Playing the saxophone Tips for home recording

[DavidUK]

it's quite normal to have GB in your mac. Most macs are shipped with iLife suite which contains GB.
It's a great piece of software until you touch Logic Pro 🙂

Not ready to spend £140 yet! But I see you can make a smooth transition to it from GarageBand.

I'll have a mooch to see what price I can find the standard Yeti for. £75 doesn't sound too bad. Is it going to be the best for a beginner for that kind of money? I've no idea how much I'll want to use it until I start!

I take it the Yeti is more than £30 better than the Snowball, as here?: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blue-Microp...=1412876097&sr=8-5&keywords=blue+yeti+usb+mic

GB looks complicated - reassure me!!

 

[Pete Thomas]

Not ready to spend £140 yet! But I see you can make a smooth transition to it from GarageBand.

I'll have a mooch to see what price I can find the standard Yeti for. £75 doesn't sound too bad. Is it going to be the best for a beginner for that kind of money? I've no idea how much I'll want to use it until I start!

You won't need pro unless you also want analogue or higher sampling rates. So probably no.

GB looks complicated - reassure me!!

It's not, if you want complicated get Logic.

 

[altissimo]

the Snowball doesn't have zero latency monitoring, which allows you to listen to your backing tracks in sync with what you're recording
The Yeti has this built in, so you can plug your headphones into a socket on the body of the mic
There are other similar USB mics include the Samson G Track and Rode Podcaster - you'll have to google for online reviews and comparisons between all the usb mics available.
The Blue Yeti is well liked by many reviewers and I've been tempted - they seem to be pretty good value for £115 or less

 

[Pete Thomas]

The Yeti has this built in, so you can plug your headphones into a socket on the body of the mic

Is that only on the pro though?

 

[ellinas]

Garageband is easy. Maybe one of the easiest DAWs over there.
And if your goal is to make recordings mixed on top of Aebersold or Leonard backing tracks it's much much more than that.

Logic is compatible but not that similar. As Pete said, it's complicated and gives professionals unlimited options.

You can do wonders with Garageband 🙂 If you have any questions just ask.

 

[altissimo]

Is that only on the pro though?

http://www.bluemic.com/yeti/
http://www.bluemic.com/yetipro/

the Yeti pro has 24 bit/96 khz capability and an xlr socket so you can use it as a regular mic as well

 

[DavidUK]

Dave, do you use the Yeti or Yeti Pro?

Once I've recorded a song listening to the backing track, I guess I can then add it again to the recorded sax track using GB?

 

[ellinas]

Dave keep things clean and simple.
One track contains the backing track. Drag n drop your mp3 into the GB track no1.
You wear your funky headphones and listen to that track.
Wearing headphones isolates you from your sax and natural feeling, so find a way so that the cable and the fact of wearing them doesn't not put you off.
( While recording try to find a sweet balance of the volume of the backing track so that you can hear it well but it wont bother you)
Add a new audio track.
Map it to your audio interface/mic.
Record and hear the backing track playing at the same time.
If your headphones are closed type ones, you shouldn't hear noticable leak of sound from the headphones.
It won't really matter that much anyway.

You end up with two seperate tracks.
Track 1 -> Backing Track
Track 2 -> David's ultra elite super duper recording.

You adjust the volume of each track and try to keep things as unified and natural as possible.
Set your locator at 0.0.0.0 and hit play and enjoy your recording.

Try to spot all your mistakes and learn from them, and try to record only when you feel cool about it.
Recordings reveal all the good and negative issues of your playing.
Each recording will be better.
Just never forget that each recording is really important. Feel always that you are the new Coltrane or Charlie Parker or the world's top sax player, even if you aren't. That RnR feeling is important.

You will train your self letting loose in expression and track when this interferes with your playing. 🙂

Recording myself did wonders and I do it since I was a kid.

It was a fun way to learn stay on time, feel confident with the click etc.

It will make things so much easier though whenever you visit a studio later 🙂

 

[DavidUK]

How about:

I received the nohype ribbon microphone:
Wonderful stuff! Despite the ultra-low price tag, the definition in the mid high range is amazing.
I am starting to understand it. The figure 8 is not as bad as I was expecting. Playing with positioning can give a clean signal with no room.
Finally I can use my software EQ to enhance qualities, rather than to get rid of unpleasant microphone frequencies. A bass cut cleans up the sound a lot. I usually cut everything under the lowest note of the instrument (ie 200Hz on a soprano, 100Hz on a tenor).

Mr. Nohype has been very, very helpful and patient, even commenting a screenshot of my equalizer.

I also acquired a Fethead. It allows my Focusrite Scarlett to work at a more comfortable gain. It feels like it sounds better, but I have not done any serious comparison.

Comments and questions are welcome.


Here's a clip experimenting with few different instruments. Of course saxophones are Sequoia and mouthpieces Pillinger. If you change .mp3 with .aif, you get CD quality
http://www.aldevis.com/sequoia/nohype3.mp3


edit: the drum machine is provocative.

