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Post by johneppstein on Dec 24, 2023 10:01:05 GMT -6
duplicate
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 12, 2023 14:01:10 GMT -6
Lovely. so now one can be a "recording engineer" without really knowing anything at all! Just what we all need....
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 12, 2023 12:24:34 GMT -6
Gibsons deserve Grover Rotomatics. I have the 18 to 1 ratio ones on my J-200. Feels great and in this climate it hardly ever goes out of tune. And the gold doesn't tarnish.
I would not use any 3 on a plate tuners that I've ever seen - not reliable.
I personally don't like the added weight to neck (feel the same way about the Grover's on my Les Paul Classic)...but if tuning is a problem I can always change it back Grover and Gibsons have gone together as long as I've been playing about 60years now... Damn, I'm getting old...
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 11, 2023 10:41:28 GMT -6
I upgraded my J45 with a bone nut, bone saddle and bone pins. I also threw a set of vintage style tuners. They were hard to find, but made a HUGE difference in terms of feel. Changed the balance of the guitar, not so neck heavy. I’m thinking similar things…bone nut and saddle and some Gotoh Vintage 3 on a plate style tuners…probably the “Deluxe” with the 1/18 turn ratio. I don’t gig so I’ll probably take the electronics out because they pretty bad 😆 Gibsons deserve Grover Rotomatics. I have the 18 to 1 ratio ones on my J-200. Feels great and in this climate it hardly ever goes out of tune. And the gold doesn't tarnish.
I would not use any 3 on a plate tuners that I've ever seen - not reliable.
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 9, 2023 13:56:28 GMT -6
Just got a new M88, in case I need to send my other one in for service.
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 7, 2023 12:44:41 GMT -6
I was cleaning out a box of stuff we used to use for our live rig way, way back in the day and found a pair of EV N/D 468's. Our drummer did sound for us in those days (when we did our own sound) and I think used these for toms. Pretty sure he also used them on a recording we did but I can't judge off of that cuz... well let's just say my mixing/engineering skillz left something to be desired at the age of 22. Anyone use these? I like how low profile they are but it's a bit of a hassle taking down my current tom mic array and setting up a new one to test it. Worth the time? Yeah, they used to be some of my favorite tom mics, back when I was doing a lot of close micing. Beat the pants off of 57s and a lot more rugged.
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Post by johneppstein on Dec 1, 2023 12:12:21 GMT -6
Reducing the squeaks via signal processing will "work" but will also damage other parts of the signal. There's another old saying, "Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems." Nah I could totally edit those squeaks without introducing any show-stopping artifacts. Then EQ out a little low end/low mids, compress a little, done. Next instrument. But it's better not to have to...
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 19:07:41 GMT -6
The guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird, and from the color of the finish,an older one. Such guitars have been recorded hundreds of times without obnoxious squeaks. The problem is mic placement. Pull the mic (single) back a couple of feet and keep it the hell away from the neck! It's not that hard to mic an acoustic guitar,you just have to use a great mic and ignore all the fancy "methods" (experiments) that clutter the internet. Looking at old studio pictures of players like Dylan and Baez (and a raft of other '60s folkies) can help a lot.
You know, back in the folkie days they didn't have all those fancy gizmos to "fix" engineers' errors in technique, and they still got consistently great guitar sounds.
What are you using for monitors?
Idk I wouldn't call that clip obnoxious, it sounds mostly fine to me (the tone itself is actually great), and I could easily reduce the squeaks to a point I'd be happy with. Reducing the squeaks via signal processing will "work" but will also damage other parts of the signal. There's another old saying, "Acoustic solutions for acoustic problems."
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 19:01:01 GMT -6
Yeah you could try another micing and that would probably hide some of it. But at the end of the day it’s about performance. I would work on the chord changes. A good performance will sound great wherever you put the mic, around the 12th or around the sound hole. I mean, your miking was not that much off if that is the sound in general you are aiming for, sounded ok except for the chord changes. No,it's actually about BALANCE. And if the mic is too close the balance will be screwed. Two mics too close, you have two screws.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:57:20 GMT -6
It matters if you've got the mic too damn close!
And getting bossy about the player's technique can open up a whole other can of worms in the studio. And probably won't gain you much in the current session, either.
