Hi I'm looking to get some pointers on the best mix settings for an acoustic guitar recorded through a mic. Any suggestions would be amazing. Also, I'm finding that after i compress im instantly getting clipping, although the tracks don't actually sound all that loud at all, what am I doing wrong? Thanks

On 05.11.2006, at 22:48, Paul Mist wrote: > I'm looking to get some pointers on the best mix settings for an > acoustic > guitar recorded through a mic. I record a lot of (mine) acoustic guitar but I am certainly not the man to give mix advices. As a general rule I would say that - if you want the guitar in the foreground - almost all depends on the recorded sound. You cannot make another guitar but only emphasize the character of the recorded instrument. I record only nylon strings and have some rules of thumb for my instrument. Maybe something fits for your guitar: First, take an EQ with a high Q value (20 or so), pull it up and sweep the whole frequency range and watch for bad resonances. You can't overhear them if they exist. If you got one, pull it down. Try the same at the double frequency, most likely it is here also. A/B listening should not show a great difference, only a slightly more defined sound. You are just "repairing" now. Then put some compression on it, 1:1.5 or 1:2 is enough for the first stage. Not too much gain reduction, try to stay below 6 dB to keep the dynamics. An attack of 15 ms or more keeps the plucking alive, less than 10 ms makes it softer. Release should be looong. 400 ms? The tempo plays a role here. Then an EQ: low shelf down around 100-200 Hz until the sound becomes more clear. If possible do not use a low cut yet, that can kill the body sound. If the guitar sounds "boxy" look around 500-800 Hz and pull a bit down there until the sound goes better. Then go a bit up between 3-5 kHz to get the higher tones. That depends very much on the instrument and the mic. 3, 4 or 5 kHz can make a great difference. If the sound is ugly in the highest frequencies try a highshelf at 12 or 14 kHz. Careful, 1 dB or so. If you want to hear some fingerpicking or plectrum sound these are around 7 kHz. A small hunch here can add some live. Btw, the Logic Channel EQ has several very different presets for acoustic guitar. I am pretty sure that none of them fit perfectly but you could try all and hear which methods help and which make your sound worse. In case you recorded very dry you might want to add some body sound, kind of resonance. Take a short reverb. A very short reverb. An ultrashort reverb. I talk about 0.002 to 0.01 ms. There are not many of these short reverbs. The best I know are in the "colors" department of Spectral Relativity (third party IR's for Space Designer). The DUY Z-Room and the Apple AUMatrixReverb (stereo only) can also be that short. You must not hear the reverb, just feel it. All of the above applies to my specific instrument. My mics are low- to midrange. The room is bad. The guitar is a bit uncommon - if I want a natural sound I cannot mike much of the body - only the neck. And I have to admit that I am not very good on EQ's. But I think the suggestions were not wrong. You should be able to get a reasonable base sound with the method I described. I can't tell what to do with that afterwards. First, that really depends on the song. Second, there are many people here which know a lot more about that. > Also, I'm finding that after i compress im instantly getting clipping, > although the tracks don't actually sound all that loud at all, what > am I > doing wrong? Compression lowers the volume. Normally you compensate that with the so called makeup gain. Do you probably use the Logic compressor with AutoGain on? If yes then turn that off and adjust the gain yourself. ___ Peter Ostry

hi all, do you have any known issues on the update of the ub - version of the artsacoustic reverb? -- mfg / reg, nico herz bigtone studios germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------ nico@bigtone.de <mailto:nico@bigtone.de> info@bigtone.de <mailto:info@bigtone.de> ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi Many thanks for the very concise solution, really makes sense. I'd certainly love to hear more from any one else too, just so I can get an overall view on the subject as I am going to be doing a great deal of acoustic recording with a new band, 3 acoustic guitars at a time infact! Yes, I do have the auto gain on, I will try without. My mix, after compression, seems good but the guitars just peak (alot!) every now and then. One question I have is about sweeping the EQ, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by theis, or how to do it, but it sounds useful so any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks

