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Old 02-12-2009, 07:31 PM   #361
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When recording live, there are an almost infinite number of approaches that can work. With an unlimited budget and the right gear in a commercial studio with multiple iso rooms, it is not uncommon to spend weeks just setting up. This is obviously impractical in a home studio/active band setting.

The practical variances are so huge that it is almost impossible to talk about "best practice." If you have a two-day session where stuff has to be broken down afterwards, then obviously setup has to be fast-- no spending 10 hours finding the perfect balance of bleed, phase, and sound quality. If the whole band has to fit into an 8x12 room, then there is no way that the bass is not going to end up in every mic. If you're recording in a concrete basement with 7 foot ceilings then acoustics are going to trump every other consideration, and close-miking is practically manditory. If your recording space has to be kept open and practical for other uses, then talking about "ideals" is pointless. If you have only 8 mics and four stands, then what's the point of talking about trying vocal condensers as overheads and matched ribbons as distance mics?

Having said all that, there are some basic principles that are worth talking about.

Start with the minimum number of mics and the simplest setup possible, and then add mics that you NEED, instead of starting from the perspective that you have to mic everything. And if circumstances are limiting, and recording live is important, then the fastest and easiest shortcut to good recordings is to work in mono. I'm not kidding. Mono is vastly under-rated, and has produced some of the best-sounding, most immersive and beautiful recordings ever made. And you can always pan stuff later. Unless wide-spread tom rolls and stereo cymbals are really critical to your sound (and I guarantee they're not, because they don't happen live), there is nothing wrong with just recording a drum kit mono.

The more critical it is to capture your "live" sound, the less critical it is to capture a "studio" sound. If your band sounds just right live, and that's what you need to capture, then start with your rehearsal setup and put a mic in front of the band, like an audience. There's your live sound. If it doesn't sound the way you want it to, then there is a very realistic possibility that your live sound is not actually as perfect as you're thinking it is.

But assuming the live sound is what you're after, if you need a little more kick, put a mic in front of the kick drum. and so on. But work fast, and make your decisions practical ones based on what you are hearing, not philosophical ones based on how you think things should be. Don't get caught in the trap of thinking that your live sound SHOULD BE perfect, and therefore trying to force your recording process to somehow fit into an ideal that is based on theory instead of reality.

The ultimate live recordings are orchestral or choral recordings, where a stereo pair is hung in front of a well-practiced ensemble and captures the reality of their sound. The most infuriating and headache-inducing live recordings are million-mic scenarios where you are trying to force a band to sound the way they think they SHOULD sound, instead of the way they DO sound, and trying to make a practical reality fit a philosophical ideal.

Live recording SHOULD be easier, not harder, because you're just capturing a real sound. You only have two ears, and all you need is two mics (honestly just one, 99% of the time, considering the real ways that people hear live music). Maybe a spot mic here or there to highlight something.

But in practice live recording is often more studio than studio recording. A four-piece rock combo requires more mics and processing than a 120-piece orchestra, because unlike the orchestra, the band expects the recorded sound to be vastly different from the reality of the live sound, but somehow still has it in their head that the live sound is what they are after.

It's like Japanese businessmen who order the most expensive bottle of wine on the menu and then mix it with ice and Sprite because they don't actually like the taste. They have it in their heads that high-class people of refined tastes are SUPPOSED TO have things a certain way, and when they don't actually like it that way, they want it diluted and sweetened and processed so that it tastes like something completely different, but they're proud to consider themselves connoisseurs for drinking it.
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Old 02-12-2009, 08:17 PM   #362
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Recording a live ensemble is really no different from recording a solo acoustic guitar-- you move your head around, see where it sounds good, stick a mic there, check the recorded sound, adjust the position a little, add a second mic if you want to get a little more punch or articulation or whatever, and so on.

Modern drum mic setups evolved from a single mic or pair in front of the drum kit, recording it as the front-row audience would hear it. Clever engineers would stick a supplemental mic in front of the kick and above the snare to up the hip-shaking and hand-clapping, and to simulate the high-volume impact of the backbeat onstage. Gradually, as the kick and snare mics became more central, the mics moved from in front of the kit to above it, to proportionately capture more of the cymbals. Individual mics on the toms allow for dramatic 360-degree drum rolls and eventually you end up with close mics on every kit piece.

None of this is good or bad, but in recent times it has wrapped back around to the point where there is an expectation that every single source will be captured in perfect isolation, with brilliant acoustics, and still will have the same vibe and sonic "glue" of a primitive live recording.

As a onetime professional engineer, those were exactly the projects that I wanted to work on-- they took a long time, required professional engineering, and were intrinsically high-budget. But they are like the inverse of the 80/20 rule-- 80% of the effort and budget is spent on 20% of the results.

Except the proportion is even higher, more like 98/2. Which is fine if you have the budget and the expectations. There is merit in paying a lot of money to go out for a special meal where every little thing is perfect, where the tables are covered in fresh linen, where each fork is seamlessly removed when you're done with it, where the bread basket is fresh-baked and the butter is fresh-churned and where part of the bill simply goes for sheer real estate because the nearest table is out of earshot, and so on.

But there are a lot of takeout joints that have great food. Wheat flour, fresh tomatoes, basil, garlic and mozzarella can make a pizza that rivals any seven-course dinner at the Ritz. The expensive part of a good meal is the linens and perfect crystal stemware and fresh flowers and the hour-and-a-half spent lingering over a million-dollar view beside plate glass windows and the three waiters per table and the elaborate sides and china coffee cups and all that stuff.

The ingredients of your meal might cost $10, but the experience and peripherals cost $100. And there's nothing wrong with that, if that's what you're after (I mean, there might be something "wrong" with it in a marxist or humanist sense, but it's not like the cost isn't real). And elaborate studio recordings are similarly expensive. It's not just a bedroom computer plus exorbitant markups.

