trinityamps.com

Muhahahaha just picked up a new condition 1403 VLZ3 for $175. 6 preamps, 14 channels, slide faders, I'm psyched!

Craigslist rocks!

I'll check out that link now thanks leemo.

...

sorry boards goin crazy... ignore this post.

Another question for the master.

The guys at GC were trying to push me into an Audix i5 instead of an SM-57. I ended up talking them into letting me take both and I ended up liking the 57 better, but then again I'm an amateur here and my brain may have gotten in the way of my ears.

I noticed you had both in your arsenal. Any input on the differences or strengths and weaknesses of each mic?

And BTW, wheres your Tele U47?

GREAT purchase!!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Ummm... is that me??!!

Yup have both, like both, and have some other "hot rod" 57's which is essentially what the i5 is. When I record electric guitars I usually put 2 mics on the cab - always a 57 and then what I'd refer to as a colour mic. Colour mics to me are just mics that compliment the 57 - 57's are very much about the mids, the i5 has an extended top and bottom, so together they're better than either one on its own. So, the bottom line is you need to keep both!! But if I had to choose one, it would be the 57 fwiw - it's THE classic sound...

My umm, U47, ummm... yeah, about that... see, I've got this ummm problem with addiction to guitar amps... and ummm... well, there's just not a lot left at the end of the month, nome sayin'?!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Ahh I can't seem to use this forum right! Ignore this post, sorry!

Haha for the price of U47 you could get another of each of your amps!

Thanks for your help brent. I'm just getting into this recording thing and I think I've found a whole new addiction and now a whole new thing of gas! I've been spending a lot of time at homerecording.com reading advice from harvey gerst about mics, mic placement, how to use them, room ahhhhhh my head is going to explode! This stuff is not easy! I always thought it was a few mics and a room, it's an art and a science sheesh!

I'm already researching prices on neve preamp kits haha! I thought guitar amps were complex...

This is going to be a life long obsession damnit. I'll always have GAS.

One of the most overlooked issues in home recording set up is sound treatment, not necessarily sound proofing. Egg cartons, eggshell foam, those things do little to solve the actual problem frequencies in the room.

I've never seen the room in which you record, but I will say with absolute confidence:

You need more bass trapping.

While not the absolute be-all end-all authority, (I think there is more debate over room treatment techniques than there is over tube amp vs. solid state amp), you can learn a lot from Ethan Winer:

http://www.ethanwiner.com/basstrap.html


http://www.realtraps.com/index.htm

Good luck.

_________________
Peace,

Paul

Haha I've been browsing Ethan's site for days now. what an awesome resource. thanks.

Does the room make a big difference when you are close micing? My instincts would say not much, but this audio engineering is indeed pretty new to me.

The only time the room doesn't affect what you are recording or mixing is when you record everything direct, and mix everything exclusively with headphones. That's the big picture answer.

The reality is that most of us are recording in a room in our home that wasn't designed to be either a live room, or a control/mix room. Many of us are using the "small bedroom". My room is roughly 11' x 10' x 8' high, with a window, a closet and a door on the diagonal in a corner. There are ideal room dimensions to limit nodes, there are ideal surface treatments to trap excess bass. The challenge with bass in a small room is that certain frequencies will cancel, and others will re-enforce, and we will use the great hammer of EQ to compensate. When we move the mix to another room, with different modes and nodes, everything is different. None of us are likely to create a "perfect room" (if such a thing even exists) in our homes, unless we have an almost unlimted budget, and build from scratch.

Since we all have to make do, the best thing I've found is to treat the biggest problems, which is almost always bass trapping in corners. I managed to get some OC 703 and I use it to treat the corners. Because I had to set up my room on the diagonal for aesthetic reasons, (which is the absolute worst way for a control/mix position to be oriented) my biggest problem isn't reflections, it's all bass that needs to be trapped. For less than the price of an Apex home studio mic kit, you can go a long way to improving the sound quality in your room. Bass trapping isn't fun to play with like gear, but it makes the gear you have perform better.

Ethan Winer moderates an acoustics forum, much to learn there too:

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthread ... tics_Forum

Good luck.

_________________
Peace,

Paul

Yeah, pretty much!!



Yup, no surprise there! It's like a whole new flavour of gas that satisfies a part of you that guitar amps can't... you're doomed bro, but at least I'm not alone!! LOL!



