things i learned today

[solarbird]

I think I finally have all the bits and pieces I need, and I'm starting to have a decent idea of how to use them. Here are some things I learned today!

• Shock mounts are better than hard mounts at rejecting noise, like you'd expect.
• The new mics pick up a lot more noise than the old mics even so. (Floor -55db or so, up significantly, but still pretty low I guess.)
• I hate my vocals. Oh wait, I already knew that. But I have to put a lot more work into them I think than I have been.
• That said, I didn't hate them entirely as much as I expected I would, and I have some pretty specific things to try to fix.
• At least with recording mandolin, a stereo recording mixed to mono sounds better than just a single-mic originally-microphone recording of the same source material, even with everything else unchanged. I don't know why. At least I'm not having phase issues.
• I am amused that I can say "ENGAGE PHANTOM POWER ON SHOCK MOUNTS ONE AND TWO!" and have that not only actually mean something but be pretty much the correct terminology! (hee hee hee hee "phantom power" hee hee "shock mount" hee hee hee)
• These mics like a little distance from the mandolin - like close to a metre
• I have different ideas about tempo when singing these things vs. playing these things that didn't show up live. I have click tracks but I need to come up with some isolation solution for my headphones so I can actually hear the click tracks when playing. (So I might still need a toy for that.)
• Singing along to your own music is way easier when you aren't also playing!
• A bunch of microphone placement notes best referenced by photographs I took earlier so won't iterate through here.

I think that's most of it. This is certainly a learning experience.

Comments

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

Long ago, I asked one of the best musicians that I know personally why so much Pagan music is crappy single-guitar folk. He had an instant answer, it was something he'd thought about himself: it's because folk guitar is so simple, any idiot can do it. And it has to be: you're also singing while you play. Playing a complicated instrument, in more complicated rhythms than plain old four-chord folk, while singing? That's a non-trivial effort, and not very many people even can learn to do it. So if you're doing it at all, by my friend's standards you should be impressed with yourself.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

Very true. I listen to a lot of bands whose singers also play something (usually bass, but sometimes guitar), and the parts they play while singing are almost always the most basic and stripped down parts of the songs by miles.

Probably most notable with Slayer. Raging guitars and drum parts, and even crazy basslines during some of the breaks and solos, but while Araya's singing, the bass part drops down by a couple of orders of complexity.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I am amused that I can say "ENGAGE PHANTOM POWER ON SHOCK MOUNTS ONE AND TWO!" and have that not only actually mean something but be pretty much the correct terminology!

Now you just need to have someone throwing a giant knife switch on some Brass, Dark Oak, and Cast Iron monstrosity of a machine in order to actually do this engaging. Then you will be truly living the dream ;)

[bradhicks.livejournal.com]

... and step up the reactor input THREE RED TRIANGLES!

[solarbird]

Exactly.

[maellenkleth]

yay voice optimisation!