Stand right in this area I think.
| | 01:24 |
Yeah, you get kind of left and right.
Erin: (MUSIC) We're going to make this work.
| | 01:32 |
We're going to figure it out.
We're going to make this work, we're
| | 01:42 |
going to figure it out.
Larry: All right cool.
| | 01:47 |
And then let's do one closer to where you
started, but just a little bit towards
| | 01:50 |
the center.
Yeah.
| | 01:52 |
And that'll give a little bit like,
someone's standing in the center.
| | 01:54 |
Erin: Sure.
Larry: Center, center right.
| | 01:56 |
Erin: (MUSIC) We're going to make this
work, we're going to figure it out.
| | 02:07 |
We're going to make this work, we're
going to figure it out.
| | 02:14 |
(MUSIC) All right, cool.
And one last pass, just be a little bit
| | 02:18 |
to your left here.
Up a little closer, there you go.
| | 02:21 |
Perfect.
(MUSIC) We're going to make this work,
| | 02:28 |
we're going to figure it out.
We're going to make this work, we're
| | 02:37 |
going to figure it out.
Larry: Erin, that was great.
| | 02:43 |
Thanks so much.
Erin: Yeah.
| | 02:44 |
Larry: Sounds awesome.
We used to try to do this on tape.
| | 02:47 |
We'd have to do it like early on in the
process, so we didn't eat up tracks, and
| | 02:50 |
then we would bounce all the tracks down
to a stereo mix, and hang onto it later
| | 02:53 |
in the mix, and pray that it would keep
working as we moved on recording the song.
| | 02:59 |
It was crazy.
Alright, let's try something else.
| | 03:02 |
Alright.
So there you can hear multiple passes of
| | 03:05 |
a single vocalist with a stereo pair of
mikes and a decent sounding room, can
| | 03:09 |
create a sense of depth, a sense of
width, that's not possible if I have four
| | 03:13 |
passes on a single mike.
It works out really great.
| | 03:17 |
It's a fantastic trick to do.
If I have multiple acoustic instruments,
| | 03:21 |
like if you're doing rhythm acoustic
guitars.
| | 03:23 |
Also works great for strings.
You can make on violin player sound like
| | 03:26 |
an orchestra practically, by over dubbing
with a sense of depth, and a sense of
| | 03:29 |
space on it like this.
But one thing I love to do this way, is
| | 03:33 |
hand claps.
Stereo hand claps.
| | 03:36 |
What you do is you call your friends
back.
| | 03:38 |
Hey Ryan.
Hey Erin, how you guys doing?
| | 03:40 |
Erin: Good.
Larry: Lets do some hand claps.
| | 03:43 |
And here we go.
We're going to, move, record over here,
| | 03:45 |
and then we're going to move over there
and do a second pass.
| | 03:49 |
And then more.
| | 03:50 |
(MUSIC)
| | 03:55 |
(SOUND)
| | 04:00 |
(MUSIC)
| | 04:04 |
All right.
Let's move over here now.
| | 04:23 |
(NOISE) (SOUND) Whoo.
We're testing the limits of these
| | 04:28 |
headphone cables.
Erin: (LAUGH) Let's snuggle up.
| | 04:34 |
Larry: All right.
| | 04:38 |
(MUSIC)
| | 04:41 |
(MUSIC)
| | 04:44 |
Let's do it again.
Two more?
| | 05:01 |
Yeah.
Just be care, those things will tip over
| | 05:07 |
so easy.
| | 05:08 |
(LAUGH),
| | 05:11 |
like that, alright.
(MUSIC).
| | 05:19 |
(MUSIC)
| | 05:21 |
(SOUND).
| | 05:23 |
Ryan: (LAUGH) Every time.
Larry: There, there you go, all right,
| | 05:40 |
one more pass.
Erin: Okay.
| | 05:56 |
Larry: (SOUND) All right.
| | 05:56 |
(MUSIC)
| | 05:58 |
(MUSIC)
| | 06:00 |
I heard that over them.
Erin: Yeah, me too.
| | 06:16 |
Larry: Alright, good job!
(LAUGH)
| | 06:26 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Finding the best drum placement in rooms| 00:00 |
Larry: So finding the best spot in a room
to record drums is pretty important.
| | 00:05 |
A lot of times, I'll go to a studio and
say, where do you guys record drums?
| | 00:09 |
And they'll point to an area.
When I had to actually do a little
| | 00:12 |
research it turns out sometimes that's
not the best place to record drums.
| | 00:16 |
So the way that I figured this out is
kind of fun.
| | 00:19 |
I take a floor tom and I walk around the
room and place it in different areas and
| | 00:23 |
see what I get.
You'll find out in the room right here,
| | 00:27 |
that we have kind of a crazy flutter
echo.
| | 00:29 |
I'm going to have Dave follow me around.
He's going to hold this mic.
| | 00:32 |
He's going to capture kind of close to
what I'm hearing, so you can hear the
| | 00:35 |
same thing and understand why I'm
listening, why I'm coming up with these solutions.
| | 00:40 |
(SOUND) So you heard kind of a frappy,
flutter echo happening right here like
| | 00:51 |
(INAUDIBLE).
That's crazy, that's part of the room.
| | 00:56 |
It's a little too live.
If you go to the center of the room,
| | 00:59 |
which we mapped out with some tape
earlier.
| | 01:02 |
We took a tape measure and measured wall
to wall and came up with the exact center.
| | 01:07 |
You'll find that a lot of times, the
low-end just gets choked down.
| | 01:10 |
The, the first reflections of the the
sound of the, of the floor tom are
| | 01:15 |
hitting the walls and coming back.
And it chokes the low end massively.
| | 01:21 |
(SOUND) (SOUND) (SOUND) Very different
low end response.
| | 01:33 |
What I'm listening for is always like the
low end response, how it reacts, and how
| | 01:37 |
the crack of the high end reacts.
Are there echos?
| | 01:40 |
Are there crazy sounds?
