Hot answers tagged recording
12
There are many, many scenarios here, but I will cover a couple of basic ones to get you started. When recording an acoustic guitar, you in essence three options. I'll enumerate those, and then go through some basic questions to hopefully get you moving.
Use an Acoustic/Electric guitar and plug it into a recording interface of some kind.
Mike an Acoustic ...
11
Well, there are a few options, but there are considerable limitations.
First, copyright. The instrumental backing tracks for popular music are usually the property of the producer or record label, so finding these on the internet for free is of questionable legality.
Some labels do provide licensed CDs for exactly the purposes you require (or karaoke, ...
9
There are two (popular) types of microphones: dynamic microphones and electret/condensor mics.
Dynamic microphones
They work like a speaker in reverse. Sound moves a diaphragm/coil assembly. The coil moves over a magnet and a current gets induces. Hence we have voltage.
Almost indestructible. YOu can literally pound nails with a Sure SM58
(fun abuse ...
8
It's actually pretty easy to remove just vocals from a track with something as simple as audacity. Most modern songs have just the vocals panned hard center (everything else is slightly to the left or the right.
import into audacity.
to the left of the window, there's the name of the track you just imported, just above where it tells you the info for it ...
8
There's a couple of things you can try:
Angle the microphone a bit downwards. This shouldn't affect the sound too much (which largely depends on the horizontal position, not so much on vertical angle) but slightly reduce the breathing loudness.
Use another polar pattern, figure-8 or at least supercardoid. These of course sound notably different (but not ...
8
I think that you probably mean "whinnying" of a horse.
With brass instruments, it's typically done with a valved instrument, such as a trumpet or a tuba (or valve trombone if you have one.) The sound is typically produced by pressing the valves halfway down and either shaking the instrument (in the case of a trumpet) or by making a very wide vibrato. ...
7
What's the best way to provide musicians a copy of a song to use to prepare for a recording session?
I really think you should ask them.
There's no point busting a gut to transcribe your parts to a score, only to find out that your musician prefers picking things up by ear.
Likewise there's no point just giving an MP3 to a musician who can't play by ear and needs the notes written down.
Different musicians think in different ways. The only way to find ...
7
Audacity can do this. It's free on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Load the audio file.
Select-All (ctrl-A).
Choose "change pitch" from the "effects" menu, and you will be presented with a range of options.
This adjusts the pitch independently of the speed, with some loss of quality. The "change speed" option in the same menu will affect both speed and pitch, ...
7
Since another member of your team has achieved a suitable tone,
I would try to analyze the situation by starting to a/b aspects of what he/she did with what you did. Experiments like:
You play your part through his/her rig,
Using the other guitar as a reference, try to match the tone with the pickup/tone/volume controls on your guitar.
Compare the ...
6
This is my understanding, and different musicians are different, but it's my understanding that when acoustic instruments are recorded, they are recorded acoustically and are recorded in stereo, by which I mean two mics, pointed in two different places to get two different kinds of sound. I don't mean that they're split in the mix, left and right.
There are ...
6
Honesty? Any way you want, any way that sounds good to you.
That said, there are a couple of tried-and-true techniques. For live performance, you can't do much better than a simple Shure SM-57 in front of your best-sounding speaker, maybe off-axis if you prefer that sound. 57's sound great and handle the bumps and bruises of live gigs exceptionally well.
...
6
This isn't limited to just Japan, its often the case that record companies and bands issue slightly different releases of the same album, dependant on country. So some countries might have a slightly different track listing and or some B-Sides or a couple of extra tracks.
This used to happen a lot between the US and the UK as record companies adjusted ...
6
For windows:
The bare-bones way is to use the microphone or the line-in. I found the line-in to be a better choice, but either way, you need to reduce the amplifier volume to avoid clipping. This volume level will be pretty low, and it is specific to your equipment. After you adjust the amplifier volume, you can then adjust the overall volume on the ...
5
I would say the phrase "not at concert pitch" is the closest to being accurate and widely understood. Or, if you want to allow for those recordings that are close enough to play along to, "not close to concert pitch".
Don't fall into the trap of believing that concert pitch is "right" and everything else is "wrong". Concert pitch is widely used, but ...
