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Recording questions....


unbroken

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Anybody have any amazing recording experiences within or outwith Aberdeen?

We are looking to record really soon, and everywhere we have recorded so far, we haven't been satisfied with it all.

So yeah, recommendations please....

Budget isn't a concern as yet...

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Anybody have any amazing recording experiences within or outwith Aberdeen?

We are looking to record really soon, and everywhere we have recorded so far, we haven't been satisfied with it all.

So yeah, recommendations please....

Budget isn't a concern as yet...

How about you record and mix it yourselves at college? You know how you want it to sound. You know how to record, the gear at college isn't too bad. It'll be cheaper and i'm sure you'll get better results.

There's tons of info online for acquiring good recordings for different genres of music using various types of equipment. It'll probably take longer but i'm sure you'll be happier in the long run.

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Even if you don't want to record yourselves, utilising the college studio would be a good idea.

Do some live test recordings and tweak the individual instruments/amps until it sounds as good as it can, then you can go to a studio secure in the knowledge that all they have to do is accurately reproduce the sounds you've given them, which is what they should be good at.

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You've got to love Foyermusic. Not the highest quality, but dirt cheap, and the guys can give you advice on pretty much everything. Would be well worth booking a couple of hours for the chat if nothing else.

generally, recordings from their are awful...

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generally, recordings from their are awful...

Not really. Their drum kit is awful, but if you take in your own, and work on properly gating everything then you can get pretty good sounds. Believe me, I've tried.

But, if that's still not enough, how about ARC in Mintlaw? A bit of the beaten track, but their facilities are actually immense and the sound you get is professional and then some.

ARC Studios - Recording Studios in Aberdeenshire

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You are generally paying for 3 things with recoridng studios

1. sound engineer (someone with experience, training etc)

2. equipment (microphones, pre amps, conversion, processing etc.)

3. recording space (aesthetics and acoustics of enviroment)

If you record yourself you will usually compromisel on the first and more often than not the 2nd and 3rd also.

There are no recording studios in Aberdeen that have acousticly treated their recording rooms, as far as i know (so you fail at 3rd).

Most of the 'demo studios' i.e Captain Toms, Foyerlive etc. don't do particularly well with number 2 and 3 and may or may not do well with 1 also.

ARC studios wasn't very detailed about equipment. The Neumann U87 is a top quality microphone and the EV RE20 is fairly good but it didn't say what other microphones it has. Also didn't say anything about pre amps, so i assume they just use the ones from their soundcraft desk, which is ok but you generally want to use an external valve pre amp for such things as voice.

Every studio in the area also shamelessly admits to using behringer, at some point. (they all seem to own their compressors for no apparent reason).

Average Software compressor > behringer compressor pro

Digidesign 002 is ok but you but RME and MOTU units are often slightly better.

....................

Details of my studio, so far. I can (in theory) location record but I would need to do further tests with laptop. My father and myself built this up over a number of years and have recently made a few additions to it.

I can compete with most studios providing it doesn't translate to slave labour. Message me for details. If you want to use any equipment I don't have listed, I will try to get it for your recording session.

monitoring

KRK K-ROK studio monitors

Samson Servo 170 Power Amp

4 samson headphone amplifiers

5 Sennheiser HD25 headphones

1 Beyer Dynamic DT150 headphones

recording devices

RME Fireface 800 firewire interface - 10 ins and outs, 4 good mic pre amps

Mackie Onyx 800R (ordered this week) - 8 further inputs with 'botique' mic pre amps

24 channels optical splitters (so i can run to digital mixing desk indepdendently for advanced monitoring purposes)

RME hammerfall DSP PCI card.

Dell laptop with 2GB of RAM

desktop with 1GB of RAM and dual monitors

software

Sonar 5 producers edition

Sony Soundforge

Steinberg Wavelab

Native Instruments Kore

Native Instruments Komplete 4

G-Media/M-audio GForce Future Retro Synth pack.

microphones

1 AKG C414 XLS (good 'transparent' mic for voice and mulit purpose)

2 AKG C1000's (good for hi hat and underside of snare)

1 AKG D550

3 Shure SM57 (probably increase to 4 or 5 soon)

2 Shure SM58

1 Behringer B1 (good for 2nd kick mic)

I can hire in good drum microphones for 35 (other options available and i do own microphones to record drums at reasonable quality)

I will also concider purchasing a Shure SM7b for the first person who wishes to use one for voice. I may also get a good tube pre amp to go with it.

instruments etc.

Carlsbro 1960s vintage drum kit (5 pieces)

Ashdown EVQ bass amp

Tech 21 Sansamp psa-1 pre amp

Marshall 2x12" cabinet

Few bass and guitars but rather used your own.