Does it feel good in the room?
| | 01:43 |
Generally, we'll record the drums over
here.
| | 01:45 |
And this has a pretty good spot.
It's, it's got a little bit of a liveness
| | 01:52 |
to it, but the low end seems to sit
pretty nice, too.
| | 02:01 |
(SOUND) And that works out pretty well.
So we're going to go in this room here,
| | 02:05 |
and hear what drums sound like in a whole
different room, because sometimes you
| | 02:09 |
don't have to use the biggest room in the
studio to record a drum set.
| | 02:12 |
(SOUND) Also, let me apologize for my
drumming.
| | 02:21 |
I can hear this room right now.
So in our bigger iso-booth, a jackpot.
| | 02:25 |
It's got a lot of treatment on the walls
here, very different acoustical sound.
| | 02:29 |
(MUSIC) That's that floor tom, doesn't
bloom out very much.
| | 02:41 |
The snare sounds kind of choked down too.
Let's not stop there, let's try some
| | 02:46 |
other rooms.
Here we go on a little excursion.
| | 02:49 |
Now, (SOUND) I have done records (SOUND)
where the drummer played in the control
| | 02:56 |
room with me.
That's not an ideal situation for
| | 02:58 |
monitoring, possibly.
But we had a lot of acoustic instruments
| | 03:02 |
being played in the other room and we
needed somewhere to put the drummer to
| | 03:05 |
get him off of the acoustic guitars and
everything.
| | 03:08 |
So I actually recorded with headphones
and had a drummer playing right behind me.
| | 03:11 |
(MUSIC) (BLANK_AUDIO) That sounds pretty
cool.
| | 03:21 |
It's pretty live in here.
It's got a real different sound than the
| | 03:24 |
live room does.
But hey, don't stop there.
| | 03:28 |
Let's go in here.
(SOUND) Everybody knows the bathroom must
| | 03:36 |
be the best place to record drums.
(SOUND) Right?
| | 03:46 |
Sure.
(MUSIC).
| | 03:52 |
Alright.
So check out all the rooms.
| | 03:55 |
Run around.
Hit the floor tom.
| | 03:57 |
Listen.
Set up your drums.
| | 03:59 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Mic'ing drums| 00:00 |
Larry: There's gotta be an unlimited
amount of ways to set up and mic a drum set.
| | 00:06 |
So, what I'm going to show you here is
my, sort of, down and dirty, quick, I've
| | 00:10 |
gotta get sounds now.
The band has no time to waste and I
| | 00:15 |
want to a good, kind of, straight rock or
funk or pop sound.
| | 00:18 |
Alright, first let's start with a kick
drum.
| | 00:22 |
Now, it's pretty standard for me to use
an Audix D6 microphone.
| | 00:27 |
That's a dynamic mic.
It's got a great low end.
| | 00:30 |
It, it kind of scoops some of the low
mids out and gives me a great sound right
| | 00:33 |
from the start.
I'll place that in the sound hole.
| | 00:36 |
I'll poke it in a ways, maybe a little
less than half way in, sometimes a little closer.
| | 00:41 |
And I also look around if I need to put
some kind of padding in there to soak up
| | 00:46 |
some of the resonant sound that's inside
of the drum head, the drum shell here.
| | 00:51 |
But at times you'll hear like the little
space that is in there.
| | 00:54 |
Let's get that little quick, how that
sounds inside the drum head.
| | 00:58 |
(MUSIC) So that's a good, tight inside of
the drum, kind of kick drum sound.
| | 01:08 |
If there's a head on the outside here,
I'll put a similar mic like this outside
| | 01:13 |
of the head, point it across and try to
pick up as much vibration as I can.
| | 01:18 |
And it will be a softer sound of course,
you won't have the tap from the inside of
| | 01:21 |
the drum, but it will work a lot of the
times, real well.
| | 01:24 |
One thing I love to do is the speaker mic
trick.
| | 01:27 |
Here I built this little speaker mic and
I'll set it up front of the drum and I'll
| | 01:32 |
plug it into a direct box here and record
this channel.
| | 01:35 |
Now, what this picks up is just a low,
deep thud of a sound, it's pretty fun.
| | 01:41 |
Just real low frequencies, and it works
great for just adding a little bit of
| | 01:44 |
depth and bottom end to a kick drum.
(MUSIC) Cool, so let's move over to the
| | 01:52 |
snare drum.
I love putting a dynamic mic up on the top.
| | 02:00 |
Point it at the hoop, right along the
edge here.
| | 02:03 |
Get a little bit of the, the side.
The wood of the snare drum.
| | 02:07 |
The bottom head you hear a little bit,
and you hear a good crack from the top.
| | 02:11 |
Let's hear a little bit of that.
This is an Audix I5 mic, by the way.
| | 02:14 |
(SOUND) (SOUND) (SOUND) (SOUND) Whoo!
I think I hurt my ears.
| | 02:18 |
Now, at the bottom here, I've got this
goofy electro-voice mic here.
| | 02:27 |
The DO54 and it's an omnidirectional
dynamic mic, which you don't see very
| | 02:35 |
many of it's, it's kind of a rare thing.
So, I put that on the bottom point it
| | 02:39 |
towards the center.
Where the strainer is, where the wires
| | 02:42 |
are, let's hear that.
(SOUND) Cool and that gives you like a
| | 02:53 |
nice sizzle there on the bottom.
I don't always put up a mic for high hat,
| | 02:57 |
sometimes I let the overhead mics Let's
take care of that.
| | 03:00 |
But when I do, I'll put like a small
diaphragm condesnor, like this CAM 184 annoyment.
| | 03:04 |
And I'll put that up.
And ya'll what I like to do is point it
| | 03:06 |
kind of at the end of the cymbal here and
put it, put it where it's not in the line
| | 03:13 |
of sight with the snare.
And my theory is, and it's probably
| | 03:17 |
totally wrong Is that your not going to
get direct sound from this snare you're
| | 03:22 |
going to hear a little bit of blockage
from the high hit itself.
| | 03:25 |
So lets hear a little of high hat and
then go into the full kit for a second.
| | 03:31 |
(MUSIC) Cool, thanks Dave, and drummers
don't like being stopped and started by
| | 03:39 |
the way, they get impatient.
