further to my other thread regarding lo-fi recording

we have decided to record straight to a stereo 1/4 inch r2r... using a combination of mics including 4 x sm57s, an intercom mic (to mic the vocal amp), and 3 other mics we have yet to get hold of.

i heard this on the web:
http://www.freewebs.com/geisha/geisha%2 ... d%20art(LQ).mp3

this mp3 have something of a similar sound to us (heavy bass/scratchy guitars) and this was recorded using 2 x sm57s running straight into a cassette recorder...

now this is sort of the thing i was after when i said i wanted a 'lo-fi' recording... but hearing this i feel that it lacks the power / punch on 'proper' recordings... could i get this using mastering? also it seems to lack bass and there is a kind of high pitched 'sheen' on the track id like to avoid... is this just a product of using a shitty tape recorder? or is it just the heavy mp3 compression?

also can anyone suggest the kind of room that would sound best for making this recording in? big with lots of reverb? or is that a bad idea?

thanks for all your help...

I can't hear what you give as a sample, but I can answer with a fair amount of certainty the questions you have.

*The high-end sheen you speak of is probably the mp3 quality. The digital compression tends to over-emphasize the treble and computer glitchy noises will also contribute.

*You won't be able to inject any real bass into a recording using the methods you describe. It would be an artificial, more eq trick than anything.

*You want a live room, but not too big that will swallow all the detail. Don't deaden the walls and keep it loud so the frequencies bounce all over and bleed. However, you might want to put a direct mic on a few things, like the bass drum and the bass cabinet. Make sure the bass drum is tuned tightly and pay close attention to the bass cab sound. See that it has a strong attack that has presence and is not "mushy". A clean channel driven a little bit will get you what you're after.

Hope this helps - I'm pretty much an amateur, but I can get good sounds with what little I have.

it might be worthwhile to get better microphones, maybe even tube condensers. sm57s suck cock, and won't benefit any recording.

-noah

back in college, i used to do tons of lo-fi recordings with just a few mics and a tascam cassette 4-tk. something you can do to help out that low-end thing you're talking about is this:

put your bass amp near a wall, and put your guitar amps (assuming you have two) *immediately* next to the bass amp, and so the three of them are physically touching, but not lined up in a straight line but rather a little bit of an arc, with the two guitar amps angled in maybe 30 degrees or something. then put a pair of sm57's in an x/y-like config, only, maybe two feet in front of the bass amp, and very near the floor, roughly 4 inches off the floor, let's say. and then adjust the angle of the mics so they're at a very obtuse angle, so each mic is pointing directly at the guitar amp on the opposite side.

for the drums, put a sm57 about 1 or 1.5' in front of the kick, also about 4" off the floor. and then put a 4th and final mic on the snare, so it's aimed directly at the drummer's dick, through the drum, so it's getting the kick and hihat off-axis from roughly the same distance as each other. and it's key that the mic be on a similar horizontal plane to the snare, towards the top region of the drum, pointed downward slightly towards the drummer's cock. it MUST be aimed at the cock, trust me, it's part of the black magic at play.

i did a bunch of recordings like that, and using only the shit-ass EQ on the tascam porta two HS (which is a high-speed cassette 4tk) was able to get some ratty lo-fi sounds that i still like listening to.

i love the charm of the super-lo-fi recording, because the task at hand is so very different from in a real studio setup. lo-fi is all about making it not sound like shit, and the end result is something that's only functional for music-lovers. a real studio, the goal is to make it sound awesome, and generally it's also going to be accessible to anybody. i like the lo-fi stuff that turns off production snobs. because it has to make it solely on the merit of the music.

and if you wanna get really ghetto about it, you don't even need any mic stands. not even one. the three 57's that are just above the floor, you can take an empty case from berr or soda, and tear parts of it out so that air can pass through it relatively freely, and set the mics on tops of that. for the one on the snare, it can be placed on a stack of a few shirts, so then it would be at the bottom area of the snare, but still aimed at the drummer's cock! always aim for the cock!