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I slightly resent that comment. This stuff was built up over a number of years from saving etc. My father is a musician also and buys stuff for himself to use. Now, After having a job for a while, I have started buying more things and my latest purchase will be Mackie Onyx 800R pre amps/interface.

I have recorded a friends band, my own band (in progress), my friend's band want to record again and my dad's old band recorded using this stuff. We previously used behringer converters and pre amps which have been upgraded to Mackie and RME.

I did live sound for about 4 years in my previous church and learnt a lot of what I know from that. Recorded sound is quite differnet but uses some of the same principles.

I would like to record another band (or multiple) sometime and wondered if anyone was interested. I have been concidering posting about my studio for some time now and thought this was a good time to chose.

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I'd make a point of ignoring the gear snob. He looks positively soul sucking :(

Just do it in Toms and get someone to mix it properly for you if you're on the cheap. 10 Easy Wishes and Crashdown have both come out of there in the past couple months with some really impressing recordings.

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Exile looks and sounds quite good from what I read but lacks certain types of microphones and acoustic treatment of rooms. If you don't acousticly treat the room and it has the 'wrong' sort of echoes. You will notice the cymbals often sound 'mushy' and lacks power. The voice often suffers also.

I hear the Mill is very good but I can't find a website for it.

The Byre in The Highlands looks good also but I have not (knowningly) heard recordings from it yet.

Toms seems to be a bit 'hit or miss'. Some people get lucky other's do not. It is probably often the band's own fault when it doesn't sound good but there are other factors to concider. Equipment is ok but not exceptional.

Captain Tom's Recording

It also isn't cheap. Their basic rate of 24 an hour is actulaly expensive, especially for what you get. There are 'deals' which are cheaper and I suspect most people use.

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Blah Blah Blah......

Seriously, it isn't a contest so i don't think the guy needs a list of what you've got/can afford.

All you need (if you plan on trying it yourself) is a decent desktop/laptop, a good soundcard/audio interface, a vocal mic, an instrument mic, whatever instruments/effects you use live, a software program (garage band/cubase etc) and one band member with a good ear for what you want to sound like.

Record drums in a studio as there's no point in making a ridiculous outlay for drum mics and a 8/16 channel desk unless you plan on making a start on a career out of recording bands. Most studios will give you raw recorded individual drum tracks if thats all you want them to record. That would be my only outlay on actual recording money-wise. Just bounce the drum tracks into your own software and mix them yourselves. Listen to the sounds of bands you like and try and emulate them as close as you can using the equipment that you have.

Get used to the software you're using and mix it yourselves as a band. I can almost guarantee that in most band set-ups there will be at least one computer literate band member and at least one with a good ear for sounds. If not, there's plenty of time for you to learn and you aren't going to lose anything.

It's not rocket science these days and there's no need to break the bank as with a little time and effort you can achieve what you want.

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Seriously, it isn't a contest so i don't think the guy needs a list of what you've got/can afford.

All you need (if you plan on trying it yourself) is a decent desktop/laptop, a good soundcard/audio interface, a vocal mic, an instrument mic, whatever instruments/effects you use live, a software program (garage band/cubase etc) and one band member with a good ear for what you want to sound like.

Record drums in a studio as there's no point in making a ridiculous outlay for drum mics and a 8/16 channel desk unless you plan on making a start on a career out of recording bands. Most studios will give you raw recorded individual drum tracks if thats all you want them to record. That would be my only outlay on actual recording money-wise. Just bounce the drum tracks into your own software and mix them yourselves. Listen to the sounds of bands you like and try and emulate them as close as you can using the equipment that you have.

Get used to the software you're using and mix it yourselves as a band. I can almost guarantee that in most band set-ups there will be at least one computer literate band member and at least one with a good ear for sounds. If not, there's plenty of time for you to learn and you aren't going to lose anything.

It's not rocket science these days and there's no need to break the bank as with a little time and effort you can achieve what you want.

Telt.

Save the fancy microphones for when you've found someone else to pay for the studio time folks.

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Seriously, it isn't a contest so i don't think the guy needs a list of what you've got/can afford.

I never tried to make it sound like any form of contest. I merely advertised my home studio for other bands to record in and gave advice on other studios in the area.

All you need (if you plan on trying it yourself) is a decent desktop/laptop, a good soundcard/audio interface, a vocal mic, an instrument mic, whatever instruments/effects you use live, a software program (garage band/cubase etc) and one band member with a good ear for what you want to sound like.

It is always advisable to have a sound reference which you are aiming towards.

There is also a difference between what you stricly speaking 'need' and what will offer an improvement in terms of sound quality.

