Slightly unusual technique - blindly listen to the results?

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 6:52 am

I posted this in Recording Techniques because the way I recorded it was a bit abnormal. I'm not going to explain it so as to maybe keep opinions a little unbiased (though if you want to find that out feel free to find that thread). But here I'm asking about what people are hearing as far as the recording itself, not about the recording technique I used, so hopefully it's okay to post the song here.

http://jessegimbel.com/illinois.mp3

Do you hear phase issues? If so, is it noticeable enough to scrap the track? This is for my album so I don't want to compromise the sound, but I feel like it's a half-decent performance (yes? no?) and it was a lot of work to run everything up to my kitchen where I recorded it, haha. I feel like I hear minor phase things in the second half of the song, but I'm either not totally sure if I'm really hearing that, or if I am, I'm not sure it's bothersome. Thoughts?

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:33 am

it does feel a teeny bit comb-y, but it all depends on what else is going on the track. could sit really well with a full band arrangement. if it's just supposed to be acoustic and vocals, the guitar's is probably a little too distant and wide for my tastes.

my guess: you used the oven as a chamber?

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:41 am

Unfortunately no there isn't going to be anything else added to it. Bah. And nope, no oven chamber! It was actually recorded in my kitchen which just happens to be that live-sounding (hence why I brought half my equipment upstairs instead of doing it down here in my almost too dead space) but no, that's not the odd technique. I can bring down the room mic, which I don't think would be a bad thing to do at all. Still playing with that. I'm so used to having pretty dead sounding room mics that it's probably a little overkill here. However the room mic isn't what's causing the combing, as I've found by muting around. It's guitar and vocals recorded at the same time, but interestingly there doesn't seem to be any combing whatsoever in the vocals, just the guitar.

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:19 am

word... it is a good keeper performance. a little "sterile" as a recording though, ya know?

the biggest thing i've learned in the past couple years is that i used to use way too few effects and though my recordings sounded ok, they sounded like live radio performances instead of "records." really don't mean to shit on anything, just passing on what i think is helpful info.

we need to get a philly beer night going again.... i'm going to talk to jeff!

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:19 pm

Hm I hadn't thought it sounded sterile at all, but now listening back to it I could definitely see it sounding like a radio show. Now I'm not even that set on the performance itself, since the sound is already a little compromised anyway. If it was an immaculate/awesome performance but had these sound issues I might be a little more inclined to keep it. I'm half set on re-doing it just because of the combing thing, but I guess I'll have to think of how to stop that sterility. I've always felt that I was pretty good at getting sounds that weren't too sterile, so the techniques I use must not be working here. What would you suggest? You think it's just a driving kind of thing? One of the preamps I use and love is a VTB-1, which tends to get rid of that sterility pretty well. That was on vocals. Maybe I'll have to run some things through pedals or amps or something..hm..

And hell yeah we need to get a philly night going! I'm actually headed to Jeff's in a minute, he's being ridiculously generous and helpful in doing some mic shootouts to see what mic I'm going to be getting my hands on. I'm down!

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:57 pm

by sterile, i dont mean the sounds are bad at all, just.... plain.

the tiniest touch of a dirty reverb (maybe sent through a fender amp?) would add so much dimension to the vocal. doesn't even have to sound "treated" or like you're going for anything "spacey" but i guarantee your favorite spare acoustic singer/songwriter tracks utilize a few more tricks than you'd think.

started a thread about the philly hang!

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 6:27 am

I believe I'll be re-recording the track today. I'm going to change the mic setup a bit so I don't have the phase issues, and I might drive the pre's a little harder. If still needs it I'll definitely try running out through an amp. Would you suggest going out with the track as a whole? Or just sending out the mostly-vocal track? Obviously it depends on how the recording sounds and personal opinion, so I guess I'm asking yours!

I just got an SM7, so I'm thinking of trying that on vocals, so it might reject a little more guitar than the Oktava I was using. It's going to be another mic-testy day!

thethingwiththestuff · Post by **thethingwiththestuff** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:04 am

What kind of pres are you using? I wouldn't try to drive them real hard unless they're good ones that actually break up pleasantly. Personally, I'd just try a parallel compressed acoustic track and a little reamping of the vocal.

