This week we talk about adding a subwoofer to your monitoring (Yamaha HS10W review), Ryan interviews Draven Midnight, we talk about using Kickstarter to fund music projects, and much more.
Joining us this week is audio engineer and sound designer Rene Coronado.
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I’ve been mixing with a sub for several years and I do think it’s the way to go to hear an accurate, full range in mix rooms that are too small for proper placement of mid/far field monitors. From my experience it sounds like Jon got lucky with how easy it was to place the sub in the room. It is often very time consuming to get the distance from the mix position just right, moving the sub an inch or two at a time, Playing frequency sweeps and some very familiar mixes for the smoothest sounding response.
My preference was to route the outputs of my DAW to my monitor controler and send separate outputs to my monitors and the sub, with independent mutes. For me it’s an important check so I can be sure the bass guitar and kick will still rock on speakers that aren’t efficient below 60hz. when I go my sub the right amount of low end got easier but now the low mid, 100-200, is where I spend a little extra time.
Thanks again for the interesting discussion and thanks in advance for the shows between now and the next time I feel like I have something to say worth adding to it. Hope I can give back some fraction of what I get from it.
Jon, do a kick starter for your long distance colab album, I would totally give you money for that. I want a signed cd and its your job to sell it to me.
GSAS guys,
@jon: You need an idea for a kickstarter project? Do a “Reaper for ProTools runaways” video. Big time donators can send in material which you will use in *one* of the sessions. Even if it means you need a years supply of glitter to roll it in. ooooor you do a drum editing video… which you won’t… right?
slapping jon around with a large trout,
stephan
Guys,
As an Englander I’m a little confused. How much is a shit-tonne? Is it more or less than a metric fuck-tonne?
Mike
GSAA
I liked it better when i didn’t want to buy a sub…
Kickstarter is one of those things ive thought would be useful eventually, but luckily so far we have been able to fund most of our projects with proceeds from our shows.(buy your own t-shirt rig! it pays for its self quick).
Ride the chicken
Hey guys,
Another loyal listener with my first comment after approx. probably 80 episodes. Best recording podcast period.
My first inquiry was born by Jon’s segment on Long distance collaborations which I can see will only become more popular as time progresses. I’m starting a project with some of my best friends who are all great musicians (mostly in their late 20’s) who’ve become family men or have new careers; I’m the only professional musician left. We aren’t terribly far away, but schedules never line up.
I wish we could all use the same DAW, but I don’t see them taking the time to learn recording. Unfortunately, I’m the only one with recording & mixing abilities and the technical know how involved in it, apart from their experiences having recorded throughout their lives in studios, big & small. One of the leaders of the project, besides myself, is going to invest in basic tracking equipment for his Windows-based laptop and I’m trying to guide him into the best possible purchase that can get him quality tracking results for himself while not having him altogether learn recording engineering. I’ll be doing all the mixing in PT9 on my IMac. I really wish Garageband was available for Windows because (although I know your criticisms), it truly is a great tool for musicians to intuitively track their music easily.
What would you suggest for him? He’s gonna be tracking no more than 2 tracks simultaneously, that includes acoustic & elec gtr, bass, vocals, cello and maybe even simple percussion. He’s got both SM58 & 57’s and I’ll be supplying him indefinitely with an AT3035 that I no longer use. I believe Jon has spoken on this mic and its definitely decent for the price. We’re really starting from the ground up, meaning: I need to get him tracking with the least amount of technical issues and although I’ll sit down with him and teach him tracking basics in whatever DAW we decide, he has no understanding of recording and prob. not the time to learn it in depth. The OS he has is Vista 64-bit with 4GB RAM, a Dell Laptop. And of course, he doesn’t wanna run up a hefty bill with these purchases.
My suggestions so far are between the Focusrite Scarlet 2i2, Presonus Audiobox USB, M-Audio Fast Track Pro, & Presonus Firestudio Mobile. My 1st choice is for the Scarlet 2i2 because of the Focusrite Pre’s and for $150, that’s a price he’d like to be at.
For the DAW, I refuse to suggest PT because of all the crap I dealt with years ago with problem after problem in a Windows PC. He won’t have patience for that. So my 1st guesses are Reaper, Studio One, Cubase, or Acoustica Mixcraft. The most important features needed are SIMPLICITY, easy to learn/intuitive and lastly, STABILITY.