Yes and no. Sure you will be able to adjust to the better to some extent with mic placing, but what I could pick up from the track I believe I heard other issues I would address first. Sure it’s always very delicate to address technique but I would not mind going there if that would solve the issue and is within the artists capability. It’s not about being bossy i believe, it’s about supporting the artist to the best performance possible. Personally I will have the player working it and reinventing him/herself within the frames of plausible if the performance is not up to par to begin with. Those "issuesa" tend to go away if the mic isn't munching on the guitar. Dig it, the closer the mic is, the tighter the "spot" that it's looking at. Then you go chasing ephemera and adding superfluous mics when all you really need to do is use a good mic pulled back. And by "good mic" i mean a cardiod that has off axis response the same as on-axis, which is somewhat rare.
Most of those "other issues" go away with the right mic in the right place.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:39:51 GMT -6
Change the mics. 441, re20, m201, m160, sm7, sm57, Aea ku5, etc….. The problemin this case is probably NOT the mics. It's how they are deployed.
Me, I'd be using one of my KM84s, but I assume he doesn't have those available. I hear the Soyuz have similar properties, but have not used them myself. You want an SDC cardiod with as close to perfect off-axis response as you can get your hands on.
I hear that Samar has two new mics out that are similar, but have not used those, either. I have, however, engaged in discussions with Mr Fouxman, the designer, and trust him and like his designs.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 18:30:14 GMT -6
It matters if you've got the mic too damn close!
And getting bossy about the player's technique can open up a whole other can of worms in the studio. And probably won't gain you much in the current session, either.
Yes and no. Sure you will be able to adjust to the better to some extent with mic placing, but what I could pick up from the track I believe I heard other issues I would address first. Sure it’s always very delicate to address technique but I would not mind going there if that would solve the issue and is within the artists capability. It’s not about being bossy i believe, it’s about supporting the artist to the best performance possible. Personally I will have the player working it and reinventing him/herself within the frames of plausible if the performance is not up to par to begin with. You take care of the basics first. If the mic's in the wrong place you can have problems you'll never cure. "Patch up", maybe. Fix? I don't think so.
It's like building a house on a base of sand.
What I don't get is all the resistance to an ancient and well proven answer to what should be an easy question.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 10:59:20 GMT -6
I don't really understand why people still deal with them...?
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 10:38:55 GMT -6
Yeah you could try another micing and that would probably hide some of it. But at the end of the day it’s about performance. I would work on the chord changes. A good performance will sound great wherever you put the mic, around the 12th or around the sound hole. I mean, your miking was not that much off if that is the sound in general you are aiming for, sounded ok except for the chord changes. It matters if you've got the mic too damn close!
And getting bossy about the player's technique can open up a whole other can of worms in the studio. And probably won't gain you much in the current session, either.
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 29, 2023 10:22:50 GMT -6
I think you might be overanalyzing, which I don’t mean as an insult, as I’m definitely guilty of this myself. The example posted doesn’t sound bad at all. It’s a guitar — it squeaks. I would honestly just leave it be. Go in and edit each squeak by hand. Nothing a little clip gain and AudioSuite EQ/deessing can’t handle. The guitar is a Gibson Hummingbird, and from the color of the finish,an older one. Such guitars have been recorded hundreds of times without obnoxious squeaks. The problem is mic placement. Pull the mic (single) back a couple of feet and keep it the hell away from the neck! It's not that hard to mic an acoustic guitar,you just have to use a great mic and ignore all the fancy "methods" (experiments) that clutter the internet. Looking at old studio pictures of players like Dylan and Baez (and a raft of other '60s folkies) can help a lot.
You know, back in the folkie days they didn't have all those fancy gizmos to "fix" engineers' errors in technique, and they still got consistently great guitar sounds.
What are you using for monitors?
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 15, 2023 9:34:01 GMT -6
Hi, I ran into a problem while recording an acoustic guitar: the slide sounds are so loud that I feel they're going to chop my head off. I've tried the Chapstick on the strings trick, and that reduced the noise significantly, but it's still there. Before resorting to RX, automation, et. al., I prefer to get it right at the source. Does anybody have any pointers? The room isn't particularily good sounding, and I know that johneppstein is adamant about 2 feet minimum distance between the mic and the guitar, but I can't add more distance because the artist wants the guitar to have plenty of artificial reverb (they already know what they want), and don't want to add more (bad) room tone. I've always closed miked acoustics with omnis and I never had this problem before. I'm using cardiod mics now. My signal chain is Soyuz 013 FET (spaced pair) -> VP28 -> MOTU 828es. An example of an offending slide below. Offending Slides Example.wavThe right mic is far from the fingerboard, but here we are.
