Why is a Zoom (or other hand held) better...

[TBman]

than my home recording setup?

Two condenser mics - Rodes NT-5, AKG Perception 150, into a Tascam US-122 usb interface into my computer, using Audacity. I'm not happy with my recording quaility

I had a Zoom a few years ago, but it got burnt out in a stupid human trick, but I remember the recordings to be pretty decent. It seems the newer ones are even better....

[alohachris]

Aloha Barry,

The Zoom recorders may NOT be as good as your current recording signal chain. Maybe it's not a gear issue?

What do you feel are your key issues with your recordings, Barry? What OS are you using?

Here are a few areas to investigate based on your signal chain list. It's only as good as the weakest link, right? Hint: All the parts should be of similar quality to avoid losing headroom.

First, Adequate Room Treatment Is A MUST. With proper treatment, you can experiment more with mic placement (an issue on your recording) & maximize your entire signal chain - especially mic's. DIY, portable room treatment does not have to be expensive. The truth is that nothing will improve your recordings right away better than adding room treatment to control early room reflections & separate all frequencies. It adds depth to vocals & richness & fullness in guitar overtones. Here are some helpful "Room Treatment" links:

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

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2011/...adband-panels/

http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Barry, do NOT upgrade your signal chain unless your space is properly treated. It would be a waste of time & money. If you haven't done it, then that is definitely your next step. Room Treatment will provide you with the control & consistency that can be elusive & obstacles for achieving satisfactory, pro-level home acoustic recordings.

Secondly, what might help a bit would be to look into getting a new interface.

The Tascam USB122 is a decent beginner interface, but it's on-board mic preamps are not even close in quality to better interfaces (RME, Apogee, etc. - look for used at gearslutz.com). And they are probably not as good as those found on the new Zoom H6 - which are an improvement (less noisy, more open sounding) over earlier Zoom recorder mic pre's. A more open, less compressed sound is usually the result w/ better mic preamps & interface.

Third, moving up towards a More Balanced Guitar Mic set than the bright sounding Rode NT5's might also help your recordings. The NT5's are not terrible mic's (a bit shrill & not very smooth), and they can sound alright w/ a little EQ adjustment in the upper-mid's. They sound fine (not great) on your recording.

Looking towards the future, you should audition many SDC, MDC & LDC mic sets, Barry, in different ranges. The Oktava MK-012 SDC's are very good & VERY cost-effective. The ADK A6 is another great, more balanced, affordable MDC mic with a low price. Or look at better intermediate SDC mic's: Peluso P-28 tunes, BeyerDynamic MC930's, Microtech-Gefell M300's, AKG 480's, Neumann KM184's, Mojave M200/300 LDC's. Or look beyond to truly great recording mic's: Microtech-Gefell M295 SDC's or my favorite's Schoeps CMC6 SDC's w/ modular capsules. Check 'em all out so you can know the differences, Bar. Of course, the rest of your signal chain must be of similar quality as you move up the trough so please note that. Buying USED is a good solution. Auditioning can tell you a lot!

Just start with the basic's for now: room treatment & mic placement experimentation, & perhaps a better DAW in the near future. Overall, your recording sounds pretty good. Well played, Barry.

These are just my rush-to-judgement opinions. You shouldn't rush out & buy anything - except materials for making Room Treatment broadband absorbers if you haven't already. You know, it's usually not the gear that's the issue in terms of achieving consistent home recordings. Its a lack of treatment & not enough experimentation w/ mic placement. Those were my issues for a couple years. Please PM me if you have questions or comments, Barry.

alohachris

PS: Here is a "how-to" recording from Doug Young that might give you something to think about in terms of the PROCESS of recording an acoustic guitar song - VERY WELL. Of course, he's using studio level gear, in a studio, on Logic Pro DAW, but the process is the same at any level of signal chain. He provides a lot of detailed insight that might help you get over the plateau. Pay attention to how he "levels" his tracks as he adds elements - an issue on your recording, Barry. Try to bring the track forward to the front of the mix & take off ALL but a tad of barely noticeable reverb, both for intimacy. RE-record, & share that with us. - alohachris

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/studio.php

[paulp1960]

The Zoom recorder you have is stereo. That makes a difference.

