Great Sounds with Limited Gear?

[Rolsen]

As someone on the lower end of the learning/experience curve, I want to see how people describe their 'earlier' works that were accomplished with consumer-grade recording medium, cheap or no external pres, one or no compressor, one or two mics.... you get the picture. Can you quantify or put into words the difference in sound quality once you upgraded your mic, pre, etc? With improved technique alone, would you expect a way better result from your newbie gear if you were to go back to that?

After a year of dinking, writing, mixing, experimenting, I'm really digging the sounds I'm getting on a Korg D1200, Joe Meek 3q, Studio Project C-1 and an SM-57 (cheap stuff), but I know there's lots of room for improvement. How do you describe the results of your evolution in getting sounds from both equipment and technique? Any 'oh my god' moments in there?

[Rodgre]

I find that the older I get, and the better gear I have, the less of it I need to use to make a good sounding recording.

I guess it can go full circle. You start with a barebones system, then you convince yourself that you need a lot of stuff to make good sounds, and then you work through that to arrive at a point where you know that you can still get a great drum sound with one mic if you had to.

Roger

[French Movie Theme]

I'm sorry, a good record cannot be made with under two million dollars worth of equipment. No, I'm joking. Yes, he's right. The more time you spend the less gear you need.

[dynomike]

I think, to echo Roger, the main advantage to getting more/new gear is to play with it and learn! That said, I think having lots of good mics gives you a lot of FLEXIBILITY to try new things and get different sounds, but ultimately, it comes down to how well you know the stuff. The more stuff you have, the less likely it is that you know each piece to its limit.

A big breakthrough for me was when I bought an sm57. I'm not joking.

I had 2 LDC's before and were using them only on the kit (as overheads, duh! [smacks forehead]). When I got my sm57, I started using it on snare and using one of the ldc's on kick, or using the 57 on kick and stereo overheads... lots of options! That just made a huge difference in my drum recordings: the ability to experiment. Now that I have over 10 mics though, I totally don't have time to experiment with them all to their full potential... so make sure you are using all your mics to their max before you upgrade!

Mike

[J.B.Horns]

Today I was listenig to a long lost recording that I did for a freind of mine about 4 years ago, before I got a bunch of the stuff I have since aquired. It was recorded in my basement, before I moved into he commercial space I have now. I was saddened by the fact that I seem to have gotten worse at recording and mixing. It sounds better than anything I've done since. The saddest part is that it was just a rough mix. My hard drive crashed before we could finish mixing it. As I started to think about it, I realized that we spent a lot of time tuning the drums, changing guitars, settings on the amps and placing mics. I strongly believe that thes are important steps that are commonly skipped in the interest of saving a few hours.
Since we spent so much time getting the sounds good before recording, the rough mix actually sounded pretty dang good.

[mjau]

For me, probably the most drastic improvement I've made since my early recordings has nothing to do with the actual equipment involved, but more to do with having a little understanding of phase relationships and mic placement. That said, I'm still proud of the early stuff I was involved with...one of my alltime favorite projects I've been involved in was a friend's song for a comp album that we recorded only a few days after he bought a motu. We had no idea what we were doing - he bought a 319 a few days later so we could track acoustic guitar - and the song still stands today as a great mix, in my opinion.
I think I lost a little innocence when I began buying into the notion that only good gear could produce good sounds. When I was doing everything with 57's and 58's to my Tascam 4 track it was always fun, and I think I'm getting back to that mentality these days.
And truthfully, I don't think I'd have known what to do with something like a Distressor way back when.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

There's a low of diminishing returns on just about everything out there.

Once you hit a certain point, every $1 of sound quality costs $100.

The most important part of the chain is the one that most don't do anything about - Monitoring and the listening area.

With great monitoring, you can HEAR the limitations on your gear.

When you CAN'T hear them, they're limiting you.

Not that some really kick-ass gear doesn't give you that warm, cozy feeling inside... The improvement (depending on the gear) can be pretty dramatic...

[Slider]

The other day I found a very old Tascam 388 recording of my first band.
It has so much character.
Having limited gear can be the best thing sometimes.
We had a 421 a 57, a couple micro limiters and a micro verb.
My brother had some old crappy drums in the garage that we used.
They had paper towels taped to the heads.
They were Ruthers (sp?)
The bass was plugged directly into the 388's line input into a micro limiter with no DI.
I'll post this recording sometime.
It is so cool!!
It's funny that I remember every little detail about this recording.from 91.
Down to the guitars and amp and where the drum mics were.
The two drum mics were bussed to the same track on the way in.
I'm seriously posting an MP3 of this thing.
I'll be back.

[Rigsby]

For me it's always a learning experience and the only way i really learn something is from experience (boy was that sentence garbled). I have some really great tunes that i recorded on my eight-track about six or seven years ago and mixed on headphones, and that taught me not to mix that way. In my case i would somehow ignore anything repetitious and so that would end up being the loudest thing in the mix, largely drums, and i don't do that through monitors. Really ruined those recordings and i don't the files to redo it, but y'know, learnt something important there. When it comes to gear i'm taking my time assessing what it is i actually need next, what's best for my purposes. I still scour eBay and watch things that aren't so high on my list of priorities but delete them as soon as they go higher than a real bargain. Right now i'm really after the sound and methods that suits me rather than the highest of fi or the lowest of noise or the 'must have gear', or whatever.

