darknostalgia

Recording Drums - Miking Techniques Part 1

2006-09-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

by Jakob Culver

Recording drums can be one of the hardest things when recording a band. Many people are unsure what to do and how to go about it. Although when recording drums mic placement and choice is a big issue, the biggest issue of all is how good the drummer places. ie a solid drummer is going to be alot easier to record than someone who plays loose and out of time.

Kick Drum

Lets talk about how to mic a kick drum. The kick drum is a solid focal point behind the drums with a low end frequency that in some context establishes the beat of the song. for this reason kick drum mics are large with a low end frequency range. In terms of mic placement the mic needs to be placed inside the kick drum. This means that unless the front skin has a hole in it, it should be removed! Once you have removed the front skin place the mic about 12'' away from the beater, slightly off-center and pointing directly at it (Placing it directly in-front of the beater means that it is the path of the sound and puts the mic under alot of pressure). Use this mic placement if you want a nice precise and punchy sound. If you want a more open sound bring the mic further away from the beater - just on the outside of the drum. A good choice of mic generaly is the AKG D112 and Sennheiser 421, I also find that the shure kick drum mics work great. In terms of miking a kick drum these are general guidelines and you should experiment with you mic placement since the sound depends alot on the person playing the drums.

Snare Drum

With The snare drum the hardest thing is placing the mic in the right spot since there is little room. When you position it try and place it 1'' in from the rim, 2-3'' above it, facing to the center of the drum at 45 degrees and facing directly away from the hi-hat. Facing the mic away from the hi-hat means that you minimise the amount of hi-hat coming through that mic (if you still get alot of hi-hat coming through the snare mic try and put a round peace of foam around the mic). If you find the snare sound is not cutting through than consider miking the bottom of the snare drum as well, if you do decide to do this remember to reverse the phase on the bottom mic. In terms of mic choice the shure sm57 is a great it has been used by many great engineers in the past and still is. It is a relitivly cheap mic but still function as good or better than other mics more expensive. There are many other good snare mics out there and you should try them out to find what best works for you.

About The Author

Jakob Culver is a professional working musician & founder of the website
http://www.musiciansequipment.com/.

jculver@millenniumonlinemarketing.com

Why Take Guitar Lessons?

2006-09-06T15:42:00.000-07:00

Why Take Guitar Lessons?

By Bill McMahon

So you've been debating whether or not to take guitar lessons. Here are some reasons to go ahead and take the plunge:

Guitar lessons will speed up your learning time. For a little money you will accelerate your learning process.

Guitar lessons will make you more efficient. Why try to teach yourself and waste tons of time? Time is money - use a little money now, and save tons of time in the future.

Guitar lessons can be taken online. Check this out: Jamorama

This highly recommended course, Jamorama, is an amazing method to take your guitar lessons online. What could be more convenient than audio and video instruction that you can learn from right at home? No hauling your guitar to your car and then driving in crazy traffic to a lesson in a damp room somewhere. This is definitely the way to learn. Highly Recommended - click the banner above...

When you take guitar lessons you are more focused. With focus comes definite goals, definite tasks, and definite and measurable progress. If you are trying to learn how to play guitar, but you aren't focused, you may learn a little here and there, but your progress will be scattered and slow. With attention to detail and a well thought out plan, you will be able to mark down goals and then do what needs to be done to realize those goals in minimum time. You'll be more efficient, and when you're more efficient, you'll have more fun and make quicker progress.

Guitar lessons are fun because they give you a way to measure your progress. When you can see that you are making progress from week to week, you are naturally excited. This excitement is fuel to keep studying your lessons and practicing your guitar playing, and success will come that much quicker.

Another great reason to take guitar lessons is to learn how to play certain styles of music on guitar, or to learn how to play guitar like your rock guitar heroes. You could try for countless hours to imitate you favorite guitar god's playing style, but when you have ready instruction, you already have a map on how to get there, and you can put your effort into getting the style down. (By the way - the jamorama course at: Jamorama is great for learning how to play certain styles of guitar.)

I hope I have persuaded you that taking guitar lessons (even online) is one of the best investments you can make in yourself. Good luck with your guitar playing!

About the Author: Guitar Lessons http://for-guitar-lessons.blogspot.com

Source: www.isnare.com

A Different Kind of Music

2006-09-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

So you're looking for a different kind of music? I've got some music that is kind of different. Oh sure it uses a human voice to tell a story and carry the melody, so how different can it be? This music also has the cheesy organ executing a choppy riff, and a kind of acoustic drum set that is typically used to carry the beat. The extended bridge/keyboard solo is differnet because it comes toward the beggining of the song, as oppossed to the end. It kind of swaps the first chorus with the bridge, (verse/bridge/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse) whereas most music tries to rush to the chorus, 'cuz that's where their hookis . Well this is really different in that the hook is the verse. Then you get to the chorus and that's another hook, so it's kind of like getting two songs for the price of one!

This different kind of music may give you flashbacks of the psychedlic era, or when the chorus kicks in, it may give you a gritty and angry more current kind of feeling. I'm not sure how to categorize this kind of music. It certainly sounds familiar, but not like anything you can categorize, and certainly not like anything they'd play on the radio.

Please check out the song titled 1960's if you are looking for something that is a little different. You'll find the melody both catchy and mesmerizing. The lyrics are hard to decipher, which adds to the enigma and mystique of the song. It goes from a relaxing monotonous melody, to a slap you in the face chorus (with slapping bass to boot.) Even if you like standard, safe, and watered down music, you may find this different and edgy song to be quite refreshing. Be kind to your ears and give them something different to listen to.

You'll definitely say that this music is kind of different.

For other tracks that are kind of different, check out Sad Days, I'm Sorry, and Retribution?