HMmmm... Well, speaking up for traditional micing techniques, I see two immediate problems:
1) Too many microphones. There's a old recording adasge that says "Never use 2 mics when 1 will do the job."
2) Mics too damn close to the guitar. The one directly over the fingerboard - WHY!? Do you really want clatter and string noise?
When I mic an acoustic guitar I typically have the KM84 2-3 feet away, placed for a balanced sound. I haven't used the Soyuz, but I hear they're prelly good, aside from the white shell.
If you don't like the room sound, put up some absorption. A well placed packing blanket can work wonders.
There's another old adage: "Acoustic solutions for Acouric problems."
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Post by johneppstein on Nov 4, 2023 10:22:04 GMT -6
I love my Audioscape Optocomp.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 11, 2023 15:43:01 GMT -6
What I really want to know is does this even come close to touching my AudioScape hardware? Last time I checke4d the UA hardware didn't - can their plug beat their hardware?
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 11, 2023 15:39:58 GMT -6
What I really want to know is does this even come close to touching my AudioScape hardware? Last time I checked the UA hardware didn't - can their plug beat their hardware?
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 11, 2023 15:35:04 GMT -6
Free? Still overpriced. [That's a joke by the way] Ha.
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Post by johneppstein on Oct 9, 2023 8:39:46 GMT -6
Or you could buy a good little console, yes... Or a KIA! A year's rent. And bills.
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Post by johneppstein on Sept 10, 2023 9:48:02 GMT -6
I utterly detest hassle! I've bought 90% of my studio gear new and the other 10% second hand from friends or dealers. The only time I've bought something over $500 in a second hand private sale was last week when I bought a minty fresh Audiosape Opto Comp on eBay and it came boxed in mint condition basically unused for 2/3 rd's the new price. Literally the only time I've ever bought something significant from a private sale. Personally, I'd rather pay a premium for new gear or second hand from a trusted dealer with a backup warranty and just buy less of it. Glad you have the funds for that...
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 26, 2023 8:35:09 GMT -6
I mean... some bands DO get better. Could also ask - why do some bands suck early in their career? Lack of practice/experience.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 11, 2023 16:35:41 GMT -6
I dunno... I think it's the music you're dealing with and what you expect out of an EQ. And not all EQs with similar features (and even specs) are created equal. Also it depends on your experience level. An inexperienced person can get totally lost real quick if confronted with a stereo, 4 band, fully parametric EQ. And if you want an "atmosphere" type of EQ then you're talking analog technology. You need a balance. Use each technology where it excels. What is an atmospheric eq? Shelves? Distortion? Ringing? Noise? Clipping? Analog technology is mature and well known. The optimal filter structure for digital eqs has been public knowledge for years. There have been common digital eqs with analog frequency response since Oxford EQ and Renaissance EQ and analog frequency and phase since the original MDWEQ. You get modern filter structure eqs for free with Ableton (EQ8) and Reaper (JS:ReEQ free add on). Slick EQ is a great free channel strip “tone” eq. The benefit of many analog eqs are that they are not parametric so no death by a thousand cuts overeqed sound, you can have hands on both q and gain for parametric eqs to adjust both at once, and there is no visual feedback of the filters meaning the user must eq by ear and not by eye! Many of the best sounding eq choices for a given track do not look optically pretty. The drawable eqs inspired by Fabfilter Q also encourage drastic over eq vs skeuomorphic knob eqs. Inexperienced users should not be using much beyond a tone stack eq and baxandall shelves anyway. Something like a Tascam EQ already had that problematic mid bell they could hang themselves with. Even an API 550 has proportional cuts that narrow with gain so deeper cuts can be less tonally harmful than shallower ones which punishes being a scared wuss. Record it better! An "atmospheric EQ" is advertisingspeak. What they mean - who knows? It probably varies with the manufacturer and/or ad writer.
I generally ignore such talk.
What I was referring to is a certain activity in the upper harmonic area that some people find appealing on some types of music or, as an example, female vocals.
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Post by johneppstein on Aug 8, 2023 11:05:30 GMT -6
The only person I knew who did a lot of Helios died a couple or so years ago...
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