[llmonty]

yeah i recently uneathed the first recording of me from high school - the first time i sat down with some ideas and said 'i am going to record them" - with 2 cheapo dynamics (the $50 denon was th 'good' one) and a sony cassette deck with 2 inputs i got a fantastic sound (1 mic on an acoustic, the other on an amp with a quadraverb on it). The only way to mix the sounds was through amp volume, mic position and the distance between me and the amp. And is sounds really great. I remember in those days, my way to upgrade the recording was by buying the expensive 'metal' cassettes . This was done in the basement of my paren'ts house at 2 in the morning. Reminded me that a good vibe/atmosphere, and performance can go a looong way. sometimes i foget that..

Fast foward to a few years ago - started recording with a laptop, sm58, art mp 'toob' pre, in my nyc apartment. - using the stock laptop card. i am very proud of what they sound like. people comment on it all the time.

then i move up and get a good soundcard, more mics, better pre's, etc. but at the same time, i have had a lot less time - i am older, day job (why i can afford any gear), bought a house, married, dog, etc. my stuff is set up in a nice sounding room, but since it is only temporary (renovation) the setting isn't the greatest. anyway, the point is - i am totally less inspired by some of my recent recordings. i want to scrap alot of them and start over.

the good news is for the first time in a while i am playing with some great musicians and working on different projects - this far it has been inspiring, and from a recording perspective is giving me exposure to recording lots of new situations/combinations. now if only i could quit my job and stop renovating my house...

oh goody, fedex just should up with my patchbay cables...

[choke3d]

yeah, the "limited-time/limited-budget" quandry has actually led me to form a new methodology about "project" recording. Most of the bands I've played with tend to go for the bigger studio-thang, which works great as a musician because I learn a lot by watching great engineers work with great gear. That said, I, too started when I was 13 with the "two cassette bounce studio", so I'm always wanting gear but don't really want to sell my child's stroller to buy another mic. ya know?
Here's my new philosophy: make a project studio that has a "sound". Think in terms of signal chains. I've got one set-up for drums, two chains for guitars, a bass di chain, and a three vocal chains. Gives me a decent amount of flexibility for variety of sounds/doubling things, and (gasp) no one piece of gear cost me more than $500. Obviously, this stuff doesn't compete with the flexibility of a "real" studio, but there is a consistency of interesting sounds, and I get asked quite often to record friends because of past output. I just go in with the caveat - "you like lo-fi, right?". I think whaen you have limited gear, the most important piece of equipment becomes yer brain. Keep coming up with new ways to combine/push what you have, and it stays interesting.

EDIT: just wanted to add - i think finding weird old pieces, or modding the hell out of cheap gear can at least push you into a different place. i've definitely passed on mixing with borrowed gear (like a far more flexible mackie, etc) because i wanted it to sound DIFFERENT.

[Slider]

Sometimes I wish I had a 388, a micro limiter and a 57 setup.
I'd work on my songs more that's for sure.
That thing was the best for getting idea's down quick.

Does anyone have web space to host this tune.

Let me know and I'll email it to you.

thanks

[waitingroom]

My best stuff was most defintely done on a boombox with a built-in mic. Record one "track" on the boombox, take that tape and put it in my stereo and put the boombox near the stereo, and record the next "track" with the stereo playing the previously recorded track. Really taught me a lot about recording levels and such. I did an altered version of this with windows sound recorder and a computer mic. I have a 5.1 surround system, so I would pile all of the speakers near the mic, making sure the mic was close enough to the source I was recording, as well as the speakers. I would sometimes put it near the subwoofer to get more bass response. With each successive "track" added, the sound got increasingly more terrible. Then I got a digital 8-track for christmas and I've sucked since.

[craigloom]

The other day I found a very old Tascam 388 recording of my first band.
It has so much character.
Having limited gear can be the best thing sometimes.
We had a 421 a 57, a couple micro limiters and a micro verb.
My brother had some old crappy drums in the garage that we used.
They had paper towels taped to the heads.
They were Ruthers (sp?)
The bass was plugged directly into the 388's line input into a micro limiter with no DI.
I'll post this recording sometime.
It is so cool!!
It's funny that I remember every little detail about this recording.from 91.
Down to the guitars and amp and where the drum mics were.
The two drum mics were bussed to the same track on the way in.
I'm seriously posting an MP3 of this thing.
I'll be back.

Funny, that's exactly what i use now, minus the limiter. I love it.
oh, and i usually mic the bass through my twin by 57 (of course).

[Slider]

Here's the 388 recording if anyone cares.
I think it's pretty cool for a couple idiots recording on a 388 in a garage for a couple hours.

http://home.comcast.net/%7Evelvetsound/ ... BEAST2.wav


It's an MP3 that is disguised as a wav file.
This free website only lets you have wav audio on them for some reason.