<quotes repositioned and trimmed, footers removed by admin> On 06/11/2006, at 8:56 PM, Paul Mist wrote: > Many thanks for the very concise solution, really makes sense. > > I'd certainly love to hear more from any one else too, just so I > can get an overall view on the subject as I am going to be doing a > great deal of acoustic recording with a new band, 3 acoustic > guitars at a time infact! > > Yes, I do have the auto gain on, I will try without. My mix, after > compression, seems good but the guitars just peak (alot!) every now > and then. > > One question I have is about sweeping the EQ, I'm not exactly sure > what you mean by theis, or how to do it, but it sounds useful so > any guidance would be appreciated. By sweeping the eq..pull up a parametric eq...eg Logic's Channel EQ. Cycle a section of the instrument performance while it is solo'd. Pick one of the bands...let's say the 5th which is 1200HZ or 1.2khz. Narrow the bell or width of the eq shape. It's default value is 0.71. It's narrowest value is 100, it's widest is 0.10. Set it to 100 and then (after turning down your monitors!!!) boost the gain by 24db. Hit play. what is happening here is that you are making 1.2k very loud, (the width of the bell dictates how many of the frequencies around the central position of 1200hz are effected)...then click and hold on the 1200 value and move the mouse up and down slowly to "sweep" through the frequency range. If and when you find you zone in on a particularly ugly frequency that sustains, you may wish to consider focusing on it exactly then turning it down using the db value to a minus value until it loses it's "ugliness". This is a very subjective area of course but it is basic subtractive eq to find frequency nasties in your recordings. You turn down the offending frequencies to taste, and don't forget to experiment with the width of the frequency range you are subtracting by widening or narrowing the bell shape (the bottom value...100 to 0.10). Constantly A-B the results by turning on and off what you have done. You can do that by clicking on and off the frequency you adjusted (the little London Underground sign above the Graphic Display) or by bypassing the EQ in the top left corner of the eq's GUI. Do be careful not to remove character though! It can be the ugly bit's that make a sound work occasionally. You may also wish to then look at the harmonics involved. eg if 400hz is offending...check 800 and 200... Good luck Cheers Clive Young www.studiotwelve.com.au Ph/Fax: +613 9808 1909 Mob/Cell: +61419 530 873 12 Roberts Avenue Box hIll South

On 06.11.2006, at 10:56, Paul Mist wrote: > Yes, I do have the auto gain on, I will try without. My mix, after > compression, seems good but the guitars just peak (alot!) every now > and then. The question is when and why. If they peak when they play all together it might be an arrangement problem. If there are just a few spikes which are musically not interesting you can lower them in the sample editor (keep a copy) or by volume automation. It also depends on the sound in the loudest parts. Maybe you can lower a frequency range there. If the loud parts belong to the performance you certainly do not want to compress more or cut the peaks with a brickwall limiter but rather want to keep the dynamics as good as possible. There are several tricks for that but I cannot give advices because that level is beyond my skills and I guess nobody can tell you exactly what to do without hearing the piece. I am pretty sure that you cannot take your recording, put an EQ and a compressor across and that's it. Since you deal with three guitars you know probably the "Friday Night In San Francisco" concert. Duos and trios with Al di Meola, John Mc Laughlin and Paco de Lucia. These guys were loud. It was a live performance but hear how the engineer (s) handled that. First, they recorded from quite a distance but I think there was also a lot of fader riding. > One question I have is about sweeping the EQ, I'm not exactly sure > what you mean by theis, or how to do it, but it sounds useful so > any guidance would be appreciated. Do it for each guitar separate because resonances are room- and instrument dependend. If you have a part where the guitar plays open strings around A and D take that. You hear resonances best with single strings. Set Logic to cycle in that area. Stop Logic ! Take the Logic Channel EQ. Go to one of the middle bands and push it fully up. Then give more Q value until you get a single spike. A Q of 30 or more works good for me. Turn your monitors down ! start Logic and move your mouse over the frequency value. Slowly sweep the whole horizontal range with that spike. If there are resonances they are most likely between 100-500 Hz. Learn to differentiate between just overly loud tones and real resonances. A resonance sounds really nasty. When you found a nasty thing pull the gain down to about -10 or -15 dB. There is no rule how far or how much Q you need down there. Then try the double frequency, there is usually a second resonance which needs some treatment but not as much as the first one. When you bypass the EQ and you hear a clear difference - then it was too much. The tone should become a tiny bit clearer but not different. Although the Channel EQ works very well for that you might soon run out of bands and find the interface a bit small. If you work often with guitars and want to invest in a really good EQ "toolbox" look for the "UNIQUEL-IZER" at http://www.rogernicholsdigital.com ___ Peter Ostry

