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So I have this cooky idea that the reason I haven't been getting phenomenal mixes is I don't "get it at the source".   The biggest reason I think this is because of what happened when I just took my condensor mic, put it in a shoe, placed it in front of my amp with no soundproofing or anything, re-recorded the bass and guitars for a song I couldn't do anything with and suddenly it was just like... there was information to work with, I had WIGGLE ROOM.  It seemed like direct-in just had no girth in the sound, it was paper thin.  

 

So this has me very curious, if that big of a difference was made sticking a vocal condensor mic in a shoe, how do I REALLY get it at the source?  What is like... the sort of, bare bones DIY way to get a foundation going, should I get a shure SM57?  Should I get a couple of different mics for variety?  Is there some sort of box I should put around my amp?  What about sound proofing, should I hang up some foam squares?  If this has already been covered in detail just point me to the topic please, thanks :)  

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Hey Symph... (should I call you Mr7?) welcome back!

 

It starts with the mic, and certainly different mics suit different purposes.

 

So you have a vocal condensor, but that isn't giving you a great sound for your instrument amp?

 

Foam squares... no point unless you use them in the right place for the right reason. Such things are "sound treatments", to condition the sound within a room, or "sound proofing" to stop external sound spilling in, and studio sound spilling out. On that front, for most home studios a movable baffle is a better idea (like a partial partition board that has high absorption characteristics). You can then reposition it as needed. A second board can be used to reduce computer fan spill.

 

So... what were you recording (sounds like a guitar from an amp)? What exact mic did you use? Wtf was it doing in a shoe? lol

 

It is useful having at least one vocal mic and a cardioid or two. While SM57 are relatively good all-rounder mics for live work, there are better studio instrument mics, even budget ones.

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50 minutes ago, john said:

Hey Symph... (should I call you Mr7?) welcome back!

 

It starts with the mic, and certainly different mics suit different purposes.

 

So you have a vocal condensor, but that isn't giving you a great sound for your instrument amp?

 

Foam squares... no point unless you use them in the right place for the right reason. Such things are "sound treatments", to condition the sound within a room, or "sound proofing" to stop external sound spilling in, and studio sound spilling out. On that front, for most home studios a movable baffle is a better idea (like a partial partition board that has high absorption characteristics). You can then reposition it as needed. A second board can be used to reduce computer fan spill.

 

So... what were you recording (sounds like a guitar from an amp)? What exact mic did you use? Wtf was it doing in a shoe? lol

 

It is useful having at least one vocal mic and a cardioid or two. While SM57 are relatively good all-rounder mics for live work, there are better studio instrument mics, even budget ones.

Well I'm about to go to a pawn shop and look at some mic's, what would be a good studio instrument mic?  And the shoe was my wife's boot since I don't have a stand hahaha  Suppose I'll need a stand too, and yeah with the sound absorption board you were talking about could I just tie a blanket around a piece of cardboard?  That makes sense, I guess mic reccomendations would be the next step.  

 

And yes!  Good to be back John!  And actually I wish my name was just Symph lol I had a youtube channel with Symphonious7 as the name when I made this account but that's long gone, I just think of myself as Symph :)  

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Oh and yeah I'm just recording guitars and bass, also I have no bass amp but I do have a bass POD, do you think I could just run bass through the POD and out my guitar amp?  SHould I try to find a cheap bass cabinet?  

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  • 1 month later...

Obtaining sound at source is a tricky business because it would depend firstly on the particular sound that you are looking for which is often personal. Your placing a mic in your wife's boot is not a new idea because I have seen musicians placing mics in a biscuit tin to get the sound that they require.

 

Mics are built for a number of purposes and also have different frequency ranges and some are built to take higher pressures than others.

If you are looking for a tight direct sound you should use a hypercardioid. If you are looking for a wide room sound you can use figure of 8 and so on.

 

Sound treatment in a room definitely helps but you can end up spending a fortune on it if you're anything like me. It can be done cheaply by hanging a few carpets from the ceiling 6 inches away from the walls either side of your mic position which will help to tame your room reflections so that the sound going into your mic is as true as you could hope for.

 

There are many recording video's on youtube so you can learn a lot from them if you spend a little time picking up the info on them.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/19/2017 at 4:26 AM, Ray888 said:

Obtaining sound at source is a tricky business because it would depend firstly on the particular sound that you are looking for which is often personal. Your placing a mic in your wife's boot is not a new idea because I have seen musicians placing mics in a biscuit tin to get the sound that they require.

 

Mics are built for a number of purposes and also have different frequency ranges and some are built to take higher pressures than others.

If you are looking for a tight direct sound you should use a hypercardioid. If you are looking for a wide room sound you can use figure of 8 and so on.

 

Sound treatment in a room definitely helps but you can end up spending a fortune on it if you're anything like me. It can be done cheaply by hanging a few carpets from the ceiling 6 inches away from the walls either side of your mic position which will help to tame your room reflections so that the sound going into your mic is as true as you could hope for.

 

There are many recording video's on youtube so you can learn a lot from them if you spend a little time picking up the info on them.

I think the thing is like... I always have to do sooooooo much tweaking to get anything to fit, I mean the bass, the guitars, everything has to be tweaked to hell and back, and this has me thinking that my source signals just aren't anywhere near the right tonal area or something, it just seems like it shouldn't be THIS hard, like if it was recorded right you'd be able to at least get a DECENT sound off the volume and panning, not having to compress and eq everything to hell and back just to get a semblance of congruency you know?  But there's always that nagging feeling that maybe I just THINK that's the problem and the real problem is I just have no idea what I'm doing lol  I'm trying to figure it out though haha

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  • 3 weeks later...

Started recording guitars today and realized I hadn't watched that yet, definitely inspired me to try some things, thanks @HoboSage!

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