In just over four weeks, we’ll be heading to Dark Horse Recording in Nashville to record drums, bass, and rhythm guitar for the new album. Joining us will be studio drummer Miles McPherson, bassist Joey Canaday, and Hilliard, OH native guitarist Matt Meyer. For those of you just tuning in, I am working on a new rock album, set to release early 2011. This will be my third pop rock CD. You can listen to my previous albums Dishes and Backstage Pass either on iTunes or CDbaby.com. For those of you who have been following along for a while… all demos and Nashville number charts for the new album have been completed, except for one tune which I am still tweaking (track #5). I hope to work on this song some later this week.
I’ve also been busy raising some extra money for the first phase of the recording process. So far, I’ve made enough to pay for the first Nashville trip (coming up on June 18th), and now I am working to make some extra cash to purchase a Pro Tools Mbox2 system, which I will use for the editing and mixing stages of the new album (All work so far has been done in Logic Pro). This past Saturday, I helped tear down some audio gear at the Race for the Cure in downtown Columbus, and on Sunday night, I spent about 6 ½ hours in the rain tearing down sound and light equipment at the Nelsonville Music Festival in Nelsonville, OH (near Hocking Hills). In addition, I’m running sound for some weddings on the weekends, and am possibly producing and recording some songs for a friend or two (not to mention I’m giving a few haircuts here and there). I should probably order the Pro Tools Mbox2 in the next couple weeks, as I want to have at least two weeks to set up all the Pro Tools sessions that we’ll need when we go to Nashville in June.
This past weekend, marcandremusic.com went back online. For a while, this URL has forwarded to 10x12productions.com (my small business), but I’ve now set up a temporary page for this URL that will be revamped (and will look a lot cooler) once the new album is released.
On The Schedule This Week…
This Thursday, I’ll be meeting with composer Robert Nugent to review string arrangements (for two songs on the new album). I’m also preparing a game plan for our big day at Dark Horse Recording (June 18th). I will cover this in a future blog.
Progress of the Album: Motivation (Chapter 10 part 2 of 2) coming this weekend…
9 comments:
Marc,
I've considered using ProTools for my recording at home so I don't have to convert every track into a wave file for a producer to mix (since most mix engineers use ProTools). I've got All M-Audio interfaces/sound cards so I'm thinking that's compatible with ProTools software? Do you HAVE to use the M-box with Protools? I really don't want to purchase the M-box because I don't need it.
Or maybe I'll just stick with my Sonar. Bought an older version of Sonar off Ebay for 20 bucks!!
Patrick
Patrick,
In order to use Pro Tools, you have to either use an M-audio audio interface made for Pro-Tools (m-powered, as they call it) or you have to use a Digidesign/AVID interface. These Digidesign/AVID systems range from a couple hundred dollars (the lower line of Pro Tools LE, which uses the mbox or a 003 interface) to thousands of dollars (Pro Tools HD, which many big studios use).
LE systems - http://www.sweetwater.com/c542--Pro_Tools_LE_Systems
HD systems -
http://www.sweetwater.com/c546--Pro_Tools_HD_Interfaces
I'm planning to go with the Mbox2 because it has SDIF in/out which will allow me to go directly out of my API A2D pre-amp into Pro Tools digitally. I hope to later record guitar overdubs, etc. directly into Pro Tools and I would like to use my API pre-amp to get the best quality sound.
Marc
Any Pro Tools session created on a smaller system (m-powered or LE) can be imported into a HD system (in case you want to take your files to a big studio to have somebody mix your songs for you). The key is getting good quality audio going into the computer, which of course depends upon a lot of things including the quality of the mic and the pre-amp you're using.
Cool Marc...thanks for the info. Think I'll stick with what I have, as I'm getting livable results with the M-Audio preamp, m-audio card and the Rode mic.
Cheap equipment forces me to work on really good mic techique, which is a great skill to have.
I found some kid in sound engineering school who wants to mix and master my whole project in ProTools for super-duper chump change (less than a hundred bucks). He mainly wants experience and a project to work on. He sent me samples of his stuff and it sounded great. Figured it's worth a try. If it doesn't work out, no loss for me.
Patrick
Sounds like you've got a pretty decent set-up Patrick. Yeah, mic placement is very important, for sure. You can have the best equipment in the world, and if you don't know how to use it (or position it), you'll have trouble getting a good sound. I'm anxious to hear your songs man!
That's cool you found a kid to mix your album! Sounds like he's had some experience and has a good portfolio. Like you said, it's worth a shot. No loss since he's not charging!
Did some recording over the weekend. Fairly clean results, but I'm hoping the mastering phase will really bring the volume up. Since I'm using 24-bit, I'm not recording super-hot. Different forums suggested that with 24-bit, I should leave decent headroom for compression, limiting, etc during mix-down. Vocals are coming out pretty bright with my tenor voice and the Rode mic, acoustic guitar is a little muddy sounding. Getting lots of low-end frequencies that can definitively be EQ'd out with a high-pass filter during mixing.
Patrick
Patrick,
I've heard the same thing about 24 bit and headroom. However, it doesn't always hurt to record relatively loud signals into the computer because even with 24-bit, the more volume, the more data is represented, but you have a lot more data to work with when recording in 24bit vs. 16bit. The biggest issue is avoiding digital distortion because there's nothing that can be done to remove the distortion once it's there. That's one reason why it's good to keep your levels moderately low when tracking digitally, especially if you're not using any compression going in. If a person has a cheap compressor, it's better to record into the computer without any compression at a lower volume. That way you aren't "printing" a degraded signal (from the cheap compressor) and you still have a lot of data which is retained if you're tracking at 24 bit. Then, there's the whole issue of gain staging... and getting the cleanest possible signal going into the computer.
Do you have a bass roll-off on your Rode?
Marc,
Been recording at around 18-12 db. Seems like that leaves enough headroom for the occasional peaks that hit around 6db. No bass roll-off on the Rode. It's a bare bones mic. Hoping that low frequencies can be EQ'd out at mixing.
Patrick
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