Silence is golden

Bob-Dubery · 2010-07-28T17:59:48+00:00

Just finished off my entry for the latest GFSA competition. Basically I had to get it done this afternoon because the week gets busy from here on in and the...

Silence is golden

TomCat

One does not realize how sloppy one is until you start recording yourself. We have been learning this doing Mariann's album.

All the things that sounded OK live start falling apart when you put it down on a track. Discipline is an absolute when playing a live instrument as all the little noises etc start coming through.

I'm not clued up on Audacity but If there is an auto drop-in feature one could set that up for the duration of the take and then pre-roll the recording by a bar or 2 so that you are all ready and silent when the recording goes live.

We have been doing this with Reaper and has made life a lot easier.

DonovanB

TomCat wrote: One does not realize how sloppy one is until you start recording yourself.

+1, it is like the acid test for musicians. Clarity is key. The Studio separates the men from the boys so to speak, and that's what makes the weekly comp so valuable.

The punch in feature should be available on most DAW's and recorders. I use it a lot as well.

Warren

++;

We now record our practice sessions, and play back the recording immediately after the take.

It's amazing how, even with the songs we feel really comfortable with, the first couple of recordings are real shockers, and I'm often very embarrassed with my playing / singing to the extent that I feel 100% more determined to improve on the next take.

Recording is a cruel thing, but it's a great tool for tracking and measuring your progress and performance as a group, and as an individual.

For me personally, the hardest part is maintaining my consistency throughout a song. Take a track like "Cocaine", for example - easy enough to play, but to keep it consistent throughout the song is not as easy as it seems at first: your strumming gets louder and softer, your picking hand changes positions throughout the song, creating a noticeably different tone or feel, the rhythm you're playing might change subtly without you realising it, etc. etc.

I know I tend to strum a few bars and think, "OK, I got it". Try doing that for 5 minutes, consistently, without falling asleep and you're on your way to being a decent rhythm player ?

AlanRatcliffe

It's always best to get as clean a signal to tape as possible. But even if you dont, there are noise reduction techniques you can apply. Gates are usually a good idea if used properly. There is also software that takes "noiseprint" samples of noise and can reduce hiss by up to 9dB without affecting the signal. Avoid compression and reverb when tracking, rather apply in the DAW than during tracking - this'll let you edit the wav files to remove noise manually and do things like fadeouts without fear.

raithza

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: There is also software that takes "noiseprint" samples of noise and can reduce hiss by up to 9dB without affecting the signal

I'm quite sure audacity can do this, as long as you can record pure noise (of whatever kind you're trying to remove) and the noise is consistent.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote: I think a lot of it is discipline. Things like making sure there's no headphone cable rattling against the guitar. Yesterday I watched a portion of "In The Edges" which is a documentary about making the soundtrack for the music "Grizzly man". I noticed how the musicians would all stay still and quiet at the end of the take - presumably until they got some signal from the engineer.

Whereas they'd be comparatively noisy at the start of a take. Conversation and then a count in. Because the start tends to be sudden and you can fairly easily clean up right until the very first note. The END of a take that is different because you want to let the instruments finish ringing and fade out naturally and so any noise then is much harder to eliminate. Sometimes I've had a buzz or a bump when the guitar has almost finished ringing. I can fade that early to get rid of the noise, but it doesn't sound as organic.

AlanRatcliffe

A few points for getting better fades:

- It is impossible to edit fades naturally if reverb is printed on the track. Using reverb sends on your recorder will sound far better as they persist after the instrument has faded - as they would in a real reverb environment. Reverb sends will also allow you to use gating to get rid of noise and keep it natural sounding.

- Logarithmic fades sound better than linear.

- fades over a musical value are perceived as being more natural. Over two bars is best, one for faster fades works.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: A few points for getting better fades:

- It is impossible to edit fades naturally if reverb is printed on the track. Using reverb sends on your recorder will sound far better as they persist after the instrument has faded - as they would in a real reverb environment. Reverb sends will also allow you to use gating to get rid of noise and keep it natural sounding.

- Logarithmic fades sound better than linear.

- fades over a musical value are perceived as being more natural. Over two bars is best, one for faster fades works.

Aha! Another argument for using a click track.

I don't know if the software I'm using does log or linear fades. I suspect linear.

Part of the challenge here may be learning to "stand outside" of the recording. Some of my fades may actually be OK if the listener hadn't sat with the guitar ringing on their knee. I know what the guitar sounded like, how it rang and rang (and that Morgan can ring). So part of the problem is that I can hear that original sound in my head.

I think open tunings may also complicate matters because the guitar rings more. My most recent recording was in DADGAD. At one point I pause on a chord where the 3rd string is fretted at 2. So that's effectively DADAAD, 2 triplets of sympathetic strings. I think that sort of thing rings a lot longer.

Sorry, if this sounds like bellyaching. It isn't. It's observation.

I bought a Boss TU-3 today. Partly because I find the display readable and easily understandable, partly because it will work as a mute as well.

AlanRatcliffe

Clicks make everything easier when it comes to editing or multitracking. Even if you simply need to layer a second instrument that starts at the same time as the first, you need at least a count-in to get the starting time right. It also means you can easily synchronise modulation or time-based effects with the tempo of the piece and do editing like cutting and pasting segments or importing loops with impunity. Then there's stuff like mix automation...

However, for solo instrument pieces clicks can and often do get in the way of the piece "breathing". If you record freetime, it's easy enough to count a fade manually if you have a decent internal sense of timing - as with the piece itself, it doesn't have to be perfect.

Bob-Dubery

Thanks for the feedback all. Lots of good stuff.

TomCat

@ Alan...+1 on everything you said.

Regarding click etc...keeping the level of the click down (mentioned elsewhere) definitely works better as it becomes more of a subconscious thing and becomes only apparent if you lose your timing.

We played around with this last evening.
Mariann was battling with the timing on a piano piece and kept wanting the click louder.
I then suggested we turn the click way down as the click had become the overriding factor in her playing. Once the click sat in the background she easily found her rhythm and it all fell into place.