The good news is that you can set up a pizza joint in your spare bedroom that can churn out takeout that rivals the food at the Ritz. The bad news is that the full-blown rock-star lavish studio experience is not fundamentally about the ingredients (although the ingredients are a very important part).

A good engineer can switch seamlessly between between elaborate, big-budget projects and quick-and-dirty small-budget projects, just as a good restaurateur can manage both budget family restaurants and white-tablecloth fine dining. The difference is fresh ingredients vs packaged sauces, the quality of the furnishings and tableware, the cost of real estate, and so on. If you know how to manage a kitchen and waitstaff, you can plug all that stuff into a spreadsheet and it's not all that different.
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Old 02-13-2009, 12:49 AM   #363
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right on yep...good to know i'm on the right track!

also get a kick out of the F&B analogies, as i was a pro chef for 15 odd yrs.
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Old 02-14-2009, 08:47 PM   #364
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Default Better vocal recordings

Probably the most frustrating and misunderstood part of the recording process is vocals. And it is certainly the most important, and least "fixable" after the fact. It's also the touchiest and most insecurity-revealing aspect of solo home recording. The studio reveals what you actually sound like, instead of what you think you sound like, or what you think you could sound like in a perfect scenario.

Vocal coaching is beyond the scope of this thread and way beyond my skill set, but far and away the biggest problem with most vocal recordings is simply that the singer isn't that good. A good singer has good intonation, a strong voice with full-bodied harmonics (what Pavarotti called "the sun in the voice") and a confident clear delivery.

Intonation-- Most amateur singers, in contrast, have iffy intonation, weak-ish voices, and hesitant, uncertain delivery. There are no frets on vocal chords. And please put any thought of auto-tuning bad vocals out of your head for now-- that's even worse on a weak singer, it just makes their off notes more precisely off. A singer, just like any other musician, should know what pitch they're trying to hit, and should land ON that pitch. Singers should practice scales just as instrumentalists do.

A little goes a long way in this regard, especially for singers who have never actually dedicated much effort to it. A week of singing along with recorded scale exercizes in the car on the way to work can work wonders for a singer who has never actually thought about pitch before, and you can bet your bottom dollar that some rudimentary vocal coaching is de rigeur for major-label acts, however punk or indie. Google for singing exercises, or simply find a scale that you can sing both the top and bottom note of, and make a CD of various scale exercises.

Voice-- A singer's "voice" is about a million times more important to the quality of a record than the guitar sound or anything else. And voice can absolutely be improved and "learned." Voice is the harmonic and tonal quality of the voice as an instrument. DO NOT YELL OR DO ANYTHING THAT HURTS YOUR THROAT. Seriously-- this doesn't sound good and it blows out your vocal chords by causing scarring that renders your voice like a tuneless old smoker's quacky squawk, NOT the full-throated harmonic roar or fire of a metal or soul singer.

And simply shouting at the top of your lungs does NOT improve your voice. It is the first resort of untrained singers who can't figure out how to get the emotional intensity they're looking for. Sing at whatever volume you're comfortable with, but don't do anything that hurts, or that you couldn't do all day. Yelling is like pounding on your piano keys with a hammer-- it doesn't sound better, it just ruins the instrument, except there's no way to re-string and re-tune vocal chords.

A quick-and-dirty shortcut to fake "voice" is to sing at whisper-level, and process the vocal through a distortion effect and a chorus or flanger. It's no substitute for good singing, but something to start with while you work on technique.

Delivery-- There is a massive catalog of mega-hits that have dumb, clumsy, awkward lyrics and vocal melodies that could have been written by a 12-year-old. If the singer really MEANS what they are singing, then it doesn't matter. It might even be an asset. But if the singer sounds hesitant, or embarrassed, or unsure, it's the kiss of death, no matter how good the material is. Mumbly is the worst sin a singer can commit. The singer has to believe what they're singing.

There is a very tiny handful of artists who have been able to build a career with a vocal delivery based on irony or snide "too smart/cool to be doing this" attitude (see Zappa, Frank). There is a vastly disproportionate number of failed artists who have tried this approach and whose commercial and artistic success does not match their talent level. If you don't really believe in what you're doing, then why should anybody else care about it?

Music is not an academic test. There are no points for proving aptitude. If we stop to consider the abject stupidity of such phenomena as Bryan Adam's "Everything I Do," or Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," or the entire genre of disco, it becomes clear that the power of popular music to move people is not based on conceptual excellence or depth, but on some kind of emotional/spiritual/psychic connection that transcends any clinical or academic quality of ideas.

Unless your goal is to create music for college professors, the vocal delivery has to mean something. What it means is almost irrelevant, but it has to be heartfelt and delivered in earnest. Not many 50-year-old men can sing, "For those about to rock-- we salute you!" and really mean it, without awkwardness or eye-rolling or winking at the audience. But the ability to sing it and MEAN IT as though your life depends on it transforms an incredibly dumb sentiment into something that inspires millions and that has made countless weekends vastly more enjoyable for innumerable people (not to mention the money).

