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Conference napalm::guitar

Title:	GUITARnotes - Where Every Note has Emotion
Notice:	Discussion of the finer stringed instruments
Moderator:	KDX200::COOPER

Created:	Thu Aug 14 1986
Last Modified:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	3280
Total number of notes:	61432

2370.0. "Tascam 688 recording story..." by DNEAST::BOTTOM_DAVID (UNIX is cool...) Thu Nov 07 1991 14:40

We mixed into the 688 via a soundcraft 24 X 8 X 2 board. Essentially I ran
the 8 submix's out to channel 1-8 line in's on the 688. I mapped the line in's
to the tape via dual, bypassing the eq section completely for (hopefully)
some noise minimization.

We mixed 11 (yes eleven!) drum mikes onto the 1-2 submix over to the 688, via
a symetrix 525 stereo compressor/limiter. I also used a midiverb II to put
a slight gated reverb on the snare. This was the most time consuming part,
the "studio" was actually the showroom of Captial City Music here in Augusta,
the owner/operator of which plays drums in the band (the soundcraft is his 
also). We used 10 SM57beta mikes and one other AT mike of some sort for the 
bass drum. Since the  board was right next to the drums in the same room
we did all the eq'ing and mixing by the trial and error method

"Ok Al, hit the snare a few times" we then recorded it and played it back.

"needs some more high end"

"Ok Al hit the snare a few times" etc. ad nauseam....

After a few years of this we set up the guitar amps in the basement and used
a snake (thanks to the store again) to run both guitar signals and in the 
other guitar player's case, his footswitch down to the amps, and used 
said snake to route the mike'd signals back to the soundcraft.

The bass player went direct into the board with no fx or compression. He was
using a spector bass with active electronics.

Headphones were another problem, but we overcame it by running headphones
on several power amps (yes direct but we turned them way down!)
using the aux sends on the 688 to drive the headphone "mix", it was rather
heavy handed but it worked.

After burning an entire tape trying  to get a good rhythm pass, I put in a new
tape and the next take was the  keeper.

Since I couldn't get the feedback I needed for my guitar part with the 
midi-rack of doom and speakers down stairs,, we drug my amp up and I re-did my 
track. I got a keeper first pass (this can be highly unusal for Dave). Andy
(other guitar player) then wanted to re-do his track, but rather than move his
amps up he played through mine. We did keep his original track and before you
know it I ended up bouncing his two tracks onto one. 

we punched in a couple of fixes to the bass track and then recorded the lead
vocal. We used heavy (hard?) limiting on this track and no fx.

After that Andy and I did two tracks of backup vocals, doubling them up.

After than I re-config'd the setup and used my quadraverb to put effects on
the vocals for a crude mixdown.

11 hours and one fairly decent 8 track cassette master. I never even ate all
day...

I did the final mix last night at home using a pair of Altec 886A speakers 
and some bose roomates, the quadraverb, the midiverb II and a alesis 
micro-enhancer. I attempted to minimize any eq'ing at mixdown to help with
the overall noise level. I think it came out pretty nice, other who have heard
it seem to agree. The worst part of it was the drums, which lack the low end 
punch they have live, and that's the one disadvantage of the cassette medium.

I used a sony UX-PRO cassette as I think they are by far the best high bias
tape made. I confirmed this by mixing to a TDK-SA and a UX-PRO and A/B'ing
them, the difference was quite obvious. 

The song is going to be used as the backing track for some Capital City Music
ads to run on WTOS (The Mountain) a Maine "Classic Rock" radio station, and 
if TOS likes it, it might get some airplay in rotation. The song (Hold On)
was written by the singer, and is IMHO, very commercial, AOR oriented rock 
and roll.

