Month: July 2008

This blog entry is exclusively for geeks. It contains mostly technical stuffs that I am sure non-geeks will find boring. So, if you are not a geek… shooo shoo shoo!
So now I got my recording studio in full swing. I recently bought a pretty good Samson condenser large diapragm mic along with a pop filter and a shockmount.I dont have an isolation room yet, but my living room was built as a studio before, which means basic features are still in place. Shut the doors and its dead silent. Although the acoustic is bad since I already ripped off the cushions from the walls and cieling. That is the reason why I bought a cardoid type mic instead of the more expensive multipattern ones. A cardoid will only pick up sound which is in front of it. It will disregard the sound from the side or at the back. Omni directional and figure 8 mics do these respectively. The only negative thing with a cardoid mic is that I cannot pick up the natural reverb of the room. Thanks to technology, I can use any good software for this – a mic modeller and reverb. Recording purists dont frown! Im on a budget here and just making the most of what’s available (and affordable). I cannot sacrifice my living room (as I did before), since I have a family that uses it for TV, entertaining guests, taking afternoon naps, bonding with the kid, doing kinder homeworks, eating street food bought from .. were else, the street, inuman sessions and all the other things a living room should be. Unlike before as I was living alone, I can always convert what is of my house into whatever I want. (I even made an LRT in my own backyard). I am considering building an isolation room and a monitoring room .. aka a full fledge studio ambiance, probably early next year as budget permits.

So how do things work on the current nolit’s studio? Following the idea of making the most out of what’s available and affordable, I had no choice but to go digital. The main equiptment would be a PC. I have two PCs in my studio. The primary one is an AMD Quadcore with 1gb memory (I am planning to upgrade to 2gb soon). This one has an EMU Digital interface installed in it – 1010 PCI card, synch daughter board and an 1820m audiodock with 8 ins and 8 outs plus 4 monitor outs. The other PC is an AMD sempron with 512mb memory which I am using as a multimedia home setup as it is linked to the TV with lotsa games (for the kid who is currently hooked on Dogz). This one has a toneport digital interface installed in it. Looks cool recording guitar in front of the TV. Both PCs (along with my other PC in my bedroom) are networked and online. They are equipted with Sonar, Cubase, Reason, Acid and tons of other audio softwares.

Recording drums is tricky. When I dont want to worry about getting a good element from a live acoustic drum take, I would often use a drum machine. But my Dr Rhythm Drum machine is long gone, so I am using Redrum from Reason to create drum sequences. I can also sequence directly on sonar with my daughter’s yamaha psr keyboard as midi controller and the choice of sounds are enourmous with EmulatorX and Proteus which I got along with my EMU 1820m. But I am pleased with what Redrum can deliver. A good set of soundbanks and I am off to creating cool drum patterns. Usually its the standard drum kit.

When I feel strong and energetic, I would set up the drum set which I borrowed for my kid from our drummer since he has 3 sets sitting at home taking up dust. I still have the mics I used from my old studio – a small condenser mid for the snare & hihat, a stereo condenser mic I use for overhead and a cheap mic for the bass drum. All four mics are driven to my old fostex multitracker which I only use the mixer part. Preamped to line level, the signal from the mics are routed to stereo mains and two aux sends – equals four unique signals. Then they are feed to the Audiodock and tracked to sonar on 4 tracks. Ideally a drumset takes 8 tracks (snare, bass, tom1, tom2, floortom, hihat, crash and ride). But I dont have that number of mikes yet – plus an 8-bus mixer or a mic preamp that can feed 8 line levels to the audiodock. In the near future, this will be the next upgrade. Again, I dont have the priviledge of a well acoustic room, so I have to use reverbs and room modeller softwares.

I am not too satisfied with the drum sound from an acoustic kit with this set up. Although I have learned to master the best sound I could get through experience after numerous recordings from the old studio using analog 4track cassettes. I am looking into building triggers – attaching piezo on the kit and purchasing a good midi converter for the triggers. Driving them to audiodock midi in and assigning them to a good drum soundbank. This would definitely be cleaner. I can either tac the piezo to the acoustic drum or custom built an electronic drum kit out of practice pads so that the neighboors wont complain from the heavy drumming on an acoustic set. All these are projects to make me busy in the next few months.