Don't be too smart or too cool for what you're doing. The kind of cover band who is always winking or smarmy while they show the audience how much better they are then the original band is always vastly less enjoyable than the original material, and they are invariably the first to say that the music business is rigged or all about looks or whatever, because look how they can play anything and still haven't got a hit. It never occurs to them that the reason they haven't got a hit is because they treat music like a commodity, like a roll of toilet paper that they can make cheaper and more efficiently or something. They're passing all the tests and waiting for someone to give them an A and a million-dollar check instead of doing something meaningful to real people.
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Old 02-14-2009, 09:16 PM   #365
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Default Better vocal recordings part 2

I'm going to discuss vocal recording as though you're an engineer recording someone else. Partly because the following is mostly copied from advice I've given elsewhere in that vein, and partly because this is where the two processes of performing and engineering really start to diverge. So here goes, roughly in order of importance:

1.Psychological preparation

This is the most important part of getting a good vocal recording, hands down. Something about the studio makes many singers tense, pitchy, and forced-sounding. Your primary obligation as a recording engineer is to get the best possible recording, and that starts with the best possible performance. It is your job to make the singer comfortable, relaxed, and inspired. You must be at all times patient, supportive and professional. You are their employee, and should let them take the lead when it comes to the tenor of your relationship. (This does NOT mean that they should take the lead when it comes to the recording process—- just that sometimes “English butler” is the best hat to wear).

If the singer wants to be buddies (and they often do), then by all means, oblige. If the singer wants to cuss you out and blame you for their mistakes, put up with it as best you can and be appropriately apologetic and subservient. If the singer looks at you as the boss and wants direction and instruction, then by all means provide it. You get the idea.

Create an inspiring, relaxed environment for vocal takes. Don’t leave the singer feeling like they’re in the dentist’s office or a stranger’s living room; make them feel like a rock star. Keep water or soft drinks handy. If the singer prefers harder stuff, do your best to unobtrusively keep them to a low-level mellow buzz. The best and easiest way to achieve this is by working fast and keeping them busy, which is good practice all around anyway.

If the singer messes up and they know it, just be cool and tell them no sweat, that’s what we’re here for, 40 takes is typical, they’re doing great. If the singer screws up and they DON’T know it, don’t tell them they’re doing it wrong, just tell them it sounds great, they’re doing awesome, and you want to get a couple more takes while they’re hot. If they’re way off and don’t know it, tell them you have an idea and you want to try and run through some possible harmony tracks and ask if they think they could try singing it like “…”(hum the melody). Offer to send a synth part through their headphones with the idea you have in mind, and ask if they would mind singing along to it.

Remember that they’re not paying you for your opinions or feedback; they’re paying you to make them sound like rock stars. The best way to get them to sound that way is to make them feel that way.

2.Headphone Mix
This is CRUCIAL. A bad headphone mix will make your job and the singer’s exponentially harder, and bleed-through is the least of your worries.

Let’s start with most overlooked part: Volume and frequency balance. Set the volume of the headphones as low as you can before the singer complains. Turn the lows down, both in the backing parts and on the singer’s mic. Human pitch perception at low frequencies is quite poor and gets worse at higher volumes. Bass notes can easily sound a full step flat at high volume, and they are the first thing the singer will hear if the mix is loud. You want the singer’s pitch to be glomming onto the midrange, not the bass. If they ask for more low end in the headphones, be aware that more kick will almost always satisfy without screwing up their pitch perception, and that turning up the upper mids of the bass will usually make them happy if they want to hear the bass part louder.

Make sure that they can hear themselves clearly at all times. Compression and presence-range boost on their mic are pretty much required. Pitch and timing are often incidental considerations from the singer’s point of view, they want to get nuance and expressiveness and emotion, and if the upper mids are masked in their headphone mix, then they’ll start overcompensating. Focus on giving them a crisp, clear, present sound and they’ll give you their best performance.

Give them some careful reverb and/or delay or chorus effects. These will have a smoothing and a thickening effect that will make the singer feel less naked and more impressed by their own voice. If you can make it sound like they’re singing in the shower you’re golden.

3.Mic placement

I assume you’re using a directional mic to record vocals. “Generic” starting position is about 8” away from the singer, about forehead level, aimed at their nose (to avoid excessive sibilance or plosives). Use a pop filter, both to control pops and to keep the singer from swallowing the mic.

If you want to get more proximity effect and power and articulation, you can move the mic in closer and aim it more at the mouth. Hard-hitting hip-hop MCs often practically swallow the mic, and you can hear every drop of spit and tooth clicking and it sounds like they’re hollering right in your ear.

To get a more spacious, authentic sound, move the mic back a few inches. Forget about Sinatra’s mic-cradling live videos and look at the studio photos where he’s sitting arm’s length from the mic. If the singer is really essy or nasal, try moving the mic further off-axis.

4.Mic Technique

Most singing teachers don’t seem to teach this, which is unfortunate, because it’s pretty easy and pretty important in this age of amplified and recorded music. It is simply the art of moving further away from the mic when you’re loud and moving in closer when you’re quiet. If you watch rock stars in concert they do it all the time and it’s great showmanship as well as acoustically important.

If your diva has never heard of mic technique, there are two quick-and-easy ways to teach them. Method one is to have them stand sort of sideways to the mic, with their feet shoulder-width apart. Tell them to lean on their back foot when singing, and to lean on their front foot while whispering, and when they’re really wailing, to slide their front foot behind the other and lean back on that. This “three position” mic technique is usually really easy for singers to grasp and works quite well.

The other alternative that’s even easier and more rock-starish requires your singer to touch the mic stand, which can introduce handling noise, so use a shock mount and approach with caution. Have the singer hold the mic stand just under the shock mount, with their arm bent about 90 degrees. When they whisper, have them pull in close to the mic, and when they wail, have them stretch out their arm all the way. Moving the mic stand is tres rock star, but introduces more potential for handling noise. Getting the singer to move their torso is better in the studio.

One final tip about mic technique is that you have several tools at your disposal to keep the singer placed correctly, with or without their cooperation. One of my favorites is the “dummy mic,” which works wonders for singers who can’t resist the taste of mics in their mouth, or who don’t understand the concept of “off axis.” You simply set up a mic for them to chew on, swallow, spit on, whatever (a shure SM58 is a good pick) and then set up the “real” mic behind it or off-axis or whatever. Whether you tell them that’s the real mic or just an extra ambient mic is up to you.