This is proving to be very helpful indeed. I get the EQ scanning now, and it make sense. The problem I'm still having is volume after compression, it's stil soooo very quiet, but still appears to be peaking out a good deal for each guitar part. Any more thoughts on this, it just seems soooo quiet. Also any one have any thoughts, other than mic placement on decreasing pick noise? Thanks again

On 06.11.2006, at 14:54, Paul Mist wrote: > The problem I'm still having is volume after compression, it's stil > soooo very quiet, but still appears to be peaking out a good deal > for each guitar part. Aren't you too early with massive compression? You might try to take your compressor out and do some automation. Silent parts up, loud parts down. Until you get a good loudness balance and nothing peaks, at least no much. Then come again with compression to add fullness. I would say if it peaks but is quiet then it is too thin. Not enough in the lows, probably. > Also any one have any thoughts, other than mic placement on > decreasing pick noise? No general rule, just several things to check: Try an EQ at 7-8 kHz. De-essing works sometimes. Shorter attack on the compressor. Logic's Enveloper plugin. ___ Peter Ostry

Interesting. Many places I have read that using compression straight away is a good course of action, even compressing while recording, but I can certainly see where you are coming from. I will give automation a try before compressing anything and hope that it helps. I'd like to know a little more about what you mean when you say the track is too thin? If anyone has any more suggestions then it would be great to hear them, I really want to get a great acoustic guitar sound with no clipping! Thanks

On 06.11.2006, at 20:14, Paul Mist wrote: > Many places I have read that using compression straight away is a > good course of action, even compressing while recording, but I can > certainly see where you are coming from. There is no problem with a 2:1 compressed track as a start, that is quite normal. Just if you have far more (without a good reason) and the sound doesn't come up then is something wrong. > I will give automation a try before compressing anything and hope > that it helps. Yeah. No fine tuning, just big parts. If you have a controller you can probably do a bit fader riding to see how it gets better without fiddling with automation lines too early. In case you automate right now you might like the idea to automate gain plugins. That leaves your volume faders free for the final mix. > I'd like to know a little more about what you mean when you say the > track is too thin? You need a certain amount of mids and lows. That might not sound as clear as you want it but there is the power. ___ Peter Ostry

On Nov 6, 2006, at 9:53 PM, Peter Ostry wrote: > I am pretty sure that you cannot take your recording, put an EQ and a > compressor across and that's it. Since you deal with three guitars > you know probably the "Friday Night In San Francisco" concert. Duos > and trios with Al di Meola, John Mc Laughlin and Paco de Lucia. These > guys were loud. It was a live performance but hear how the engineer > (s) handled that. First, they recorded from quite a distance but I > think there was also a lot of fader riding. If that is the way the engineers handled it they were total incompetents. The way to record *anything* audio is to figure out as best you can what the maximum volumes are going to be and then set the input gain to your recorder to handle them with a little bit of head room and then leave the input gain alone. Live mixing is another matter but even there the same principle applies as far as the inputs to the mixing desk are concerned.

