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Recording/live Mic Thoughts?


MorrisrownSal

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Hey guys.

 

When I play out in bars, its simply pickups and SM58s for vox into either PAs or a Bose stick.

 

However this summer, I think I would like to slow it down and record more intimately. Play less - or at least less in bars. I even have a slew of original material I would like to try to record and self produce.

 

Currently I record using an iPad camera or iPad Garageband, with use of an Apogee MiC. I usually add a little reverb in GB, but that's it.

 

I have become intrigued by Buc's Edwina, and I like his recordings. In reading up on the Edwina, it might be perfect for recording at home. It has a self-described sweet spot of between 1" and 18". A Milk Carton Kids performance on ACL confirms that they are indeed aware of how to position themselves with regard to the sweetspot.

 

Is there another mic like the Edwina that might have that warm simple old sound, but might have a more generous sweet spot? Perhaps as much as 3 feet away?

 

What would you look at? I know these are expensive, so I need to do my research well.

 

I would end up recording not with the ipad, but with a Mac Laptop, and garageband. And if my buddy and I play out (not a loud bar), it would be nice to have a mic like the Edwina, where we dont have to stand so close.

 

Thanks.

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I guess the Edwina is a done deal, fine. Needful Thing (see Steve King).

 

But I have another couple of ideas for you....

 

It can be an expensive minefield, so use someone else’s gear! See if you like it. Gather clues for your own gear. It is hard to record yourself properly, even these days of wine and....etc, so ask someone to help. I had the most fun ever when I was asked to be the recording guinea pig for a friend’s new recording equipment. No easy thing to sit there and sing and play while Linus Captain Mac shows your worst back to you in a really loud mirror, down to your breaths! Talk about over-recorded - I had a forest of mics in front of me, not always on. Talk about a nervy first song! But over the months, I got over that part and the amount of work my friend did producing and editing me was staggering!

 

I learned so much.

 

 

BluesKing777.

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Thanks BK.

 

I am not set on anything.

 

I wish I had friends with equipment to use or try. Nope.

 

I plan on picking Scott Engle's brain at Russo's when I pick up my Farida from repair. They have a recording studio on top of the store, so I figure he will be a good source of information. I am pretty sure however that they have no Edwina etc., but perhaps something like it.

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There it is right in front of you!

 

Book in to their studio to do 3 songs solo guitar/vocal. Pure terror but you won’t regret it - blow the Edwina money on getting some tracks. It is a fast dying business, almost gone, so they will be pleased to do it, bet you!

 

 

BluesKing777.

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There it is right in front of you!

 

Book in to their studio to do 3 songs solo guitar/vocal. Pure terror but you won't regret it - blow the Edwina money on getting some tracks. It is a fast dying business, almost gone, so they will be pleased to do it, bet you!

 

 

BluesKing777.

 

True! But it is much less frightening and stressful to be home alone at your own pace. Playing Jim Croce or Van in front of people in a bar is one thing. Laying down your insides another...

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Ha!

 

 

Do it before the Studio For Sale goes up. It could be a wonderful experience.

 

I would do things very different if I braved doing it again. I would want mic x and someone with acoustic guitar recording experience, lots...and that is rare.

 

 

BluesKing777.

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I have found that if I truly want to lay down my insides I need to go to someone that does this recording stuff more than he or she does this playing stuff.

 

When I want to fool around and just have fun I record at home. It is a hole in the ground into which money flows, and I am consistently not happy with the results.

 

Just put down three for a demo, took the three of us plus studio kid two hours, then about two hours of me and bass player with studio kid finishing it. In my studio you would have to replace the word hours with days, possibly weeks.

 

Recording is a tough road, especially if you want it to be representative. I gave up the representative part of it a few years ago because I can't do what they can do and I don't have time/money/patience to learn it all, not when I gotta get to one more bar to play Bad Moon Rising. Again.

 

rct

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RCT mentioning ‘demos’ gave me a shudder......

 

Back in the 80s and 90s to get a gig for your band, you had to have a demo tape!

 

So only a recording studio could do this for you then, so off we troop to a little cave to get our demo recorded. Methods varied from practicing, practicing, practicing the songs over and over and over hoping to reproduce that - to the most usual method of ‘winging it’, bound to fail. Not always, but.... Freedom of expression, man - and all that.

