Category: Technology

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.

With the tide of technological advancement, it is clear that musicians of today are far luckier than those of yesterday.

In the old days, most musicians would create a demo of their compositions by playing on a piano or guitar and recording on a simple desk cassette recorder. I remember my uncle used to have one were they record over a small mic and huddle close and sing.

If you were a band, it would be a lot more difficult. You need to have a band set up by renting a studio. Hooking up everything on a mixer and relaying on the ears of a sound engineer to get a good mix and record a song live direct to a cassette. Others would wait for a big gig and politely ask the technician to record your set.

If you are a solo composer and you know how to work with midi, then you can get an MC-50 and create a sequenced minus one for your song. Or you may get one of those expensive cassette based track recorder to record each instrument one by one. But you are limited to 4-track (as most cassette based are) and your only option to go beyond its limitations is to do ping pong recording. This means recording 3 instruments of seperate tracks, mixing them into one track to get three more available tracks.

And then you have to convince a producer or anyone who has the cash to spend for a production quality recording in a studio. Then you will record your song to reel. Production cost is ultimately high which means, producers will only spend if they know that they will profit from it.

But things changed. You dont have to spend so much not just to make a demo but to actually make a production quality album. This is the reason why most bands of today produces their own albums in what they call EP. Or other profit minded people goes into the indie market.

In the recent years, setting up a recording studio was not too expensive anymore. Anyone who have a good international credit card can order some digital recording equiptment such as ADATs or any other quality multitracker. Gone are those big reels which are so expensive (not just the recorder but even the reel itself are so expensive . . not to mention heavy). Other people who have relatives abroad can ask them to bring home the goodies. Digital multitrackers which are stand alone came out and those who can afford are now getting them.

At this point, there became evident who where the bands who have cash and those “other bands” who would frown on the “rich kids” bands out of envy since they dont have access to produce their own album. Now these “other bands” will have to rely on the good old “discovery by an A&R” method to get an album.

Today things are changing and changing fast. Everything can now be done with a PC. Even professional recording studios have PCs and people at home can equal the specs of those PCs. Most professional studios run on mac, primarily because of their power and reliabilty. But PCs are trying to catch up. Now you can record a production quality album from your own bedroom. The recording equiptment are now available in the local stores. JB music has a wide array of m-audio equiptment at sale price being the local distributor. Yupangco distributes a lot of line6 recording products and roland. Audiophile distributes Tascams and Alesis. No need to look over the internet and order as the prices comes out cheaper since you dont pay for shipping expenses. Softwares are readily available. . . although I hate to promote this but they are being sold at the sidewalks for less than a dollar (figure of speech here). You can even get Sonar, Cubase, Reason, Protools LE, Abelton, Audition, Cooledit, Wavelab, and all those other cool stuff in one DVD for about P250.

Now bands can call the shots and create an album to whatever they desire to integrate in it since they can now do it in their own home. They can even record each instrument on each house of each band member. There was even a band I saw on Ellen show where the member have not meet each other before, only through the internet via youtube and was able to come up with an album simply by sending thru email elements of the songs.

So what do you need to make a good recording? First you need a good PC. It would be better if you have a dualcore. A quad core is excellent. Get lots of memory. Memories comes cheap nowadays. I got a 1GB DDR for only P800 (that is a kingston lifetime warranty). So 2GB is P1600. Memory is important especially when you mixdown a song especially with all those effects you put in on each element.

One primary equiptment you will need is a good soundcard. A soundcard for recording is like a videocard for gaming. It is an acceleration hardware. This means sound is processed on a soundcard thus minimizing the workload on the main processor. A good soundcard should accept at least 24bit and 48khz audio resolution. If you have the budget get the highest you can afford. Another thing to consider is the inputs and outputs. If you are recording live drums then you would definitely need one with at least 8 inputs in order to record the drums on to separate tracks. Also think of the versitality pre-amp you could get out of it. Something that accepts line level, unbalanced and balanced inputs plus phantom power. This way you can plug in your guitar directly thus eliminating noise from any external devices you need to pass thru. You can actually record your guitar without effects and use the virtual effects softwares. Just make sure you are monitoring the sound you want so as you can play accordingly. Next issue to consider is the latency. Most people who first time record on a pc would complain that there is a delay in the way the audio is input. Thus the guitar misses the beat of the drums. A good soundcard should eliminate this problem.

My advise now is to invest on a good audio monitor. Get a good near field monitors – or make one if you know how. Get a good headphone. I am using a Philips SHP1900 headphone I bought from Astrovision for only P650. Use reliable cables to avoid noise. And dont hesitate to experiment to get the sound you want.

This will go longer if I dont stop now. I am sure a lot of you will comment or ask questions about a lot of recording stuff. Please feel free and I will try to answer in the best way I could.

Enjoy!

Ok, So I decided to set up my nolit’s studio again. But this time it wont be a full band studio, instead it will be a project studio. But it is digital and the resolution is in par with professionals at 24bit/96khz. I can go up to 192khz with my 1TB disk space and 2gb memory. But I would settle with the industry standard.

So what is a project studio and how does it differ from my old studio? Nolit’s Studio used to accept bands who wanted to have a recording of their songs for demo or indie release. I had a band set up and can do live recording. But I choose to record them track by track so as to get a cleaner result and much easier to mixdown.

A project studio does not have that band set up and do not accept clients or walk-ins. All I will be working are projects I will be creating or will be working with partners. I currently dont have a booth so drum tracks using acoustic drums and vocals will be done in another studio.

So here is what I currently have. On a decent quad core PC, I got a lot of audio software for tracking audio, mixing and mastering. I am using an EMU 1820m digital audio system (PCI, daughterboard and audiodock) which I bought from Rey of Six Part Invention. He told me they recorded their first album in this equiptment. Also recorded “Steep” in Toni Gonzaga’s new album using this equitment. I am also using my old fostex multitracker as a simple mixer. I love using this since it has full sized faders, 12 channels off 4 bus.For now I am using a Yamaha PSR keyboard as a midi controller. Later on I may be upgrading to a good digital mixer/DAW controller and a decent keyboard controller.

Here is what I can do right now. I could import elements from a drums recorded in another studio. Lay in bass, guitar and keyboards. Then pass it to another studio for vocal tracks. Then I can mixdown all the elements. And later master for production quality. I could also program drums using a redrum or any other sequencer since I have reason ver4 and EmulatorX. I also have tons of sampled sounds of percussions and drums.

This digital age has opened a lot of doors for me and revolutionized the capability of Nolit’s Studio. Right now I am still undecided if I would set up a full studio like before. Technology is within reach of anyone with a PC. I would rather work on projects with people who want things done. Share my experience and knowledge . And hopefully broaden my network of friends…. Later create lots of albums may it be commercial or not. I am after the realization of dream and not much on the financial side of it. Success for me is the creation of a concept album with all details perfectly implemented. Its is a long journey and I am far from my destination.

Wish Me Luck!