I’m incined to say Mixcraft which I know probably makes you cringe, but it seems simple enough for him, and all he’ll be doing is dragging the initial stereo rough mix into a track at absolute zero and then tracking his parts on new tracks, and then rendering those tracks for me to import into my PT session (prob use .BWF). Best case scenario, I think would be Reaper, but do you think it’s simple enough for someone to learn how to just track easily? And I’d be teaching him a DAW which I have no experience with (although I assume I’ll be able to find my way around).
So, a simple interface and a simple, reliable DAW for Windows, only for tracking…what are your thoughts? “Talk amongst yourselves, I’m verklempt”. Thanks HRS!
Sorry for the novel, I’m also interested in being a guest sometime, I have lots I’d love to interject. I’m a recording school graduate, a professional musician (meaning I get paid full time), have my project studio, interned in professional studios years ago, did live sound for a short period. I could keep up and impart new wisdom myself.
PLEASE stop with the Riding chicken/lighting signoff jokes, they were (barely) funny, maybe a “chuckle’s” worth the 1st hundred times. Its done. Please stop, its just bad now. And now by asking to stop, I’ve brought it up myself.
Just ran across another kick starter thing. This one looks more focused on albums.
http://www.pledgemusic.com/
Nice show. I’ll be in the market for my first set of monitors next month and now I’m seriously considering a sub to go along with them.
Ryan, what do you use for your main monitors, and how in love with them are you?
Ride the Chicken,
-Kris
Hey guys, very informative show. I’ve got a few questions related and unrelated to the show.
First, it is usually not recommended to get large monitors if they will be put in a small room. The bass builds up too quickly. Does a subwoofer give back the lost bass from 5 or 6 inch monitors without overloading the room? If so, is it because of the position, or the separate volume control, or something else?
Next question. Back in the mono days, were two speakers used to mix on? I don’t see a purpose for it other than having both speakers in both ears evenly, instead of staring into a speaker cone.
I just purchased a Line2Amp kit (thanks for the review of it! I can’t wait to get soldering.) When reamping, could I go from the headphone out of my interface? The Tascam US800 doesn’t have any line outputs. If that’s an alright way to go, what should I set the volume to? (DAW and on the interface.)
Okay, here’s the last thing: Would you guys listen to a mix if I sent it to you? You didn’t answer the last time. š Anyway, what e-mail should I send it to?
Thanks for putting up with my curiosities!
Chide the Ricken,
Eric C
Dear HRS… The fat bastards at work finally cut me off..They blocked HRS at work and I can no longer listen to your wise words! Oh screw you fat bastards…I have an IPOD and I will continue to listen without your help! Listening shall commence, it shall commence! Joe
Ryan, a few times now you have said you will try out reaper. hating any kind of change myself I assure you it will be worth the trouble. I know John is a very busy man but he sounds like a nice guy and could maybe help you out? I have Cubase 6, abelton live & Cakewalk. And I found myself going to reaper more and more. I know you are a protools die hard but you owe it to yourself to check out reaper and it’s superior customization. And bravo for sound on sound magazine for being the only sound magazine to have a monthly tutorial on reaper. Look at what reaper has done since its release and the price!! And speaking of the price, you don’t even have to pay if you don’t want!! But they ask you to do if you end up using it quite often and that automatically made me want to give up the funds! 60$ And probably the best part yet, reaper has yet to crash in the middle of a session unlike the other three DAW’s I mentioned earlier.
Ryan I’ll make you a deal, if you try reaper and do a segment on it (even if the segment is on how much you hate reaper) I will donate upfront $100 and sign up for monthly donations.
And a quick request for John…… More reaper segments please sir.
Thank you guys for taking the time out of the busy work schedule I’m sure you all tackle to make probably the best podcast on the art of recording in the history of podcast. Choke the chicken for stamina
Hi Guys-
… all the usual accolades and acronyms.
Re: Show 170
I’ve been doing the long distance projects for a couple years now and really enjoy being able to collaborate with old bandmates/friends no longer in my area. While the positives are obvious I wanted to share a couple things to be aware of before attempting to do this.
