New participant - tips on moving to the next level?

[musicamigo]

I just came across this forum yesterday, reviewed quite a few posts,
and after recognizing the caliber of the participants, figured I'd
register and post a note to see if I can tap the collective brain
of the participants.

I'm looking for advice on ways to "get to the next level", and
thought the best way to solicit input would be to offer info
on my current setup and (somewhat limited) experience, and see
what others had to say.

Currently, the equipment I have is a Presonus FP10 digital
interface that I'm using with the packaged software Cubase LE 4,
along with a couple of cheap ART tube preamps.

I originally started out with a two channel Tascam interface,
and purchased the Presonus about a month or so ago. My original
reason for getting setup for digital recording was to establish
a "working method" to share ideas with other digitally enabled
musicians, and also to be able to practice "long distance" with
a few musicians that I play out with on a regular basis. To that
end, the bare bones setup has worked great, allowing me to trade
audio back and forth to establish arrangements for finished tunes,
etc.

At first, sound quality was a secondary issue ... as long as the
musical structure was intact, the utilitarian aspect of the
recording worked fine. Over the past year or so, I've spent some
time experimenting with improving the quality of what I am sending
into the digital interface, as well as becoming much more familiar
with the audio software. In the last month, I recorded some
sessions/tunes of the trio I play in, and after massaging the tracks,
have come up with some mixdowns that are acutally starting to sound
pretty good (when compared to what I've done in the past).

Which leads me to my question ... given the equipment I've noted,
what would you folks suggest I pursue next, with the goal being
to improve the quality of the recordings? I'm willing to drop
a few more dollars (let's say a max of $700-900) if need be, but
would like to make sure that any money a spend is addressing
the weakest link in the recording chain.

Part of me wonders if I should just keep trying to improve
the quality using what I've got - in other words, maybe
the weakest link at this point is still my inexperience
at using the tools I have?

At any rate, I'd appreciate any input. Currently, my recording
involves an acoustic guitar, another acoustic guitar or mandolin,
a "hybrid" electric guitar, and three vocalists. The hybrid electric
sends a signal through an octave pedal which then outputs a dedicated
line that's an octave lower (essentially acting as a bass line).

My recent experiments of recording the trio have involved
recording 7 tracks at once - 3 vocals (SM58's), and acoustic
with a piazzo run through a Bagg's box/preamp, mandolin with
a piazzo, through a cheap tube preamp, I'm sending the "standard"
electric guitar output from a Bose system's balanced XLR out into
the digital interface, and am mic'ing the bass output with a kick
drum mic, and running through a cheap tube preamp. I've got
two of the SM58's running directly into the two Presonus channels
that have preamps, and the third is run through a Helicon voice
correct preamp/box.

I can only imagine I'm going to get flack about not mic'ing
the acoustics, and I plan to do so, but for now, I'm
just telling it like it is. Again, keep in mind that at
up to this point, I've been looking to make recordings that
we use as reference material. I put the tunes up at a website,
and when we're preparing the set lists for a gig, if we
throw in a tune we haven't played for a while, the reference
tune is available for a listen so we can brush up on our parts.

So ... at this point in my foray into recording, where would my
energy (and dollars) be best directed?

Here's my list of current equipment:

PreSonus FP10
Cubase LE 4
AKG C1000S condensor
AKG D112 Kick Drum Mic
Shure SM58's (used for gigs)
Electro-Voice 667A dynamic cardoid
Bose Personal Amplification System (used for gigs)
TC-Helicon voice correct preamp/box (used for gigs and some recording)
Behringer 6 channel mixer (used for funneling to the Bose for gigs)

[boo]

What monitors are you using? What computer, mac or pc?

The first thing I would do is to get a large diaphragm condenser mic. I don't think you can go wrong with the studio projects b1, which just dropped to $99. You can mic your acoustics and your vocals with that (one at a time of course..).

[Vulconizer]

Why don't you post a tune in the Bash This Recording section?

It will give us an idea of where you stand mix-wise and allow for positive direction on where to go from there.

Welcome to the forum, by the way.

[Audio~Geek]

Welcome to the forum.