Now if you had a matched pair of NT5 microphones that could have helped.

Also you are probably (hopefully) recording in 24 bits on the Zoom. Not sure if you were recording 16 or 24 bit on your PC.

Finally last time I used Audacity it didn't seem to have a bus structure or any non-destructive edits. So you won't get far making destructive edits at 16 bits before you are really messing with the original recorded signal.

I reckon with a pair of NT5s and my RME Babyface USB interface I could out do your bargain Zoom for recording quality.

[RustyAxe]

Because you can fit the Zoom in a pocket? I have a Zoom H2n, and a pretty sophisticated home recording system. They both serve their purposes. I wouldn't give up my home system for the Zoom, though.

[ChuckS]

When you say your Zoom recordings are better than your recent home setup recordings are you "going from memory" of your years old Zoom recording? Maybe over time your listening skills have improved. I'd suggest relistening to recordings from both systems on the same playback system.

Is it possible your home recording system is allowing you to hear things that your Zoom didn't pick up or maybe covered up?

[TBman]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Aloha Barry,

The Zoom recorders may NOT be as good as your current recording signal chain. Maybe it's not a gear issue?

What do you feel are your key issues with your recordings, Barry? What OS are you using?

Here are a few areas to investigate based on your signal chain list. It's only as good as the weakest link, right? Hint: All the parts should be of similar quality to avoid losing headroom.

First, Adequate Room Treatment Is A MUST. With proper treatment, you can experiment more with mic placement (an issue on your recording) & maximize your entire signal chain - especially mic's. DIY, portable room treatment does not have to be expensive. The truth is that nothing will improve your recordings right away better than adding room treatment to control early room reflections & separate all frequencies. It adds depth to vocals & richness & fullness in guitar overtones. Here are some helpful "Room Treatment" links:

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

http://www.homebrewedmusic.com/2011/...adband-panels/

http://ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html

Barry, do NOT upgrade your signal chain unless your space is properly treated. It would be a waste of time & money. If you haven't done it, then that is definitely your next step. Room Treatment will provide you with the control & consistency that can be elusive & obstacles for achieving satisfactory, pro-level home acoustic recordings.

Secondly, what might help a bit would be to look into getting a new interface.

The Tascam USB122 is a decent beginner interface, but it's on-board mic preamps are not even close in quality to better interfaces (RME, Apogee, etc. - look for used at gearslutz.com). And they are probably not as good as those found on the new Zoom H6 - which are an improvement (less noisy, more open sounding) over earlier Zoom recorder mic pre's. A more open, less compressed sound is usually the result w/ better mic preamps & interface.

Third, moving up towards a More Balanced Guitar Mic set than the bright sounding Rode NT5's might also help your recordings. The NT5's are not terrible mic's (a bit shrill & not very smooth), and they can sound alright w/ a little EQ adjustment in the upper-mid's. They sound fine (not great) on your recording.

Looking towards the future, you should audition many SDC, MDC & LDC mic sets, Barry, in different ranges. The Oktava MK-012 SDC's are very good & VERY cost-effective. The ADK A6 is another great, more balanced, affordable MDC mic with a low price. Or look at better intermediate SDC mic's: Peluso P-28 tunes, BeyerDynamic MC930's, Microtech-Gefell M300's, AKG 480's, Neumann KM184's, Mojave M200/300 LDC's. Or look beyond to truly great recording mic's: Microtech-Gefell M295 SDC's or my favorite's Schoeps CMC6 SDC's w/ modular capsules. Check 'em all out so you can know the differences, Bar. Of course, the rest of your signal chain must be of similar quality as you move up the trough so please note that. Buying USED is a good solution. Auditioning can tell you a lot!

Just start with the basic's for now: room treatment & mic placement experimentation, & perhaps a better DAW in the near future. Overall, your recording sounds pretty good. Well played, Barry.

