New Bluegrassy Track

[willhouk]

Hello, I would like some constructive criticism of a recording I did today. It's a bluegrass-ish song with acoustic guitar and mandolin. Just me and a friend. I recorded it with an AT 4033/4040 set up about 5 feet in front of us at the same height. Not much eq and some reverb and a limiter on the mains. We are going to be recording some other stuff this was just a rough demo to get sounds.

Anyway, any thoughts? A couple of things i can note first. 1) The singing could be much better 2) it sounds a bit harsh, maybe less high end eq? 3) This was the 4th time playing this song together and today was the first time we have ever played together.

Thanks for the listen, have a good one.

http://willhouk.bandcamp.com/track/first-time-bluegrass

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi,

The only thing I can tell you, is that if you are not sure of what you are presenting to the world...

Then it is not ready.

Cheers

[willhouk]

You're right Nick, it's not ready. We're working on arrangement right now, and I've never recorded songs like this. So I was looking for some constructive ideas on mic placement, eq, compression, things like that. I've read quite a bit on recording this type of music but this was my first shot at doing it so I thought I'd ask for some ideas.

[Nick Sevilla]

You're right Nick, it's not ready. We're working on arrangement right now, and I've never recorded songs like this. So I was looking for some constructive ideas on mic placement, eq, compression, things like that. I've read quite a bit on recording this type of music but this was my first shot at doing it so I thought I'd ask for some ideas.

Ahhh.... so that is the true question.

OK, in this case you need to tell me the following :

What the arrangement will be for the bulk of the songs. In other words which instruments will be there in every song.

What is the goal of the recording itself? Is it to simply present the music as cleanly as possible, without a lot of use of effects / etc? This means more microphones and more care in what bleed through from headphones or outside noises gets recorded.

One idea is to record everything somewhat separately.

Start with a "demo" like the one you posted, but try to do it to a metronome or rhythm of some kind. This will help immensely with the overdubs. I like to build a simple drum loop that helps the "vibe", and then erase it or record a proper rhythm section afterwards.

Then, re-record the song part by part. This I highly recommend based on the fact that the singing and playing in your demo are not up to YOUR standards. This method will allow you to re record anything you are not happy with, until it is the quality you are looking for.

CAREFUL : There is always a line, which when crossed, means you will just lose the vibe and life of the song. I try to avoid this by only allowing up to 5 complete takes of anything. If the performance is not acceptable by the fifth take, then the issue is NOT the recording, it is the artist.

And this will solve that issue:

practice practice practice!!!

Now, some "nitty gritty" technical thingies:

1.- Mic placement. place the mic, do a little test recording, LISTEN. Decide if the sound is acceptable, or proceed to move the mic a bit, do more test recording, and LISTEN. Repeat until you get the desired sound to "tape". You'd be amazed at how few engineers actually do this step. They place a mic, wire it up, press record, and then someone like me who has to mix it,has to deal with the artist saying they do not like whats on tape. This happens every time. The last time this happened to a record I mixed, there was a broken AKG414. And it sounded like Kurt Cobain's electric guitar. Except the sound source was a choir. Big problem there...

2.- EQ and compression. Since you seem new at this I say DON'T. The DAW has these in it, and you can non-destructively change that later on. You cannot undo a hardware EQ or compressor decision. So until you get the hang of what common things you need to do to your recordings, stay away from deciding as a hardware thing. It won't take long before you notice doing the same EQ or compression basic setting that you like on a guitar, etc, and THEN you can start doing EQ and compression before it gets recorded, in a permanent way.

3.- ALWAYS check your instruments / sound sources. Make SURE they sound good before you record them. Out of tune guitar? Out of tune drum head? Out of tune SINGER? unexplainable squeak from some percussion instrument?

All of this will become AMPLIFIED after it gets recorded.This is because microphones do not do any decisions as to what to record, and what to ignore. The microphone records EVERYTHING. Our brains are funny in that they seem to ignore pesky things like rattles, hums, slightly out of tune vocals, background noises. When recording you have to THINK and LISTEN like a microphone.

Cheers

[willhouk]

Thank you for your lengthy reply Nick.

The arrangements will be for acoustic guitar and mandolin. Two voices, myself and a female.

The goal of the recording is to present to music as cleanly as possible. I'd like to do live recording, with few if no overdubs. I might try recording to a metronome just in case we want to do some overdubs though. Thanks for that suggestion.

When you say "This means more microphones and more care in what bleed through from headphones or outside noises gets recorded. " what sort of arrangement are you thinking of? I have the 2 condensers I mentioned as well as a SM57/SM58/Beta 58 and a Beta 52 but that is it for mics. Do you think maybe try the condensers as room mics and the others as close mics? Maybe vice versa?

Of course your advice to "practice practice practice" is well taken. We are going to work on the arrangements a lot before I record a final version. I just wanted to set up some mics and gets sounds yesterday and I thought given the circumstances it sounded alright. But I wanted to get some thoughts on how to record it so I can think about that as we work on arrangements.

Thanks again.

[Nick Sevilla]

Hi,

when I say "more microphones" I mean, well, more microphones. More mics = more bleed. So take care in how you place them, and what is actually begin recorded.

Fo example:

That airplane you hear with your ears, but not through the headphones,because the headphones are not loud enough? Try to wait for the plane to pass.


Since it seems you want to do this "live" or almost live...

I would try playing the two instruments together first, then overdubbing the vocals, if the vocals are where the issues are, and you can do a full take with the instruments.

This way you can overdub the vocals to a "live" instrumental.

As to how many mics to use for the instruments, if done live, three should be good. One focussing on each instrument plus an OMNI for the room, or ambience.

Cheers