From: http://cafesaxophone.com/threads/microphones-again.10264/

See also: http://nohypeaudio.com/nhaproducts.htm

 

[ellinas]

VERY interesting... Ribbons are special use microphones David.
Thanks for the info , but start with something like the Blue mics.

This is my opinion.
GAS alert. Thanks aldevis for sharing this info..

 

[DavidUK]

I thought that would be the case. I'll go geti a Yeti!

 

[MrZigaZaga]

Hi mate..It depends what software you are using, Garage band, Pro tools and Logic pro X..(Although a but gimmicky) is all good and relatively easy to set up and use, Not sure what audio buffer size there is on iPad although my friend doesn't have an issue..I did on the iMac which was a bit disappointing, Especially hearing latency after i spent all that money..And i couldn't use my M-Audio sound device or Roland controller keyboard with the mac...
I found with static mic's i would move about and the recording would be varying in level which is really annoying when you come to mix down/Master.

I used to use Cubase SX but have moved over to the dark side and currently use an iMac 27" with Logic pro X but use a separate audio interface..(Focusrite Pro 24) and treated myself to a Audix ADX 20i condensed clip on mic, They are not cheap but i now have the freedom to move around when recording unless i get tangled up in the headphone and mic lead....There is a wireless pack option which i might go for later but again its not cheap and i have always had my doubts about wireless anything and spurious signals..("Mars to Earth..Do you read me..Over")😱

Its best to compress the input but try to avoid using any other effects pre-record..Although i still find it hard to do without some reverb...Just a little sir..

I always use headphones as i like to get in the zone man but again some headphone mixes sound crap when you play them through the speakers..But you will learn to hear what is prominent and adjust to suit.

You can buy good response headphones but again its bucks....

Oh and ALWAYS record the second you start playing even if you are warming up..Or you could play something extra amazing and not capture it...Cheers..Ziga

 

[ellinas]

X has some latency issues but unless you fire up 17 AU instruments with 2-3 AU FX and a mastering suite on the mix you shouldn't have latency in writing a simple audio track without FX.

A quick fix is to enter the low latency mode and see what's going on. ( How? Click on it on the control bar)

it's incompatibility with 32-bit plugins that I love and spent money on, and those occasional latency modes when I load a LOT of unbounced tracks is making be go back and forth to logic pro 9.

But the best thing we can do in terms of recording, is not the gear, but our ability to play good and correct,

No software or gear subtitute skills.

 

[MrZigaZaga]

No software or gear subtitute skills.

Very true...I practise everyday since i picked up the sax again..It feels like i have found an old friend..I lost my father last year and today i played some impro jazz around my feelings about my past and i surprised myself.. Brought a tear to my eye...I have been away from it for too long but its all starting to connect again..


Yeah there was some latency issues with X and i did try a low latency setting but still had issues with 2 x Audio tracks..(Guitar & Sax) running at the same time as the backing track, The audio interface makes life easier for me, Especially as it has XLR in..And phantom power.

 

[ellinas]

Did you try this?

If you stil have problems there must be something wrong with the driver of you audio interface.

 

[MrZigaZaga]

Sorry meant to say..I don't have an issue with the audio interface, It was when i was just using the Mac's onboard sound card ..The Pro 24 allows me to set the buffer and sample size to suit..I think its running at around11ms latency and 256 samples..Thanks for the info...Cheers...Ziga

 

[aldevis]

I don't really understand why latency is an issue.
Using a monitoring system before the signal gets converted should fix the problem.
Software monitoring never worked for me.

For the OP, latency is the time that the computer takes to process the signal and send it back to you.
It is quite long, if you are expecting to base your playing on your own sound from the computer.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I don't really understand why latency is an issue.
Using a monitoring system before the signal gets converted should fix the problem.

This is correct, if you monitor your own signal (the input signal from the mic) which stays analogue and is then fed into the mix, there need be no latency at all.

Software monitoring never worked for me.

I think different people have different tolerances. When using software monitoring, ie your own signal from the mic out of the software, it is after the digital conversation and there will always be some latency - it's a question of how much you can tolerate. The lower you set it, the more of a performance hit on the resources of your computer (CPU) so you need to find the lowest you can get without it starting to get pops and crackles or other signs of overloading the CPU.

The latency is related to the buffer size:

See

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1314?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

Most people are happy with 3 - 6 milliseconds. I can tolerate 12ms if I'm playing the saxophone as I'm used to playing with delays and/or reverb. But I find if I'm playing percussion or guitar I prefer a bit less.

Currently I have Logic buffer size set to 128 and I'm fine, so are most players who are in my studio.

In the old days when computers where a bit less poky (apart from the dedicated ProTools hardware systems) we used to make sure not to addd the really CPU hungry plugins until the mix, at which point you could set a largerr I/O buffer as latency was no longer an issue as you weren't recording/monitoring and so you got better performance for themix.

 

[Pete Thomas]

While on latency, it's worth checking whether the Yeti (as opposed to Yeti Pro) still has analogue monitoring, and if not what the latency is and whetjer you are OK with it.

 

[aldevis]

At some point I found out that using only half headphones is better than having the saxophone in them.
Now I just hear myself from the natural sound.