Please, when you read this, note, I'm not saying anyone who's
responded to these messages is wrong, there's some great people who
know infinitely more about what they're talking about than I, but I'd
like to give the view of a hobbiest.
I have a studio in my spare bedroom, it's not professional in any way,
shape or form. I'm sure if anyone who turned up and knew their stuff,
they'd probably leave on a stretcher from laughing so hard, but, the
point is, it works for me.
I have spent a fair amount of money over the last couple of years
getting the stuff I wanted. I do not know what's good or bad, but I
followed the suggestions of people on this list, and others, and got
stuff which was affordable, and good.
With this stuff, I can get the sounds I want and rely upon. They might
not be radio quality, or up to the standard of Lianne Rhymes, or
anyone like that, but they work for me.
Judging by the stuff you've written Christopher, you're in a similar
situation to myself, you're just recording for fun, and you probably
don't want to do it seriously. Even if you do, I see no reason this
stuff, with some modifications, could get you a fairly decent recorded
sound, which you could sell to people.
Below is my gear list, as far as I know it. I'm actually not sure what
my monitors are, but they're MAudio somethings, and they were were
some £300 for the pair.
I'm using Pro Tools 10, running on a MacBook Pro. It's not the latest
one, but the one before that I think. I (stupidly), brought it about a
week before the new MacBook Pro with the Thunderbalt ports came out.
Off course I use a full sized apple keyboard, and, when I've saved up
all the money for my iMac, I'll be using the Magic Trackpad too, so I
can sit of my sofa to record, instead of cluttering up space I don't
have, with another chair.
I'm using a Euphonix Artist Mix control surface, and an MBox Pro
(which I find quite unstable with Pro Tools and Mac OS X 10.7.whatever
it is).
The monitors, as I said, are MAudio something or others, not really a
clue.
I have 2 Rode NT-1A's, which I use for tracking both acoustic guitar,
and vocals.
For the rare times when I record amped electric guitars, I borrow a
pair of SM57's, which I went halves on with a friend of mine. For the
times I'm feeling lazy, and actually, I still love the sound, I use a
Vox something or other preamp, which my girlfriend and another friend
of mine brought me for my birthday.
My main guitar is a Faith acoustic, again, not sure of the model, but
it was supposed to sell for £512 or so, but I got it for about £400,
because the shop I got it from (Noise Works in Coventry, England), had
an offer on. My electric guitar is a Fender Blacktop, and I have a
Crafter (I think), fretted acoustic bass, and a Spector Electric bass,
which I've had for years, and never changed the strings on, so it's
got a lovely basy sound.
I am using an Axium 49 as my MIDI controler, but for one song, for
which I tracked the MIDI while on the road somewhere, I used an Akai
LPK24 or something, basically, a keyboard with 2 octave, bus powered.
I have no soundproofing of any kind, apart from a bed setty in my
studio (if that counts), and the house is fairly old, so it's got nice
thick walls.
I've also used an MAudio Mobile Pre, which I use to record my band
mate, who plays a Clavia NordStage 88, to save us the ball ache of
carrying the damn thing up the stairs.
I have absolutely no idea what my headphones are, but I brought them
from a PX in Germany, when I was visiting my uncle for like 130 EUR.
I could probably never achieve a totally dry sound in this room, but
luckily, I've never felt the need too. If I did want too however, I
could probably hang a quilt from the wall some how or something.
It is a very basic setup, probably costing somewhere in the region of
5 or 6 grand in total, but, as I said, this stuff has been collected
over a few years. The desc, the audio interface, my control surface
and monitors were all brought fairly recently, but the guitars I've
collected since I started playing when I was 6.
If you like, I can send you some of the stuff I've done, so you guys
who know you're doing can have a laugh at it, but my aim isn't to
become the next big star, my aim is to make and play music until the
day I die, and love every minute of it. If I make money off it in
return, more the better.
As far as setra software goes, I use AutoTune EFX from Antares to
pitch correct my vocals, as I'm not really a singer, and on the rare
occasions when I want digital harmonies, I use Harmony Engine EVo,
also from Antares EFX. I can use the latter to sort of simulate the
sound of the TC Helicon Voice Live 2 which I use live.
None of the leads are anything special, I'm using the leads which came
with the monitors, and the XLR's which came with the Rode. The rest of
the cables are bits I've cobbled together as I've gone along, there's
a Parana guitar cable which I use some times, and a bunch of standard
guitar leads, which are by no means anything special.
The only thing which I've done which I do think is quite clever, and I
would recommend for anyone, is I've partitioned my mac 3 ways.
Partition 1 has the main Studio stuff. Alls that's on there is Pro
Tools it's self, the plugins I use, and the drivers for my desc and
audio interface.
Partition 2 has the main machine, with user accounts for me and my
girlfriend, my emails, all my apps, etc. I also have Pro Tools on this
partition, and at the minute, it's almost exactly like the setup on
the Studio volume, but I use it to test stuff, before I put it on the
main studio partition, because I've found that Pro Tools becomes very
slow to load etc, if you leave crap lying around on the machine, not
sure if that's fact, but it's definitely what I've discovered.
