Re: Recording an Album

[Todd Matthews <gtmatthews@gmail.com>]

I really appreciate the feedback from everybody. @Anthony - I wasn't clear in my first email but I am not recording a live looping performance even though all the songs ideas come from looping. I'd rather record it multitrack with mics going for the best acoustic bass sound possible and track whatever suits the song best not limited by looping. Then I can worry about making live looping arrangements of them later.

I use a 4099 as well most my loopin vids so far and I'm gonna use it at my first looping shows in April. I set it up so the 4099 just goes straight to the outputs and not through the looping setup. I hope that helps reduce feedback. We'll see  how that works out. I did notice that I could play much softer with the 4099 since it is miked so close to the double bass and get much less room sound compared to my recordings I've made in the past hammering out some loud classical orchestral excerpts.

That's an awesome tip to use a lapel mic taped to the audio interface as a room mic!

So far the only mics I own are the 4099 and an RE20(dynamic). The 4099 sounds much better for arco than the RE20 but I noticed when I track with both of them and adding a little of the RE20 sound to the 4099 it helps warm it up nicely. Maybe if I do decide to go on my own a ribbon, and tube mic would be a nice compliment to the dynamic and condenser I already own. Since there is going to be an overload of double bass tracks I would like to experiment finding many different cool colors using different double basses, strings, channel strip setups, etc on different tracks. Now that I think about it that could get pretty expensive with the clock running at the studio. That's other plus for home recording.

Todd, I did some research before I hit the sack last night on the coles4040 and gefell listening to audio clip and mic shootouts. I would throw the wav in itunes, hit shuffle a bunch of times, then hit play with headphones to make the test blind. They weren't all identical performances so it wasn't perfect test but still I picked the coles4040 each time over Royer, AEA, and other ribbons. That sounds like one wicked mic. 

I am leaning towards doing the tracking myself and letting my engineers friends do the mixing and mastering. I forgot to mention before that I do have plenty of experience with DAW software (Logic, Live, Reaper) so I have already put in loads of time for the learning curve over the past 8 years studying all aspects of recording and computer technology. Probably spent way too much time reading magazines, books and forums! :) I need to come up with a good plan to regulate myself somehow. I'd like to strive to make the Reading - Playing ratio more like 20-80 instead of in the past it being the opposite:)

My main factors were worrying that my room sound would offset all the effort I put into obtaining good gear and doing it myself. Thank you Todd for the confidence booster explaining that this wasn't the case for you. Priceless info, especially the tip about Mercenary helping you find the perfect fit. Maybe I'll save for a ribbon mic and then when it comes time to record I'll rent a pre like the chandler when I have an extended weekend away from work, turn off the internet, phone, and hit record:)

-Todd Matthews

On Feb 26, 2011, at 8:51 AM, todd reynolds wrote:

Todd,  I didn't mention that, but it's def. my experience that with recording in my house, the sound of the room didn't matter so much to me.  In the beginning, in my old house,  I built two 8 foot baffles for 80 bucks with material from Home Depot.  that totally hooked me up.  Problem was, when I moved into my new place, the studio was on the second floor and i couldn't even get them up the stairs and just never got new, shorter ones built.