Hey Matt! Studio Questions for you!!

[Rex Deus]

Hi Matt,

I purchased the first Theocracy CD when it was released and I still love it - I HAVE to listen to it at least once a week. (well actually, I purchased 2 copies and gave one to a friend.)


I have a couple of questions for you regarding recording equipment.

I have a home studio that is now essentially packed up. My Dad is retiring in a month, and my parents are moving to Tennessee (somewhere around Johnson City to the Greeneville area) and my brother and I are moving up there as well (We're both in our mid-late 30's and don't really have any ties to Jacksonville (Florida) if our parents move, so we're bailing.

We're going to build a studio when we get settled in, and I was wondering:

What is your basic setup? What kind of software are you using? What kind of Mic Pre's, Interfaces, etc? What size PC, and was it enough to run large numbers of tracks and plug ins?

I went through recording school, and at the time I learned on a Mac Dual G5 with Logic Pro 7.0. It's a great setup and I had no problems with it - other than the fact that I'm a PC-guy, rather than a Mac-guy. LOL

Then Apple began making changes and I don't want to be investing in something that might have platform issues, so I've decided I'm going to go with a PC based system and DIY the PC myself. I've built all the PC's I've had over the course of the last 10 years, so putting one together is no big deal to me, but my problem is I have very little experience with recording on a PC.

So what are you using?

My current rig is a 16-channel Mackie mixer (it's the worst freaking EQ in the world - it's just a wide enough and deep enough bell to screw up a lot of frequencies at once ) with a pair of Tascam DA-38's, and a Tascam DA302 Dual Well DAT machine, and a CD burner. (and about a thousand mic's and tons of outboard gear - I used to be a sound-man, and have quite a bit of gear that I kept when I sold the PA.)

The setup is 16-bit, which isn't bad, but after I began working on the 24-bit Logic setup, there's definitely a difference in the audio quality. Initially I was going to go with a 2" 24-track (I had a deal lined up for an MCI machine that did both 24 and 16 tracks on 2" tape via interchangeable head-blocks) and a 48 channel Wheatstone board. But I just couldn't justify the cost of tape for home recording, so when the deal fell through I went digital - that was in 1999. The gear I have is virtually brand new, and we're thinking about using it as a "mobile" recording rig. just to get some use out of it. I built the last studio I had 20 years ago in my parents garage, and they finally decided that they wanted to leave here - so we tore the studio apart so they could have their garage back. LOL Man it was killer - we built 12" thick walls and I could get out there and play my drums in the middle of the night if I wanted to, and nobody could hear a thing outside.


So, I want to go ahead and go "in the box" so to speak, that way everything remains in digital from the moment it enters the PC.

So what kind of toys do you have in the studio? And what have you found to be your best investments in the recording gear that you are currently using?


Thanks,
Tim

 

[Rex Deus]

It would probably be Seth and Shawn.
jk

Hahaha, That's a Great one ! LOL

I could understand Matt feeling that way, I've been out of a band so long that it isn't funny. I started training my voice 5 years ago, just in case I ever felt like making the jump from drums to lead vocals. I can do the two at the same time, but I still have to dumb down some of the drum parts if the vocal parts really waide ranged- I just can't nail those high notes while doing flying double bass. (I prefer to stand to sing anyway.)

I just heard the new recording teaser that he put up last and was floored, and I thought - "Man, I'm going to find out what kind of basic System that Matt's using so when Ibegin my transition to the computer for recording - I'll at least have an idea as to what can be done in a home environment.



Tim

 

[Matt Smith]