> On Nov 6, 2006, at 9:53 PM, Peter Ostry wrote: >> ... >> you know probably the "Friday Night In San Francisco" concert. Duos >> and trios with Al di Meola, John Mc Laughlin and Paco de Lucia. These >> guys were loud. It was a live performance but hear how the engineer >> (s) handled that. First, they recorded from quite a distance but I >> think there was also a lot of fader riding. > > On 07.11.2006, at 01:21, dennis gunn wrote: > If that is the way the engineers handled it they were total > incompetents. Don't know. Tim Pinch recorded. Really good for a stage. Minot Sound in New York mixed, the three guitarists were the producers. > The way to record *anything* audio is to figure out as best you can > what the maximum volumes are going to be and then set the input gain > to your recorder to handle them with a little bit of head room and > then leave the input gain alone. Well, they obviously didn't want to make a "classic" concert CD but rather a guitar demonstration. You can't even hear it with headphones unless you like a single guitarist in each ear. And we shouldn't forget that this happend 1981. I read inside the cover: "The compact disk digital audio system offers the best possible sound reproduction - on a small convenient sound-carrier unit. Disc's remarkable performance is the result ... " :-) But the guitarists performance was remarkable and the recorded sound is either. You hear every finger, every string. But there is some movement all the time. Probably because of the overdone panning. However, it is a good example for powerful, clean and dynamic acoustic guitars. What they don't do: they never play loud on all strings at the same time. That is certainly crucial for a trio like Paul's. Poor Logic cannot put a player away on its own. ___ Peter Ostry

>> On Nov 6, 2006, at 9:53 PM, Peter Ostry wrote: >>> ... >>> you know probably the "Friday Night In San Francisco" concert. Duos >>> and trios with Al di Meola, John Mc Laughlin and Paco de Lucia. >>> These >>> guys were loud. It was a live performance but hear how the engineer >>> (s) handled that. First, they recorded from quite a distance but I >>> think there was also a lot of fader riding. >> >> On 07.11.2006, at 01:21, dennis gunn wrote: >> If that is the way the engineers handled it they were total >> incompetents. > > Don't know. Tim Pinch recorded. Then I doubt that Tim rode the faders. > Really good for a stage. Minot Sound in New York mixed, the three > guitarists were the producers. Then I am sure Minot Sound would be where any fader riding would have occurred. >> The way to record *anything* audio is to figure out as best you can >> what the maximum volumes are going to be and then set the input gain >> to your recorder to handle them with a little bit of head room and >> then leave the input gain alone. > > Well, they obviously didn't want to make a "classic" concert CD but > rather a guitar demonstration. It doesn't matter what you are making it for unless it is trying to demonstrate bad recording technique you don't ride the faders going *to* the recorder. > You can't even hear it with headphones unless you like a single > guitarist in each ear. Do you have three ears? Anyway hard panning great guitarists is something that has become what could only be called ancient tradition at this point. Personally I love it I have all kinds of recordings around here that are like that Chet Atkins & Les Paul, Chet Atkin's & Merle Travis, etc. it is really great for isolating a guitar and picking up licks (especially when one of the Guitarists is Chet since he generally sounds like at least two players at any given time). Even on The Who's live at leads they put John Entwhistle's bass on the left and Peter Townshends Guitar on the right (might have been a good idea to cross over the low end of the bass and put it in the middle but they didn't) > And we shouldn't forget that this happend 1981. I read inside the > cover: > "The compact disk digital audio system offers the best possible > sound reproduction - on a small convenient sound-carrier unit. > Disc's remarkable performance is the result ... " :-) Doesn't matter, if it was done on an MTR (and they sho' 'nuff had them in 1981) then there should be no fader riding of the live sound going to the recorder. > But the guitarists performance was remarkable and the recorded sound > is either. You hear every finger, every string. But there is some > movement all the time. Probably because of the overdone panning. > However, it is a good example for powerful, clean and dynamic > acoustic guitars. I will look for it.

So anymore tips on recording acoustic guitar?

