Honky Tonk Women

[Daspub]

Hi all:
A little basement band I'm working with did some recording this weekend. This one's only a three piece--drums, guitar and bass (with the lead lines overdubbed later). We did this in one take, and I made a ton of mistakes, but I'm playing the guitars. (The lead was a single take, too, and leaves a lot to be desired).

The file is here: http://www.gridmediallc.com/honkytonk.mp3

Comments appreciated. I'm still learning how to record drums live, but was pretty happy with this--used five mics on the kit.

The mix is very rough, and too bass-y. If anyone wants to take a stab at adding vocals, feel free to download this and mess around with it.

Picture taken by my wife as we were playing. Note strategically placed bottle of beer.

[MattG]

Sounds awesome to me. Definitely has that old school small group sound to it. Throw a vocal on that and I doubt anybody would do anything but tap their foot and enjoy.

Also, the thumbnail pic looks like Clapton. Even when I pulled up the larger one, I did a double take.

[disobedience]

Excellent Job Daspub!

I really liked it...and I think you're being way to hard on yourself...guitar sounded great

[Jstickley]

Did you record the lead parts, direct?

[Daspub]

Thanks all, for the kind comments--especially the Clapton one. My wife had a good laugh at that, especially when I demanded that she start calling me Eric. (Now if I only I could play like him!)

On the recording question: We recorded the bass and guitars using the line outs on the amps, direct to a Korg digital workstation. Not sure what kind of amp the bassist has. I use a Line 6 Spider III, and the setting is a significant adjustment I make to the Atomic Punk setting (No delay, no phaser, some fiddling with the gain, etc). I like the way this sounds coming out of a Tele. I used the same setting, but a Les Paul Standard, for the lead part, also direct from the amp to the workstation. It certainly generated a different sound. I recorded the lead later in the evening, with half a martini in me.

We linked the workstation to a PA system, which we turned up some so the drummer could hear the guitars. (I also had a headphone feed for everyone, something I've found that really protects ancient hearing when you're playing close to a drummer).

The raw tracks were dumped into Sonar 6, and I did the rough mix on my computer.

It was fun to do.

[Bounty]

awsome. I really liked it. I wish I could record like that.

[Jstickley]

Shew.. where to begin.

First and formost, the quailty of the recording, is less than substandard. This is why.

Whenever you record direct, you are removing 2 VERY key elements from the senario. This would be the AMP, and the SPEAKER. The amp doesnt effect the sound as much as the speaker does. In order for it to sound good, you ABSOLUTLY must use a preamp/speaker sim. Theres no getting around it, well unless you record using a mic'ed cabinet.

The drums sounded great, but the guitars recording directly, were horrible. Once you get a speaker sim on there, you will be shocked at how much that recording will improve.

If you are using sonar, it has a decent speaker simulator in it. Set it to solid state clean with a 4x12 cabinet, and adjust the volume, and eq from that panel. You will be absolutly shocked at the difference it makes ;)

Hope this helps ya man.. id like to hear some more stuff from ya, implementing this information.

Jesse

[disobedience]

That was quite the answer Jesse :D

You gonna post some of your music soon?
I get the feelin your into heavier stuff too and am lookin forward to hearing it :D

[Jstickley]

heavier stuff? sure ill post up some stuff ;)

Jesse

[disobedience]

Sweet!
:D

[Quadcam79]

ok here goes, take this with a grain of salt since I know very little when it comes to pa system setup.... lets see, like jesse said the guitar sounds rough, too buzzy/twangy. you did a good job on the drums (this coming from a drummer) i would dump the volume on em and drop the high hat down just a tad.
I dig the, hate to use an overused term but, oldskool, sound you got from them. the bass is way too overpowering and make the song see muddy, does that make sense?

anyway, overall not bad, I found myself singin the song as it was playin

rock on, lookin forward to hearin more stuff

[Daspub]

Thanks, everyone, for the feedback and critiques. I'm a relative newbie when it comes to mixing, and live recording. Over the years, I've done a lot of home studio stuff, just overdubbing myself, but haven't until recently taken an interest in getting it to sound right. I'm also brand new at Sonar, which has the worst documentation I've ever seen.

So, some questions/observations:

1) Quadcam, thanks for the comments on the drums. In listening to the mix, I realize that the mic I have over the hi hat and the cymbal was slightly misplaced, and I get a lot of snare through that signal. I'll toy around with it, and also get the mics placed better the next time. I think I can do a lot more with recording the drums, and am excited to experiment. For the bass drum, I just had a bass drum mic on the floor, about a foot from the resonator head. From what I read, a better approach is to remove that head and place the mic inside the drum. I'll try that. But I like the old skool sound too--which may be all that my son's drum kit can generate. It's a Pearl entry level model, though I upgraded the heads and added Zildjians. But anyway, I'm trying to pull a Charlie Watts sound from it. Our drummer has his own kit, but it's simpler for him to use this one, since it happens to be in the basement where we recorded this. I've posted a picture of the mic set up. If you have some ideas on what I can do differently, I'd love to hear them.