For the tom mics I'm using blue
| | 03:45 |
dragonflies, they're large diaphragm
condenser mics and I love the fact that
| | 03:54 |
you can pivot the heads and point them
right where you want them to point.
| | 04:00 |
Which I point toward the center of the
toms.
| | 04:03 |
I got them on the rack tom and the floor
tom right now.
| | 04:06 |
It's a little unusual to put, like a,
$800 mic on your drum, drums like this,
| | 04:11 |
right where a drummer can hit them, but I
take that risk because I love the sound.
| | 04:17 |
There's a bit of a crack when the drummer
hits these toms, the mic kind of.
| | 04:22 |
Cracks a bit I believe and get a nice,
rich, full sound.
| | 04:26 |
I just love the tone of these.
Let's hear a little bit of that.
| | 04:32 |
(MUSIC) (MUSIC) Whoo.
Sounds fun, I love toms.
| | 04:39 |
I dunno what it is, there's just
something about 'em.
| | 04:52 |
Jungle tr, jungle sounds.
It's fun, so up here we've got our
| | 05:00 |
overhead mics.
Being in a studio with a, with a nice 12
| | 05:04 |
foot ceiling.
Is a luxury.
| | 05:06 |
And I love to take the mics up a little
bit up in the air, get an x y pair up
| | 05:10 |
over the kit.
What I'm using right now are small
| | 05:14 |
diaphragm Mojave MA 100s.
They're small diaphragm condenser mics.
| | 05:18 |
They're tube powered.
They've got a fantastic sound.
| | 05:21 |
They're, they're not really very
expensive, compared to most mics of this caliber.
| | 05:25 |
And I'll put them in an x y pattern, like
I said.
| | 05:28 |
Up over the kit, generally kind of pretty
close to over where the snare is,
| | 05:32 |
centered over that, and we'll hear the
cymbals coming through there really good,
| | 05:36 |
and a lot of times a good picture of the
drum kit, you know, the toms and
| | 05:39 |
everything just kind of being captured
real well.
| | 05:41 |
Let's hear a little bit of full kit
there.
| | 05:42 |
(SOUND) Awesome, thanks Dave.
Now, we're going to hear even more fun
| | 06:02 |
here in a second.
So follow me over here.
| | 06:04 |
We've got room mikes set up.
Right now, I got a pair of SM81s set up
| | 06:10 |
back here in the room another XY pair.
I love XY coincident pairs, because they
| | 06:17 |
pick up the sound basically at the same
time, so they're almost always very, very phase-coherent.
| | 06:22 |
Sounds aren't arriving in different times
as if they were spaced pairs or
| | 06:25 |
something, and it works really great in
the mix when that phase stays intact,
| | 06:30 |
especially further away from the kit.
You don't want to be sucking the tone out
| | 06:33 |
of what's going on.
Now these mics, I usually try to find a
| | 06:36 |
kind of cool spot in the room.
Walking around and listening to what
| | 06:39 |
sounds good when the drummer's playing,
set the mics up there.
| | 06:42 |
And then I also like to compress them.
So that they, they, they get smashed when
| | 06:47 |
they ride the compressor and bloom out
and make real exciting sounds.
| | 06:50 |
So we have this running through a
Chandler TG1 compressor which I just
| | 06:54 |
adore the sound of.
Now let's hear some of these real mics.
| | 06:57 |
(MUSIC) So, go try this kind of type of
technique if you want, try many other
| | 07:08 |
techniques, try anything you can, one mic
on the drums, a 100 mics on the drums.
| | 07:21 |
Anything that might work for you is
valid, but this is a great kind of
| | 07:32 |
starting point, some great ways to get
good sounds, and let's do it.
| | 07:44 |
So let's hear the full kit together.
You ready for that?
| | 07:53 |
We're going to close out with some fun,
fun beats.
| | 08:14 |
(MUSIC)
| | 08:14 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Treating drum sounds in the room| 00:00 |
Larry: I found a place in the room where
I want to record the drums, right?
| | 00:03 |
I've got Dave here to play the drums for
me.
| | 00:07 |
Now, one of the things you should think
about is do you treat the room?
| | 00:10 |
I know this sounds a little crazy, and
here we are, like in a better recording
| | 00:13 |
space than a nice studio.
But it's really fun to take some elements
| | 00:18 |
in and bring him in and change up the way
the drums actually sound in the room.
| | 00:21 |
Now first, I want to hear a little bit of
the drums as they are naturally.
| | 00:25 |
We're going to record these with just the
overhead mics too, so you hear a real
| | 00:28 |
clean, straight sound of what the drums
are in this space.
| | 00:32 |
Are you ready?
Just give me a little bit.
| | 00:35 |
(MUSIC).
Cool.
| | 00:48 |
Thank you.
So, that's what the room sounds like as
| | 00:51 |
it is, with the drums over here in this
spot.
| | 00:55 |
Now, what's going to be really cool,
come, come and help me do this, Dave.
| | 00:57 |
We gotta move these.
(INAUDIBLE) put some gobos in around the drums.
| | 01:02 |
Usually, I put them in in a V-shape back
here.
| | 01:05 |
So Dave's going to help me move these
guys into place.
| | 01:09 |
Let's go with that side there/g.
Dave: In the back?
| | 01:14 |
Larry: Yeah.
Actually, on the side here.
| | 01:15 |
So just keep going towards your
(INAUDIBLE) a little bit.
| | 01:17 |
Alright, cool.
Yeah, like that.
| | 01:19 |
And then, we'll take the other one around
that way.
| | 01:22 |
This is the shorter one, for some reason.
(SOUND).
| | 01:28 |
Awesome.
You can put these on wheels huh, that'd
| | 01:32 |
be nice.
Alright, cool.
| | 01:34 |
To get, get through there, slide that in.