Hey Tim—
Thanks for all the kind words…
It’s all dependent on what kind of projects you want to do. If you think you’ll be recording drumkits, it’s a whole different world from just doing vocal and guitar overdubs, etc.
The most important thing is the room. High ceilings and space make things so much easier. But if you have a smaller room like me, at least make sure it’s treated well. Put a lot of time into researching this; small rooms have terrible nodes, standing waves, low frequency buildup, etc. that can make it impossible to know what you’re doing if you don’t install bass traps or broadband absorbers.
I use a PC running Nuendo, which is a great program (a bit on the pricey side though). Cubase SX is another you may want to look into; Nuendo’s “little brother” so to speak, but if you’re only doing audio (as opposed to film, etc.) it will have everything you need.
Good AD and DA converters are very important. I don’t have the $$ to get really nice ones yet, so I’m using an RME Fireface, which is a good unit on the affordable side. For all the wonderful advantages of digital (no more aligning tape machines, razorblade editing, etc.), it does have a lot of unique potential problems you’ll have to get used to like latency, etc. Of course there’s always the Pro Tools LE route, which a lot of people use when starting out…I believe the track limit is 32, so if you don’t think you’ll use more tracks than that, it could be perfect.
I have way more experience on Macs, but we had a PC sitting around unused so I ended up using that for the studio. I’ll probably still go Mac eventually, but I stuck with PC for now since Seth is a PC wizard. I couldn’t tell you the specifics, but he probably could. I use 3 hard drives: one main drive for the programs, etc., and 2 huge drives in a RAID array for the actual audio files. Plus I have an external firewire drive to back up to, obviously.
One of the best pieces of hardware you could buy is the Distressor (http://www.empiricallabs.com). It’s a great compressor that works well on everything. As for preamps, I have two Brent Averill units (a Neve clone and an API clone). API preamps are the absolute BOMB on drums; I almost fell out of my chair the first time I heard a snare drum coming through one.
Are you planning to primarily go with outboard, or plugins as well? If you’re looking into plugins, check out the UAD-1 stuff (http://www.uaudio.com/products/software/UAD-1/index.html). Some cool EQs and compressors there. Also, at least for me, SSL-style compression is absolutely mandatory to mix this kind of music. In the plugin world, you have a couple of options to give you that vibe:
http://www.waves.com/content.asp?id=2055
and, if you’re on Mac:
http://www.mhlabs.com/metric_halo/products/channelstrip/

Anyway, hope this is a start. If you have any more specific questions or whatever, feel free to shoot.

 

[Rex Deus]

Matt,


Thanks so much!


One of my friends (he and I believe we're distant cousins somewhere back in there) is an Engineer/ Producer who produced bands like Petra and Greg X. Volz during the early-mid 80's. He's using Nuendo as well.

I've probably already got a similar PC set up to you. I've got a PC server with 320 Gigs of HD on a SATA II RAID (although I just currently have the HD's set up as two individual HD's - I'm not striping or mirroring them - I really just use them for storing back data of my main HD. I built this PC for being able to do Video editing and eventually use it for recording Audio....so in the future, - in theory - I should be able to just upgrade the CPU and max out the RAM.

I already know a lot about construction for audio. I worked in construction for almost 20 years, and studied this stuff for ages before I ever enclosed in my garage. I've helped build a few studios, and worked at a studio back in the 80's while building cabinets and entertainment centers during the day.

My dad is buying a farm and he's giving my brother and I some of the land so that we can build houses on. There's a huge barn - we're talking 50' x? maybe 75'. It's monstrous. It's got a loft, but the first floor is over 20' high. If everything goes right - we intend to convert that into a Studio and a bandroom, with a small repair area so we have a place to tinker and work on gear.

So what kind of kick mic's are you using? Those look like Audix tom mic's, are you using D6's on the kicks? If so, how do you like them?


I normally trigger the kicks (I've got two ddrum units - the original ddrum Rack system from 1988, and a ddrum2 system) It's just easier to me - I can put any tension I want on the kick heads, and it doesn't effect the sound I deliver to the mixer/recorder.


And for future reference let me suggest a different overhead pattern.
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/placement.htm

Once I began using that overhead pattern - it REALLY opened the drumkit up man!


Tim

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

speaking of triggers....my drummer had a trigger setup on his kick, but we ended up getting such a great sound without it and it only cost 50 cents. He taped 2 quarters to either side of the beater on the inside of the drum. What a great snappy kick that makes.

 

[Rex Deus]

speaking of triggers....my drummer had a trigger setup on his kick, but we ended up getting such a great sound without it and it only cost 50 cents. He taped 2 quarters to either side of the beater on the inside of the drum. What a great snappy kick that makes.

A way to achieve a similar sound is to take 2 pieces of drumhead about 5"x5" and duct tape it to the head. You have to put the piece of drumhead against the head, and hold it in place with the mallet, and then put the tape on so that you make sure that mallet isn't touching the tape - otherwise the mallet will get really "gummy" from beating through the tape and getting the adhesive on it.

If you are recording drums in a room by themselves, you can put the heads on, and leave them so slack that they are actually wrinkled, and they will record great - there's no action in the heads because they are so slack, but it records really well and has TONS of low end if you are using something like a D112.


But if you have a guitar amp in the room, it will make the heads vibrate - so you can't use it live or if the whole band it trying to record in the same room.

Another of my tricks is to build a Kick drum tunnel, and stick a speaker in the tunnel - and you wire the speaker up to an XLR cabel and plug it in and use it as a microphone - it will add a ton of low end to the kick sound.

and here's my ultimate trick.

You have to have a gate with an external key input.

You run the kick mic through the gate, and put a trigger on the drum and plug it into the key in. This way the trigger controls the opening of the gate, rather than the sound. Then you can set the gate to pick up the entire kick drum, and it will shut off without all of that chatter of other things in the room opening the gate - the same thing works for the snare as well.


