Re: [linux-audio-user] [OT] Sound service and recording

On Tue, Jul 05, 2005 at 08:01:25PM +0200, Carotinho wrote: Mostly a big difference in frequency response. The guitar amp speaker typically has resonant humps in the midbass and upper-midrange region, and then rapidly plummets towards zero above approx. 4 kHz. If you take a direct signal from the guitar amp, the recorded signal will sound odd for clean sounds (hard to describe, it just sounds weird and "artificial"); and simply awful for distorted sounds (a nasty synthetic buzz). There are "cabinet simulator" boxes on the market - built in to various things such as Sansamp and. also available built in to some DI boxes. If you really cannot get hold of a mic for the guitar amp, you should strongly consider such a device. For bass guitar, you can get away with recording direct. It's not my preference, but many engineers prefer it. If a compressor is available, e.g. as a foot pedal or built in to the bass amp, use it. I don't know what you mean by a panoramic mic. Omnidirectional? By "ice cream" I presume you mean something like the Shure SM-58 or one of the many imitations: http://www.shure.com/microphones/models/sm58.asp In any case, my preferred minimalistic mic arrangements are: * two mics, approach A: - One a foot or so over the drummer's head, aimed at the snare - this picks up the overall sound. - One in front of the kick drum - this adds some kick drum which is typically weak in the overhead mic. This gives a good overall sound, but it's basically mono, not stereo. OR * two mics, approach B: both mics in an "X-Y" arrangement a few feet in front of the kit, about three feet off the ground. This gives a nice overall sound and good stereo image, but the snare can sound weak. * Three mics: - Two mics a foot or so over the drummer's head, in an X/Y arrangement, centered on the snare drum. - The third mic in front of the kick drum. * Four mics: - One a few feet over the left hand side of the kit - One a few feet over the right side of the kit - One in front of the kick drum - One close up on the snare drum Anything more than that is, frankly, just asking for trouble until you get much more experience and much better microphones. I'd rather record drums with three good mics than ten crappy mics. I'm not familiar with the term "canon" in this context. I'd leave EQ alone and do it in post. Generally either: a) the highest specs your card can support, or b) the specs you're going to end up with (e.g. for CD, 44100 / 16 / stereo). pick one or the other; at this level of experience and equipment, it's frankly not worth worrying about. Difficult, but can be done, and well worth the learning experience in my opinion. Just be prepared for the possibility that your initial efforts may sound very amateurish. We all start somewhere. And sometimes even rank amateurs get lucky. Have fun with it! -- Paul Winkler http://www.slinkp.com