 

Ha, ha, so you troop in with the band, all terrified, play your 3 songs at twice the speed in a different key and then you sit around in the booth for hours and hours while they dissect your guts and give you ONE cassette tape at 4am. So you all go to the drummer’s house to listen to the tape, fights ensue.....riff wrong, bass drum wrong, vocal wrong , mix wrong, who keeps the tape, etc.

 

And then you had to go to a tape copying service to get tapes to hand out to publicans so they could chuck them in their bin.

 

It all comes back! Sorry.

 

 

BluesKing7777.

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RCT mentioning ‘demos’ gave me a shudder......

 

Back in the 80s and 90s to get a gig for your band, you had to have a demo tape!

 

So only a recording studio could do this for you then, so off we troop to a little cave to get our demo recorded. Methods varied from practicing, practicing, practicing the songs over and over and over hoping to reproduce that - to the most usual method of ‘winging it’, bound to fail. Not always, but.... Freedom of expression, man - and all that.

 

Ha, ha, so you troop in with the band, all terrified, play your 3 songs at twice the speed in a different key and then you sit around in the booth for hours and hours while they dissect your guts and give you ONE cassette tape at 4am. So you all go to the drummer’s house to listen to the tape, fights ensue.....riff wrong, bass drum wrong, vocal wrong , mix wrong, who keeps the tape, etc.

 

And then you had to go to a tape copying service to get tapes to hand out to publicans so they could chuck them in their bin.

 

It all comes back! Sorry.

 

 

BluesKing7777.

 

 

And then, sell ten THOUSAND of those out of the trunk of your car to show you are advance worthy. Sell ten THOUSAND? If I could do that I wouldn't be looking for a record deal.

 

rct

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And then, sell ten THOUSAND of those out of the trunk of your car to show you are advance worthy. Sell ten THOUSAND? If I could do that I wouldn't be looking for a record deal.

 

rct

 

 

Especially if you couldn’t even give away 20 for free!

 

It kept everyone busy.

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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This recording business is something I have given a lot of thought, and hours of hands on time, trying to figure out in the past six months or so.

 

I wanted the best recorded versions of the handful of songs I have written that I could possibly muster. So I even had a discussion with a local guy with a studio for a while, but I eventually gave up on that idea. This was mainly because I realized I'm not a good enough singer, and it would cost me too much studio time and money before I was happy with the end results.

 

So my plan B was instead to do the best home recordings I could possibly do on my own, within a reasonable gear budget. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to stay in Garageband on my iPad. I don't have a PC to dedicate for this, buying a new one for this one application was not an option. So what good priced gear could I find for an iPad? I decided on a used Apogee One soundcard, and a Aston Origin mic as a good compromise between price and performance. The simplicity of Garageband and the iPad is tremendously valuable to me. I want to sing, play, and record, without too much technical interference.

 

This simple gear is good enough for me. There is a lot of room to grow, and it is very, very simple to use with a minimum of knobs to adjust.

 

You are such a good player/singer that your reasoning might be different from mine. However, I'm really glad to hear about your plans for more advanced home recordings and original songs. I can see a lot of great forum threads coming our way! I have said it many, many times around here. There are so many great performers, both with cover songs and original material, that owe it to themselves to record their stuff in the best quality possible. You are one of these people. My thinking is that my basic and humble songs are important to me. Maybe one day they could be important to others as well, not based on quality alone, but because these recordings show a little bit of what makes me tic. I bet your loved ones would like to have a document of you sounding your best too.

 

Lars

 

By the way, recording my songs turned out to be frustrating, now that I just finished after about six months. I learned a lot and can now do the first song better than before. A good sign of course, but the circle never ends. Start over again with the first song, or just live with what I have?? Don't know.. [biggrin]

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Buy a Neumann sal

Buy once cry once

 

I make it a point not to listen to a microphone that I can't afford. My Rode NT1A and matched-pair M5's sound great. I know for a fact that a Neumann TLM103 or KM184s will make my NT1A and M5's sound like webcam mics, but I won't be MAS'ing (Microphone Aquisition Syndrome) for them if I refrain from testing them. Neumann's also come with exquisite wooden boxes where you can store your cut-up credit cards. ;) If you can afford one, Neumanns are, quite simply, top of the heap.

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Sal

 

I am not sure where you plan to go with this..

 

After dragging my feet, using an outdated Roland VS880EX I finally set up a pro tools (Windows) laptop with my son's help (he is a master at this)

 

After I got the knack, it's probably the best thing I've ever done for having a decent / easy way to record.