So I'm going to bring them in a little closer.
| | 01:42 |
So, what I'm trying to do here is to
choke down the room sound behind him here.
| | 01:46 |
Just clean up a little bit of reflections
off the back wall.
| | 01:50 |
(SOUND) Little less ambiance.
Now, we'll hopefully hear that kind of
| | 01:58 |
shift a little bit, and a little less
roomy but it's still going to have a lot
| | 02:01 |
of life out here.
Let's play a little bit of drums, Dave.
| | 02:04 |
(SOUND) (MUSIC) Even in the room out here
I could hear a slight difference, a
| | 02:16 |
different kind of focus.
Did you notice that?
| | 02:20 |
Dave: Yeah.
Larry: Yeah, it's kind of cool.
| | 02:21 |
So now we're going to bring these guys
and I guess you're going to stay there
| | 02:24 |
since you're trapped.
(LAUGH) (SOUND) What I like to do is this.
| | 02:32 |
Take a mike stand, put it sideways like
this and we're going to drape some
| | 02:38 |
packing blankets over these.
We'll put up two of these.
| | 02:42 |
(SOUND).
Grab some blankets.
| | 02:47 |
One thing this is good for too, is this
way you don't have to look at the drummer.
| | 02:52 |
(LAUGH) Sorry, man.
All right.
| | 03:05 |
This is a pretty cool low budget way to
treat any room.
| | 03:08 |
You can get these kind of packing
blankets at a U-Haul shop or whatever.
| | 03:12 |
(SOUND) All right.
Now that we can't see the drummer, alright.
| | 03:22 |
Let's hear a little bit of that same
beat.
| | 03:25 |
(MUSIC) Awesome.
Sounds a little different.
| | 03:36 |
Especially if you've got close mics in
here.
| | 03:38 |
That's just going to change drastically
what you're hearing.
| | 03:40 |
You're not going to have reflections
coming back in, from the room as much.
| | 03:44 |
Maybe you got a little bit of the live
room sound out of here, get more of a
| | 03:48 |
Mick Fleetwood kind of dry drum sound
from, from doing something like that.
| | 03:52 |
Now, this is something I tried on a
record a number of years ago.
| | 03:55 |
This is really fun.
You'll like this one.
| | 03:58 |
Take these same blankets (SOUND) and
we're going to stuff them all around the
| | 04:03 |
drum kit.
Let's get this one, so it kind of touches
| | 04:09 |
the tom there.
Make sure you can still play the kick.
| | 04:11 |
So we're going to put them kind of
around.
| | 04:13 |
Like kind of try to get them around and
under.
| | 04:15 |
We want to choke the sound of everything
down a little bit.
| | 04:17 |
It's kind of crazy.
(SOUND) Probably should have grabbed some
| | 04:25 |
duct tape for this one.
Let's see if we can get this in here.
| | 04:29 |
(SOUND) Oh yeah, I'm going to make this
sit on.
| | 04:41 |
>> Wow.
(SOUND).
| | 04:43 |
>> (LAUGH) Stuff it under the snare.
(SOUND) This is just terrible.
| | 04:47 |
These drums are going to sound weird, I
hope.
| | 04:49 |
(LAUGH) Let me grab one more blanket, I'm
going to kill the front here, too.
| | 04:55 |
Actually, let's do two.
We're going to town with the moving
| | 04:59 |
blankets, folks.
It's a crazy day here.
| | 05:11 |
I was thinking we can choke this tom down
a little too.
| | 05:14 |
All right.
Let's hear a little bit of that.
| | 05:20 |
(MUSIC).
That's crazy.
| | 05:33 |
You see how dead those toms were?
Totally different.
| | 05:36 |
(INAUDIBLE) took us back to the 70s a
little bit, huh?
| | 05:39 |
I got more of those tricks for you right
now too.
| | 05:41 |
This is fun.
Alright.
| | 05:43 |
Where that chain go?
Pull these blankets off.
| | 05:50 |
Poor drums.
(SOUND) Here's a good one.
| | 05:56 |
Oh yeah, the snare's kind of caught.
(SOUND) So, when you drape a chain type
| | 06:02 |
thing over a,ride cymbal, you get a
wonderful kind of sizzly, weird sound.
| | 06:07 |
Some cymbals, some ride cymbals have
rivets built into them already, gives you
| | 06:11 |
that long sustain.
But you can just (SOUND) take any kind of chain.
| | 06:14 |
Sometimes you can just take chains that
you got laying around.
| | 06:16 |
(SOUND) These ball type ones (SOUND) are
perfect.
| | 06:19 |
And listen to what it does on the ride
cymbal here.
| | 06:25 |
(MUSIC) Now another trick (SOUND) is make
the drummer suffer through this one.
| | 06:40 |
Take a tambourine.
(SOUND) Put it on the snare and force him
| | 06:44 |
to hit in the middle of it there.
Trad grip helps, right?
| | 06:48 |
Let's hear some of that.
(MUSIC) Next we're going to try something
| | 06:59 |
really goofy.
Dave, you want to pull the kick drum out
| | 07:02 |
and the rack tom.
We'll get everything out of the way here.
| | 07:04 |
We're going to make a kick drum out of a
trashcan.
| | 07:08 |
(SOUND) This is a trashcan.
Thankfully it's relatively clean.
| | 07:20 |
Pull this guy off.
(SOUND) All right.
| | 07:25 |
Now this really demands that you have
been treating the drummer nice and being
| | 07:30 |
a good friend, because, they're not
going to like this some times.
| | 07:33 |
(SOUND) We've got bricks and sand bags
here, to make this work.
| | 07:42 |
(SOUND) You ever done this before, David?
Dave: No.
| | 07:43 |
Never.
Larry: You're going to like it.
| | 07:45 |
Dave: (LAUGH).
Larry: It's fun.
| | 07:47 |
You gotta make sure it's going to hit
there, just barely reaches.
| | 07:50 |
(SOUND) Alright.