I'm concerned about your signal chain

My recent experiments of recording the trio have involved
recording 7 tracks at once - 3 vocals (SM58's), and acoustic
with a piazzo run through a Bagg's box/preamp, mandolin with
a piazzo, through a cheap tube preamp, I'm sending the "standard"
electric guitar output from a Bose system's balanced XLR out into
the digital interface, and am mic'ing the bass output with a kick
drum mic, and running through a cheap tube preamp. I've got
two of the SM58's running directly into the two Presonus channels
that have preamps, and the third is run through a Helicon voice
correct preamp/box.

FP10 has 8 preamps and 2 digital inputs. Those tube preamps are not necessary and probably do more harm than good. (I don't want to come off as a snob here, cheap stuff is cheap for a reason, try real tube gear when you get a chance and you'll understand.)
Inputs 1 and 2 of the FP10 can be switched to Instrument inputs.

Acoustic guitar and Mandolin sound a hell of a lot better when miked. Better to do those as overdubs alone with your best mics if possible.
Piezo pickups are not used much in the studio. The Bose thing can be saved for live too.

so input 1 is your electric guitar, and input 2 is your electric bass.
You can still mic the bass amp, I usually do both at once, line up the waveforms in Cubase so you don't have phase problems.

I would use the TC Electronics unit for during mixing (send the recorded vocal out of the FP10 into the box, out of the box into a line input)

Inputs
1-EL guit
2-Bass DI
3-Bass amp (D112)
4-Lead vocal (sm58) Optionally with the TC box before input
5-Vocal 2 (58)
6-Vocal 3 (58)
7-AC Guitar (C1000)
8-Mandolin (EV mic)

That gets you all the inputs you need simultaneously
Personally I'd record each part separately. Buying or renting mics that would better suit the instruments.

[sergio]

Like Vulco said.... It would be really nice to hear something.

[brandondrury]

Improving your studio monitoring environment is ALWAYS the best way to improve your recording quality. If you can't hear, the fancy toys make no real difference.

After that: How To Achieve Pro Recording Quality

There is a dramatic over-emphasis on high end gear in my opinion.
Is Gear The Answer To Sound Quality Issues?

Lastly, if you are ready to dump some money on gear and you trust your studio monitoring, I'd start looking into developing your microphone palette.

Brandon

[graal]

What about cables? If your cables are no good, the signal going through them will deteriorate. You gotta have good cables.
Work on your acoustics, you can get something rather alright for little money: eg. Rockwool.
Acoustics improves the sound dramatically.
The SM58's work good on vocals provided you have a nice preamp.
If you don't have the money for a good preamp, try DIY-ing (Do It Yourself) one yourself if you are any good with electronics, or maybe you have a friend who is.

Peace, I gotta go!

[musicamigo]

Well ... first off, thanks for all the quick replies.
I'll work through the comments and provide more info below,
and again, keep in mind my original comment ... I'm looking
for advice on how to best approach moving up to the next
level ... up until now, I've been using the recording for
utilitarian purposes in conjunction with other musicians.
And while this hasn't honed my "mastering" recording type
skills, it has made me *very* comfortable with the process
of getting instruments into the software, and learning many
nuances of manipulating the WAV format files with Cubase.

>What monitors are you using? What computer, mac or pc?

I'm using what I'd consider a robust PC - dual 2.1 GHz processor
with 3 Gb of RAM. Haven't really invested in monitors yet ..
I tend to try and listen to mixes on a handful of different
sound systems/head phones, and sort of default to a small
Bose CD player, 'cause thus far it seems to have the most
"neutral" tone of anything I've got around my place. Have tried
headphones as well ... and realize this is an area I need
to address.

>Why don't you post a tune in the Bash This Recording section?

Will do that in the next day or two - and that's likely the
best way to establish what level I'm at with you folks.

Audio~Geek wrote:
>FP10 has 8 preamps and 2 digital inputs. Those tube preamps
are not necessary and probably do more harm than good.

This is an area I'd like to learn more about. The FP10
documentation confirms the preamp aspect for all inputs.
What I have experienced is that if I run a mic directly
into a channel without a preamp, the levels (when viewed
and heard in Cubase) seem way too low. If I crank the gain for the
channel all the way up, it shows better levels, but seems to
introduce noise into the track. So I picked up the preamps so I
could keep the input gain levels more at midrange, which seems to
eliminate the noise issue. I have an AKG kick drum mic I use to mic
the Bose bass module output, and if I run it direct (with no preamp)
I can barely get a signal to show when pull it into Cubase.
I have a feeling I've got a lot to learn in this area. I've thought
about taking a "weak" input track like this, and normalizing it
to get the levels up to a more appropriate gain level, but that
doesn't seem like it makes sense.

