Tracking Unusual Instruments

Recording Techniques, People Skills, Gear, Recording Spaces, Computers, and DIY

Moderators: drumsound, tomb

drumsound
zen recordist
Posts: 7474
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
Location: Bloomington IL
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by drumsound » Sun Dec 16, 2018 11:00 am

vvv wrote:
Sun Dec 16, 2018 5:22 am
In the latest George Pelecanos book, The Man Who Came Uptown, "tree" is the characters' slang for that what they smoke to get high.

Didja actually get anything audibly usable? (As opposed to, say, psychologically or motivationally usable ...)
losthighway wrote:
Sun Dec 16, 2018 7:05 am

I love this story. Did the tree produce anything audible?

Also, what if you cranked the gain and detected something subharmonic resembling speech coming from the tree? Who man, whoa...
It was a beautiful breezy spring night. We got great fluttery leave sounds.

I did not do a sub-harmonic check for speech, but I don't think the 635a captures much below 50hz anyway...

drumsound
zen recordist
Posts: 7474
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
Location: Bloomington IL
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by drumsound » Sun Dec 16, 2018 11:08 am

Dave,

I forgot to mention, I once got to do chimes as well. They do add an epic quality.

I'm trying to remember how I miced them. I played the song for clients recently, and they thought it was marvelous. I had vibes, bells and chimes (in addition to normal band instruments and vocals).

User avatar
ubertar
ears didn't survive the freeze
Posts: 3775
Joined: Wed Feb 18, 2004 7:20 pm
Location: mid-Atlantic US
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by ubertar » Sun Dec 16, 2018 12:53 pm

Pretty much everything I do falls in this category...

Dubmaniac
gettin' sounds
Posts: 121
Joined: Fri Jan 05, 2007 8:08 pm
Location: Denver

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by Dubmaniac » Tue Dec 18, 2018 7:32 pm

My most unusual instrument I've tracked was a set of ankle bells on an teenage girl during her graduation performance from classical Indian dance school. I used a couple of PZMs on the stage. If I could do it again, I'd tape a wireless lavalier to her leg and EQ out a lot of the high end that lavaliers tend to have in abundance. Oh, and there was an Indian group performing as well, with the usual tablas, sitars, etc. This was so long ago that I tracked it live to 2 track cassette!

More recently, I recorded an album for a Brazilian singer/songwriter. The first track featured acoustic guitar, drums and bass, but also featured a small hand drum and a giant drum called the Surdo. It sounded like an acoustic 808 kick drum! Eduardo told me that Surdo in Portugese means deaf.
"Stare with your ears"- Ken Nordine

MathewRes
audio school
Posts: 4
Joined: Sun Dec 30, 2018 6:34 pm
Location: US
Contact:

Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by MathewRes » Fri Jan 18, 2019 6:57 pm

Had to laugh a little at the drummer but GM always talks sense, plus its all about getting the right sound out of the instruments. I dont think he even mentioned EQ or fixing anything later apart from the vocals?

User avatar
digitaldrummer
ghost haunting audio students
Posts: 3476
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 9:51 pm
Location: Austin, Texas
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by digitaldrummer » Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:52 am

one of the "noise" bands i recorded had a large garage door spring mounted on a piece of 2x4. there was a guitar pickup attached to it as well but it had gotten damaged and we didn't get any output... so I had to mic it. I honestly don't remember what I used, but I think I put a pair of condensers of some kind on it. The spring was under a little tension and would get scraped with other metal things... spooky stuff.

Another time a guitar player had a little toy electric drill (Playskool I think...) he would hold near the guitar pickups. just had a mic on the amp, but the sound sure was interesting...

And once a guitar player had some kind of old tube/tape delay. At the end of a song we noticed it was picking up some local AM Mexican radio station so we kept it rolling and that was the fade out for that song...

Mike
Mike
www.studiodrumtracks.com -- Drum tracks starting at $50!
www.doubledogrecording.com

drumsound
zen recordist
Posts: 7474
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
Location: Bloomington IL
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by drumsound » Sat Jan 19, 2019 1:49 pm

digitaldrummer wrote:
Sat Jan 19, 2019 9:52 am
And once a guitar player had some kind of old tube/tape delay. At the end of a song we noticed it was picking up some local AM Mexican radio station so we kept it rolling and that was the fade out for that song...

Mike
I love embracing things like that.

User avatar
Randy
tinnitus
Posts: 1078
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 6:54 am
Location: Minneapolis
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by Randy » Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:39 pm

Cockatiels. I used a ribbon mic (one of the Tape Op group buy mics). I never finished the project. I was going to do a fake New Age album with soothing classical guitar and rain sticks with the shrill hateful sounds of angry cockatiels. Thing is, my cockatiels would go into soothing, sweet songs when the mic was near them. I could never get them to swear like they did when they were just hanging out. I taught them to say things like "fucking fuck fuck!" and "god dammit!" When the mic was near them they would say all the sweet things like "hey, skinny!" and "buddy buddy buddy" and "rubbie?"
not to worry, just keep tracking....

User avatar
vvv
zen recordist
Posts: 10139
Joined: Tue May 13, 2003 8:08 am
Location: Chi
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by vvv » Sun Jan 27, 2019 8:59 am

"rubbie?"?
bandcamp;
blog.
I mix with olive juice.

drumsound
zen recordist
Posts: 7474
Joined: Tue Jun 01, 2004 10:30 pm
Location: Bloomington IL
Contact:

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by drumsound » Sun Jan 27, 2019 11:05 am

Randy wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:39 pm
Cockatiels. I used a ribbon mic (one of the Tape Op group buy mics). I never finished the project. I was going to do a fake New Age album with soothing classical guitar and rain sticks with the shrill hateful sounds of angry cockatiels. Thing is, my cockatiels would go into soothing, sweet songs when the mic was near them. I could never get them to swear like they did when they were just hanging out. I taught them to say things like "fucking fuck fuck!" and "god dammit!" When the mic was near them they would say all the sweet things like "hey, skinny!" and "buddy buddy buddy" and "rubbie?"
Please tell me you didn't have a mistress named Ruby. :P

MoreSpaceEcho
zen recordist
Posts: 6671
Joined: Wed May 07, 2003 11:15 am

Re: Tracking Unusual Instruments

Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Sun Jan 27, 2019 1:57 pm

Randy wrote:
Sat Jan 26, 2019 11:39 pm
I was going to do a fake New Age album with soothing classical guitar and rain sticks with the shrill hateful sounds of angry cockatiels.
:D :D :D :D :D I love this so much.

My mom has a cockatiel, ms morespace likes to flirt with him, and when he's being charming he makes these super sweet r2d2-like arpeggios of sound. However when he's in a feisty mood, "shrill" doesn't even begin to describe the horror. So much screaming 3k I can't stay in the same room with him.

Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 70 guests