Another useful trick to reinforce mic technique and to guard against straining is to mix in a little bit of a separate bus of the vocals to their headphone mix that is fed through some heavy compression, distortion, or even digital clipping (the “dummy mic” is a good place to get this separate feed from). This serves a similar function to grooved pavement on the side of the highway. It gives the singer an early warning when they’re about to go in the red. Sort of a subconscious cue to back in your lane.

5.Studio tricks and mixing techniques

This is not even close to a comprehensive mixing guide to vocals. But I will include a few quick tips that are relevant to think about as you record.

Motown compression (a.k.a. New York compression—don’t ask, I don’t know). This is a very useful technique for situations where you have a dynamic, expressive vocal track where you need a way to keep the musicality of the performance but also find a way to push the lyrics and the articulation out in front of the mix. You basically clone the vocal track, and apply heavy compression and presence-range eq boost (somewhere between 4-10 kHz) to the clone. Now you can treat the main vocal part like any other instrument, using reverb and dynamics and tonality and whatever, and then just dial up enough of the compressed clone to keep the articulation and clarity. Knowing about this technique can also help keep you from overcompensating as you record.

Doubling the vocal track—- having the singer sing along with him/herself can thicken up and even out a thin, uneven, weak, or subpar singing voice. This is easily overused, but on a lot of hard rock records, a combination of low cut and doubled-up tracks is what turns poor singers into powerful rock stars (think Linkin Park). Chorus or delay effects can also be employed with similar results.

The “whisper trick”: Having the singer whisper along with the vocal track in a monotone can be a quick and easy way to get a “huge vocal” sound. Again, easily overused, and most effective on weak vocalists in dense mixes.

Autotune and it’s offspring: Avoid using it indiscriminately on the “auto” setting. If you have a great performance with one or two off notes, just adjust them manually. If the whole performance sounds off-key, you need to evaluate realistically what the singer is capable of.
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Old 02-15-2009, 12:56 AM   #366
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Turn the lows down, both in the backing parts and on the singer’s mic. Human pitch perception at low frequencies is quite poor and gets worse at higher volumes. Bass notes can easily sound a full step flat at high volume, and they are the first thing the singer will hear if the mix is loud. You want the singer’s pitch to be glomming onto the midrange, not the bass. If they ask for more low end in the headphones, be aware that more kick will almost always satisfy without screwing up their pitch perception, and that turning up the upper mids of the bass will usually make them happy if they want to hear the bass part louder.
WOW! I'm learning so much here... it's pure gold.
The stuff you talk about reminds me alot of reading Mixing with your mind...
Thank you!

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Old 02-15-2009, 01:04 AM   #367
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New yep PDF is up!

http://www.filesavr.com/whydoyourrec...14-09thread365

Enjoy!
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Old 02-15-2009, 04:33 AM   #368
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I don't want to put you off your stride yep but if you have chance could you say something about editing vocal performances for breath sounds?

I find myself conflicted between wanting to excise everything unnecessary to the lyrics and melody and at the same time wanting to retain some of the emotional resonance and naturalness that a little breathing noise can give.

Obviously you have got to cut your cloth to suit the track (to mix my metaphor for a moment) and a quick listen reveals that Son of a Preacher Man has more breath noise than for example Addicted I guess for obvious (ahem) thematic reasons.

But are there any first principles that hobbyists like me should be aware of?
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Old 02-15-2009, 04:25 PM   #369
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Thanks Yep, great stuff. I'm still only on page 5 but in your honor I figured I'd start right at the beginning of my chain and re soldered the connections inside my strat and set it up fresh. Made a huge difference
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Old 02-16-2009, 02:25 AM   #370
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Yes! And its still going on, but now evolving in the digital domain...

This is NOT my game. I am happy with my digital stuff Not a single "real" tube anymore in my studio... I do not miss my Hiwatt nor the Marshall. I call this my 21st century guitar sound
Ack. I'm with the thread for the most part, enjoying all of what I consider sound wisdom and judgment, however, no matter the technical advances and extreme convenience of the digital domain in terms of getting analog to digital, I would rather quit playing guitar for good than to not mic real valves into the mix. Marshall, HiWatt, Rivera, you name it. But this whole digital guitar world sounds like holy hell to me. I have the equip too, the digital guitar studios, the pods, you name it, but the day my recordings use a digital guitar simulations is the day I give up playing at all. I won't use it live, I certainly am not interested in recording it.

Just my opinion on complete digital domain.

Thanks for all the recording conversations. Loving it.

...
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Old 02-16-2009, 09:25 AM   #371
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Thanks Yep, great stuff. I'm still only on page 5 but in your honor I figured I'd start right at the beginning of my chain and re soldered the connections inside my strat and set it up fresh. Made a huge difference
Thank you for validating all this. Anyone who actually takes a moment away from plugin-shopping to get back to actual sound makes this worthwhile.
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Old 02-16-2009, 09:43 AM   #372
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I don't want to put you off your stride yep but if you have chance could you say something about editing vocal performances for breath sounds?...are there any first principles that hobbyists like me should be aware of?
Unless there is some specific reason to do otherwise, get rid of them. Do this in the "pre-mix" stage. Just zap 'em, and don't look back.

99% of the time, the performer would not have "performed" those breath sounds if they could have been avoided, and 99% of the time, trying to mix with them is going to be vastly more difficult. Finding a "place" for those breath sounds that is still clearly audible without being really distracting is a huge job. And if there is no real "place" for them, if they're just going to be subliminal textural elements, then most of the time, they are going to end up as noise, basically, mucking up your definition and clarity. The fact that they occur in the most sensitive range of human hearing doesn't help.

