monitoring in a garage studio

[schnozzle]

Long-winded question here:

My band's been recording on a 1/2" 8-track in our garage (the only space available to us that we can all fit in) and then bringing the tapes into a "real" studio to mix with the help of an engineer. We don't have a separate control room in our garage, and I've been using headphones (Direct Sound Extreme Isolation phones) to track.

This process is going well and I'm really pleased overall with the sounds we've gotten on tape. But--after playing tapes on the "pro" studio's monitors it's become clear to me that what I've been hearing through my phones isn't exactly the same as what's going on tape.

My biggest problem is with bass: while tracking, I could see that the tape deck was getting a nice, healthy signal on the bass track with the vu meters at around 0, but I could hardly hear the bassline through my phones at all; the same bass part played back nice and loud through the pro studio's monitors. I've also had a couple of cases where I accidentally recorded some distortion on the kick drum that I absolutely could not hear through my headphones.

For future projects we still plan on recording in our garage and mixing at another studio. I'd like to be able to hear what I'm recording with more accuracy for future projects, so I'm thinking about upgrading my headphones or buying some monitors. I'm not sure what would work best for our garage space, though: it's got a high ceiling, concrete floors, and lots of crap piled up all over the place, so it's not exactly a 'dead' space. Any suggestions (apart from telling us to track in a different space, which isn't really an option)?

[Ethan Winer]

Schnoz,

I think your best bet is to record flat and watch the record level meters carefully. If you need to hear more kick or bass do so only in the monitor section, and leave what's going to tape untouched.

--Ethan

[honkytonk]

do you have any form of isolation in the garage..or the willingness to build some sort of control room; that can help alot as far as getting sounds, working on mic placement, etc, because otherwise i assume you'll just be running to tape and then listening back for sound quality and then repeating. monitors will definitely help in getting a more "objective" idea of your sounds; just get near fields and listen to them fairly close so you aren't too affected by the acoustics of the garage.

[schnozzle]

I've thought about building a control room but it's unfortunately low on the priority list and sadly has to come after a bunch of other projects and expenses.

Again, my concern is not so much to get an absolute perfect monitoring system in our garage but just to get a little better idea of what's going on tape...so I don't drive myself insane thinking that there's no bass when in fact the deck is getting it fine.

[Red Rockets Glare]

here's a thought, are you using the 8track that you recorded on to play back the tapes in the pro studio? If not, it could be an alignment differential with the 8 track player in the "pro-studio".
Cheers,
Raymond

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I have a set-up that's very close to yours. I record in a converted garage with no control room.
Are you recording the bass direct or micing the amp?
Is the Bass bleeding into the drum mics and cancelling itself out due to phase problems?
One thing that I find helps is getting the amp up off the floor (on milk crates) point it awat from the kit and baffling/blanket it off from everything else. You'll never get it totaly isolated but it will help keep it out of the drum mics somewhat.
Record flat to tape without compression (it's too hard to get compression right in tracking without a control room).
Other than that, set up, record a bit of bass, listen to the playback, make some adjustments, and repeat untill your happy with the sound.
It took me about a year of getting used to my room/set-up to figure out how to get good bass sounds. Hang in there, you'll get it.

[schnozzle]

Folks--

I ain't talking about getting good bass sounds. I'm talking about being able to hear what I've recorded better, especially in the bass frequencies. This is purely a monitoring question.

Like I said, I just want to be able to play back my 8-track tapes and be able to hear what's on there a bit better--not perfectly, but better--before we bring them to the "pro" studio to mix. Our tracking space is large, has a lot of reflective surfaces, and would be difficult and expensive to treat acoustically.

Is there a pair of headphones out there that I should investigate that has better bass response than the ones I'm using? Should I go ahead and buy a pair of monitors and try to deal with the room's liveliness the best I can? Is there some other solution I should consider?

Raymond, in response to your question: it's not an alignment mis-match issue because I brought the same Tascam 80-8 we recorded on into the studio to do the mixing.

[chetatkinsdiet]

I've got a one room setup, for the most part. Although we can move certain things around to other rooms, we usually just record in the one room. Anyway, I built a few gobos that I can put around certain things like guitar amps, etc. That way I can at least position mics and sort of hear what's coming out of my headphones before commiting to tape.
I just basically built 4'x4' frames out of 2x4's and then filled with insulation (the pink stuff), then put up something on either side...drywall, the pegboard type material w/o the holes...really anything. I know that thicker would have been better, but I wanted to keep them fairly light so we can move them easy. I left one side with just the wood on it and put 1" foam on the other to give it a tad of absorption. This seems to work out well and didn't cost too much to build.
later,
m

[I'm Painting Again]

Its just the nature of the phones..get speakers..monitor with your ears close to them in your space..you will be fine..problem solved..

[joeysimms]

Sounds as though you could use a pair of more "hi-fi, smiley eq" phones for checking your bass level. I know that my akg 240's, being kinda flat, will sometimes give me less than what's actually there.. same with the monitors. Are you listeing through any speakers at all while in the garage? Do you have the chance to listen to pre-reorded cd's out there? How's the bass on those? It really is a sleigh-of-hand to get the bass level right.

Another option would be to send the sounds back into the house, if it's not too far away, and run it through the stereo. Couple a 50-100 ft cables ought to do it.


Tom

[schnozzle]

Ahh--okay, thanks for the advice. If anyone has any headphone/monitor suggestions for this application, I'd be happy to hear 'em.

[@?,*???&?]

Folks--

I ain't talking about getting good bass sounds. I'm talking about being able to hear what I've recorded better, especially in the bass frequencies. This is purely a monitoring question.

You're not going to hear anything below 80Hz with any kind of detail in a set of headphones. Even if you're using a stellar set of Sennheiser HD600s. The drivers are too small and too close to the ear to allow the waveform to develop. You're not going to hear those frequencies either with a set of monitors with woofers in the 6"-8" range either. I said this in a thread in the last few weeks, you jack in 14db of 30Hz when you have headphones on or listening to small monitors and probably hear about 1.5db of it- unless you've got a set of main monitors with 15" drivers to switch to and have a control room sizeable enough to allow those frequencies to unfold. Do the practical thing and ignore anything under 100Hz until you get into a 'critical' listening situation.

This is an experience level issue AND a budget issue. One leads to a compromise of the other.

There's a strong argument for working in a 'real' studio from the beginning of a project.

[I'm Painting Again]

I guess the ideal speakers would be the ones they use at the studio if thats the place you always mix..like you got the same recorder..I think anyting will do, NS-10, home stereo, whatever..as long as they are of ok quality..I hate headphones so I could not give you a good opinion on those..

[schnozzle]

There's a strong argument for working in a 'real' studio from the beginning of a project.

I absolutely agree, but as you also point out, compromises sometimes must be made--thus tracking in the garage. I'm just trying to improve things a little bit on my end.

[object88]

I agree with the previously mentioned recommendation of listening to some of your favorite records on those headphones. If you can figure out what the headphones are doing (since, presumably, you know the albums-- and specifically exactly how they sound-- by heart, and can mentally compare), you can aim yourself in the right direction.