Tim

 

[Matt Smith]

My dad is buying a farm and he's giving my brother and I some of the land so that we can build houses on. There's a huge barn - we're talking 50' x? maybe 75'. It's monstrous. It's got a loft, but the first floor is over 20' high. If everything goes right - we intend to convert that into a Studio and a bandroom, with a small repair area so we have a place to tinker and work on gear.

So what kind of kick mic's are you using? Those look like Audix tom mic's, are you using D6's on the kicks? If so, how do you like them?

Wow, maybe I'll come record up there next time, then! Sounds like it will be a great setup.
Yeah, I'm using D6s on the kicks. I like them a lot. For fast Metal stuff, they're a no-brainer because they already have that kinda scooped voicing with a nice slap up top. I really dig a lot of the Audix stuff. The tom mics are nice, the D1 is KILLER on snare, and the i5 is nice on guitar cabs/snare/etc. (it's kinda their 57).

Thanks for the overhead suggestion; I may give it a shot sometime. I actually like the spaced pair setup for this kind of Metal, because I usually use the overheads mostly as cymbal mics as opposed to "whole kit" mics, but I'm always up for learning something new.

 

[Thornie]

You have to have a gate with an external key input.

You run the kick mic through the gate, and put a trigger on the drum and plug it into the key in. This way the trigger controls the opening of the gate, rather than the sound. Then you can set the gate to pick up the entire kick drum, and it will shut off without all of that chatter of other things in the room opening the gate - the same thing works for the snare as well.

That is a PHENOMENAL idea! I've been struggling with the Noisegate for WEEKS! Thank you!!!

BTW - I'm the drummer with the 50 cent kick drum

 

[Matt Smith]

That is a PHENOMENAL idea! I've been struggling with the Noisegate for WEEKS! Thank you!!!

BTW - I'm the drummer with the 50 cent kick drum

Just be careful if you're gating while tracking...don't want to miss ghost notes or anything. I always just gate in the mix, but that's just me.

 

[Rex Deus]

Okay Matt, I've got a question for you:

HOW are you getting 16 drum mic's into the PC with just the Fireface? :Spin: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's 10 analog audio channels. Where are you inserting the other 6 mics? Are you submixing with a mixer?

I've been doing a lot of research and my brother and I decided we're going to seriously look at a pair of Mackie 1200F's - that will give us 24 channels live at 24/192....and for $100 per channel - that's not bad at all....but I'm going to have to find somebody local with one and go record through it to see how it works first. I've talked to some people who have bought the smaller versions and they said Mackie finally got it right - these Onyx Preamps are supposedly totally pro.


Tim

 

[Rex Deus]

Just be careful if you're gating while tracking...don't want to miss ghost notes or anything. I always just gate in the mix, but that's just me.

Nah - the trigger will open the gate. It works flawlessly. I've been doing it for years. My Bass player had a 3,000 Watt rig with eight 15" speakers. (a pair of Community Sound 4x15" Subwoofers and he bypassed their circuit board so he went 1500 watts into 4 ohms for each box.) But when we were recording - and Mick had his Freight Train of an amp happening, it was killing my drum tracks - so that's when I had the epiphany about using the triggers in the 166a key inputs - you can patch an EQ in between and even fine tune the signal that opens the gate - so I just cut out ALL of the low end using my Aphex parametric. What a use huh? I paid like $400 dollars for that EQ and don't even use it on an audio signal....it's just being used to modify a control voltage. (I need to get a cheapo Behringer feedback eliminator and put that in there to free up the Aphex for something else....after all it's got that pseudo-tube in it as well. I'll bet if I pulled the tube out - it would still work without it ala the Art tube preamps. )

Plus, you're not using it to gate the signal tightly - just to help keep the track clean of clutter. I usually post gate the heck out the kick if I'm mic'ing.

Woo hoo - the time's drawing near! My Dad retired on Friday.
New studio here I come! LOL

I

am

so

excited!

I haven't been able to play my kit for some time because we had to tear the bandroom apart, so my kit is all cased up and ready to go.

Tim

 

[KEN1]

Okay Matt, I've got a question for you:

HOW are you getting 16 drum mic's into the PC with just the Fireface? :Spin: Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's 10 analog audio channels. Where are you inserting the other 6 mics? Are you submixing with a mixer?

I've been doing a lot of research and my brother and I decided we're going to seriously look at a pair of Mackie 1200F's - that will give us 24 channels live at 24/192....and for $100 per channel - that's not bad at all....but I'm going to have to find somebody local with one and go record through it to see how it works first. I've talked to some people who have bought the smaller versions and they said Mackie finally got it right - these Onyx Preamps are supposedly totally pro.