(SOUND) Put some bricks and sandbags to
| | 07:55 |
keep it in place here.
(SOUND) How's that feel?
| | 08:03 |
(SOUND) Oh yeah, that's awful.
>> (LAUGH).
| | 08:05 |
>> (LAUGH) Let's see, whoa.
Well, let's hear a little bit of the drum
| | 08:09 |
beat with the trash can kick.
(MUSIC) Pretty rough action, huh?
| | 08:20 |
(LAUGH) You get the idea.
So you can do some crazy stuff.
| | 08:27 |
Think about subbing instruments parts of
the kit changing out sounds in the room
| | 08:32 |
itself and get the kind of sounds that
you want to do on your songs.
| | 08:36 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Destroying hum| 00:00 |
Larry: So I want to talk about destroying
hum in the recording studio.
| | 00:03 |
When I first started recoding bands, one
of the problems I had was people's amps
| | 00:08 |
buzzing and making all kinds of goofy
sounds.
| | 00:10 |
Stuff that I didn't want to have in the
mix.
| | 00:13 |
There's a lot of ways to solve these
problems, and I'm going to show you some
| | 00:15 |
of them right now.
One of the first main problems you'll
| | 00:18 |
encounter are ground loops.
Now ground loops can happen when you have
| | 00:23 |
two devices that are both powered from
the same source.
| | 00:25 |
We have, a DI box, and an amplifier here.
Bass amp.
| | 00:30 |
They're both plugged into this power
strip, and they're sharing grounds.
| | 00:33 |
They're both grounded devices.
Now that's fine.
| | 00:36 |
There's no problem there.
But a problem occurs when you have an
| | 00:40 |
instrument cable that's coming through
the direct output of the DI box over to
| | 00:45 |
the input of the amplifier.
Now there's another ground, there's the
| | 00:48 |
audio ground that these two are sharing.
That can be a problem, it sounds like
| | 00:54 |
this (NOISE).
You have switches on these devices too.
| | 01:00 |
Now the switches (SOUND), you can click,
and they're supposed to help you
| | 01:05 |
alleviate these problems by lifting and
ho, and, and hooking up the grounds.
| | 01:09 |
(SOUND) But no.
(SOUND) They're not doing anything right
| | 01:13 |
now, are they?
So what I do is this.
| | 01:15 |
(SOUND) I grab one of these cheap, little
adapters.
| | 01:20 |
These are made for homes that, still have
outlets that only have two prong outlets.
| | 01:24 |
And it also allows you to, put a screw in
there, and theoretically put a ground
| | 01:29 |
through the, plate, on the electrical
outlet.
| | 01:32 |
But what I use it for is eliminating the
grounding.
| | 01:35 |
When you take a ground out of your
amplifier or your DI you are creating a
| | 01:39 |
situation where there is potential health
risk.
| | 01:42 |
If there could be a way that you can get
shocked and it's happened to me a couple
| | 01:46 |
of times where I'm holding an instrument
and touching the ungrounded device.
| | 01:50 |
So if you feel like you don't know if
this, what you're doing with this and you
| | 01:54 |
don't have a way of testing voltages or
anything like that with a volt meter.
| | 01:57 |
Don't do this.
Don't even try it.
| | 02:00 |
If you are going to do this make sure not
to touch the DI box, the amplifier or
| | 02:04 |
anything else while you're playing a live
instrument.
| | 02:06 |
That will guarantee that you're pretty
safe.
| | 02:08 |
But what I'm going to show you is this.
We take this adapter, we go over here.
| | 02:15 |
This is the power for the amplifier.
We put this adapter on it, plug it back
| | 02:23 |
in, okay.
Turn the amp back on.
| | 02:26 |
Wow.
That's a lot quieter, right?
| | 02:30 |
Now, what I've also noticed is at this
point, we can take these ground switches
| | 02:39 |
And flick them.
We can make it even quieter.
| | 02:44 |
So now we got a nice, clean path here for
the bass audio.
| | 02:48 |
Excellent.
Let's turn this, put this on standby.
| | 02:53 |
All right.
So here we go.
| | 02:54 |
Let's go over to guitars.
Now, guitar amps are notorious.
| | 02:58 |
There's always a lot of buzzing.
Single-coil guitars like the Fender
| | 03:03 |
Stratocaster can be some of the worst.
(NOISE) Listen to that, just buzzing away.
| | 03:10 |
First trick is, don't play really close
to your amp.
| | 03:13 |
(NOISE) (LAUGH) Listen to that!
That's crazy.
| | 03:17 |
So definitely move away from the
amplifier when you're playing guitar.
| | 03:20 |
The other trick is this, and this is a
hard one to keep musicians in line on,
| | 03:28 |
but move on an axis in the room.
You can tell when I'm pointing over that
| | 03:36 |
way towards the corner of the room here,
it's a lot quieter, so sometimes you can
| | 03:39 |
teach a musician to say point your head
stock towards the corner and play facing
| | 03:43 |
that wall.
They might, and it might turn around half
| | 03:47 |
way through the song, but maybe if the
beginning of the song is quiet, it'll
| | 03:49 |
work out better.
Another potential problem with guitar
| | 03:55 |
amps is the stomp boxes.
A lot of times people are powering their
| | 04:01 |
stomp boxes with a wall board like this.
And that can also create more buzz.
| | 04:06 |
These kind of transformers make a little
bit of noise and line noise that can
| | 04:09 |
enter the device and enter your signal
path here.
| | 04:13 |
So a lot of cases I'll just tell the
clients, hey, let's put a battery in there.
| | 04:18 |
We keep a ton of 9 volt batteries on
stock here.
| | 04:21 |
Put them in there, run it like that.
That can work out good, but sometimes you
| | 04:25 |
get devices that don't have a battery
compartment even.
| | 04:29 |
So we made this little guy here.
We soldered some cables together, it's
| | 04:33 |
got a little 9 volt adapter here like you
plug into the top and then we put a
| | 04:38 |
little plug on the end here.
