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  #61  
Old 07-19-2010, 05:23 PM
alohachris alohachris is offline
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Default Room Treatment!

Aloha 7thbassbA,

Listening to your recording, I could immediately hear what you really need - Better Room Treatment! Sure, EQ'ing is very important, but room treatment and mic placement are more so for recording. Without treatment, you can't experiment with mic placement. See?

It doesn't have to be expensive or permanent. Here's a DIY approach.

Make some baffles with self-supporting Owens-Corning 703 fiberglass doubled-up 2"x2'x4' panels. Use hotmelt glue to double them up to 4" depths and then cover with some nice porous material. 6-10 of these can really make all the difference I've found. You don't even have to frame them out cause they stand up on their own. They also come in 8' long panels.

Keep 'em under a bed or in a closet and bring 'em out when you're recording It will make a bigger difference in your recordings than anything else.

Surround yourself and the mics with the baffles in the sweet spot of your room. Treatment is necessary to maximize your signal chain and guitar qualities - at any price level.

You can also make excellent use of cheap mover's blankets. Again not a permanent solution and not expensive. Hang 'em a couple inches off troublesome windows and walls to decrease deflection and also from the ceiling over your "recording booth." Two layers hung a couple inches apart really is better. And use padded carpeting on the floor. Explore using bass traps in the corners.

Check Fran's site out for how to DIY:

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2009/...-on-the-cheap/

Check this video out for how the baffles can look and be applied (ignore the guy's voice & boomy guitar results):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4d-BwkciOk

Here's more room treatment info:

http://www.atsacoustics.com/item--Ow...f-6--1004.html

There's a ton more from Ethan Winer and also at the 'room treatment' forum over at Gearslutz.

Room treatment is the most important and highly variable factor in your being able to make decent recordings on acoustic guitar. It's even more important than most of the elements of your signal chain!

I've put together my own Mac studio (iMac/Logic Pro 9/Apogee Duet/Glyph storage HD) in the last year, though I've been gigging professionally & recording for over 45 years and found the above statement to be true.

Treating your room gives you more options, like not having to close-mike everytime and being able to use the room to better define the sound of your guitar in a mix. Don't budget it for last, 7th.

Check it out & Good Luck.

alohachris

PS: Since you bought a new Apple computer and Logic, if you haven't already, for $99 you can sign up for a year of one-to-one and group training in Logic through your local Apple store - the One-to-One Program. It's the best value in learning ANY DAW that I could imagine! Best $99 I've ever spent!-alohachris-

Last edited by alohachris; 07-19-2010 at 05:37 PM.
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  #62  
Old 07-20-2010, 12:51 PM
7thbassbA 7thbassbA is offline
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Default You are right on the money!

Room treatment is the next step. Having a lot of fun figuring this stuff out. 11x13 room. Looking at bass traps in corner and broad band panels on side.

Last edited by 7thbassbA; 07-20-2010 at 04:40 PM.
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  #63  
Old 07-20-2010, 08:41 PM
Shadowraptor Shadowraptor is offline
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Avoid a Windows machine at any cost
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  #64  
Old 07-21-2010, 03:25 AM
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Chicago Sandy Chicago Sandy is offline
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Best recording experiences I've had were at Mac-based ProTools studios. If I were to get serious and step up from a MacBook Pro running Garage Band and Logic Express, I wouldn't hesitate to go the dedicated separate Mac-plus-monitor/ProTools/best mixing desk-controller I could afford. Of course, the similarly-equipped studio I know of comes with an engineer who is a genius, knows my style, "gets" what Steve & I do and is not afraid to strongly suggest retakes and punch-ins. That pair of ears, philosophy and experience set is unavailable in stores. But if you've got the engineering chops, I say buy the best Mac/ProTools setup you can possibly spring for.

Oh, and our engineer's wife is a master carpenter and decorator, and she built the best sound baffles I've ever encountered. Room treatments are key--double layer of doors, elimination of as many standing-wave-making parallel surfaces as possible, A/C you can turn off w/o roasting, etc.
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  #65  
Old 07-21-2010, 07:30 AM
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KevWind KevWind is offline
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I Am quite pleased with my Mac based PTLE set up. But that's all I've ever had.
I agree, like Sandy said the skill and ears of the engineer are also huge.

From personal experience I had an engineer tell me which octave string on my 12 string was slightly out of tune - he in the control room and me in the tracking room.
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  #66  
Old 11-07-2010, 11:33 AM
Snippet Snippet is offline
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Well after using PC's for recording for 20 years I am over the moon to now be on a mac/logic 9 set up.

After years and years on unstable systems I finally can enjoy it and not have to worry about backing up/saving every couple of minutes.

Enjoy:-)
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  #67  
Old 11-08-2010, 02:50 AM
dweezil dweezil is offline
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After 20+ years using a PC it seemed obvious to use one to record my 1st CD, which I did on a laptop running XP and Cubase 4.

Just recently I've switched to a mini mac running Snow Leopard and Reaper for the DAW and will use that for the next CD.

The best thing I've done in ages!
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  #68  
Old 11-09-2010, 07:05 PM
Yoder Yoder is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by anton View Post
If you get a Mac Book make sure its one with a firewire port if you want that option. Some of the newer ones dont have it.
If you get a Mac Book Pro, then you will get FW800. The Mac Books do not have FW.

I would definitely go with a FW interface. FW800 smokes USB. That being said, I have an Apogee Duet that is great. If you have the cash you could get an Apogee GIO to interface your guitar with GB, Logic Pro, Pro Tools, etc.

I did have an E-Mu 404 and a M-Box 2. Both were purchased just before the release of Snow Leopard. After I upgraded my computer to Snow Leopard, I lost the use of both interfaces. Neither M-Audio or E-Mu have been very diligent in providing Snow Leopard driver upgrades. M-Audio will only provide updated drivers if you buy a new version of Pro Tools LE. That being said, I abandoned ship and bought a Duet.

Logic Pro, or Logic Express would be a great way to go. GarageBand is nice for what it does, but the Logic series is a significant step up.

At home I am using a 17" MBP, with Glyph external drives, an Apogee Duet, and Logic Pro. I had a problem initially in that I like my drives running with FW800, but the Duet also likes FW. An easy and effective fix was to plug my drive Glyph into the MBP, and then the Duet into the Glyph. No latency problems at all, and all running a FW speeds.
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Last edited by Yoder; 11-09-2010 at 08:15 PM.
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