These are just my rush-to-judgement opinions. You shouldn't rush out & buy anything - except materials for making Room Treatment broadband absorbers if you haven't already. You know, it's usually not the gear that's the issue in terms of achieving consistent home recordings. Its a lack of treatment & not enough experimentation w/ mic placement. Those were my issues for a couple years. Please PM me if you have questions or comments, Barry.

alohachris

PS: Here is a "how-to" recording from Doug Young that might give you something to think about in terms of the PROCESS of recording an acoustic guitar song - VERY WELL. Of course, he's using studio level gear, in a studio, on Logic Pro DAW, but the process is the same at any level of signal chain. He provides a lot of detailed insight that might help you get over the plateau. Pay attention to how he "levels" his tracks as he adds elements - an issue on your recording, Barry. Try to bring the track forward to the front of the mix & take off ALL but a tad of barely noticeable reverb, both for intimacy. RE-record, & share that with us. - alohachris

http://www.dougyoungguitar.com/studio.php

Thanks Chris, a lot of good info there. The room treatment can't be done, as my recording area is in an open room, not a room off by itself where I can do what I want. I didn't know the Rodes wasn't the best at that price for guitar. Ok, live and learn. Maybe down the road I will look into upgrading the Tascam, maybe buying the Zoom 6 as I could take it into another room to record if I wanted, yet still use it as a interface to the computer if I wanted.

[HHP]

Part of it may be that with a handheld, there is little to no prep or setup so it is always ready to record when you are. You don't fidget around with all sorts of settings, just set the levels and go.

The ease of use takes some of the pressure of recording away so you probably played better which makes the recordings more appealing to you than a technically better recording of a worse performance.

[KevWind]

First:the Zoom or any handheld isn't "better" per se.....
It is arguably more convenient and less complicated.

Second: you can do room treatment in the form of "Go Bo's" or stand alone movable acoustic absorption panels that you can haul out when your going to record and then store out of sight if necessary.

Third: You do not need a "matched pair" to record stereo, you simply need to match levels .Your Perception and Rodes mic will record stereo. I do not use a matched pair

Forth: (I have not used either mic) but you can address things like a hyped high end by using EQ until such time as you decide you may want to try a different mic or mic's


Just sayin'

[Yamaha Man]

I just pulled the trigger on a Zoom Q2n audio and video recorder. $159 for starters, then there's a AC adapter for $15, and the accessory package (padded case, misc stuff)for $50 and the Class 10-64 gig sans disc card $20, tax $16 shipping $9....$278 total for all the fixings.

Selling point for me is it records audio @ 24 Bit 96 hertz, which is dvd quality, nice HD video....perfect for music videos, instructional video's, demo video's, family video's....even comes with free video editing software....

So for under $300 I now have very good quality portable audio and video capabilities.

[paulp1960]

I mentioned a matched pair of NT5s because they were/are often sold like that.

[TBman]

What makes it worse is that my computer desk is the triangular corner type, so I'm facing the computer screen, desk and the two walls when I record. With a Zoom I could go into the center of the room or another room with little effort. Of course this would mean I would have to either memorize the song I'm recording or print the music and lay it out on a table, lol if I'm doing a cover. My memory isn't that great any more so the latter will be it. Thanks for all the tips everyone.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by TBman

What makes it worse is that my computer desk is the triangular corner type, so I'm facing the computer screen, desk and the two walls when I record. With a Zoom I could go into the center of the room or another room with little effort. Of course this would mean I would have to either memorize the song I'm recording or print the music and lay it out on a table, lol if I'm doing a cover. My memory isn't that great any more so the latter will be it. Thanks for all the tips everyone.

This information is very helpful. I strongly suspect the location of your mics (relative to the room) as well as reflections from the corner, close walls, table, etc., are a large factor in the quality of your recordings. Put another way, if you used a pair of Schoeps mics, Gordon preamp and Burl converters, you would end up with similar results.

To test this possibility, I suggest your record at different locations in the room to see if you can improve the recordings. Using close micing will mitigate other room anomalies.

As to needing to read sheet music when you are recording, there are ways to handle that too.

[alohachris]

Aloha Barry,

Yes YOU CAN TREAT your open room space. You can treat ANY space, or ANY part of a space. I've been a life-long renter here in the Islands. Obviously I couldn't treat any room permanently & had to learn how to treat the varying room shapes I had to adapt recording to. How did I & many others do that?

The answer is PORTABLE DIY BROADBAND ABSORBERS.