Tim

Matt's probably using that M-audio Octane into the Fireface via adat lightpipe for the extra drum tracks.............the same set-up i'm using.I also have a cheapo Behringer ADA8000 going into my Fireface for scratch tracks since I do alot of bigger band's/choir's,etc coming into my studio.My keeper tracks are alway's from my Fireface and Octane since their converter's and mic pre's are far superior then the ADA8000's.I'm running a 28 input system for the bigger projects.The Fireface's converter's are onpar with the Apogee's.............I know because I own both.RME make's by far the best hardware on the market..........pricewise and quality.You can't beat them.

 

[Rex Deus]

Matt's probably using that M-audio Octane into the Fireface via adat lightpipe for the extra drum tracks.............the same set-up i'm using.I also have a cheapo Behringer ADA8000 going into my Fireface for scratch tracks since I do alot of bigger band's/choir's,etc coming into my studio.My keeper tracks are alway's from my Fireface and Octane since their converter's and mic pre's are far superior then the ADA8000's.I'm running a 28 input system for the bigger projects.The Fireface's converter's are onpar with the Apogee's.............I know because I own both.RME make's by far the best hardware on the market..........pricewise and quality.You can't beat them.

Okay, I have a couple of questions:

What sample rates are you guys using?

I know the ADAT's lightpipe essentially tops out at 48khz, so what sample rate are you guys using?

Can you record at separate sample rates and use them at the same time?

In other words - are the 10 audio inputs from the Fireface being recorded at 192khz, while anything that comes over the lightpipe recorded at 48khz (or 96khz if you use an RME converter ADI-8 DS, but that uses up both your lightpipe channels.)

Latency

How bad is the latency on the Fireface, AND is the latency for the material coming through the lightpipe worse than what is being converted within the Fireface?

This is all new to me, and I've been trying to read as much as I can about it.

I'd like to go 24-bit/192khz, but it's going to cost me out the wazoo.

Also, is there any difference between the optical inputs?

I've got some kind of Optical input built into my PC, but I have no idea what it is - it looks just like a Lightpipe connection to me but I have no idea if it is.

maybe it's a S/PDIF Optical. I need to do some research on it to see exactly what it is.

This motherboard is an ABIT NF7-S2 or something like that. It's not bad actually, but by the time I get setup, I'm probably going to wind up using a Tyan server motherboard.... that will kill me. LOL nobody wants to pay a grand for a motherboard. Hahaha



Tim

 

[Rex Deus]

aw crap - that is an Optical S/PDIF output for 5.1/ 6-channel audio out.


Tim

 

[Matt Smith]

Yup, I was indeed using the Octane. I sold it recently though; was never that crazy about the pres...had some bugginess with it as well.

I record at 24-bit/44.1. I don't think there's a point in going higher than that for dense Metal stuff, personally.

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

Okay wait a sec....I record at the same sampling rate, and my stuff sounds like a cheap 4 track compared to even your sample clips. What (else ) am I doing wrong??? Is it my DI? Yes it's cheap but still....I'm just trying to record guitars here. At my drummers we use a far more elaborate setup. I'm using a Creative Proffessional E-MU 0404. My guitar tone sounds great from the cab...but the playback seems nasal and thin. For example here's two sample clips. One just a lone guitar, a familliar riff that Matt sometimes plays for his tests, and another full ensemble...a work in progress. Same exact tone settings, but very different sounds. What the....??
I have no mixing experience and I won't even begin to get into my vocal takes....YIKES.
Little HELP!!! LOTTA HELP!!!!!
I've heard people recording much better with a lot less than I've got. Perhaps I'm over complicating???
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=AF6553B14E91717F
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=059E92CA298A6E71

 

[Matt Smith]

I'm not able to listen to the clips at the moment, but don't freak out. It just takes a lot of time and practice. It's all about the way everything works together: guitar, amp, cabinet, room, mic, preamp, etc...any one variable can make a huge difference. My money would be on cabinet/speaker, mic positioning, and/or room.

 

[Matt Smith]

BTW, speaking of cheap 4-track, I dusted off the old Tascam 8-track cassette portastudio a couple of months ago and recorded a quick jam just to see how it would turn out. Surprisingly not bad at all:

TASCAM JAM

Shawn's front kick head was split, and you can totally hear it flapping, haha.

 

[Spyderman-Hyderman]

Seems my problems have been bad preamp related. Went to the local music store and picked up a TC Helicon mic preamp....it's actually for vocals, but it's a preamp right? mic'd the guitar with it and wow....night and day improvement.

btw Matt....I was looking at a couple of the Distressor units like what you have. (not sure what specific model you have) HOLY GOOD CRAP are they expensive. Even the cheap ones are not really cheap.
Deffinately not worth it for newbs I guess.