Keyboard tracking is simply straightforward. I am using my daughter’s yamaha psr as a midi controller driven to the midi in of the audiodock and using tons of sound banks from EmulatorX or any other software synth. Reason has tons of sounds you can choose from plus you can edit the sound in any way you want making it more unique. You can even create your own sound into something very unique making your audience puzzled as to what instrument is playing…. the synth thing of the 80s!

Bass guitar is plugged directly to the audiodock front input.Since my bass has quality EMG pickups, I dont need anything else to boost the signal. But with other bass guitars, I have an active direct box waiting to do its thing. Same thing goes with recording guitars which is pretty easy. I normally record 3 tracks from a guitar – a dry direct to pc signal, and a stereo signal from the guitarist effects. This splitting happens through a Behringer DI120 direct box/splitter.

Recording acoustic guitar and any other acoustic instruments would be similar to the way I record vocals – using a large diaphragm condenser mic. I learned a great deal of knowledge in recording acoustic guitar from my experience with leo of leowai. He was my guinea pig as I was experimenting on positioning mics and equalizations from his folk song demos. Still I prefer acoustic guitars with built in pickups. They are much easier to manage in recording. I still have my fostex dynamic mic which I can use to record blowings.

Monitoring is still an area I need to develop in terms of equiptment. I havent got a headphone amplifier yet and I think this is a necessity especially since I dont have an isolation room. Tracking vocals would require a silent room as the vocalist and myself monitors thru headphone.

Although I am used to making the most out of a headphone monitoring, I still would want to get a good reference speaker. My ears are punished from long hours on the headphones. Unlike before on my old analog multitracker where I master a mix to match a normal cassette player, with projects of production quality, I would definitely broaden my mastering to match all types of audio players – car stereos, ipods, hifis, radio, etc. With this I would need a variety of monitoring. I am thinking of actually setting up these equiptments inside the studio to get the real reference.

The main point is to create and deliver quality music. Mine is a project studio so I would only upgrade to the equiptment I would need. Unless I want to run a commercial recording studio again which requires me to acquire all the high end technology could offer, I would maintain on getting the most out of what is available (and affordable). And I feel this is how nolit’s studio should be.

You know the drill: We talk about your music. Discuss how we can make things happen. Create what we can do. Then with a finished product, pass it on to better hands and see where it would take us further.

I hope I didnt bore you with this blog. In my experience, whenever someone approach me for a project, we would be discussing all those I have mentioned above. So this article helps me save all the trouble.

That’s all for now! Enjoy!

I am currently recording guitar tracks on a project. Mapping out the track assignment, I realized I needed a signal splitter or a direct injection box to be specific.I wanted to lay-in a dry guitar track and another which is processed thru a multieffects floor unit. Luckily I was able to buy a Behringer Ultra-DI DI20 from ebay at a cheaper price. I got more than what I bargained for since this thing can function in two modes – as a two channel DI box and as a splitter (link mode). And it is active, which means the signal become more managable by my digital interface pre amp.

Now I remember my first encounter with a DI box. When I was very young and in school, I belong to an inter-collegiate organization of visual artists called LUNA, mostly students of fine arts in different universities around Metro Manila. As a cultural group and affiliate of a larger student movement, our group would often work on visual effects for several student activities such as concerts and conferences. We were the people behind the stage of Joey Ayala’s Awit ng Tanod Lupa Concert tour sponsored by the CCP. Joey Ayala would even jokingly call us Joey Ayala at ang bagong Luna. With several lull moments in painting visual arts, the group would often embark into jamming using whatever instrument is available.