i'd recommend recording the vocals after the music if you want a ton of control over them, although putting the PA in there, on top of the bass amp, and then also taking the direct out from it (if you have a 5th input on your mixer) and mixing it in very low, well that'll get you a rat-ass sound right there. but a nice one, in my experience.

cheers

Does this black magic thing also work with female drummers?

well, it does, but slightly differently. with a female drummer, you need to aim the mic at her *uterus*, and *NOT* her vagina. it's a little known fact that the uterus is one of the greatest sources of voodoo magic, even greater than the cock. the vagina, on the other hand, should at no point have a mic aimed directly toward it. all i can say is that very, very bad things can happen.

if you do an obtuse angle, you'll either end up with somewhat different things in each channel or mono guitars, depending on what you do while mixing. if you are definitely using cardiod mics, i'd think you'd want a more acute angle, so both guitar amps are picked up more equally and then can each have their own channel. another good thing to do is take two figure of eights and put them in a four leaf clover in the middle of the room. this will pick up everything. the extra two tracks can be used for the drums or for vocals. i don't know if this works though, since i've never recorded drums, but the alte cocker who helped set up my recorder said that this is is favorite method (he usually records live classical and jazz concerts) and it sounds great with just guitars and bass and superb with piano.
i agree about soda cans. they make great stands. i especially like spritzer cans, preferably blackberry flavor.

-noah

yushbombn wrote:further to my other thread regarding lo-fi recording

we have decided to record straight to a stereo 1/4 inch r2r... using a combination of mics including 4 x sm57s, an intercom mic (to mic the vocal amp), and 3 other mics we have yet to get hold of.

i heard this on the web:
http://www.freewebs.com/geisha/geisha%2 ... d%20art(LQ).mp3

this mp3 have something of a similar sound to us (heavy bass/scratchy guitars) and this was recorded using 2 x sm57s running straight into a cassette recorder...

now this is sort of the thing i was after when i said i wanted a 'lo-fi' recording... but hearing this i feel that it lacks the power / punch on 'proper' recordings... could i get this using mastering? also it seems to lack bass and there is a kind of high pitched 'sheen' on the track id like to avoid... is this just a product of using a shitty tape recorder? or is it just the heavy mp3 compression?

also can anyone suggest the kind of room that would sound best for making this recording in? big with lots of reverb? or is that a bad idea?

thanks for all your help...

That's funny. Geisha are my mates. We helped them push their first EP through my label. Interesting to see that their modus operandi has found its way into the public domain.

Dylan wrote:
*The high-end sheen you speak of is probably the mp3 quality. The digital compression tends to over-emphasize the treble and computer glitchy noises will also contribute.

Nah, Geisha's stuff really does sound that horrible.

gravenhurst wrote:

yushbombn wrote:further to my other thread regarding lo-fi recording

we have decided to record straight to a stereo 1/4 inch r2r... using a combination of mics including 4 x sm57s, an intercom mic (to mic the vocal amp), and 3 other mics we have yet to get hold of.

i heard this on the web:
http://www.freewebs.com/geisha/geisha%2 ... d%20art(LQ).mp3

this mp3 have something of a similar sound to us (heavy bass/scratchy guitars) and this was recorded using 2 x sm57s running straight into a cassette recorder...

now this is sort of the thing i was after when i said i wanted a 'lo-fi' recording... but hearing this i feel that it lacks the power / punch on 'proper' recordings... could i get this using mastering? also it seems to lack bass and there is a kind of high pitched 'sheen' on the track id like to avoid... is this just a product of using a shitty tape recorder? or is it just the heavy mp3 compression?

also can anyone suggest the kind of room that would sound best for making this recording in? big with lots of reverb? or is that a bad idea?

thanks for all your help...

That's funny. Geisha are my mates. We helped them push their first EP through my label. Interesting to see that their modus operandi has found its way into the public domain.

yeah i know Tone from geisha... i think you post on the choke forum dontcha?