dbii

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
2370.1	I can understand why you didn't have time to eat	LEDS::BURATI	Fender Bender	`Thu Nov 07 1991 15:21`	10
	Yeow! That's a lot work. I applaud your inventive approach in working around some of the problems in "making do" with the available resources. Re tape: I've never tried Sony UX-PRO but I have been using DENON HD7 and HD8, the latter being a metal formulation. I've found these also to be much better than TDK's good stuff. You can push this tape real hard and it still sounds good. Good mechanics, too. And reasonably priced. So I anxious to check out the Sony 'cause it sounds like these two tapes are in the same league.
2370.2	"available resources"	GOES11::G_HOUSE	Tommy The Cat	`Thu Nov 07 1991 18:31`	26
	re: .1 > Yeow! That's a lot work. I applaud your inventive approach in working > around some of the problems in "making do" with the available resources. I'd give my right LEG to be able to "make do" with such "limited" resources! I mean, you're talking at least 13 mikes (probably more)? A SOUNDCRAFT 24 channel board (this is top shelf stuff here, folks)?? An audio snake long enough to run to a basement? A Tascam 688 ($2500 worth of cassette deck here...)? Sheesh, that's easily $10,000 dollars worth of recording equipment right there, not counting the musicians individual rigs and the effects units used! Yike!!! So maybe it's not quite what you'd find in most recording studios, but it's real close and we're talking about a lot of damn expensive stuff! Beyond the wildest dreams of most musicians! Interesting story though, Dave. I don't mean to make it sound as though I didn't enjoy reading it and appreciate hearing about the tools and techniques you used to produce your song. I'm just jealous that you have that kind of equipment available to ya! Greg
2370.3	let's hear it.	SNOFS2::KNIGHTPETER		`Thu Nov 07 1991 21:41`	6
	Dave, Any chnce of it going on the next guitarnotes tape I'd love to hear it. P.K.
2370.4		DNEAST::BOTTOM_DAVID	UNIX is cool...	`Fri Nov 08 1991 13:01`	24
	re: resources Yeah, $10 wouldn't cover it, the soundcraft would have listed new for much more than that. I've been fortunate to work with a store owner, it's definatley enhanced my rack contents, as well as making things easily available in a pinch. I also hear about all manner of good deals (like ESP blowing out their inventory for 30-40% off normal dealer costs, "selected models only" pant pant pant). re: Denon I a/b'd denon hd-8 against the Sony a year or so ago, it lost. I've compared the sony to: Fuji (I forget but their top of the line high bias), TDK-SA & SA-X, Maxell XL-II & XLS-II, and Denon HD-8, it beat them all hands down. You can drive it harder and it sounds better. Makes a great tape to master a mix to as well. re: guitarnotes tape A copy (mastered on a Sony UX-PRO) is going to be mailed to Buck sometime next week for inclusion in the next one. Also there will be another "recorded in my basement studio with a drum machine[so the rhythm is sorta ucky] song included as well" dbii
2370.5	???	LEDS::BURATI	Fender Bender	`Fri Nov 08 1991 14:14`	8
	re: .2 Your reply easily wins the "most exlamation points in a reply in recent memory" award. Sorry if I got you so excited. I was just trying to offer a compliment. --ron
2370.6	Not to be alarmed	GOES11::G_HOUSE	Tommy The Cat	`Fri Nov 08 1991 14:23`	3
	I'm just an excitable boy... I was gettin all hot thinking about that superior gear!
2370.7		KDX200::COOPER	Step UP to the RACK !	`Fri Nov 08 1991 16:23`	12
	Interesting... We played out last night and did something similar (well, kinda). We ran the four sub mixes of a StudioMaster 24x8x2 into each track of my MT100II last night, and I'm listening to/mixing the masters now (sure gobbled a lot of Maxell XL's !!). I'm really impressed at the quality of sound coming from the mix. Maybe a punch here and there, but maybe not - it's nice to have that "live" feel on this stuff. ...Now all we gotta do is get our sound dood to RAIL those guitars... :) jc
2370.8	Was the minimum release time short enough?	DREGS::BLICKSTEIN	Soaring on the wings of dawn	`Mon Nov 25 1991 18:35`	9
	You had 11 drum mikes going into one compressor??? That must've required some real delicate settings on the compressor to avoid having one strong hit compress a closely following weak hit. Or was that just not a problem? db
2370.9		DNEAST::BOTTOM_DAVID	UNIX is cool...	`Tue Nov 26 1991 10:25`	8
	I had 11 drum mikes mixed to stereo into one compressor yes. We didn't have alot of choices, we only had the one dual/stereo compressor. I re-mixed last night, cleaned up the drum sound a bunch. Buck I'll be mailing the submission tape this week now that we've got a better mix. dbii
2370.10		CAVLRY::BUCK	Buck in Bronco	`Tue Nov 26 1991 10:48`	3
	RE: Submission Great...will be looking forward to it!