Record drums in a studio as there's no point in making a ridiculous outlay for drum mics and a 8/16 channel desk unless you plan on making a start on a career out of recording bands. Most studios will give you raw recorded individual drum tracks if thats all you want them to record. That would be my only outlay on actual recording money-wise. Just bounce the drum tracks into your own software and mix them yourselves. Listen to the sounds of bands you like and try and emulate them as close as you can using the equipment that you have.

Other than the 20 hours you spent recording and 400 on the basic gear. Even with fairly minimal setup ...... 100 on an m-audio interface ~100 on a microphone and 200 on a pair of tannoy reveal studio monitors or similar. It isn't a cheap option. It also wouldn't work out cheaper over one recording session.

Get used to the software you're using and mix it yourselves as a band. I can almost guarantee that in most band set-ups there will be at least one computer literate band member and at least one with a good ear for sounds. If not, there's plenty of time for you to learn and you aren't going to lose anything..

Time is money and without an experienced engineer of some kind to help/show you what to do you are unlikely to produce great results.

You can record yourself but it generally isn't the best idea for everyone. For some people it is but most people would be better off using an existing studio.

It's not rocket science these days and there's no need to break the bank as with a little time and effort you can achieve what you want.

It is and it isn't. If the source and mic placement (and choice of other equipment) is good you are going to have to do 'less' to a recording but there is no replacement from experience and knowledge about recording.

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I never tried to make it sound like any form of contest. I merely advertised my home studio for other bands to record in and gave advice on other studios in the area.

It is always advisable to have a sound reference which you are aiming towards.

There is also a difference between what you stricly speaking 'need' and what will offer an improvement in terms of sound quality.

Other than the 20 hours you spent recording and 400 on the basic gear. Even with fairly minimal setup ...... 100 on an m-audio interface ~100 on a microphone and 200 on a pair of tannoy reveal studio monitors or similar. It isn't a cheap option. It also wouldn't work out cheaper over one recording session.

Time is money and without an experienced engineer of some kind to help/show you what to do you are unlikely to produce great results.

You can record yourself but it generally isn't the best idea for everyone. For some people it is but most people would be better off using an existing studio.

It is and it isn't. If the source and mic placement (and choice of other equipment) is good you are going to have to do 'less' to a recording but there is no replacement from experience and knowledge about recording.

I'm sorry, but Ry is right. You really do suck the soul out of music mate. :down:

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In hindsight I would not have advertised my studio or offered my advice on recording if I knew people would react so badly.

Maybe you could go about rethinking your advertising approach?

The whole 'I've got this and this and this in my mums garage' thing doesn't really sell. The idea of working with an someone who does little except mutter to himself about microphones doesn't fill me with excitement, personally.

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In hindsight I would not have advertised my studio or offered my advice on recording if I knew people would react so badly.

What's wrong with bands learning how to record themselves? Until there's someone waving a cheque book in front of your face to pay for the fanciest studios and equipment there's plenty that you can do and create at normal levels for yourself.

All your equipment sounds nice, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day you don't need that to create something sell-able.

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Maybe you could go about rethinking your advertising approach?

The whole 'I've got this and this and this in my mums garage' thing doesn't really sell. The idea of working with an someone who does little except mutter to himself about microphones doesn't fill me with excitement, personally.

I don't see what I have said or done whcih has annoyed you so much.

Mutter to myself? I was answering a thread and thought the original poster might wish to record in my studio, so mentioned it. I don't see why this has to do anything with mum's garage or muttering to myself but maybe I am wrong.

I also had absolutely no intention of filling you with excitement, if I did I would be be worried.

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What's wrong with bands learning how to record themselves? Until there's someone waving a cheque book in front of your face to pay for the fanciest studios and equipment there's plenty that you can do and create at normal levels for yourself.

All your equipment sounds nice, don't get me wrong, but at the end of the day you don't need that to create something sell-able.

Absolutely nothing is wrong with bands recording themselves but it is not the best idea for everyone nor is it necessarily a cheaper approach. I am part of a band recording ourselves and it works nicely for us with our writing method but other people would often be better using existing studios.

You don't need amazing equipment to make a sellable CD but it helps. I do not concider any of my equipment 'amazing' but it is alll 'acceptable'. You do however need a certain amount of knowledge about how to use the equipment and suchlike.

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Absolutely nothing is wrong with bands recording themselves but it is not the best idea for everyone nor is it necessarily a cheaper approach. I am part of a band recording ourselves and it works nicely for us with our writing method but other people would often be better using existing studios.

You don't need amazing equipment to make a sellable CD but it helps. I do not concider any of my equipment 'amazing' but it is alll 'acceptable'. You do however need a certain amount of knowledge about how to use the equipment and suchlike.

It's cheaper in the long run though. It's only one outlay rather than spending out time and time again because you can't be arsed learning how to do something for yourself.

Knowledge is something that is gained from experience though. What better way is there to experience something than to do it yourself?

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