1. Be sure the person(s) on the other end has some idea of how to operate a DAW or be prepared to spend a lot of time working through setup, tutorials, and any other technical assistance. Also be sure you’re using the same format. I had been working on something at 24/48 only to receive tracks back at 24/44.1 which cause some issues. But generally we just send mp3s back and forth until it comes time to work on the session as a whole.
2. Be sure you have a common understood language. Sounds trivial, but it’s not. Not everyone that plays/writes necessarily understands another persons way of describing things or getting an idea across. We’re not all steeped in theory know-how and understanding. Some people write by what sounds good as they are playing it. Same goes for verses, chorus, etc. Sometimes things are written as a phrase as opposed to one bar repeating so just be sure you’re all on the same page.
3. Assuming the collaboration is being down via email, I would suggest creating folders specific for songs or EPs, albums etc… When sending files back and forth it’s also important to agree on a naming convention so everyone knows the most recent version. Most recently I have been using names such as “SongXXX working 1” or “SongXXX 061812.” It’s simple housekeeping that can really keep version control in order. Another great method is by using Google Docs. Set up folders for songs and keep only the current version in there. By sharing the file through Docs you can keep you email a bit cleaner as well. Likewise, setting up folders for “old version” or similar is great for referencing back.
These are some basic and maybe obvious things but when I first started these are all things I had to contend with. I’m happy to say my co-collaborators are much more proficient and knowledgable now but it wasn’t always this easy.
Just my 2 bits on a topic I have some experience with.
Re: Show 163 Magic mix glue and VCC plugin.
First, I have a project that was recorded in three different locations. Overall each part is recorded well but they don’t share any common sound. After your segment on mix glue I looked into the Slate VCC plugin. You mentioned another but have you tried the Mellomuse CS1V? I’m going to do the 7 day trial to get an idea since I can’t get the Slate one on a trial without an iLok2. Just curious on your thoughts of the Mellomuse version since I have no experience with these.
The other thing I wondered is if I were to run each track out of my interface and into an outboard preamp (ISAone) and back in to print to another track, would I succeed in getting some level of “glue” similar to using a console plugin? Or would this just make things more complicated with delay or any other side effects? And if this would work, would I need to do some type of reamping to get a mic level to send through the preamp or would sending line level into the preamp take on it’s character or sound?
Thanks for all the time you guys put in with the show; it’s been a great resource.
Ride the rubber chicken, it’s insulated and will be safer than the lightning alone.
Dave
Apologies – this is really more replying to other comments than segments in the new episode.
Quick response for Marty D: Reaper is very easy to arm tracks and lay stuff down. If you’re doing the mix and acting as overall producer, this should work well. If he wants more control in an easy package, Propellerheads Record (now integrated with the full Reason package) was designed to be easy for musicians to get ideas down quickly – but will complicate sending him stuff to do quick overdubs or the like. Plus, it’s expensive.
Related to making the HRS site mobile friendly: all it takes is downloading and activating a plugin such as “WordPress Mobile Edition” or “WordPress Mobile Pack”.
Related to long distance collabs: one option I don’t think was mentioned is NINJam, by the same people that make Reaper. It is actually included in Reaper as a plugin.
NINJam allows for realtime jamming across the Internet. Since there is always latency, it anticipates and makes up for that by delaying everything, then lining things up by measure. This means that you have to have slow changes, but it’s great for getting some ideas flowing for future recording.
There are even public NINJam servers out there to connect to and jam with random people around the Internet. That can be a lot of fun if you have a few hours to burn.
LAST WORD!!! now on to the show.. c’mere you damn chicken..
I still mix with headphones because I’m poor. Anyway, wishing for a bypass switch on the HS10? Don’t look any further… Ryan can probably whip up a DIY bypass footswitch for you if you’re willing to have him splice your speaker wires. Go team Ryan!
I really love my Yamaha HS10 sub. It’s barely turned up but (in my studio) makes a world of difference. Bobby Owsinski has a good blog post on calibrating a sub. You can check it out here: http://bobbyowsinski.blogspot.com/2011/11/3-steps-to-using-subwoofer.html
TFAGS!
I have an M-Audio Sub that I like to kick in to check my mixes. I don’t have any kind of monitor station, but what I do is turn the power on and off via a belkin surgemaster that has all the switched on the front. I’ve wondered if this could be bad for the sub/amp? Thoughts?
Buy a sheepskin seat cover before you ride the chicken…