Home Recording

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Thu May 26, 2005 12:48 am

What are you guys using to do your home recording?
I am trying to build my system for straight home recording. I will be moving to an imac for internet usage.

Here are the sound cards that I am looking at

M-Audio Delta 66
Emu 1212M

I am also wanting to know what you guys might be using for drums? Right now seeing that we do not have a drummer we will be programming drums via software/MIDI. I am trying to figure out the best way to go about this so my drum tracks do not sound like a freaking crap drum machine.

Software for multitrack I have covered, as well as effects, and masterng software. I still would like to know what you guys use though.

Thanks,

Bjorn

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Thu May 26, 2005 2:39 am

I use an old Echo Gina card, and Sonar software for multitracking. I have a couple decent mic pres and a few nice mics. You can really do alot with a little. For drums, I highly recommend Drumkit From Hell. It is a sample CD of actual drum hits, sampled at different velocities, that you can load into about any sequencer. It also comes with "room" mic samples of all the drums as well, so you can blend them for a great live drum sound. These were recorded in a nice professional studio with good mics, and the drummer who played the samples was the guy from Meshuggah. If you can afford it and have the space on your hard drive, they have Drumkit From Hell Superior now as well. It's like 35 gigs of sampled drums from a ton of different kits, percussion, and a brush kit as well I believe. It comes with its own proprietary sequencer to handle all the info, as you can control everything from room sounds to mic bleed between the different drum mics. It sounds pretty incredible.

www.toontrack.com

Go there and check out info on both. They have several demos there as well. I only have the first one, but if you know how to program drums, you can get some super realistic sounds. I've even fooled real drummers with some of my stuff.

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Thu May 26, 2005 7:51 pm

Yeah I was given a copy of DFH. Pretty amazing. As for Software I use Nuendo 1.0(need a serious upgrade), I have all of the Native Instruments VST packages, as well as shitloads of other effects.
Ive heard pretty decent things about Sonar as well as Logic. I have a copy of Logic Platinum but need to switch OS's to get that up and running.

Mic's I own a few SM57's and will be buying mics as needed for application specific purposes as they arrise.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:03 pm

Mic's I own a few SM57's and will be buying mics as needed for application specific purposes as they arrise.

Or you could just suck down some CPU cycles with the Antares Mic Modeler plug-in........

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Thu May 26, 2005 8:10 pm

True, but modelers can't imitate the physical environment that a mic is going through at any specific given time. Ill give it a shot though and see what happens.

Flames1950 · Post by **Flames1950** » Thu May 26, 2005 11:04 pm

Necrovore wrote:True, but modelers can't imitate the physical environment that a mic is going through at any specific given time. Ill give it a shot though and see what happens.

Actually somewhere my buddy had a room modeller to go with the mic modeller, but I don't recall if I got that one or not. I've got a crapload of plug-ins that he gave me about five years ago that I still haven't sorted through.......
As I recall you could set up the room dimensions as well as odd angled walls, etc. -- that wasn't HyperPrism was it?

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Thu May 26, 2005 11:09 pm

No clue. I was talking about climate effects to mics. I'm probably being overtly anal but I seriously think that the effects of climate changes effect all aspects of recording. It sure does dealing with regular instruments/amps so why not on mics/recorders as well? If you are playing on a warm/hot humid day the tone will be changed a slight degree as opposed to a warm/hot dry day etc...

Granted you will see pretty much a similar effect using a mic modeler because you will experience the climatic changes using a specific mic then modeling it, but the effect will not be the same as if you were using the mic you are modeling itself.

Zoso · Post by **Zoso** » Fri May 27, 2005 2:39 am

Necrovore wrote:No clue. I was talking about climate effects to mics. I'm probably being overtly anal but I seriously think that the effects of climate changes effect all aspects of recording. It sure does dealing with regular instruments/amps so why not on mics/recorders as well? If you are playing on a warm/hot humid day the tone will be changed a slight degree as opposed to a warm/hot dry day etc...

Granted you will see pretty much a similar effect using a mic modeler because you will experience the climatic changes using a specific mic then modeling it, but the effect will not be the same as if you were using the mic you are modeling itself.

That is VERY true for mics, as the high end ones are probably more susceptible to stuff like that than even guitars. Which is why most nice pro studios have a very high end climate control system. Me, I'm still working on getting a decent reflection controlled listening environment.

But you gots to work with what you gots to work with.

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Fri May 27, 2005 10:27 am

Necrovore wrote:What are you guys using to do your home recording?
I am trying to build my system for straight home recording. I will be moving to an imac for internet usage.