A Depressing Song

2006-09-06T14:12:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for a depressing song?

Sad Days is a real depressing song by design. It's one of those songs that I like to listen to when I feel like ending it all. This song also has a floaty type of feel. In fact, I picture my soul floating out of my body, as I lay in a tub of red colored water. It gives me comfort when I'm really depressed (not just a bad day.)

In an interview Patrick James said "When I came up with the riff, the Smashing Pumpkins 'Adore' album kept popping into my head for some reason. I thought that using electronic drums, instead of acoustic drums, would give it a colder, more repetitive, disconnected and numbing feel."

The lyrics are depressing, the vocals are depressing, and the beat is down right depressing. The bass line seems to plod along begrudgingly. I love the comforting, relentless xylphone (it sounds like it's in my head when I listen with headphones.) The loud whispers of "Sad Days" throughout the song gives it a grim reaper beckoning type of feel. One wonders does the "Down, Down, I'm falling down" lyric symbolize something more sinister.

The peaceful overdriven fade-out guitar solo is the perfect way to end this ever depressing song.

If you need to be uplifted after such a depressing song, Everyday is kind of an answer to Sad Days (as well as Retribution?) The album ends on a positive note (as opposed to depressing.) Is that good or bad? I'll leave it up to you to decide.

Guitar Tip: The Power Of Big Picture Thinking

2006-09-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Guitar Tip: The Power Of Big Picture Thinking

By Craig Bassett

What would you think about someone who wanted to become an awesome finger-picker but most of their practice was focused on using a pick? You'd think they were crazy right? And rightly so! But believe me it's more common than you think. Heck...even I've been guilty of this more than a few times! I think we all sometimes fall into the trap of practicing things without thinking exactly WHY we are practicing them.

So what's the cure for this? I can give you the cure in three words...

Big Picture Thinking

What's this? Put simply it means looking at the WHYs and WHATs before looking at the HOWs. It's looking at the overall picture before becoming focused on the details. Let's take a look at an example to make it clearer...

Let's say that you would like to learn to shred. Rather than just jumping in and practicing some random exercises, let's go through the big picture thinking process.

**Step One** Why

In this step you write down exactly WHY you want to become a shredder. Think of all the reasons and write them down. This is really important. Your reasons why help keep you motivated and enthusiatic about working towards your goal. In fact, I can almost guarantee that without a strong, exciting and compelling why you will give up before you reach your goal!

**Step Two** Big Picture What

Write down WHAT you want to achieve. In this case you would write down a detailed description of EXACTLY how you would like to play. What type of shredder do you want to become?

**Step Three** Detailed What

In this step you'll write down the specific things that you will need to master in order to achieve what you wrote down in Step Two. Here are some example questions that you would ask yourself...

* What scales would I need to learn?

* What songs would I like to learn?

* What techniques would I have to master?

* What guitar tutors who live near to me teach shredding?

* What licks and exercises would help me achieve my goal?

* What instructional books, videos or DVDS will I need to buy?

The aim with this step is to get a detailed list of SPECIFIC things that you need to master in order to reach your goal.

**Step Four** How

This is where you write down a detailed practice schedule. This schedule will help you systematically learn what you wrote down in the previous step. If you're not sure how to put together an effective practice schedule then you may want to hire a good guitar tutor.

Can you see how this works? Rather than just jumping in and practicing, you start with the big picture first then work your way down to the small details.I guarantee that doing it this way will speed up your progress drastically. The main reason why is you will only be practicing things 100% related to your guitar goals.

About the Author: Craig Bassett is a professional guitarist, author and guitar tutor. To gain TOTAL mastery of the notes on the fretboard, please go to: www.GuitarNoteMastery.com

Source: www.isnare.com

Hot to get sound out of a Pro Tools Instrument Track

2006-04-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

Having trouble getting sound out of your softsynth via a midi controller?

It's in the manual, but for those of you who don't RTFM, here's a hint.

View,Mix Window, Instruments.

I had a hell of a time figuring this out. You would think that it would be displayed on an instrument track by default.

The default view is to show the sound in and out, but not the midi. By enabling the Instrument view, you can route MIDI in/out as well.

Pro Tools hangs at DAE Splash Screen

2006-04-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

Does Pro Tools hang at the DAE Splash Screen after you launch it? One workaround to try is deleting all of the "volume.ddb" files on your system. There should be one under the "Digidesign Databases" directory on each of your hard drives.

It's easy to forget to do this every time that you launch Pro Tools, not to mention a pain if you have several disks. I hate having to dick around with a system when I'm in creative mode, so I created a script that deletes these files upon boot. That way I don't have to remeber to do it, and don't get frustrated and sidetracked when Pro Tools freezes, requiring a reboot.

Open up notepad(or your favorite editor) and insert the following:
del "C:\Digidesign Databases\volume.ddb"
del "F:\Digidesign Databases\volume.ddb"
del "G:\Digidesign Databases\volume.ddb"
del "H:\Digidesign Databases\volume.ddb"

Obviously, substitute your drive letters, deleting or adding lines as neccessary.

Save the file as something like "delete-digi.bat", and then copy it to the Startup folder. (Right click on the Start button, and click explore. This will put you at the Start Menu folder. Drill down to Programs to find the Startup folder.) This way it launches every time you boot the computer.

Sometimes I shut down Pro Tools, and then go back into it later, without rebooting. I just have to go to Start,Startup, delete-digi.bat before launching Pro Tools, and then I have one less headache to deal with ;)

If you want to launch Pro Tools from the batch script as well, just put the path to it at the end of the file. Something like this:
"C:\Program Files\Digidesign\Pro Tools\ProToolsLE.exe"

This way you only have to click once ;)