[realmusicians] Re: howdy
- From: "Chris Belle" <cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 22:08:49 -0500
Well, that's one thing possitive about reaper, it's not power hungry like sonar
is.
Like comparing a motorcycle to a full blown motor home with all the bells and
whistles.
They'll both get you there, but as to your room, you can do a lot to make it
better, and not break the bank.
If you don't have a lot of noise in the immediate environment, you can hang
blankets, and or put stuff on the walls, and in the corners to break up those
nasty fluter reflections, and warm the room up a bit.
Carpet on the floor, if your recording in the same room as the computer, then
having a dynamic mic is your friend because a good condenser will pick up
everything and the grass hoppers whispering outside.
Even in my moderately upscale home studio, I still reach for a dynamic because
I got ghetto hoppers that like to cruise the hood with 3 kw in their trunks,
and there's just nothing short of a concrete suround and floating everything
that'll stop that.
Only so much you can do with an old house.
But using close micing techniques, and avoiding recording during rush hour, and
using hi pass filters, and all that stuff let's me get acceptably clean
recordings.
My noise floor is about 80 db down, which is better than we ever got in the
tape days.
Don't give up, man I used to get some pretty good recordings when i didn't have
anything like a treated room, but it was a lot harder.
You'll get there my friend.
For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at
www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
sdb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave
To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 5:24 PM
Subject: [realmusicians] Re: howdy
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the advice, and thanks for telling me, that with the Room I have,
and the equipment I use, I am probably not going to achieve that modern
acoustic sound. By telling me this, it saves me a great deal of frustration
because I am prone to blame myself for not having the dials set correctly.
And Chris, I was not the least bit offended about your stating that Reaper is
a step backwards when compared with Sonar. Reaper is what it is, and Sonar
is what it is etc.
I appreciate your directness.
As for sending you a Bundle. . . Sure, if you don't mind. Right now I do
not have a system that can run Sonar 8.53, but when I get it fixed, maybe we
can talk about it then.
And you make me laugh when you speak of Drumming up Business. Chris, you
have never pushed your Studio upon anyone, either on this list, or over on Midi
Mag. You've made your skills and studio available to those that want to use it
etc. Never have I ever seen you attempt to grab some quick money.
Dave
At 11:57 AM 9/20/2012, you wrote:
Well, maybe backward is too stron and negative a term, but you know what I
mean.
You'll have a well trodden path with the sonar thing, and more readily
available plugs, eq, mastering, multiband, reverbs, etc.
and better access to them.
and a more straight forward intuitive deal with bussing and signal flow,
reaper is kind of strange when it comes to that.
But it holds lots of promise for a possible future good daw choice for us.
I just don't have time to fiddle fart around with interfaces, and such, i
want to record, not but my head against obstacles.
Unless you get some serious room treatment, i wouldn't bother with really
nice mics.
Your 57 is just fine, learn to use eq, and compression, and micing
techniques, perhaps we need to get together and go over some basics about mic
placement, and eq, and such.
I know times are tough right now, so don't think I'm tryin to hussle you
for work or anything.
But it won't mater if your recording with sonar or reaper, the sound your
getting is in how well you play, your input techniques, what you do during the
processing, and how you approach it.
Doing something like just rolling off the high end, or low end is a very
heavy handed way to aproach it, are you using your mid sweeps with your
parametrics properly, finding where you have too much of a certain frequency
and dipping it down?
Where are you micing your guitar?
If your doin it on the usual place on the neck and body, that will give you
a boomy sound, I like to use the hotspot on the guitar, near the bridge, you'll
have to listen for it, but it's usually right between the tail and where your
lap is, kind of imagine a half circle,
between 12 and 3 oclock, anywhere in that area.
Move your mic around, and put on headphones, and when the guitar sounds,
good, you got the hotspot.
I like to stero mic a guitar sometimes, put one in the traditional place on
the neck and body joint, or around there, and then one on the hotspot.
There's a lot to getting that modern sound, for one thing, they probably
spent millions to get the room dead quiet, and also to control frequencys,
reflections, diffusion, etc, and then having the best of everything,
there's no way we can compete, but with the gear we have, if we do it
right, we can get a long way there.
I'm pretty happy wit hthe sound I'm getting in our high grade home studio,
and clients are happy.
Don't give up, hey, maybe just for fun sometimes, you can send me a project
you did that your not happy with the sound of, and I'll mix it for you, and see
if it's in the micing, or in the eq and processing.
YOu know how to make bundle files right?