And this gives us a way to plug in a
| | 04:42 |
battery and power up a delay or certain
devices that don't actually have battery compartments.
| | 04:47 |
It eats through the batteries fast but
hey, it might clean up your sound.
| | 04:51 |
One thing that can also happen is, if you
have a computer monitor and you're
| | 04:56 |
playing guitar very close to that, that
can actually create a lot of buzz too.
| | 04:59 |
So that's something you might think about
if you're recording nearby, and move,
| | 05:04 |
move back from your monitor, and clean
that up.
| | 05:07 |
Another case can be the dimmers in the
room.
| | 05:09 |
Dimmer switches, taking them up and down,
there's a lot of times they can create
| | 05:13 |
interference that actually is audible
through equipment in the room.
| | 05:16 |
So in a place like this we use lights
that don't use dimmer switches.
| | 05:20 |
We've got pull chains and things to turn
them off and on and create the mood in
| | 05:23 |
the room.
Now, let's come over here.
| | 05:29 |
Leslie speakers, especially this one, can
sometimes generate a lot of noise and in
| | 05:35 |
this case (NOISE) a lot of nasty buzzing
low end.
| | 05:40 |
With this sort of speaker, I've taken
this apart, I've tried to clean it up,
| | 05:44 |
I've looked for ground loops.
I can't figure it out.
| | 05:48 |
I haven't been able to make it any
quieter.
| | 05:49 |
That's just the way it is.
So I'll have to work on the sounds after
| | 05:53 |
I record them.
In this case, I like using EQ, just take
| | 05:57 |
a little equalization and notch a little
frequency out at the low end that they
| | 06:01 |
were hearing right there.
In other cases I'll actually use
| | 06:04 |
single-ended noise reduction.
And that can really help out just wiping
| | 06:08 |
out the hum and then hear the actual tone
of the instrument.
| | 06:11 |
So let's go into the control room, and
we're going to work on that.
| | 06:16 |
We've recorded the Hammond organ into Pro
Tools here, and what we're hearing is the
| | 06:21 |
hum between the parts that are played.
(MUSIC) Especially there at the end.
| | 06:25 |
There's that nasty low note happening.
Now I listened to this earlier and I heard.
| | 06:33 |
(MUSIC) That the bottom mic is pretty
clean.
| | 06:37 |
So that's cool.
We don't have to mess with that.
| | 06:41 |
There's no hum for some reason in the
bottom of the Leslie cabinet.
| | 06:47 |
But the top mics, up on the top rotor
(SOUND) definitely have the hum in it.
| | 06:52 |
So a simple way to address that would be
to go in, and just actually put a simple
| | 06:58 |
high pass filter in there.
We're using a plugin here.
| | 07:03 |
Rolling it off right around 100 hertz
there.
| | 07:12 |
(MUSIC) You can hear that right now.
(MUSIC) It's gotten rid of some of the
| | 07:19 |
low frequency hum there, but it also took
a little bit of the meat out of the sound.
| | 07:24 |
You know, the part that, kind of sits in
there real nice.
| | 07:27 |
So, let's try another thing, now not
everybody will have this software, this
| | 07:31 |
is, one of my favorite tools to use, but
we can use single ended noise reduction.
| | 07:36 |
This is Isotope RX 2, the advanced
version.
| | 07:40 |
And this is their de-noiser program,
which works really fantastic.
| | 07:45 |
What we do, is we go to a part of the
song where we just hear hum.
| | 07:51 |
Like at the very end.
Okay.
| | 07:55 |
So now we have that section highlighted.
We want to learn what the problem
| | 07:59 |
frequency is, problem sound.
And learned it, apparently that's what it
| | 08:05 |
looks like.
Now, we select the whole region here and
| | 08:09 |
render it.
Boom.
| | 08:14 |
Now, turn off the plug-in.
We'll listen back.
| | 08:24 |
(MUSIC) And that sound's totally gone,
the hum has disappeared.
| | 08:28 |
Put the low end mic back in.
(MUSIC) That's pretty nice.
| | 08:36 |
We cleaned it right up.
That'll also work on buzzy guitar amps
| | 08:41 |
and other sounds like that.
I Sometimes I notice if I do this on like
| | 08:44 |
a vocal track that's got a lot of hiss in
it it seems to kill some of the clarity,
| | 08:48 |
but it really can save a track like the
humming Leslie amp there.
| | 08:52 |
So destroying hum at the source in the
studio is the best option every time.
| | 08:58 |
Use all those tricks we saw earlier.
And then going in afterwards and cleaning
| | 09:03 |
up individual tracks can also help quite
a bit.
| | 09:06 |
So always be aware of the sounds that all
your amps and devices are making in the studio.
| | 09:10 |
And decide how to best deal with that and
clean them up.
| | 09:13 |
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Recording upright piano| 00:00 |
Larry: Here at Jackpot Recording, we
don't have a grand piano.
| | 00:03 |
We don't quite have enough space to fit
one in here, even though I sure wish we did.
| | 00:08 |
We have this wonderful upright piano that
my piano tuner actually found for us.
| | 00:12 |
She was really picky and didn't like our
old piano, so one day she came in and
| | 00:15 |
said, I've got it.
I found one for you.
| | 00:18 |
This thing is fantastic.
And I'm going to show you a bunch of ways
| | 00:21 |
to mic this up.
Get great sounds out of it.
| | 00:23 |
Now the first thing we do, and my friend
Todd here helped me earlier, is pull the
| | 00:28 |
piano away from the wall.
One of the reasons to do this is, think
| | 00:32 |
if of like if you had an acoustic guitar
and you were playing up against a wall.
| | 00:35 |
It kind of chokes down the sound and,
gives you like a first real close
| | 00:40 |
reflection and, and kills what's
happening.
| | 00:42 |
And plus, the back of the piano is making
a lot more sound than most people realize.
| | 00:46 |
There's a lot of sound coming out of the
sound board on the back here, so you've
| | 00:50 |
got to keep that in mind.
When it comes to micing piano, I really
| | 00:54 |
like to do a lot of it in stereo.