 

to date, I've only used the mics I've had on hand, nothing special really. Most of the time, the guitar is direct, fronted only with a small amount of EQ and a compressor.

 

Endless tracks, for layering, massive editing capabilities, and some of the very basic plugs for reverb, delay, are more than suitable.

 

Most of the recent stuff I've shared here has been done with this setup.

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I'm a huge fan of letting pro's do their stuff.

 

Back in 1998 when DOUBLE AUGHT went into a "real" studio to do our debut project, we tossed around the idea of putting that 10K into recording equipment, as we happened to have a member with a double wide all to himself after a divorce. It was in a secluded location and a perfect place for putting it together (ala Skynyrds "Hellhouse"), but it would have never been done correctly because even with proper equipment, we still lacked the experience with it and the process.

 

The assistant engineer was about our age and had our same taste (at the time, it was a Classic/Southern Rock feel) and had done MANY other similar projects. It was old hat to him, all the pressure fell on US to do OUR job. He had his covered. Granted, we had to deal with a drummer and several (3) female background singers (for one of Owen's songs) but it fell together pretty well for an all original first time project for a bunch of lunatics who simply had a hot local Band. He would be running around moving mic positions, suggesting different mics for different things and such.

 

Having said that, if I had the space and the available funds (daughter starting college this year, so that's out for a LONG time) I would invest in more and better home recording equipment in a heartbeat. I continue to write, love to write and literally NEED to write. I should apologize for putting original songs and hack recordings in this Forum after reading some of the post in the last few days.

 

Best of luck in whatever you decide, my friend. You are a true talent regardless of what any grouchy old bestard might think of any of us. There are MANY very successful singer/player/songwriters on record labels with no where near your skill level and you know I am right.

 

I look forward to hearing your work.

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I'm a huge fan of letting pro's do their stuff.

 

Back in 1998 when DOUBLE AUGHT went into a "real" studio to do our debut project, we tossed around the idea of putting that 10K into recording equipment, as we happened to have a member with a double wide all to himself after a divorce. It was in a secluded location and a perfect place for putting it together (ala Skynyrds "Hellhouse"), but it would have never been done correctly because even with proper equipment, we still lacked the experience with it and the process.

 

The assistant engineer was about our age and had our same taste (at the time, it was a Classic/Southern Rock feel) and had done MANY other similar projects. It was old hat to him, all the pressure fell on US to do OUR job. He had his covered. Granted, we had to deal with a drummer and several (3) female background singers (for one of Owen's songs) but it fell together pretty well for an all original first time project for a bunch of lunatics who simply had a hot local Band. He would be running around moving mic positions, suggesting different mics for different things and such.

 

Having said that, if I had the space and the available funds (daughter starting college this year, so that's out for a LONG time) I would invest in more and better home recording equipment in a heartbeat. I continue to write, love to write and literally NEED to write. I should apologize for putting original songs and hack recordings in this Forum after reading some of the post in the last few days.

 

Best of luck in whatever you decide, my friend. You are a true talent regardless of what any grouchy old bestard might think of any of us. There are MANY very successful singer/player/songwriters on record labels with no where near your skill level and you know I am right.

 

I look forward to hearing your work.

 

you're dead on Murph. Both with your last statement about abilities performance levels, and the Recording your own stuff, as a DIY process. While it all sounds romantic, it's a whole other matter to "Get it right"... My son (as I mentioned) is absolutely deadly with this stuff,, the boy's got skillz. when the band wants something done, we go there.

 

I have to hack around for days just to sort out a fade in for a track punch properly. this is what happens when you give a dinosaur some technology..

 

 

But for something to just press RECORD. and GO.. that's all I need for now, so for me it works.

 

Don't stop posting! Those who listen, listen, and they can like it or not, and they can just NOT listen. it's THAT friggen simple. why we have a dog fight going on in that other thread is beyond my point of reason. I don't come here to see who can stand on a wall pee the furthest..

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Man I love this forum. Too kind, really. One day I hope ... well it would be neat... to circle up with a whole gaggle of you and play. You all have my email, and if you are ever near NYC hit me up. Stay at my place.

Murph, I have one son in grad school in NC, another graduating Michigan and starting grad school this fall, and a daughter starting college this fall. I can’t believe I’m nearing the end of this financial disaster that is tuition. I hope they are all armed to live life and be happy with no debt.

To all vets.. I really tear up thinking about you all. God bless every one of Ye.

I am going to disappear for a tad... do some research. Wish I were younger. Wish I had a mulligan.

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