There was a comment about cables ... I really don't think
that's an issue ... most of my longer balanced cables I've
made up using high quality fully shielded XLR cable.

Brando mentioned:
>Improving your studio monitoring environment is ALWAYS
the best way to improve your recording quality.
If you can't hear, the fancy toys make no real difference.

This makes sense to me, and I believe that's the first issue
I might want to throw some dollars at. I'd appreciate
suggestions and/or recommendations on what path to follow.
I have wondered ... are there high-end headphones that can
perform as well (or nearly as well) as monitors? I'm willing
to spend dollars on decent monitoring gear, but would like
to spend the "right" amount. By that, I mean spending enough
to prevent the monitoring from being the weak link, but not
so much that the quality of the monitors will never be
recognized due to the other weak links in the chain.

I am a firm subscriber to the notion that the most important
aspect in improving the recording quality is identifying the
weakest link in the recording chain, and focusing on improving
it until something else becomes the weak link.

Again, thanks to everyone for the input.

[Audio~Geek]

The FP10 has 54dB of gain on the preamps, that should be more than enough for any mic.

Try different cables?
You are using standard XLR-F to XLR-M cables?

The only reason you'd get low level signals is if you were going into the line inputs on those other channels.

[musicamigo]

Thanks, Audio-G .... now that you mentioned the line level
issue, I do recall that (a while ago) when I was having
the low level issues, it wasn't the mic's that first triggered
the problem, it was when I ran an acoustic pickup directly into
the 1/4" unbalanced nuetrik connector on channels 3-8.
The documentation for the FP10 does mention that channels 1
and 2 will act as an active instrument preamp
when a *non-active* instrument is plugged in.

So, after reading your note, I went back and looked over
your recommendations on how you'd run the 'quipment I've
got through the FP10, and re-routed some cables, and
tried a couple of things ...

First, I recorded a guitar riff using my existing configuration
for a base-line comparison

Then I unhooked the cheap preamp from between the AKG kick
drum mic (I mic the bass output on my electric
hybrid guitar via Bose sub-woofer) and the FP10 channel,
and sure enough, plenty of signal coming through
(and way cleaner too, I might add).

I was running the treble channel on the electric hybrid
through a modeler, then through the Bose, and then using
an XLR monitor out from the Bose into the FP10. I eliminated
the Bose from the loop, running the guitar through the
modeler, and into the FP10 channel. What I found really
interesting was that there was a "boominess" in the
first take (old setup) that pretty much disappeared when
I uncoupled the Bose from the path.

All in all, immediate improvements by *getting rid* of
stuff, not spending on *more* stuff. Audio-G ... I
definitely owe you a beer or two for the suggestions.

Some other thoughts/observations ... you mention:

>Personally I'd record each part separately

And I can certainly understand the audio reasons for
doing so. One item, though, that I'd be interested
in getting feedback/opinions on is the aspect of the
energy that happens when the musicians (in this case
a trio) are playing together Vs the potential loss of
"something" when the tracks are laid down separately.
The trio I'm playing in ... we've been together a number
of years, and there's something that happens when
we're all on our game and on target - tough to explain,
but if you've experienced it, you know there's no
mistaking it. I would imagine that learning how to
lay down your track, and still maintain the energy
is a skill that a good musician can cultivate as well.

Makes me think of Brandon's article with the list of
things required for a really good recording - I believe
the first one was essentially the musicians/tune.
And again, in the spirit of chasing down the weak
link, it's going to be interesting to see as I get
my setup tuned in better whether the improved audio
of recording separately will offset the loss of
the real time energy that happens when it's all
recorded at once. But I can also see that that mic
bleed through could be a real issue.

You also mention

>would use the TC Electronics unit for during mixing
(send the recorded vocal out of the FP10 into the box,
out of the box into a line input)

This sounds interesting - do I understand correctly
that I'd basically run a unbalanced cable from the back
FP10 line out jack (the one for the channel that has the vocal)
into the TC Elctronics box, and then from there
back to one of the line inputs (channel 1 or 2)
on the FP10? Not sure I'm grasping this one.

Sigh .. so much to learn - but again, thanks ..
I'm beginning to feel like there is hope, and
that maybe I can figure some of this stuff out.