On 07.11.2006, at 08:17, dennis gunn wrote: >> Well, they obviously didn't want to make a "classic" concert CD but >> rather a guitar demonstration. > > It doesn't matter what you are making it for unless it is trying to > demonstrate bad recording technique you don't ride the faders going > *to* the recorder. No, it certainly did not happen that way. I just hear that the volume changes and that it was intention. The changes are not very fast, maybe that isn't riding in the sense of the word. What I wanted to say is that adjusting the volume of acoustic guitars in the first stage can be better than instantly putting a compressor on them. At least one can emphasize the feeling of the piece and does not depend on a given treshold. Of course one could automate the compressor but in this case that is like scraching the right shoulder with the left foot. >> You can't even hear it with headphones unless you like a single >> guitarist in each ear. > > Do you have three ears? If you count the stereo mid in, yes ;-) But on 3 of the 5 tracks are only 2 players. >> And we shouldn't forget that this happend 1981. I read inside the >> cover: >> "The compact disk digital audio system offers the best possible >> sound reproduction - on a small convenient sound-carrier unit. >> Disc's remarkable performance is the result ... " :-) > > Doesn't matter, if it was done on an MTR (and they sho' 'nuff had > them in 1981) then there should be no fader riding of the live sound > going to the recorder. The "compact disk" quote was rather a cultural point, not a technical note. At that time a lot of people experimented with the clear sound of the new medium and tried things that were not possible on vinyl. Btw, what means "sho' 'nuff" ? My dictionary is helpless. >> But the guitarists performance was remarkable and the recorded sound >> is either. You hear every finger, every string. But there is some >> movement all the time. Probably because of the overdone panning. >> However, it is a good example for powerful, clean and dynamic >> acoustic guitars. > > I will look for it. I would be interested in your comments. On the cover they talk about left, middle and right "channel" and it sounds like close miking. Then they panned hard AND tried to put the instruments back onto the (now virtual) stage, supported by reverb and audience reactions and who knows what else. An interesting "installation" and probably very different from the original live situation. I like it. ___ Peter

On Nov 7, 2006, at 9:39 PM, Paul Mist wrote: > Message posted by Paul Mist <pmist@aislezero.co.uk>: > > So anymore tips on recording acoustic guitar? I will tell you what works for me. Assuming you are about an average sized guy playing a steel string Put a mic at about the level of your face and point it down at an angle so it is basically directed at the joint between the top and side at the spot where the waist of the guitar is the narrowest. After years of trying all kinds of micing arrangements I have consistently found that this is the one that sounds the most like what I as a player am hearing in the room when I am playing my guitar. That may or may not be what you want but I like it. Also depending on how dead (deader is better) your room is and how well your room is isolated from outside noise the further you can get the mic from the guitar the better.

On 07.11.2006, at 13:39, Paul Mist wrote: > So anymore tips on recording acoustic guitar? http://www.audio-recording-center.com/article-acoustic-guitar.html http://www.pcmus.com/RECacou.htm http://www.professional-sound.com/soundadvice/datadirectory/ viewnews.cgi?id71163002 http://www.orange-fields.com/widepages/wideasleeprec.html ___ Peter Ostry

Paul Mist wrote: > Message posted by Paul Mist <pmist@aislezero.co.uk>: > > So anymore tips on recording acoustic guitar? Depending how many other instruments, I always like to record a guitar in stereo. (IF its a big big lot of instruments the steroness of the acoustic will possibly be wasted). Either 1) a pair of smallish condensers (I used to hae Neumann KM84s but now use the much cheaper and excellent Oktava equivalent) as a coincident pair. If you angle them right you will have one that is mostly body and one that is fingerboard. You can either use as is for a nice ntural classical style recording, or use as two mono tracks, a body mic as the main one maybe and mix in the other mic to add the fingerboard. Or 2) an MS pair (the Logic manual has a good explanation). Once again aI have some cheapie Oktave ribbon mics for this. I really like this but it is not so adaptable for a mono variation as above. If you have a good room, roll the carpet back and expose some floorboards. For EQ, I think you got some great advice from Peter Ostry above, I'm going to try that. NB I don't call myself an engineer, this is all based on many years of trial and error as a composer/producer. My techniques may be wrong/controversial. -- Pete Thomas www.petethomas.co.uk Logic Tutorials, Hints, Tips, free Icons, Environments EXS Instruments (donationware)

