Art Tube V3
How can i get better quality when recording music in the studio?
i record on pro tools, i have an mbox 2 by digidesign, a ksm27 mic by shure, and a tube mp studio v3 mic amp by art. ppl tell me i have a decent quality for someone who doesnt know how to work it but professions say my quality sucks and could be alot better. are there any instructional vids or tips from anyone about how to improve the sound when i record? like playing with the level or whatnot?
recording the sound is easy, press record. the difficult part is making that sound good. there can be hundreds of reasons why you aren’t getting a good sound. i doubt it has anything to do with your mic, protools, or your mbox.
without hearing the sound you are getting it is difficult to say what you should do differently. along with that, being that i don’t have any idea what you are trying to record and where. so with that in mind, i’ll try to answer as best as i can”
the problem may start with where you are recording. if you are recording vocals in the middle of a bedroom you will have a lot of extra reflected sound and noise in your recording. in a professional studio they use an “isolation booth”. these booths are small rooms sound treated to get rid of unwanted room noise. because it would cost to much to build a room like this for yourself, i would use a closet. the small area of a closet will help to stop extra room noise, keeping some clothes in there will help dampen the sound and stop the sound bouncing off of the walls. this can be done with vocals by setting it up in the closet, or on a guitar by placing an amp in the closet throwing a mic on it and closing it off. if you are getting a lot of low end hiss or rumble, this should help to some degree.
professional studios have the top of the line gear for each application. they can select a mic-pre for the sound that it gives rather than just because it’s the only option they have. this will be a big reason of why they can sound so good. the high end of one pre-amp may be a little “brighter” than another, and for the guitar sound the engineer is trying to capture, he will select that because of the brighter high end. not having all of that at your disposal hurts, but if you know how to use what you have, you should be able to compensate for it. I would do an internet search for techniques for everything you are planning on recording. whether vocals, guitar, keyboards, etc. Find out how to EQ each, and compress each. compression is done on almost all vocals to give them a bigger in your face sound. search for compression ratios for whatever you are recording. using a filter can help you get rid of unwanted noise, so do some research on how filters work and the best way to use it. excess room noise can simply be removed by filtering it out.
once everything is recorded, you have to mix it and make it all fit together. when i was younger at a studio i remember another guy i worked with brought in his bands cd that he had recorded and mixed. he handed to one of the engineers in the studio and asked him to take a listen and give him some advice. the recording wasn’t bad however, i was still young so i didn’t notice all of the small things that i would catch now. it took about two seconds for the engineer to stop it and start talking about how “muddy” the low end was. once he played the track again we understood what he was talking about. between the kick drum and the bass guitar there wasn’t really any clarity. he then reached up to the EQ on the board, and carved out a space for the bass and the kick. this resulted in them each having their own frequencies to sit in rather than sharing and overlapping with each other. doing that totally opened up the entire mix. all he did was turn two knobs, and it made a world of difference. that is was makes a professional a professional. the point is that each instrument will need its own voice in the entire mix of a song. whether that is EQ’ing to open up some frequencies, or just by panning something a little bit. not knowing what to listen for is what will hurt you. as an inexperienced engineer you will overlook a lot of small things like that. and it might not really be that you are overlooking it as much as you don’t really know how to correct it. thats just a part of what makes it all fun. experiment, and try different things. try compressing the shit out of something to hear what it sounds like, then going half way and then take it away. doing this will get you a better idea of what compression does and how it effects each instrument and how it can change an entire mix.
my best advice is to experiment and have fun. do some research about how certain effects work. find out what frequencies that cetain instruments lay and go from there. i could go and find my paperwork for how to do some of this stuff, but really i think what makes you better is doing the work. just have fun.
hopefully this makes some sense and will help improve your recordings or can at least lead you in the right direction. good luck
ART Tube MP Preamp Review, Part 1 of 5, The Truth about Preamps
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ART Tube MP Studio Mic Preamp $29.99 The original Tube MP made pro-caliber tube preamping available to ordinary musicians and home studios. The MP Studio goes a step further by adding a VU meter for better level control and ART’s OPL (Output Protection Limiter), which controls and maintains the output peak signal to protect hard-disk recording systems and soundcards. The VU meter reflects the impact of the OPL circuitry when it is ac… |
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ART Tube MP Studio V3 Microphone Preamp and Limiter with Presets $69.95 The Tube MP Studio V3 features ART’s V3 (variable Valve Voicing) technology – found only in ART microphone preamplification systems. Provides superior preamplification for microphones, instruments, and line level sources. The hand selected 12AX7A tube provides over 70dB of gain. Features: smooth, warm and fat sound quality, variable input and output gain controls, XLR and 1/4″ outputs, +48 volts p… |
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ART Tube MP Project Series Microphone Preamp $56.99 The Tube MP Project Series is a professional quality audio interface that lets you connect microphone, instrument, and line level signals to a mixer or other audio input. This hybrid design is the latest in a long line of ART tube preamps. From the new all-aluminum stackable chassis to the precision LED level metering circuitry, ART improved virtually every aspect of their already successful Tube … |
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Musical Fidelity V-CAN Headphone Amplifier $199.00 The V-CAN is a genuine state-of-the-art headphone amplifier. Most high quality headphones have impedance of around 30 Ohms. Almost all headphone amps have an output impedance between 50 and 100 Ohms. Because of their high output impedance they cannot drive headphones properly. Any sound they produce through the headphones is necessarily coloured, with distortion and non linear frequency response. … |