I also use some nice software plugs, the wavs ssl stuff, sonar's own linear
phase eq, I also have a pretty decent board with a nice warm sound, and mackie
onyx I'm always bragging about,
if you like the sound I'm geting, I don't use fancy mics most of the time,
I mostly record guitar with a knock off 57 it's an audix i5, has a hotter
output than a 57 but about the same thing, I run it through ssl400 plug-in, and
tweak the parameters a bit, I do roll off the low end, but I spend a lot of
time tayloring the mid range frequencies and giving it shimmer by makin the
high end do just right,
and sometimes I like to multilayer guitars for a rhythm track, put capos in
different position, and pan things, to get that cool 70s thing going on,
there's so much you can do.
For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at
www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
sdb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave
To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2012 10:58 AM
Subject: [realmusicians] Re: howdy
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the Reaper run down. So I am taking a Step backward?
Guess I was starting to suspect that too, after playing around with it
some. I kept thinking I just needed to press on and learn a bit more and
perhaps I would find a Break Through.
I was thinking my needs are small, and that Sonar was Over Kill. I just
record Acoustic guitar, Mandolin, and some crude vocals. Have no need or
even any interest in the latest Synth, which is where Sonar seems to
specialize.
I thought Reaper might be easier to do the basic project, but I too am
bumping my head into places that so far seem a bit odd, or strange.
I still have Sonar, and if I don't get some better recordings with
Reaper, I can always reinstall Sonar.
Is there a Cheaper Mic that will record Acoustic instruments better than
my Shur 57's or 58's?
I know I am a floundering pathetic mess when it comes to Recording, but I
would still like to learn to make at least a clean recording.
At 05:08 AM 9/20/2012, you wrote:
There are a lot of factors that go in to making a recording,
microphones are part of it,
how processing is used, or not used, and recording techniques.
You can achieve very good results with the humble 57 or 58 they aren't
the best mics in the world but they are still considered an industry standard
and will do any job passably, where some specialty mics won't do everything
decently.
As for reaper, well, though it holds great promise, you've taken a step
backwards in some ways.
A couple folks like our Roy, and maybe Gord to some extent have
persisted with it and managed to get something done with it, it's a very geeky
favorite, open ended and such, but there is no really good development
continuing on it for now as far as access,
some russian guy did that reaccess plug, but it has some issues with
screen-readers.
As far as porting plugs, all the hsc and ahk work that's been done for
sonar plugs won't translate, because the vst plugs show up different with
reaper.
Reaper does have the generic more for plugs where all the parameters
show up, much like the inspector does in sonar, but only 4 parameters at a
time, there, but you still won't get important things like loading and saving
and other things.
So you in the wild wild west with reaper.
If it came down to get work done, and especially with midi editing, I'd
take even a older version of sonar over reaper.
But that's just my humble oppinion.
If cakewalk doesn't work with us anymore as far as access, reaper may
be the daw of choice for us for years to come, it certainly is the best bang
for the buck.
But it desperately needs some work, and good documentation, and well,
you get to be a pioneer 'grin'.
I have used reaper and frankly, it frustrated me to no end.
But Roy over there has done complete projects with it.
But you have to remember there has been 10 years of work from two
different packages done with sonar.
Sonar comes with good mastering plugs, and lots of instruments, you get
a few nice things with reaper, but if you need professional tools, with reaper,
you'll have to go buy them or yes you can use reaper's vst rapper to make
sonar's plugs work with reaper, but access is your own baby, no work has been
done.
If enough of my students start using reaper, I may start doing some ahk
scripts for it, but for now, that's not happening.
and the studio is starting to get really busy.
Good luck.
For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at
www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
sdb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design
----- Original Message -----
From: Dave
To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 8:10 PM
Subject: [realmusicians] Re: howdy
Hello to the List,
Chris and Stephie, thanks for letting me Subscribe. I'll make a big
effort to keep myself under control.
I have just installed Reaper a few days ago and have successfully
recorded some audio. Still over coming my memory of Sonar, and am attempting
to find the same features and effects in Reaper.
Is there a way to harvest all of those Plug Ins found in Sonar 8.5
and bring them into Reaper?
Also, so I stop chasing this so far elusive goal, when using Sonar,
or now Reaper, it is possible to make a recording sound like some good clean
Country found on the FM Radio?
Equipment has a large impact upon what can be done, especially
Microphones.
My humble studio does not have $1500 microphones, more like the Shur
57 and 58, which makes all of my recordings sound like something from the 60's,
or early 70's.
Just recently, I've found filtering out the Highs, or Lows, can
improve things, but it still has some serious Old Fashioned sound.
Is there a less expensive way to cure this, or am I doomed to always
sounding like Herman's Hermits?
Easily Amused Dave
At 05:30 PM 9/19/2012, you wrote:
Oh great I managed to fix my subscription too smiles.
Welcome Dave from me also.
Steph
----- Original Message -----
From: Chris Belle
To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2012 5:00 PM
Subject: [realmusicians] howdy
Welcoming you Dave, hope you get this.
For all your audio production needs and technology training,
visit us at
www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
sdb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design
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