<quotes repositioned and trimmed by admin> > Put a mic at about the level of your face and point it down at an > angle so it is basically directed at the joint between the top and > side at the spot where the waist of the guitar is the narrowest. > > After years of trying all kinds of micing arrangements I have > consistently found that this is the one that sounds the most like > what I as a player am hearing in the room when I am playing my guitar. yea, i've had some good results with putting a mic at one or both of my ears. that way you record what you hear.

> yea, i've had some good results with putting a mic at one or both of > my ears. that way you record what you hear. While you're playing around with some instruments, aren't there those moments that everything comes into your ears so perfect you wish your brain had an s/p-dif output? ;o) Maurits.

On 07.11.2006, at 21:19, Maurits van de Kamp wrote: > While you're playing around with some instruments, aren't there those > moments that everything comes into your ears so perfect you wish your > brain had an s/p-dif output? ;o) I took a mirror and looked all around my head but did not find a single jacket. If not SPDIF, here must be at least one wireless interface inside. That is the only explanation for the fact that so many weird things come from my brain to the computer. ___ Peter Ostry

> >> yea, i've had some good results with putting a mic at one or both of >> my ears. that way you record what you hear. > > While you're playing around with some instruments, aren't there those > moments that everything comes into your ears so perfect you wish your > brain had an s/p-dif output? ;o) > > Maurits. sigh... if we could just Logic interpret incoming signals, through our ears, the way our brains do..... I'll buy that plug-in in no time! -otto ======================================Audio, Recording, Network Engineering / Percussion GxM Consulting Philomath, Oregon, US

At 11:42 AM 11/07/2006, you wrote: ><quotes repositioned and trimmed by admin> > > > Put a mic at about the level of your face and point it down at an > > angle so it is basically directed at the joint between the top and > > side at the spot where the waist of the guitar is the narrowest. > > > > After years of trying all kinds of micing arrangements I have > > consistently found that this is the one that sounds the most like > > what I as a player am hearing in the room when I am playing my guitar. > >yea, i've had some good results with putting a mic at one or both of >my ears. that way you record what you hear. Ah, but frequently the player is not at the best listening position, and in some cases, such as violin, may be in one of the worst. With many instruments the best character is found a foot or more away---particularly with strings vibrating over wood.

On Nov 8, 2006, at 10:11 AM, Sean McCoy wrote: > At 11:42 AM 11/07/2006, you wrote: > >> <quotes repositioned and trimmed by admin> >> >>> Put a mic at about the level of your face and point it down at an >>> angle so it is basically directed at the joint between the top and >>> side at the spot where the waist of the guitar is the narrowest. >>> >>> After years of trying all kinds of micing arrangements I have >>> consistently found that this is the one that sounds the most like >>> what I as a player am hearing in the room when I am playing my >>> guitar. >> >> yea, i've had some good results with putting a mic at one or both of >> my ears. that way you record what you hear. > > Ah, but frequently the player is not at the best listening position, > and in some cases, such as violin, may be in one of the worst. With > many instruments the best character is found a foot or more > away---particularly with strings vibrating over wood. Ah you are right my description was bad in that it omitted a pretty crucial detail. I put the mic at the level of my face *and about foot to a foot and a half out from the front of the guitar*. Of course putting the mic where my head is would not only be a bit of a pain in the ass but would probably not sound so great.

>Ah you are right my description was bad in that it omitted a pretty >crucial detail. > >I put the mic at the level of my face *and about foot to a foot and a >half out from the front of the guitar*. > >Of course putting the mic where my head is would not only be a bit of >a pain in the ass but would probably not sound so great. Probably not---but you never know!