Partition 3 has Windows on it, mainly because I use Vipmud far too
often, but as far as recording goes, I use QWS to fix all my MIDI
tracks. I record them in Pro Tools, then export them (right click the
midi track from the tracks list), and then re-import it (command
control shift I I think), and send it to the correct place.
As far as fx go, I tend to use presets a lot of the time, because I
don't really know much about affects and all that, so I only tweek
something if I'm really not happy with the sound.
There's a couple of semi clever things I do, like before I bounce, I
make sure the master's not clipping once I've given it it's fx, this
prevents Winamp's eq from compressing the hell out of it.
I don't drink anymore, so it's probably worth noting that any spare
money I have goes into buying more music gear. I wouldn't say I have
no life, but music is definitely one of the things I love most, and
now I've got my friend playing keyboards, maybe we'll even have a band
on the go.
And that's about it. I like things simple,,I'm not pro, I don't want
to be pro, I just want to enjoy myself, and it is my firm belief, that
if you don't care that your sound isn't perfect, you can get one which
you equally love with a budget. If you do want that super clean sound,
as Nick said, go to school, as everyone else says... Well, do whatever
they said really, spend money, etc.
Sorry for the rambling, but I didn't really plan this message, it's
just kind of happened LOL.
On 20/06/2012, Nick Gawronski <n...@nickgawronski.com> wrote:
Hi, One point I should also make is if at all possible anyone should go
to school to learn audio engineering as learning it from a professional
in my view is the best method and you can also meet other people who
have interests like yourself. As one of my instructors said in order to
know what sounds good and what does not sound good you have to hear what
sounds good as if you have never heard what good sounding music sounds
like then how can you create this stuff? Once you hear what good
sounding stuff is there are good methods for producing these same types
of good sounding audios but you have to listen to the music or audio in
an uncompressed format not an mp3 downloaded a raw wav or aif file. I
have done just this listened to two songs the same song one in mp3 and
the other off of the original CD and if you are listening to it yes you
can totally tell the difference. I think that learning at home is also
great but for those of us like me who want to do this for a living I
knew I had to go to school where this stuff is being tought. Nick
Gawronski
On 6/20/2012 6:24 AM, Christopher-Mark Gilland wrote:
I was about to say.
Chris.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Poppa Bear"
<heavens4r...@gmail.com>
To: <ptaccess@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2012 2:36 AM
Subject: Re: Mainstream Recording?
Chris, the tools are so numerous and vast depending on the recording
house. First off, no, most grammy recording houses do not just have a
good Mac with PT, an good control surfase and mic, most big houses
have decades worth of outboard equipment that goes back to the days of
the beetles. Compressers, lunch boxes, equalizers, limmetters,
exciters and on and on. On top of that, some recording booths run in
the 6 to 7 figurs just to construct. Then, you have ingeneers and
mastering houses that have over 100 combined years of experience in
some cases. I am hardly scraching the surfase either. Keep in mind,
todays average home recording artust does have much more ability to
get a better sound then more than a few studios did just 20 years ago
with a fraction of the investment.
Adieu
----- Original Message ----- From: "Christopher-Mark Gilland"
<clgillan...@gmail.com>
To: <ptaccess@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2012 5:48 PM
Subject: Mainstream Recording?
OK guys, I know this may sound like a dumb question, especially
coming from a almost considered newby, but I can't help but ask.
So many professionals I've talked to have told me that the industry
standard is definitely ProTools. I always hear people saying if i
turn the radio on to any Country music FM radio station now a days,
or say, top 40 station, etc. Everything that I pretty much here will
have been done strictly in ProTools. nOw, there may be paid plugins
that were used, not just the stocked ones, but then again, some times
it may! just be stocked stuff. I posed the argument question of, ok,
now hold on. Who's to say they're not using something like QBase, or
say Logic, or what not? I was given the answer of, it's possible,
but highly unlikely. MOst likely, you can bet money on 99% chance,
everything would be done in ProTools from the actual recording to the
final master/mixing. So for instance, let's just take Leann Rimes
for instance, with her You Light up my Life Inspirational songs disc,
as that's absolutely by way! far and away one a my favorite discs of
all times, that I practicly ware out darn near. LOL! Something like
that, you all really mean to tell me a recording that sounds that
good literally can be totally done in nothing more than just P T with
a good interface, microphone, and maybe control surface, with exactly
the same software that I am using? ProTools 10? That's
unbelievable! So, granted I have a $300 or so mike, and maybe a $300
or so interface. NOthing fancy. What she would probably be using, oh
God heavens alive! I'd think the surface alone! would probably be
10's of thousands of bucks, but generally, for a regular recording
artist like her or Randy Travis, Amy Grant, or Steven Curtis Chapman,
or Alan Jackson, etc. YOu know, basically, the big dogs, does anyone
know exactly down the the make and model what basically a big time
studio like that would consist of for really full grammy based
artists like that using ProTools?
Chris.
--
Take care,
Chris Norman.
<!-- chris.norm...@googlemail.com -->