Here are the sound cards that I am looking at

M-Audio Delta 66
Emu 1212M

Thanks,
Bjorn

For the money to upgrade to one of those sound cards, you might want to consider one of those mixers that has a built in Hard Drive, USB, and cd burner. I'm not a fan of going from the mixer
to to a sound card, even an M-Audio. There's allways some cracking poping or ground issues.
But if you already have it on the Mixer's built in 40gb Hard drive, then you can transfer the wav file to your muliti-track program with USB, or just burn the track(s) to CD and import it into your program, or any computer. I think the quality would be better as well with this set up. Less noise for sure.
My .02

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Fri May 27, 2005 8:57 pm

Thanks for the suggestion MightyMike. I actually like recording guitars and vocals to tape first (high end Sony Cassette deck) then transporting them to the computer. Tape is so much sweeter sounding even if you are using some sort of Analog modeler like T-Racks.

JasonC · Post by **JasonC** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:21 pm

I've been thinking alot lately about a home project studio, and my wife thinks it would be a great idea to get my pile of guitar gear out of the living room. It would be dual purpose recording/rehearsal space.

I've got some options... maybe 20x14 feet available in the garage, or 'the barn' - a 24x24 wooden pole building that has a concrete floor and is currently the gardening shed/woodshop/junkheap.

The barn is the most attractive option, but the best info that I can get on room design is that the room dimensions need to follow the 3,5,8 rule. What that means is that if I could use the entire 24 ft for one dimension (which I can't because I have to build the room inside the barn shell) then I would end up with a 15x24 room with 9 foot ceilings. Seems kind of tight for a rehearsal space, and I only have 9 ft of barn left for a control room and storage.

Any of you guys have any sage advice?

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 1:36 pm

mightymike wrote:
Necrovore wrote:What are you guys using to do your home recording?
I am trying to build my system for straight home recording. I will be moving to an imac for internet usage.

Here are the sound cards that I am looking at

M-Audio Delta 66
Emu 1212M

Thanks,
Bjorn
For the money to upgrade to one of those sound cards, you might want to consider one of those mixers that has a built in Hard Drive, USB, and cd burner. I'm not a fan of going from the mixer
to to a sound card, even an M-Audio. There's allways some cracking poping or ground issues.
But if you already have it on the Mixer's built in 40gb Hard drive, then you can transfer the wav file to your muliti-track program with USB, or just burn the track(s) to CD and import it into your program, or any computer. I think the quality would be better as well with this set up. Less noise for sure.
My .02

Firewire works great. Especially for file storage. Its still doesnt beat internal mac drives or SCSI but its decent compared to USB. The better quality AD/IO boxes use firewire. I dont know if they do compete with the dedicated AD/IO cards but I think they are considered close or 'there'. Even after you record to tape its probably the most efficient and overall cheapest way to save a music file into your PC or mac. Many have built in digital mixers, preamps, power, AD and audio routing all in one for a price that, though steep, is still better then getting multiple dedicated units and probably is on par with that stuff in the same price range. I want to get something like that soon myself. Even putting a firewire card in your PC or mac is cheap as hell for one or two ports.

Necrovore · Post by **Necrovore** » Fri Jun 03, 2005 10:54 pm

I have decided on the EMU 1212M. It has the right amount of I/O that I need right now, plus it has Firewire capabilities thus its expandable.

mightymike · Post by **mightymike** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 7:55 am

Billy Batz wrote: I dont know if they do compete with the dedicated AD/IO cards but I think they are considered close or 'there'..

I thought they were "there" or better, but I could be mistaken. (I forgot to mention firewire too.) I'm a little biased because, I'm trying to get away from the whole "having the computer on when recording with a tube amp thing", because I hate the Noise and defference in potential problems. Especially when a monitor is on, while using single coils. (I have to turn away to silence it.) That's been my experience using sound cards, no matter how nice. The comp and monitor use a lot of juice, and so does the tube amp. In a small room setup, that can cause a lot of interference.

I'm kind of at the research stage on these hard drive mixers. I see them in Musician Enemy magazine (great bathroom reading), and at the Music stores, but I haven't tried one yet. If they can record a high quality wav file using a built in Multitrack, that I could then just transfer Via Fire Wire or USB to my comp later, then import it into Producer, I would be happy, as long as the quality was high.
I would eliminate a lot of noise that way.. Hell if the the internal Multitrack program is good enough, I might not even need to use the comp. Just burn right to the cd. That way the Guitar amp, Comp, and monitor aren't on at the same time while recording. I think it would be great for live recording many tracks.

Simplicity while maintaining quality, while using less things that can interfere, being the goal.

Billy Batz · Post by **Billy Batz** » Sat Jun 04, 2005 4:44 pm

Im not even familiar with the mixers and router with multitracking capabilities. Im mostly refering to what is a- mixer, preamp, AD converter, Firewire I/O, phantom power, router, etc.. but no tracking. That would be in the PC or Mac on your software. Thats how the Digi002 mixer works. If I had over $2k for something like that Id get it. The line tascam has out is much more realistic for most of us herelike the 1884 and 1082 or 1804.

Monitors are the worst for noise. The only thing I can think in your case is that they make footswitches that will connect somehow and work with your DAW that you can use to start and stop recording so you can do it from the other side of the room. Their very common but you dont really see them in rags and articles.

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