You'll see some stereo pairs of mics here
| | 00:58 |
as we start putting them into place.
A lot of tracks like if you're doing a
| | 01:02 |
song that's really dense rock song, a
mono mic, a single mic can kind of help
| | 01:07 |
focus it.
And maybe pan it against the guitar and
| | 01:10 |
do things like that.
And give you like a tighter image for a
| | 01:13 |
rock track.
But stereo, if you're doing a song where
| | 01:16 |
there's a lot more space involved or is
there's this piano and vocal song, the
| | 01:20 |
stereo gives you a nice width the, the
high strings, the low strings, and you
| | 01:24 |
hear the chords a little spread out.
So nice, nice sound.
| | 01:27 |
I also like to use small diaphragm
condensers on most of the piano recording.
| | 01:32 |
They pick up details well, they're easy
to get into place, they stay out of the
| | 01:36 |
player's way, hopefully.
And I have a lot of pairs of small
| | 01:39 |
diaphragm condensers as well, as do most
studios.
| | 01:42 |
So the first place I like to actually set
up the mics on the piano and try it out
| | 01:48 |
is the top of the sound board here on the
front.
| | 01:50 |
Todd, you want to help me pull this guy
off?
| | 01:53 |
You pull off the plate here, set that
aside.
| | 01:57 |
And you see, you got the hammers, you got
all the strings in here, of course.
| | 02:02 |
The top part of the strings where the
tuning pegs are.
| | 02:04 |
I'll usually just go in with a simple
pair of mics.
| | 02:09 |
You got these Cam 184 Neumann mics on a
stereo bar.
| | 02:14 |
You know, start in the center, a little x
y pair.
| | 02:18 |
The advantages of recording here is you
get like a good, clean attack of the
| | 02:24 |
hammers on the strings.
You got a good, easy place to get the mic
| | 02:27 |
to, as well.
Its not usually in the player's way.
| | 02:30 |
The disadvantages can be you hear a
little bit sometimes, some of the
| | 02:33 |
movement of the hammers and such in here.
So let's record a little bit of the top
| | 02:37 |
of the piano here.
So play that piece you've written for us.
| | 02:40 |
Thanks for doing this by the way.
Todd: Sure, my pleasure.
| | 02:43 |
Larry: Cool.
(MUSIC).
| | 03:05 |
Cool.
Thank you.
| | 03:09 |
So that gives a real nice, straight image
of what's going on with the piano.
| | 03:13 |
Pull that away.
A crazy spot to mic the piano with is at
| | 03:17 |
the kick board here.
Let's pull this guy off.
| | 03:22 |
Now, it's kind of unusual, I thought,
I've never seen anyone do this, but I
| | 03:26 |
kind of like the sound down here.
It's kind of bright.
| | 03:30 |
Thanks, Todd.
You'll see also, we've got a little bit
| | 03:35 |
of electronics down here.
And you might wonder what that is.
| | 03:38 |
It's actually like a humidifier that
keeps the piano at a constant humidity
| | 03:42 |
rate so that the wood doesn't shrink and
expand as much as if it was drying out
| | 03:46 |
and getting moist again.
So that helps the piano stay in tune.
| | 03:50 |
And our piano tuner once again talked us
into that.
| | 03:53 |
She does a fantastic job and advises us
well.
| | 03:56 |
Now, I'm putting a stereo pair of mics
down here, some Audio-Technica Pro 37Rs.
| | 04:01 |
Real great, inexpensive mics.
Now obviously, one of the problems down
| | 04:04 |
here can be if there's a lot of pedal
use.
| | 04:07 |
If they're hitting the sustain pedal a
lot or anything, it can be a bit (SOUND)
| | 04:12 |
clunky, like that.
Are you doing a little bit on this song?
| | 04:16 |
Todd: I am.
Larry: So we might hear some.
| | 04:17 |
Let's just check this out.
So Todd, play us a second of that and
| | 04:20 |
we'll hear, hear how it sounds down
there.
| | 04:23 |
(MUSIC).
So, we heard a different kind of tone
| | 04:54 |
down there.
We didn't hear too much of the pedal on
| | 04:58 |
the sustain, but you were being kind of
careful, I think.
| | 05:01 |
So that helps us out.
This works really great if somebody's
| | 05:04 |
actually going to sing live and play
piano so you can get a sound where you
| | 05:07 |
don't get voice reflecting off the back
of the piano here or off of the front
| | 05:10 |
cover there.
And you know, it's a good option to know
| | 05:16 |
it's there, it's not always the best
place though there, there can be quite a
| | 05:19 |
bit of noise.
Now the back of the piano here, on the
| | 05:22 |
back of the soundboard.
Is really like, my secret place to record piano.
| | 05:27 |
A lot of times people don't consider this
a part of the piano's sound but, it
| | 05:30 |
really is, that's why we moved it away
from the wall.
| | 05:33 |
You can put some mics back here and get a
pretty decent piano sound with no vocal
| | 05:38 |
bleed if you're doing my vocals, no
fingernail clicking, none of the utter
| | 05:41 |
anomalies that happen up on the front
part of the piano, no hammer noise.
| | 05:44 |
So what I'm going to do here, is I'm
going to grab this mic and what I always
| | 05:49 |
do is plug in ear and then I put my other
ear back here and I listen for where the
| | 05:54 |
chords are landing.
And that's where I'm going to place my mic.
| | 05:56 |
So I'm going to do kind of a spaced pair
with a couple of SMAD ones that we've got.
| | 06:01 |
So play me kind of a lower cord.
Lowest chord you're playing on that.
| | 06:04 |
And I'm going to listen here and hold the
mic so we can hear what I'm hearing.
| | 06:07 |
(MUSIC).
Okay.
| | 06:26 |
So this spot right here, I'm hearing a
real good strong focus low end, so I'm
| | 06:31 |
going to put one of the mics right here.
Put it in just a few inches away from the
| | 06:39 |
back of the sound board.