Are you planning to compress and eq these breath sounds so that they are just as prominent as the vocal line? If the answer is no, then why would you want them in the track?

"Son of a Preacher Man" illustrates perhaps the single best principle of getting good vocal tracks: Get Dusty Springfield to sing it for you. The reason why brilliant singers often have more artifacts in their tracks is because they deliver perfect tracks that are simply left intact.

But the smooth, sensitive, natural breathing of a true professional with fluid mic technique is often very different from gasping between notes that is going to turn into a vortex of white noise the second we put a compressor across a modern vocal track. I don't know how much time you have, but if you find yourself trying to de-ess breathing sounds instead of just getting rid of them, ask yourself how important this really is to the performance.

This is similar to finger squeaks on guitar or grunting or performance noises from a pianist. Some artifacts that we tolerate or even embrace from Glenn Gould or Andres Segovia are not things that sound good when your cousin does them at recital.

Obviously it's your call, and if the track sounds better with breathing noises, then clearly they should be left in. But when it doubt, cut them out. Don't invest effort to make them sound good, because if they do not obviously improve the track then they should almost certainly be cut out.
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Old 02-16-2009, 10:19 AM   #373
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...I find myself conflicted between wanting to excise everything unnecessary to the lyrics and melody and at the same time wanting to retain some of the emotional resonance and naturalness that a little breathing noise can give...
This is actually a very important distinction, and I daresay a pretty common dilemma.

Here's the thing: what if the "naturalness" that we are trying to preserve is embarrassing and bad?

I'm not saying this is the case with your project or anyone else's, but a lot times there is this sense that there must be some secret out there that lets you turn ugly gulps of air and wheezing into the smooth, sophisticated, conversational delivery of a great crooner or some such. If there were a plugin that did randomized breath sound sound replacement, people would buy it ("breathagog"). To sound natural. And they would use it with three tracks of vocals stacked-up, 12dB of compression, huge eq rips, autotune, and pitch-shifted delay. To sound "natural."

I am not opposed to sounding natural. I'm actually a big advocate. If you can get a vocal track that you can just drop on top of the mix, add some reverb, and call it a day, then you certainly don't need my advice but if you're doing the whole multi-track-and-process thing, especially if you use double-tracked vocals, as is usual these days, then I don't even know how to fit breath sounds into such a thing.

It is important to be in touch with disconnects between philosophy and reality. In time, the most fortunate and gifted among us may come to live in a world where there is no disconnect-- where the daily practice of our lives is as we think it ought to be. But a lot of time is wasted when we use approaches based on what we think SHOULD BE the material we're working on, instead of the stuff that is actually in front of us.

If you're standing in the doorway at Burger King, waiting for the Maitre'd to seat your party and bring menus, then you are apt to find the experience more disappointing and frustrating than it has to be. It's important to be realistic in your expectations, and prioritize accordingly.
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Old 02-16-2009, 11:12 AM   #374
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It is important to be in touch with disconnects between philosophy and reality. In time, the most fortunate and gifted among us may come to live in a world where there is no disconnect-- where the daily practice of our lives is as we think it ought to be. But a lot of time is wasted when we use approaches based on what we think SHOULD BE the material we're working on, instead of the stuff that is actually in front of us.
Stunning.

Many thanks indeed for taking the time yep.
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Old 02-20-2009, 10:03 PM   #375
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Love this thread. Hope you can add more as time allows. Some great advise here. It will keep me coming back...

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Old 02-20-2009, 10:46 PM   #376
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Default wow wow wow...

Holy @#^@$%.. this is quite a course! Im in the process of writing/recording/producing/mixing (ya, Im broke..) my own record. Ive been using Reaper at home for about a year now. My equipt. is nothing special... entry level stuff really. Except my instruments are tops. This information took me over a hill. Its changed my approach and subsequently changed my results. I enjoy what I hear.. This is a course I would have paid hundreds.. if not in the $1000's for...

Currently, I've got 1 really good example of applying this information to a recording. You all may find areas for improvement... and thats cool... but look at it this way. I think back 10 years to what home recording was like and all I recall is hiss, fuzz, time issues.. etc. Really shitty mediums to capture music on the fly and have it be turned into something really very presentable. Today, a player/writer has expanded options for producing their own records. If they are so inclined. I'm motivated by cost. Hell ya Id be in a studio getting the 'team' effort thing on if I could afford it. Rambling... bottom line yep, I owe you. Your information is readable, interesting, concise and accurate. And HELPFUL!!!

So, if you want to see what 1 idiot can do with a bunch of instruments, an MBox, a laptop and Reaper... and the information on this thread... go to the page linked below and listen to the song called "Demo - Baron Haymows Junket" (a work in progress...) Keep in mind, that is a shitty 192 bitrate mp3...

http://www.reverbnation.com/nobodydigs


Diesle (David) from The Magnetrons
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Old 02-20-2009, 11:45 PM   #377
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...if you want to see what 1 idiot can do with a bunch of instruments, an MBox, a laptop and Reaper... and the information on this thread... go to the page linked below and listen to the song called "Demo - Baron Haymows Junket" (a work in progress...) Keep in mind, that is a shitty 192 bitrate mp3...

http://www.reverbnation.com/nobodydigs


Diesle (David) from The Magnetrons
Sounds great, David! Love the dynamics-- big, modern, but still punchy, spacious, and "real." And the playing is outstanding. The rythm section is fantastic.

Frankly a lot of commercial studios would have murdered this material. Aside from the real horns, I don't think money could buy a much better recording.

Kudos.