5
Guitar-and-vocal studio and live micing has been studied heavily, yet while there are a lot of recommendations, perhaps the foremost among them is "experiment". Now, that advice is generally aimed at the professional recording engineer or home studio enthusiast, with a locker full of microphones to choose from. Someone looking to buy their first mike, like ...
5
Since you are recording alone, the pressure you are feeling is self-induced. Typically when it comes to recording, musicians feel pressure for a variety of reasons:
The take has to be perfect because of the cost of the studio.
The take has to be perfect because of their reputation / job.
The take has to be perfect because time is limited.
The take has to ...
5
It is not so much a matter of controlling your voice, but your ability to clearly articulate consonants and vowels. This is largely controlled by your tongue's dexterity. If you are rapping quickly, you will need to work on articulation at fast tempi. Tongue twisters are a great way for developing agility.
Also, know your text so well that it is ...
4
The mic you use depends on your budget. A dynamic mic (eg the SM57/58) do good jobs at the lower end of the price scale. Condenser mics however capture a wider range of frequencies during recording so therefore sound slightly better, although this is based on the preference of the player. They are more expensive however, with some going up to and beyond ...
4
Analog equipment would be better for this. The fact that it's mp3 means that it's been compressed for a specific sample-rate; and small shifts are likely to radically increase the aliasing artifacts because your samples are going to be out-of-phase. This is going to lower the effective Nyquist limit; so you'll probably have to run it through a low-pass ...
4
Yes, a simple cable splitter is a bad idea, and an ABY pedal will solve that problem---but you don't even need that. If you have an active DI with an unbalanced, buffered 1/4" out, you can simply send that to the effects and amp while sending the balanced XLR out (which will still be dry) directly to the board. Here's an example of what I'm talking about; ...
4
There are basically three ways to go.
Record a real amp with microphones - I won't go into detail on this, because it's pretty clear it's not what you want.
Get the sound right in the pedal(s), and have the PC record that accurately
Record an unprocessed sound and have the PC apply effects
Taking (2) first:
Your GT-6 does amp modelling, so you have all ...
4
Essentially, you will not be able to easily solve the problem if you are working alone. You need at least two people. While the performer plays the guitar (and breathes!) the second person needs to move the microphone around, or point it in different directions if it is a highly directional microphone, while monitoring the sound coming through the microphone ...
4
Generally, yes - you would play it through headphones and set it up so it sounds as good as you can get, then back the reverb right off for playing it in a large room, if that room has a fair amount of echo anyway.
If the room isn't too large, is full of people or has sound deadening surfaces (wall hangings, carpets, etc) then don't worry about it too much, ...
4
I would focus on hardware, not so much on software. Get a decent digital audio interface; you can find some for under $200 USD. You can use pretty much any recording software, such as Audacity which has already been mentioned. I use an Alesis io|2 for example; very simple, just 2 analog channels, midi in/out, and connects to my laptop via USB. With this ...
3
What's the best way to provide musicians a copy of a song to use to prepare for a recording session?
I guess it depends on what the musicians you're working with are familiarized with and the level of detail you want to express.
Based on what you asked I'd suggest that you get a hold of some music notation software and transcribe the parts of the song that you think are most important for the musicians to grasp your composition. Later you can export a ...
3
No matter whether you go for magnetic, acoustic or piezo pickups, the signals are at extremely low voltage, so you want to use some form of pre-amp. This will bring the levels up well above the noise floor. It will also sort out impedance issues (impedance matching is an entirely separate area but also of importance in ensuring output quality).
Some preamps ...
3
Is your magnetic pickup part of your guitar? Like it is on my Ibanez? If so, that's a fine way to get sound from your guitar to your computer. You're going to get a different sound than you would from a mic, and a different sound than you would from a regular electric guitar. Every setup has its own sound. Don't worry about that now.
What you need to worry ...
3
I would say a condenser mic at a reasonable distance from you; something like a Rode NT1A is a good and reasonably priced solution for this; and will pick up vocals really well at the same time.
Here is an example I found on Youtube with the search nt1a acoustic guitar
And yes it is acceptable to just plug the electro acoustic into a recording interface, ...
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