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Trying to get a good process down for my current environment. Vocals are good, signal wise, ambience limited to conditions. My booth is my laundry room adjacent to the garage for seperation which is fine. The booth is lined with a comdination of foam, blankets and homemade baffles. Basically a DEAD booth. I've played with mic placements and such and have a very good core vocal.

Once in the daw what is the best means of adding the sense of being recorded in a better environment, I'm talking before the typical reverb via the send bus. My daw is Logic Platinum 5.5.1 on PC. My options for plugins include the native Logic plugs and the Waves Gold Bundle. The signal chain was MXL V69M>ISA428>MOTU 2408MKIII. Very clean levels throughout.

Just trying to make the best with what we have right now.

Thanks,
LRG

Comments

Davedog Mon, 02/21/2005 - 18:25

Hi my fellow Okie...(I R transplanted elsewhere) :wink:

Let me try this one....Whenever you have several different sources recorded in different sounding environments you have in effect, done some separation simply by doing this.Obviously your natural EQ curves and the relationships of the notes in each environment are going to have different parameters and different cause and effect. If you have a solid Parametric EQ available in your plugs, you can determine the frequencies that are boosted and those that are cut simply by running each track through the EQ and experimenting with it.Keep a record of this effort and at mix this can be a loose guideline to creating space around each instrument and the voices.I also find that a really tight controlled EQ on just the reverbs and echoes can create a tremendous large effect from a 'deadroom' closemiced source.

anonymous Tue, 02/22/2005 - 06:49

You can also try this as well... I recently did a project where I recorded the Vox dry. I then went and pumped the vox thru a speaker in my bathroom at one end and had a sensative mic at the other end picking up the original vox plus a bit of effect from the natural tile of the bathroom.

Can be anyplace in your house. Just move the mic around the room until you get the desired effect, then use as a effect at mixdown.

Good luck.

Davedog Tue, 02/22/2005 - 16:30

Hiya LeRoy...

That is somewhat what I was saying....! My meaning being this: Your tracks being done in different environments will NATURALLY have a different set of EQ parameters ....this is before any artificial manipulation of the EQ of the tracks. My suggestion to you in using the EQ was to discover what frequencies are the most dominant in each tracks environment and THEN use the EQ as an effective method of separation and definition.Thats why I say to log the test of these tracks and their NATURAL frequency responses and use these parameters at your mix. With a good tight 4 band parametric(I think its in your waves bundle) you can sweep through all the freqencies on each track and see their strong and weak points. I do this after all my tracks are recorded as kind of a learning tool for the mix. I dont use a lot of EQ ever in the process and knowing what frequencies I have to cut or boost enables me to keep it relatively simple at mix. And yes, this will give you a much better sense of ambience as well as separation.It'll make it easier to make everything 'bigger'.My suggestion about the EQ and the verb is also aimed at ambience..depth and power..dedicate an EQ to a single verb that you want for the lead(feature) vocals.Using the EQ on the Verb rather than the vocal track itself will alow it to sit in the mix yet be up and in yer face as it should be.

anonymous Fri, 02/25/2005 - 17:32

Hey Dave been playing with the EQ/Verb technique and have gotten some interesting and very useable results. Appreciate the tip. I,m also going to try the homemade Verb chamber as soon as I get a day when the house is clear. Got a couple of rooms I want to use. One with two story ceilings which sounds very promising.

Thanks both for the tips...

Peace 8)

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