Early Jammings

Jet had an electric guitar and a bass guitar at home in pritil, tondo, so we plug both into an old cabinet type phonograph player. We made a makeshift drums out of kiddie toys and water jugs. Later on we were able to reherse on a rehersal studio as we realized we can actually perform as a band. Being with a group of creative people, it is very clear that original musical compositions are plenty. Playing them while working visual effects made the songs heared by officers of cause oriented organizations -and so the lyrics and music are criticized and refined. Luna was then active with another student cultural group called sining. And the collective started planning out performances to display its collection of “well-deliberated” original musical compositions. The first gig was supposed to be in UP Manila as an intermission to a conference of the college editor’s guild of which I am also an officer. But technical problems and lack of time didnt make the gig happen.

The First Gig

The real first gig was a lagare. There was a campus fair at UST and we were the first group to perform that afternoon in the open air grounds outside the CAFA building. We had an hour and a half to perform and we only rehearsed a few songs. So we ended up jamming songs that we knew from songhits. . mostly new wave stuff. The audience responded with a lot of dancing mainly because we knew almost all of them. (hehehehe) The gig ended up at around 5pm as more bands had to perform and we have to run to San Sebastian for another gig.

The second gig that night was a big concert billed by then big bands – HAYP, Introvoyz and UMD. We were to do the front act. Since we came from a gig on UST on foot and it was getting late, we had to run inside San Sebastian. The audience were now lined up outside the auditorium and as they saw us running up into the building they started screaming. It looks like they mistook us for another well known band as we were running with our instruments going into the backstage. My first taste of fame however feign it seems (lol).

We got on backstage and the bands have already finished their soundcheck. I remember noel mendez was there to tell us that we can now change our clothes in the backstage as there was no time for soundcheck anymore. I saw his guitar lying at the back of the drums and it was my first close up look at a real ibanez guitar. We had not brought any clothes so how we look like is what you get – from running all the way from UST. But, hey we are an aktibista band so the haggared look seems appropriate. You can call it the proletarian look.

The DI Experience
And so the show has to start and auditorium suddenly was full of 3,000+ students. We positioned ourselves on stage and started setting up our gear. Back then I was unfamiliar with any big concert set up. All I knew was to plug my bass to the amp and start cranking. Since there was something plugged on the amp, I took it off and wooooong sounded all over the house which I ignored as I proceeded in plugging in my bass to the amp and started tuning. I recall a lot of technicians were all over the stage as our guitarists was having his own technical problems too. But I could hear myself on my own amp and so I was comfortable now and wanted to play on. Our singer, Buboy, had to do several spiels since the technical problem took almost 5 minutes or more. He told me later that it was difficult for him to make those spiels as he came from that school and just recently drop out – and then he has to face his teachers, administrators and classmates who were in the audience. Finally the guitar worked and the gig started rolling. In the middle of the first song, a technician realized my mistake as my guitar doesnt go through the house mix, and started fixing the connections. This is how I learned about a DI box. The gig was a success and the 3,000 + audience was very cool to respond to our compositions. Even the members of hayp and introvoyz gave us positive comments.

So What is A DI?

A direct box is used to convert an unbalanced signal to a balanced signal which can be handled easily by any mixing console and could match up with all the other signals thus making the mix easier. A balanced signal consist of three lines on three wire cables (positive, negative and ground), against the unbalanced that consists only of signal and ground. Usually balanced lines run on xlr plugs (used on conventional microphones) or standard stereo phono plugs (1/4) called TRS or tip-ring-sleeve (tip=hot or positive, ring- cold or negative and sleeve=ground). Guitars are high impedance signals with unbalanced outs. So they need to be converted to balanced signals for the mixer to handle. Thus a DI works as a converter between the guitar and the mixer. The DI also commonly works as a splitter as another output (unbalanced or link) feeds the signal to an amplifier so the guitarist can monitor his playing. But in some cases, the DI is not used on guitarists as a mic in front of the guitar amp speaker can deliver a warmer tone for the mix. A bassist needs a di as the low signal can only be enhanced on an active balanced line.

I dont want to go technical any further. You can always research on the use of DI by searching thru google. This ends my story on my first encounter with the DI …. which was actually my first gig.