>It doesn't matter what you are making it for unless it is trying to >demonstrate bad recording technique you don't ride the faders going >*to* the recorder. This was done quite often in the old analog days, even in studio, reading the score and making level adjustments to suit. -- ha

You certainly can "ride" faders going into recorders. I have done this when I want to minimise overcompression on a vocal. Sometimes the threshhold just won't give you the outcome you need. If your ears tell you it sounds better, there is no such thing as a "bad" recording technique, particularly if you don't want the singer distracted too much from the performance aspect by having to move off mic at key moments. Some singers just aren't that good at it so you need to find alternatives. My 2 cents worth Cheers Clive Young

On Dec 7, 2006, at 3:35 AM, hank alrich wrote: >> It doesn't matter what you are making it for unless it is trying to >> demonstrate bad recording technique you don't ride the faders going >> *to* the recorder. > > This was done quite often in the old analog days, even in studio, > reading the score and making level adjustments to suit. For multi track? Really? I did not know that. Just the same whether somebody did or not it is still a bad idea with modern recording equipment. There is nothing to gain and plenty to loose.

On Dec 8, 2006, at 9:04 AM, Clive Young wrote: > You certainly can "ride" faders going into recorders. I have done > this when I want to minimise overcompression on a vocal. Sometimes > the threshhold just won't give you the outcome you need. If your ears > tell you it sounds better, there is no such thing as a "bad" > recording technique, particularly if you don't want the singer > distracted too much from the performance aspect by having to move off > mic at key moments. Some singers just aren't that good at it so you > need to find alternatives. If they are not that good then it follows that you can't be all that certain about what it is they are going to do. If you want to be safe then you don't apply tons of compression going in and just do it in the mix. So basically it is still not a good idea. If you want to do it to help out the singer with his monitoring you can and should simply control it separately from the input to the recorder.

<quotes repositioned and trimmed, footers removed by admin> On 08/12/2006, at 4:34 PM, dennis gunn wrote: > If they are not that good then it follows that you can't be all that > certain about what it is they are going to do. If you want to be > safe then you don't apply tons of compression going in and just do it > in the mix. > > So basically it is still not a good idea. If you want to do it to > help out the singer with his monitoring you can and should simply > control it separately from the input to the recorder. I find the point of "riding" the input gain to the compressor on the odd occasion in critical spots, is to AVOID tons of compression and/ or limiting. Besides...it's kinda fun!! Like the "all hands on deck" manual automation from the old days... It really gets you involved in the performance sometimes. It's not something I do all the time though. Cheers Clive Young

> This was done quite often in the old analog days, even in studio, > reading the score and making level adjustments to suit. Not forgetting that in these analog days, these studios had a LOT less dynamic range to work with than in the 24 bit digital days. :o) This makes a lot of undesirable yet necessary techniques now unnecessary, like pre-record compression, pre-record fading or other pre-record effects. And there are people with a lot of experience from the analog days that stick to those techniques because they're used to working with them, and because of that experience might even end up with better results than if they didn't. Other than that, there is no technical reason why doing these things would bring any advantage. And since it does have disadvantages because of its destructiveness, better think thrice before doing it (and getting used to it). Maurits.

--- dennis gunn <dennis@spn1.speednet.ne.jp> wrote: > > On Dec 7, 2006, at 3:35 AM, hank alrich wrote: > > >> It doesn't matter what you are making it for > unless it is trying to > >> demonstrate bad recording technique you don't > ride the faders going > >> *to* the recorder. > > > > This was done quite often in the old analog days, > even in studio, > > reading the score and making level adjustments to > suit. > > For multi track? > > Really? > > I did not know that. > > Just the same whether somebody did or not it is > still a bad idea with > modern recording equipment. There is nothing to > gain and plenty to > loose. FWIW, still today I occasionally read about engineers that employ this technique. JP