We've got a wooden kind of cover on the
| | 06:42 |
sound board of this piano.
Sometimes you actually see some metal but
| | 06:45 |
we're going to put this at right up
close.
| | 06:48 |
We got a strong focus low part of what
he's playing on the piano today.
| | 06:53 |
Get this other mic ready here.
Alright, so let's listen.
| | 06:58 |
Play me like a chord, not the top end of
everything you're playing, but kind of
| | 07:00 |
the higher mids of what is in this song
here.
| | 07:03 |
(MUSIC).
So right here I'm getting a pretty
| | 07:27 |
focused like middle of those chords.
Like a real nice voicing of it.
| | 07:32 |
What, what's happening here is the, the
strings in the piano kind of come, come
| | 07:35 |
down like this and this.
They cross each other, and so we're just
| | 07:40 |
looking for a place where those strings
are kind of voicing out against the sound
| | 07:43 |
board and working well.
You can kind of try to think about it
| | 07:46 |
like I'm watching, I see the strings, but
a lot of times the sound actually shows
| | 07:50 |
up in a little slightly different spot
that you'd expect.
| | 07:53 |
Let's put this mic in place here.
It's really good to use your ears for
| | 07:57 |
this kind of thing.
Same with acoustic guitars or stuff like that.
| | 08:03 |
Anything that's making sound acoustically
in the room, you gotta listen.
| | 08:07 |
So great, let me get this in place.
So Todd, play us that, that figure again.
| | 08:12 |
(MUSIC).
Cool, thanks Todd.
| | 08:40 |
So always make sure to keep those mics
the same distance from the back of the
| | 08:44 |
soundboard as well, that'll help with
phase issues.
| | 08:47 |
As they're a spaced pair and there's
obstructions here and things between
| | 08:50 |
them, it can sound a little odd, so check
the phase relationships and give a listen
| | 08:55 |
and see what's working.
Sometimes this position sounds a little
| | 08:59 |
dark, too.
It, it's a little more muted because
| | 09:01 |
you're coming off the back of the sound
board.
| | 09:03 |
So, you want to keep that in mind as
well, for what you're working on.
| | 09:07 |
Now let's go over here real quick.
We've got some room mics set up.
| | 09:11 |
Now, I love putting room mics on the
piano.
| | 09:14 |
You can add 'em into the mics that you
just recorded to have a sense of ambiance
| | 09:18 |
and bring out a little space around the
piano.
| | 09:21 |
Especially if you're recording a solo
piano piece.
| | 09:24 |
It really can help bring out more
tonality and more sense of depth.
| | 09:28 |
It also can sound great if you just hear
this pair by themselves.
| | 09:32 |
And, and just hear like a smoky piano
across a bar kind of sound like hazy in
| | 09:37 |
the distance.
Sometimes that's just a beautiful sound,
| | 09:39 |
really evocative and very interesting.
We're using a Earthworks TC30Ks here.
| | 09:44 |
I use those a lot for room mikes on
different sources.
| | 09:47 |
I'll use em on guitar solos, that lend a
sense of ambiance and I've done saxophone
| | 09:51 |
solos like out in the room to get that
kind of cool vibe, as well.
| | 09:56 |
So let's hear a little bit of the piano
from across the room.
| | 09:59 |
It's going to be kind of neat just to
hear these room mics real quick.
| | 10:01 |
(MUSIC).
So we really heard like the piano in the
| | 10:22 |
room a real different kind of diffused
sound.
| | 10:25 |
You can imagine how that could be used in
a track or on an intro or an outro of a song.
| | 10:30 |
Really cool stuff.
So let's go in the control room and I
| | 10:33 |
want to show you how I use equalization
and compression while recording pianos.
| | 10:39 |
So when I'm recording piano, I actually
like to commit to the sound of it with
| | 10:42 |
equalization and compression in most
cases.
| | 10:45 |
So I'm going to show you a few of the
things that I do to help improve the
| | 10:49 |
piano tone.
Go ahead and play something, Todd.
| | 10:52 |
(MUSIC) First I'll start with the
equalizer here.
| | 10:57 |
(MUSIC).
Yeah, keep going there.
| | 11:16 |
(MUSIC).
So what I've done there, I've scooped out
| | 11:37 |
some of the low mids and just kind of
took a little bit of the mud.
| | 11:41 |
We're listening to the mics that I put on
the back side of the piano, so keep that
| | 11:45 |
in mind.
Those were a little darker so I took some
| | 11:48 |
of that muddy stuff in the low mids like.
Oh, it's around 300 hertz.
| | 11:52 |
And I added in about 5 kilohertz, 5k and
just a little boost of that.
| | 11:57 |
Just open up the top end and it gives you
a nice sound.
| | 12:00 |
You could hear I was like bypassing it.
And it would kind of switch back to the
| | 12:04 |
old sound.
And then come forward with a new cleaner,
| | 12:06 |
a little brighter sound.
So after I equalize the piano, I like to
| | 12:09 |
add a little compression.
And this kind of helps keep the notes,
| | 12:12 |
even out the notes and keep the piano
real forward in the mix.
| | 12:16 |
It works fantastic.
Go ahead and play, Todd.
| | 12:18 |
(MUSIC).
So excellent.
| | 12:42 |
What I did was I did kind of a pretty
fast attack on that.
| | 12:46 |
Grabbing the compression in pretty quick.
A really fast release to let the notes
| | 12:50 |
open back up.
And then, I added a little make up gain
| | 12:54 |
to that.
Real simple.
| | 12:56 |
Just kind of compress it enough to keep
the notes coming into focus.
| | 13:00 |
It makes the piano feel a little fuller
and holds in the mix better.
| | 13:04 |
So there you have it, recording an
upright piano.
| | 13:07 |
Might not be as hard as you thought in
the first place.
| | 13:10 |
There's a lot of options and ways to do
it.
| | 13:12 |
And don't be afraid to commit some of the
sounds and put it down to tape or into
| | 13:16 |
your DA in the way that you want to hear
it.
| | 13:18 |
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