(PS I do plan to post more once I get some thoughts in order-- requests and questions are always welcome.)
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Old 02-21-2009, 04:18 AM   #378
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Hey, Yep. Thank you so much for doing this!

This thread has rally helped me alot, its very down to earth, and i can really relate to it.

Ive been involved with music and recording for quite some time so im not a beginner, but a lot of this stuff just made me go A-HA! It has really helped me put a lot of concepts and ideas into the proper context, made it clearer for me why i do certain things the way i do, and how i can do it in a more methodical/consciouss way. You have provided me with a lot of missing bits and pieces that make me see the whole picture more clearly!

I think that is the biggest difference between this article and countless other articles and books ive read, you manage to bind the stuff together so its not just separated techniques, but something that actually makes sense and is practically usefull.

Thank you so much, you really dont know how much youve helped me!

Keep up the good work, its truly apreciated!
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Old 02-21-2009, 09:37 AM   #379
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[QUOTE=dstone55;287906]

So, if you want to see what 1 idiot can do with a bunch of instruments, an MBox, a laptop and Reaper... and the information on this thread... go to the page linked below and listen to the song called "Demo - Baron Haymows Junket" (a work in progress...) Keep in mind, that is a shitty 192 bitrate mp3...

http://www.reverbnation.com/nobodydigs


Great recording. How about some liner notes on how you did it? Nice tune!
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Old 02-21-2009, 11:18 AM   #380
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Saddle, I could do that but i dont want to muck up this thread with my details. If you really want the full gore.. send me a quick note to david.e.stone@comcast.net and Ill get something together for you.

On other thing this made me think of... something Ive always though would be cool is to have a thread of songs produced in reaper where the post contains a link to the song and an actual screenshot of the Reaper console as it was at the time of render...
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Old 02-22-2009, 07:57 PM   #381
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New yep PDF is up!

http://www.filesavr.com/whydoyourrec...ssbyyep2-22-09

Enjoy!
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Old 02-23-2009, 01:09 AM   #382
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thanks Smurf, good job!
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Old 02-23-2009, 03:50 AM   #383
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Your Welcome matey!

By the way, did you have to sign up to get access to the file? I have had a few people mention that you do.....
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Old 02-23-2009, 04:21 AM   #384
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I got the pdf no problem, just a verification-window for human behaviour, no need to sign up.

love the thread love the pdf love the yep love the smurf
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Old 02-23-2009, 09:11 AM   #385
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Well Thanks for the info............and all the Love! LOL
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Old 02-23-2009, 11:17 AM   #386
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Yep - This is a really quick comment / compliment.

I read the first few posts of this thread a few months ago (or was it weeks - can't tell, been so busy lately), and just finished reading teh entire thing.

Here's are the two really important things I am taking from this, and I hope this was your intention.

1.) There is a common tendency for beginners to think that there is some black magic happening behind the scenes, and this is what makes commercial records sound 'good'. They record a noisy cacophony with poorly setup instruments, terrible mic placement, and generally sloppy techniques, and expect to be able to process out the 'bad stuff' (something like "Hey dude, this recording sounds like total ass, but that's OK, I will just use Ozone to fix it"). I've been there and have ruined countless mixes. It's one thing to not be afraid to make mistakes during the learning process, but another to disregard the absolute basics in the hopes of surpassing what many would consider to be too steep of a learning curve.

This thread is incredibly helpful in squashing the myths, and I think many people are benefitting from it (me included!).

2.) There is a Gremlin in my compressor. Hopefully this isn't anything like the Unicorn living in the engine of my car who has been shitting all over the filters. (Dane Cook anyone?)

Good stuff my man.

PS - Ever think of creating video tuitorials? You'd have a zillion subscribers in like 2 minutes.
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Old 02-23-2009, 01:40 PM   #387
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...It's one thing to not be afraid to make mistakes during the learning process, but another to disregard the absolute basics in the hopes of surpassing what many would consider to be too steep of a learning curve...
That, and also that the learning curve is actually a lot less steep than it might look if you get out of the "black art"/magic ears mindset and just focus on the sound and the tools in front of you. To John McCain, people who can send email look like computer geniuses.
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Old 02-23-2009, 09:21 PM   #388
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There is a lot more to say in this thread, but I started a kind of related spinoff that interested readers might want to contribute to here:

http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=32580

The focus in that thread is more big-picture production stuff, while this one will continue to focus on nitty-gritty engineering techniques.
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Old 02-24-2009, 01:43 AM   #389
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Your Welcome matey!

By the way, did you have to sign up to get access to the file? I have had a few people mention that you do.....
Smurf, no sign up required to get the file so far... thanks again
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Old 02-25-2009, 05:40 AM   #390
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Yep, what a good read!

Your prose is clear, tight and snappy. Everybody seems to nod their heads to the groove.

Music, man!
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Old 02-25-2009, 10:16 AM   #391
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Thanks for the info matey!
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Old 02-25-2009, 10:21 PM   #392
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More stuff on vocals:

Singers (and all musicians) should really invest in some kind of portable recording device. Singers have comparatively little gear to invest in, so it should not be too much to ask them to pick up a little pocket recorder. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a $20 micro-cassette job will do. The digital ones are often just as cheap, and smaller. I keep a little Olympus deal with a built-in USB plug in my pocket.

The purpose of this device should be self-evident for anyone interested in audio. It is a super-easy way to record ideas, to test out different rooms, to record something inspiring or cool, and so on.

But for singers it has a special purpose, which is to tell them how they actually sound. The mics on even very cheap devices are actually quite accurate. They are often noisy and have built-in compression, but the former is irrelevant and the latter is actually a plus when it comes to vocal practice tools.

A great many people are quite taken aback by the sound of their own recorded voice.