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:27 am

I've got a Studio Projects VTB-1 that breaks up pretty nicely. When cranked it gets really distorted so obviously that's too much, but it sounds pretty nice when pushed a bit. Not a high end pre but it has a really nice sound to it. Definitely tends to make things sound more realistic than hifi. I've also got a dual API clone, so I'll have something going through that as well. Plus the pre's on the Firestudio Project, which sound pretty nice too, though not as nice as the API clone. I guess pushing things hard isn't the best method here, I just totally agree about things sounding a bit too sterile and want to get away from that. Since I'm doing the vocals and guitar at the same time the vocal and guitar tracks will not be completely separate. I used to try to do that but it just makes so much more sense to put up mics close micing and embracing the bleed rather than trying to stop it. Just that has to be taken into account with sending the vocal track out for example since it'll have some guitar in it. But I don't have a ton of experience with the SM7 yet, it just came two days ago, so maybe there will be so little bleed that it won't even be an issue. Thanks for the suggestion!

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 4:37 pm

Recorded a new version today, I'm much happier with my performance at least:
http://jessegimbel.com/illinois%20redone.mp3

I'll edit with what did differently when I'm back from dinner.

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:48 pm

Alright so today's version definitely has a different sound I think. The main thing is my micing.

Last time (I'll give it away now since I'm definitely not using that version), I tried a coincident trio. How I arrived at this is that I've done guitar and vocals at the same time before by basically putting an XY pair halfway between my mouth and the guitar, but vertical, so the capsules were close but one mic was aimed up toward the singing with the other down toward the guitar. It works pretty well as long as the mics you're using have the sounds you want, because the bleed is a huge part of the sound and it's hard to make changes to it afterward. Recently I did a guitar review video, and I used a regular XY pair on this guitar, and I thought it sounded great, better than I was expecting it to. So I mixed these for the first version of this song - an XY pair on guitar, with that pair angled about 90 degrees from another mic above it, as if the guitar's XY pair was one mic in the other pair, and the vocal mic was the other mic in it. Am I explaining that clearly? Then I used a 635a as a room mic. So in short, the mics were too big to get close enough to avoid the phase trouble. It was an AT3035 and MXL4000 on the guitar pair, paired with an Oktava MK319 toward vocals. All of them are kind of chunky mics, so that's where the issue lied. Maybe I'll try it again sometime with mics that can be a bit closer together.

So instead of the weird phase-messing way I used before, I basically just close miced my voice and the guitar, plus room mics. I thought this might make phase issues between the vocal and guitar mics since they weren't very far from eachother, but it didn't seem to make any issues. I had the guitar mic - the AT3035 - aimed a little lower so it didn't pick up much vocals. The vocal mic, my new SM7, has GREAT rejection. There is barely any guitar in that part, which is really useful. Then, since these two mics were just panned center since they're the focus, I went with stereo room mics (for the first time), a pair of MXL603Ss, rather than mono. I figured by doing this I could use the room mics lower in the mix but still have the interest of the room sound - in the last one the room mic fought a lot with the center mics so I had to turn it up higher, no go. And there we go. I'm pretty happy with it I think, especially the vocal sound. I'm kind of flabbergasted by how nice the SM7 is though so maybe I'll feel differently as I listen more. But I think the performance is a little cleaner without being overly perfected. I might have to pull a little more bass out of the guitar though.

Sorry for geeking out here!

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 7:41 pm

Sorry to make this thread just me talking to myself, but I made some changes to the mix and added a guitar and chord organ part to the bridge, and I'm much more happy with it. This song (Illinois) has an instrumental song that comes before it and leads right into it. If anyone wants to hear them together with no break:
http://jessegimbel.com/illinois%20with%20interlude3.mp3

It's seven and a half minutes long, but it's two songs! On the album it'll be chopped so they'll be separate tracks, but go one right into the other.

vivalastblues · Post by **vivalastblues** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:24 pm

you should put some lead guitar on there, would sound good i think

jgimbel · Post by **jgimbel** » Mon Mar 22, 2010 5:29 am

lost blues wrote:you should put some lead guitar on there, would sound good i think

You think so? This is one of those songs that's empty enough that it's fun to just sit there and play things on top of, but I tend to try to resist that temptation since one could add a million parts to any song. At the same time this one (especially the first part, I think I'd like to leave Illinois alone, it's got the lead part in the bridge) seems like it could be one that just has a million layers but could have space for them since it's such a simple song. Hmm..

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Slightly unusual technique - blindly listen to the results?

Slightly unusual technique - blindly listen to the results?

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