Check out the link to Fran Guidry's "Making Broadband Absorbers." You can easily make a few (2-9) of those & control reflections in your room or anywhere in your space..

Once you find the sweet spot in your space for tracking, you place the self-standing 4"x2'x4x OC 703 rigid fiberglass panels in front of the mic's, behind you, to the sides, & even above you. You can adapt them to your room & needs. You can conform them into a vocal booth if necessary.

And you can also place them behind your monitors, to the sides & above your desk for mixing & mastering. Or cover the room corners floor to ceiling & use the absorbers as bass traps.

Barry, it's a portable "room with a room" concept. It works! And when you're not using the absorbers, just store them somewhere else & you can use the room for other things. I've done that for many years (and many kinds of spaces) now. I've even brought absorbers to some parties where a performance needed to be recorded well in a bright space.

It's VERY easy to make broadband absorbers (I've made 22 of them). Not expensive. Everything is at Walmart except the Owens-Corning 703 rigid fiberglass which you order from acoustic material supply houses. And it WILL make a large difference in the consistency & sound of your home recordings.

Otherwise, as sdelsolray wrote, the quality, or lack of quality of your gear won't matter. You NEED Room Treatment.

Please PM me if you have questions, Barry.

alohachris

[islandguitar]

Hi Barry,
I use an older H4n for my set-up and it's portable for when I want to record. the sound engineer I work with locally for my CD's recommended the exact same approach with sound treatment as Fran Guidry describes in his web site which Aloha Chris has linked to. I store 3 of these portable units in my basement and my other stuff in my upstairs office. When it comes time to record everything comes into one end of my dining room....wood floors, higher ceilings, etc. Takes about 30 minutes to set up and or take down. As you can see from the pic (sorry it's not better!), I've got two condenser mics which are run to a Rane mic pre-amp and then to the Zoom unit. The fabric in the background is wrapped absorbers, which I can only store 3, which are formed in a small "booth" around me to at least some degree. They are 4'x2'x 4". They are from Acoustimac (www.acoustimac.com and the material is their Eco Foam and is able to be recycled and similar to Corning 703. I have them set in wood frames and attached with Velcro straps and it works great. Easy to handle and a sturdy set-up.
Compared to others this is still a VERY basic set-up, for sure, but most of the tunes you've heard on my Souncloud have been done with this arrangement.
Hope this helps a bit!

[IMG][/IMG]

[ukejon]

Originally Posted by alohachris

Aloha Barry,

Yes YOU CAN TREAT your open room space. You can treat ANY space, or ANY part of a space. I've been a life-long renter here in the Islands. Obviously I couldn't treat any room permanently & had to learn how to treat the varying room shapes I had to adapt recording to. How did I & many others do that?

The answer is PORTABLE DIY BROADBAND ABSORBERS.

Check out the link to Fran Guidry's "Making Broadband Absorbers." You can easily make a few (2-9) of those & control reflections in your room or anywhere in your space..

Once you find the sweet spot in your space for tracking, you place the self-standing 4"x2'x4x OC 703 rigid fiberglass panels in front of the mic's, behind you, to the sides, & even above you. You can adapt them to your room & needs. You can conform them into a vocal booth if necessary.

And you can also place them behind your monitors, to the sides & above your desk for mixing & mastering. Or cover the room corners floor to ceiling & use the absorbers as bass traps.

Barry, it's a portable "room with a room" concept. It works! And when you're not using the absorbers, just store them somewhere else & you can use the room for other things. I've done that for many years (and many kinds of spaces) now. I've even brought absorbers to some parties where a performance needed to be recorded well in a bright space.

It's VERY easy to make broadband absorbers (I've made 22 of them). Not expensive. Everything is at Walmart except the Owens-Corning 703 rigid fiberglass which you order from acoustic material supply houses. And it WILL make a large difference in the consistency & sound of your home recordings.

Otherwise, as sdelsolray wrote, the quality, or lack of quality of your gear won't matter. You NEED Room Treatment.

Please PM me if you have questions, Barry.

alohachris

I've made 6 of these....they make a huge difference. Also, sold my matched pair of NT5 mics....very shrill sounding on my recordings.