Album Musings
Nov. 12th, 2011 08:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillBecause of the intersection of a variety of things, I won't have access to the padded room again until the first Friday in December. And not again after that until sometime probably in late January.
This is not altogether a bad thing. I tried to lay down some tracks yesterday but... well, let's say with three weeks of practice I'm pretty sure I can do better, and while I will at least try mixing what I've got, I'd rather lay down a good track in the first place if that can be done; that feels more honest than using Reaper to compose a performance where, yeah, "technically I played all those notes. Not in that timing, or pitch, or order, necessarily, but I produced the starting points for those sounds."
I'm also having a problem recording my vocals. I am getting what I call "crackles" (Bill Sutton calls it "click-wah" but says that term is his own construction; if anyone knows what a sound engineer would call this, so I can more effectively look for solutions on the internet, I would be grateful for the information) on the high notes.
Just on the high notes. I'm pretty sure that noise is an artifact, not something naturally in my voice. I have recorded four albums before this, and I don't remember hearing those crackles before. Now, I get a bit louder as I sing higher--don't we all--but not very much louder. So perhaps I am overdriving (being "too loud for the equipment to respond to properly," basically) something in the signal chain; Bill suggests the analog to digital converter in the Zoom as a possible culprit, since the files are coming into reaper with peaks at -6dB, which shouldn't be clipping. Peter suggests the mic might also be a possible culprit, but Bill says overdriving a mic normally sounds different, and besides I used the predecessor of this mic without problems in the studio when recording the previous CDs.
For those who would like to listen, a wav file (of just me running up to a high note) is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43649789/AYSshortdry.wav
Turning down the recording level in the Zoom makes no difference, but I the rec level comes in *after* the A to D conversion. I tested, and reducing the rec level makes no difference in the crackles. The Zoom has a compressor but 1) I don't like including effects in my recordings; you can always add them later but you can never un-add them if the signal was recorded with them in and 2) at any rate the compressor is a digital effect so it comes in after the A to D conversion so it will make no difference in whether I overdrive the converter.
I'm going to try an attenuator (also called a "pad") between the mic and the zoom, as Bill suggested. They're not very expensive (for sound equipment) and I got a 10 dB and a 20 dB one. If I'm overdriving the A to D conversion in the Zoom, maybe effectively turning the mic down between 10 dB and 30 dB (if you can add them in series, but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible) will work. And at 40$ for the pair it's not too expensive to give it a try.
Also having the time to catch up on my mixing will let me get a better idea of where I am in terms of percent finished. It will let me figure out what I have to re-record, and what I need to hurry up and arrange and practice. I can do some proof-of-concept recordings at home to figure out what order to record stuff in, and lay down scratch tracks to record to when I go into the studio. So it's not time wasted.
This is not altogether a bad thing. I tried to lay down some tracks yesterday but... well, let's say with three weeks of practice I'm pretty sure I can do better, and while I will at least try mixing what I've got, I'd rather lay down a good track in the first place if that can be done; that feels more honest than using Reaper to compose a performance where, yeah, "technically I played all those notes. Not in that timing, or pitch, or order, necessarily, but I produced the starting points for those sounds."
I'm also having a problem recording my vocals. I am getting what I call "crackles" (Bill Sutton calls it "click-wah" but says that term is his own construction; if anyone knows what a sound engineer would call this, so I can more effectively look for solutions on the internet, I would be grateful for the information) on the high notes.
Just on the high notes. I'm pretty sure that noise is an artifact, not something naturally in my voice. I have recorded four albums before this, and I don't remember hearing those crackles before. Now, I get a bit louder as I sing higher--don't we all--but not very much louder. So perhaps I am overdriving (being "too loud for the equipment to respond to properly," basically) something in the signal chain; Bill suggests the analog to digital converter in the Zoom as a possible culprit, since the files are coming into reaper with peaks at -6dB, which shouldn't be clipping. Peter suggests the mic might also be a possible culprit, but Bill says overdriving a mic normally sounds different, and besides I used the predecessor of this mic without problems in the studio when recording the previous CDs.
For those who would like to listen, a wav file (of just me running up to a high note) is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43649789/AYSshortdry.wav
Turning down the recording level in the Zoom makes no difference, but I the rec level comes in *after* the A to D conversion. I tested, and reducing the rec level makes no difference in the crackles. The Zoom has a compressor but 1) I don't like including effects in my recordings; you can always add them later but you can never un-add them if the signal was recorded with them in and 2) at any rate the compressor is a digital effect so it comes in after the A to D conversion so it will make no difference in whether I overdrive the converter.
I'm going to try an attenuator (also called a "pad") between the mic and the zoom, as Bill suggested. They're not very expensive (for sound equipment) and I got a 10 dB and a 20 dB one. If I'm overdriving the A to D conversion in the Zoom, maybe effectively turning the mic down between 10 dB and 30 dB (if you can add them in series, but I don't see why that shouldn't be possible) will work. And at 40$ for the pair it's not too expensive to give it a try.
Also having the time to catch up on my mixing will let me get a better idea of where I am in terms of percent finished. It will let me figure out what I have to re-record, and what I need to hurry up and arrange and practice. I can do some proof-of-concept recordings at home to figure out what order to record stuff in, and lay down scratch tracks to record to when I go into the studio. So it's not time wasted.