...

I'm not sure what to say. This is a sensitive topic.

If you think you have a good voice but don't like the way it sounds on playback, chances are 100% that you do not actually realize what your own voice sounds like. You are one of those people who thinks they look terrible in photographs, but who actually looks just like they look in photographs.

The good news is that you are not alone. The bad news is that yes, that is what you actually sound like. The best news of all is that a tiny little bit of dedicated practice can get your voice very close to the sounds you imagine in your head.

The human voice is the most versatile and capable instrument of all. "Range" is not nearly as fixed a factor as people think it is. "voice" and "timbre" are infinitely changeable.

At the risk of sounding sexist, there are an awful lot of singers who approach singing the way an untrained girl approaches firing a gun for the first time. Anyone who has ever witnessed this phenomenon knows exactly what I am talking about. She does not AIM the gun but instead holds it wildly as far away from her body as possible while covering her eyes and ears with her other arm and scrunching up her shoulders, as though the gun is just some kind of dangerous explosion that she needs to be as far away from as possible, but that will somehow hit the target of its own accord. Something like a young little-leaguer who is afraid of the baseball and who shuts his eyes and leans back and swings wildly, as if to chop down a monster with the bat.

Both of these approaches are of course incredibly dangerous, but somewhat natural reactions to unknown and potentially dangerous scenarios. The reflexes take over, and the conflicting impulses to run/fight/hide are all fighting each other. Of course the right way to fire a gun, or to hit a baseball, or to sing a note is to breathe deeply, stay calm, focus on the target, and execute the action. Easier said than done.

Men tend to yell when they are uncertain of the pitch, and women tend to either shriek or mumble. Both are ugly, although certain singers have developed a weird kind of artistry when it comes to tuneless yelling (Keith Morris of Black Flag and the Circle Jerks comes to mind).

Men also tend to want to try and extend their range downward into atonality when they can't really sing, and women often try to extend their range upward and cover up the pitch with vague melisma. Both sound silly and amateurish. As well as completely unnecessary.

If you have any musical talent at all, then you have some degree of pitch perception. If you can tune a guitar, then you can hear pitch. And if you can hear pitch, then you can hum along with a steady pitch. Find something humming and hum along with it. A single-coil electric guitar's hum is a great place to start if you have never done this, seriously. There was a loud-humming electric transformer box in the subway station near where I used to live where the singer and myself would practice humming intervals against the steady note of the transformer while we waited for the train. We would just stand there, mouths closed, humming different intervals against the transformer. It was hard for other people to tell why the harmonics kept changing. Best vocal exercise I ever encountered.

Just find some loud-ish steady tone and start humming until you find the right pitch. It will be obvious, because your chest will start vibrating. Play a long synth note if you have nothing else to sing with. Once you find the unison or octave note, it should be pretty easy to find fifths, fourths and other consonant intervals either above or below the reference pitch. You don't need to know what interval you're singing, the idea is just to get the vibe of what it feels like to sing the "right" notes. You can feel it resonating in your chest and sinuses, and it's obvious when you get it.

This is by no means a comprehensive guide to singing, but a little goes a very long way in this regard. A lightbulb goes off the first time you get that resonance, and from there on, your voice starts to become an instrument that you can control instead of a dangerous weapon that you don't know what to do with.

More on "voice" later.

Last edited by yep; 02-25-2009 at 10:27 PM.
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Old 02-26-2009, 12:10 AM   #393
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Singers (and all musicians) should really invest in some kind of portable recording device. Singers have comparatively little gear to invest in, so it should not be too much to ask them to pick up a little pocket recorder. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, just a $20 micro-cassette job will do. The digital ones are often just as cheap, and smaller. I keep a little Olympus deal with a built-in USB plug in my pocket.
This is fantastic advice. FWIW, I have a Sony digital voice recorder (ICD-P520, more or less $60) and it's the most important piece of equipment I own. More than acceptable sound, more than enough capacity, acceptable but not great battery life (two AAAs; no AC; get a recharger) and extremely easy to use, even in the dark. No futzing. Can save and/or convert individual recordings to wav and mp3 with included software utility and USB connection. I'm never more than arm's distance from mine and have built entire recordings around imported wavs from this thing.

The one downside is that they're kind of fragile. They don't like being dropped. I've replaced a couple of them, but they're so valuable to have that I don't mind. Last time I got one I also got an extended warranty on it for an extra 20 dollars or so. That was about 16 months ago. Sure enough, I'm about to bring it back to Best Buy and get it replaced.
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Old 02-26-2009, 01:57 AM   #394
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A great many people are quite taken aback by the sound of their own recorded voice.
Too true.

I got a talented singer. She's doing a lot of shows with a choir. When we first meat we started in my living room, I played acoustic, she sang along. Big fun and I loved her voice and the precise pitch as well. I was really looking forward to record some stuff...

Down in the studio with the cans on her ears and a condenser in front of her for the first time she was shocked about "how" she sounded. And she was really down... So I told her my setup is all wrong, its all my fault, she shall give me just a minute.

I am monitoring through an analog desk and still have some old fashioned gear from Lexicon and such. So I selected some programs to make the voice "phat", added some reverb (just for the monitoring)... and voila: She loved it. And she was finally able to perform in self-confidence...

Very psychological... but essential, some times.

BTW: Would you aggree that some reverb (typically much more than in the final mix) in the monitoring is helping vocalists to keep the right pitch?
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Old 02-26-2009, 07:32 AM   #395
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More stuff on vocals:
There was a loud-humming electric transformer box in the subway station near where I used to live where the singer and myself would practice humming intervals against the steady note of the transformer while we waited for the train.
FUNNY! I used to to the same exact thing when I was a kid! Any steady noise I heard. Just for fun though....


also, I had a great singer once who had difficulty singing on pitch using headphones. The engineer had to set up 2 out of phase monitors triangulated towards the vocal mic (to obviously cancel out) so he could hear himself and the mix during tracking. He mentioned this was due to some "condition" but I forgot the name of it.
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Old 02-26-2009, 07:24 PM   #396
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Yep, what a good read!