2) Jstickley, I really appreciate the critique and the ideas. In order to play together effectively, and record what we do, we need to go line in from the amps--otherwise I'd get no sound separation from the mics I have. The basement is large enough, but not that large, and I don't have any sound separation walls, or a near enough closet to shove the amps into. And as I said, I'm a Sonar noob--but you've pointed me in a good direction--I didn't realize I had an amp simulator in there! I may not be able to completely fix the guitars, since it's still a Line 6 generated signal with a lot of effects already applied...the twangy/buzzy sound sounded good out of the PA, but not so good on the final recording.

3) The mix, as bad as it is (I spent all of ten minutes messing with the levels), sounds a heck of a lot better when I play the 47 meg wav file that Sonar exported. I used a freebie LAME mp3 encoder--is there a better encoder that I can use to keep some of the quality of the original sound, without making the file size too large? (I know it's my responsibility to produce a mix that sounds good in any format and on any speakers--what I hear on my reference monitors is not what I'm getting with the mp3.)

If you guys are willing to listen again, I'll try to experiment with the amp simulators, and the levels, and really work some on the EQ and other effects, and also try to add some mastering effects (like compression). I'll be in way over my head, as usual, and will probably screw it up worse. But I've got to learn to do this sometime.

Again, my thanks for your thoughtful ideas.

[Quadcam79]

thats the same kit i used for years , pearl export series...they resonate a little too much sometimes, easily cured by a little strategic duck tape strip placement on the heads. for the bass drum, i always liked a nice heavy flat hit so i would pull the front head and stuff something inside the drum, like a pillow, blanket, etc. just resting against the business end of the drum.

this may help http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_capturing_kit/
http://209.85.165.104/search?q=cache:2LW1GhKWDf4J:www.makeshiftstudio.co m/pdfs/tapeop_recording_drums.pdf+drum+recording+setup&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=16&gl=us

[Jstickley]

Hey das.. Im in baltimore.. not far from you.. if you ever wanna get together, i can build you a layout for a studio, that will be top notch, with pretty much using what you have.

The mic placement on the drums, is off, off for optimum sound that is.

As far as listening to it, post or get me on msn and let me hear what you got.. Ive been around studio recording for ages, and believe i can really give you a jumpstart into it.

you are on the right track, and i have a few sound walls you can have.. you just gotta come pick them up LOL

Jesse

[Daspub]

Quad, I'll read through the links you posted. And the next time out, I'll get that resonator head off the drum, stuff a pillow in there, and record with the mic inside. Our drummer is enjoying the process of watching me mess with the kit.

Jesse, it would be great to get together to learn how to set up the studio properly. I'll take you up on that soundwall offer as well. If you want to PM me, I'll shoot you my email address and let's try to set something up.

Thank you both again, and thanks, too, for the other comments. NLG is a really supportive community.

David

(My screen name is my initials with 'pub,' because I've been a magazine publisher for most of my adult life, and because if I were in Ireland right now, a pub is where you'd most likely find me.)

[Daspub]

Oh, and by the way, any thoughts on decent mp3 encoders, or decent mp3 encoding technique? The loss in sonic quality from the original wav files is fairly substantial in the version I did, though that's no excuse (ok, it's a little bit of an excuse).

[Jstickley]

LAME Mp3 encoder is what i use, its just fine really.. just encode at a higher bit rate ;)

Ya, shoot me a pm.. i can shoot down there and set ya all up in a few hours.

[Daspub]

Well, glory be!

Here's another mix, using the suggestions you've given me:

http://www.gridmediallc.com/honkytonk2.mp3

It's still not right, but it's a lot better than the first one. The only problem with a less muddy and buzzy mix, is that now I'm focused on all the mistakes I made while playing--but that's what you get when you do a song in one take with no practice. And that's what you get when you get me playing.

I added the amp sims, worked on EQing various tracks, did some panning, and then added master compression, EQ and mild reverb. I kind of like the drums forward, since I'm envisioning a vocal track on top of all this, but they probably need to be backed down some more.

If you have further suggestions, I'd appreciate them. While I'm getting sick of listening to the song over and over, this is finally forcing me to learn something about Sonar, and I'm having a blast with it. The power is going to my head, I tell ya!

[Jstickley]

Hot damn, your on the right path.

See how much better that sounds? The lead guitar doesnt have that annoying, played through wax paper sound. Everything is nice and warm.. that is how it should be.

Now, the trick is, to match the "reverb" of your basement, to the guitar/bass parts. The drums have it, just gotta match it ;)

This track sounds 200% better than the last. You are getting there, keep at it.

Jesse

[Daspub]

Thanks again, Jesse and Quad. I will keep at it, and I appreciate the support and the honest feedback. I know this isn't a recording forum, but that's a pretty good skill to have as well.

[rockin ron]

nice work.

[Quadcam79]

glad I could help, keep us updated