Yeah, but the first step is admitting it!!!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

The room you are working in will effect EVERYTHING you do. Your recordings will sound better if you have a great room. Period. Close micing or not, the sound of the room will find it's way into everything you record... but perhaps even more importantly (and what is alluded to above) is how the sound of the room, the reflections, and the inevitable "nodes" or cancellations will effect how you hear what's coming out the speakers and the decisions you make...

HAVING SAID THAT...

I've been making records in untreated rooms for 22 years with great success. I'm not convinced that the work I've done in these environments sounds any different/worse at all to the work I've done in "proper" studios, perhaps even better in certain cases because of the "character". It's not that I necessarily "prefer" to work in an untreated room, it's just that with ANY room, including treated ones, you have to "learn" the sound of the room in order to do your best work. EVERY room has quirks, untreated ones just have more than treated ones usually, but that doesn't mean you can't make good music in them... there are a number of things you can do to minimize the sound of a bad room, but by far the biggest thing you can do to help with what you're hearing from your monitors is GET THEM AWAY FROM THE WALL AND OUT OF THE CORNERS!!!!! I see home rigs all the time where people complain they can't get the bass right and then see their speakers up against the wall or in the corners. It obviously means you need a bigger space, but if you can set up your monitors a good 2-3 feet away from any walls, you'll hear things A LOT better...

Some rooms are naturally better than others though, and some rooms are just plain awful. If you've got one of the awful ones, you'll probably have to treat it somehow because there will be things that you just simply can't hear coming out of the speakers... or find another room...

Bottom line, I'm not saying don't treat your room. What I'm saying is, figure out what's wrong with it through working in it, and experimenting, and hearing deficiencies in your work, and then attack those areas... Don't just start slapping up expensive foam because you think it's the right thing to do! If you're like me, you might just find ways to work around/with the quirks in your room (or even use them to your advantage when recording) rendering treatment a choice rather than a necessity...

And IMO what makes a room great is it's inherent qualities, not the treatment you put in it... my untreated chapel is without a doubt the best sounding acoustic space I've ever recorded in... to be honest, I'm almost afraid to do anything to it in case I change it!!!

Hope this helps.

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

Man I could ask you a million questions and talk gear and recording forever!

So instead of being annoying, I'm going to sit down, shift gears, put on the grateful dead '71 album, open a nice '71 Cabernet and do some heavy reading, learning, and listening.

Then I'll come back with questions!

I'm already planning on how to change my room haha. Thanks for the tips!

What!! no Ripple!

Muhahaa I've never even seen a bottle of ripple. But I hear Phil may have had a bottle or two in his heyday.

The best '71 concert IMO: http://www.setlists.net/?show_id=0743


11/15/71
Austin Municipal Auditorium - Austin, TX

Ask away dude! Not annoying... if it isn't obvious already, I LOVE talking about this stuff!!!!! Although some of that cabernet could motivate me to talk about it more... LOL!

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com

what up!!!
I'm very stoned!
The meds are bad.
But whaT THE HELL, LONG HAIR AIN'T THAT BAD, LOL

Alright brent. I'm going keyboard crazy.

Any wise words before I go out into the world?

I was at GC last night just going crazy over the Yamaha Motif8... but it's about $3k out of my price range, nothing seemed to catch my fancy after that thing tho.

LOL! I'm not sure if I do! Last time I used a Motif it was cool, but to be perfectly honest, for the most part I play/record my (acoustic) piano, my Hammond organ, my old Wurlitzer and Rhodes, a couple of other old organs I have... I've got lots of synth stuff too - including a Minimoog - but the most recent thing I have is a Korg Triton which I bought probably 7-8 years ago now... In recent years I haven't noticed a huge "advancement" in terms of sounds - there just seems to be more "features" - polyphony, more memory, digital outs, better effects (which I usually turn off anyway), etc, etc... The D-A converters have "improved" also, but to be honest I like a bit more dirt in my synth sounds - helps them blend better with guitars... I'll often use one of my 80's or early 90's synths over one of my newer ones for that reason...

So, even though I'm a keyboard player first and foremost, and a total gearslut in almost all areas, unfortunately, new keyboard gear does absolutely nothing for me... truth be told, I kinda sound like "me" whether I'm playing piano or organ or a minimoog or a Triton or a crappy virtual synth!!

Sorry I don't have more insight for you...

_________________
Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter

www.slyfichapel.com