Your prose is clear, tight and snappy. Everybody seems to nod their heads to the groove.

Music, man!
YEP, he's one of the pros of prose.




Sorry, couldn't resist.....
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Old 02-27-2009, 05:06 AM   #397
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Default Spreading The Good News...

Thanks for the great work on this thread, Yep - there's so much useful content in here already, and more to come I hope.

The compilation of your posts will make an amazing reference for producers... there are very few such condensed sources of valuable tips in the music arena - maybe Derek Sivers' promotion tips (recently released as a free PDF) is the only one that comes close, but that's not dealing with the technicalities of production.

I'd say your compression gremlin will be making an appearance in many classrooms in the future...
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Old 02-27-2009, 01:58 PM   #398
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...Would you aggree that some reverb (typically much more than in the final mix) in the monitoring is helping vocalists to keep the right pitch?
Also compression and eq. Most singers do better when they hear a "hype" and "big" version of their voice in the headphones. Others prefer to sing with one can off, or just listening to open-air monitors.

But a muffled headphone mix where they are mostly only hearing the dull resonance inside their own skull is usually the worst.
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Old 02-27-2009, 10:14 PM   #399
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So let's talk a little bit about recording electric guitar. This is a frustrating and sensitive topic for a lot of people. Guitar players often have a significant personal and emotional investment in their "sound." A lot of them can be almost as sensitive to criticism as singers. And they are usually right, although not always right in the right ways,when it comes to studio recording.

When Jim Marshall first began making guitar amps to sell in his drum shop in London, his objective was not to re-invent the sound of modern rock music, it was to make less expensive knockoffs of popular American imports, specifically the Fender Bassman. There was no distortion or "drive" circuit, but players discovered that by turning all the knobs up, they could get the amp to really start breathing fire in ways that put busted-speaker "fuzz" to shame. And popular music would never be the same.

The sound came from a lot of factors, most notably from overloaded preamp and power tubes (especially the then-cheaper EL34s instead of the american-used 6L6), and from excursion of durable but primitive speakers that "fattened and flattened" when pushed to their limits. In the time since, the sound has come to be called distortion or overdrive or high-gain or any number of other things, but it was an unmistakable turning point in music, marked by the most famous customer of Jim Marshall's London shop, Jimi Hendrix. Since then, there have been countless devices that have aimed to duplicate, refine, or expand upon the "Marshall" sound, and "distortion" has become the trademark sound of electric guitar.

Broadly speaking, the sound of electric guitar amplification diverged into two predominant tracks-- cleanish, punchy, bassier "Fender"-type sounds, and saturated, roaring, midrangey "Marshall" sounds. The older "fender" sound is a thunkier, punchier, twangier, and snarlier tone that was actually developed and refined before the solid-body guitar was even invented. Some of the best examples are actually old WWII Gibson Amps. But the Fender name became associated with electric guitars, and there you have it.

Primitive, cold-war-era tube amplification (of either Fender or Marshall type) exaggerates the best aspects of electric guitar, which are specifically the unmatched expressiveness and performance nuance of the instrument.

Electric guitar is a crude and primitive-sounding instrument. It does not have anything close to the refinement or richness of a good string instrument, it does not have sparkle or clarity of its acoustic cousin, it does not have the depth or versatility of a piano, and it never quite matches up to horns for boldness and acoustic power. But it does have an unmatched range of sonic texture and expressiveness of performance gesture, second only to the human voice. And distortion puts the performance nuances right out front with the actual notes.

Tube amplification exaggerates the rasp, chirp, growl, thunk, fatness, and slinkiness of pretty much any instrument, but it's an especially perfect match for electric guitar. Solid-body electric guitar is a very bad-sounding instrument without flattery. You can test this by putting a microphone in front of an un-amplified electric guitar. Or just listening to one. It sounds bad.

Pickups are not microphones. They are very crude magnetic transducers, and they require amplification to make sound, and they generally require amplification artifacts to sound GOOD. We are starting to get to the heart of the reason for all the preceding jibber-jabber.

Electric guitar is an ELECTRICAL system, not an ELECTRONIC system, and definitely not an ACOUSTICAL system. This means that EVERY SINGLE ASPECT of the audio circuit affects sound. Something as simple as minor component variations in a knockoff circuit COMPLETELY ALTERED the course of music history in ways that could not possibly have any parallel in other forms of audio. An electronic synthesizer may sound better or worse or slightly different with one brand of capacitor vs another but it does not effect the absolute sea-change in sound of something like the difference between a Marshall amp and a Fender amp, or a Les Paul vs a Strat.

An electric guitar does not have any sound that is not electrical. Even if we are using electronic digital or analog processors to re-create the sound, they are invariably emulating electrical systems, and NOT intended to deliver "purer" sound.

What this means is that with electric guitar: EVERYTHING matters. The input impedance, the wire gauge of the pickups, the excursion of the speakers, the voltage output discrepancies between pickup positions, the volume setting of the output amp, the speaker impedance, the tone settings before and after the input stage, everything. And there are no right or wrong answers. And the pick gauge and material sure as hell matter.

More to come...
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Old 02-28-2009, 03:24 AM   #400
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wow yep, yer speaking my language now. always thought a reved up nasty guitar tone occupies the same sonic space as a tenor sax, but that could be prejudicial, since that's the axe i started on...
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