Renditions

[cactuskeeb]

A few months ago I recorded this sort of punk rock medley of phish licks. I revisited it yesterday, adding compression and a little reverb in Audacity. I'm using an old magnatone speaker (re-coned) on the recording that predates the oxford speaker that came standard in fender deluxes of this era (mid to late nineteen sixties). I've since installed a weber blue dog, which, overall, I think sounds better. Although, I still kind of like the harshness of the old, rusty magnatone...

http://soundcloud.com/cactus-keeb/fender-deluxe-w-compressor

[cactuskeeb]

Here's some I recorded a few minutes ago. I haven't played guitar in three months, so my chops are sloppy as all hell. But it's not really about me; it's the amp I want you to hear.

http://soundcloud.com/cactus-keeb/over-hills

http://soundcloud.com/cactus-keeb/little-bit-of-guyute

The "over hills" track is the first channel ("normal channel") to which I added an extra gain stage in the form of a preamp tube stolen from the vibrato circuit (removed) on the second channel. The volume is at 3, which is extremely loud -- as loud as 6-7 on the second channel.

The other track -- a slowed down section of Guyute -- is the less intense second channel, which is practically stock, circuit-wise.

Both tracks are just the amp with microverb (reverse setting).

[Happyorange27]

The normal channel sounds like a nice dirty screamer.  Good stuff.  And the Guyute clip is spot on.  Really nice man!

[cactuskeeb]

Yeah, it does sound like a tube screamer. It compresses really nicely at high volume. It's easier to hear the compression on the recording than it is playing right in front of the speaker.

I used one mic on this but recorded in stereo. My mic preamp has no "pan" control so I can't get realtime hard left and right pan when I use two mics...after making the recording, I have to go back to the track, using the software options to split the stereo track and slide the L-R pan, then merge the two channels back into a single stereo track. This doesn't seem to be the same as plugging two mics into a sound/mixing board with a pan control knob on each channel (this kind of classic setup is where Paul was coming from when he explained his recording technique to me).

Do you think it's a little late to avoid the "comb filtering" Paul mentioned when you've already recorded something without realtime hard pan L-R? Or does the comb filtering come from something else?

[Happyorange27]

Clarify that you are recording with one mic but recording in stereo?  Does you mic have two sides or two transducers?  Regardless you never want to combine 2 tracks into one and you never want to playback 2 stereo tracks panned anywhere near the center.  Always playback panned hard.
If you already combined the 2 tracks into one then you kind of killed it already.  The more separated the mics, the more comb filtering you are going to get if you combine them.
There is actually one good example of comb filter on YouTube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QPAFJyVb7U

Also do this for you own experiment.  Take a stereo output from your ipod and then get a y adapter so that you are pumping both L and R channels into just one mono channel on say your mixer or amp. You'll get all this "swishing" and phasey swirling.  It's tinty line satellite radio.  That's comb filtering.

[cactuskeeb]

This is the single mic recording I did for the two new soundcloud tracks. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm using two mics (it looks the same, except for the fact that the top and bottom will have different size/shape waveform, or whatever you call the graphical representation of the sound). This is the process I go through:










*** I pan hard right/left:










It doesn't change anything if I do the additional step below.

[Happyorange27]

You are not accomplishing anything by doing the above.  You are basically going to hear the same mono output regardless, maybe just a bit louder since you are summing the identical 2 tracks.  If you want any sense of ambiance (realizing true stereo sound) then you need to have 2 tracks that are truly different OR AT LEAST SLIGHTLY OFFSET IN TIME.  So here is what you do.  Adjust one of those tracks by delaying it about 4 milliseconds (play with the times to your liking). There should be a feature that lets you do this. And pan them hard left and right.  Now you have just simulated having one mic further than another.  It should sound pretty good.

Now for a lesson in comb filtering, pan them both to center and hear that shitty phasing going on. 

Class dismissed!

[cactuskeeb]

Yeah, I know nothing happens in the above but I asked that you imagine that the two stereo sides represent two mics, even though they obviously don't in the above case.

Here...(see below)...here's the first track I uploaded to soundcloud a few months ago. I used two mics on this (two AKG 414 condensers, which is all I have). I utilized the two channels on my mic preamp, which output to a single XLR connection (I have an XLR to stereo mini-plug; the latter end goes into the computer). When you split the track and make both the left and right channels mono, then pan both to center, you hear an obvious degradation of sound that I'm going to assume is comb filtering (it has to be).












*** Panned hard (below) it sounds "fine"

[Happyorange27]

OK then yeah if you have 2 different signals, which it looks like you do, then yeah you can have comb filtering if not panned hard or nice ambiance when panned hard.  Good deal.

[Heady Jam Fan]

I agree with Happy - if your using two mics, pan hard. It will sound somewhat centered, but slightly wider and fuller. If you use one mic (which is what I do), then I either use the very short delay one one track (I hear it if it is over 10ms), detune 5c on one track, or stereo spread chorus. I did an example of the same track with these three approaches in the recording forum.