Topic: Why are my recordings all drums & vocals, but no guitars?

[runonce]

I bet you solve the bass and instrument issues if you only only switching to 24Bit, aids off, let the sony run at around -6db on the peaks - gain it during soundcheck or opening act and then leave it.

I never really understood the logic of recording at higher bit rates.  I ultimately write everything to CD, so anything would have to be downsampled to 44/16 eventually anyway.  If there are valid reasons for doing so, I'll give it a try. 

Is 24 bit good enough, or should I also use a higher sampling rate?  I've heard that downsampling from 48k to 44k is not good.

I think he's overstating the case for 24 bits - just keep the limiter off, bass cut off...(agree on aids off) - but the bit rate isnt going to make a significant difference in the timber/tonal balance and overall mix of his recording.

[runonce]

I might guess that a few things might be in play...(I guess this assumes your rig is working decently)

perhaps the guitars aren't in (or fully in) the mix...and are running abit late or out of phase with the PA (which might have some guitar leak as well)

or

Some guitar distortion sounds just record poorly...not sure I can qualify this...but no matter how loud some of these guys seem - it ends up a fuzzy wash. (not sure of the style of music you are recording)

or

Some sound guys just mix the damn drums too loud...throwing off your overall gain picture.

[jj69]

perhaps the guitars aren't in (or fully in) the mix...and are running abit late or out of phase with the PA (which might have some guitar leak as well)

The only thing is that it sounded fine to my ears in the room. 

FYI the style of music is hard rock/melodic metal.  Typical lineup: vocals/bass/drums/guitar/guitar. 

[jj69]

BTW, if anyone is willing to listen to a sample recording, please PM me and I'll post it somewhere. 

[page]

Yeah, can you do a 2 minute sample and put it up on something like fyels or iput.it?

[TimeBandit]

I think he's overstating the case for 24 bits - just keep the limiter off, bass cut off...(agree on aids off) - but the bit rate isnt going to make a significant difference in the timber/tonal balance and overall mix of his recording.

Not really, on 16 Bit you get earlier in danger to get clipped on recording. or otherwise you´ve chosen 16 bit and recorded too quiet. Gain with 16 Bit more noise or not enough room for raising gain without clipping some other parts without using compression / limiter.

Today is enough good audio software and the computers fast enough to handle the 24 Bit files. Typical taper usage: Stereo 2 tracks it isn´t that more amount of time you have to use to mixdown to 16/44 again.
running with cubase with highest quality setting for downsampling / dithering back to 16/44 there are no listenable issues. Important: Do a DC offset remove BEFORE downsampling.

[runonce]

I think he's overstating the case for 24 bits - just keep the limiter off, bass cut off...(agree on aids off) - but the bit rate isnt going to make a significant difference in the timber/tonal balance and overall mix of his recording.

Not really, on 16 Bit you get earlier in danger to get clipped on recording. or otherwise you´ve chosen 16 bit and recorded too quiet. Gain with 16 Bit more noise or not enough room for raising gain without clipping some other parts without using compression / limiter.

Today is enough good audio software and the computers fast enough to handle the 24 Bit files. Typical taper usage: Stereo 2 tracks it isn´t that more amount of time you have to use to mixdown to 16/44 again.
running with cubase with highest quality setting for downsampling / dithering back to 16/44 there are no listenable issues. Important: Do a DC offset remove BEFORE downsampling.

Yeah - but that isnt going make the guitars louder...bitrate just dosen't affect the blend or mix of instruments...the proportion of each instrument in the mix will be the same regardless of bitrate...

[acidjack]

Yeah - but that isnt going make the guitars louder...bitrate just dosen't affect the blend or mix of instruments...the proportion of each instrument in the mix will be the same regardless of bitrate...

Exactly. 

What it comes down to is, I think, the OP is hearing a common flaw in live recordings.  I find guitars tend to wash out pretty badly at times, getting worse and worse as you go farther back.  It's possible that running a tigher polar patterned mic like hypers might help, since you'd get getting more direct sound, and the reverberant sounds you pick up more heavily with omnis and cardiods are likely to overwhelm the guitars or wash them out more.  It can be worse, too, in a club where the guitars are run from the amps onstage rather than dedicated PA, because in those situations, the PA is carrying mostly vox and drums.  Clubs that choose to operate like that (or have no choice but to) really need to know what they're doing to rely on guitar amps onstage to carry all of the guitar sound.

[runonce]

perhaps the guitars aren't in (or fully in) the mix...and are running abit late or out of phase with the PA (which might have some guitar leak as well)

The only thing is that it sounded fine to my ears in the room. 

FYI the style of music is hard rock/melodic metal.  Typical lineup: vocals/bass/drums/guitar/guitar.

Im sure it did - but ears arent microphones.

And - as mentioned up thread, some metal distortion sounds just seem to wash out into a fuzzy mess, regardless how it sounded at the moment.

I might also suggest getting your mic up a bit higher - having it on your chest is perhaps absorbing some of the middle. If these are stealth jobs - get that mic up on top a mesh ball cap...give it some air!

[newplanet7]

The weird thing is the OP said this didn't happen with his old gear.
To the OP, what was the old gear?

Also my vote again goes to location and set-up.

[jj69]

Old gear was Olympus ME-51S mic into the MIC input of a MicroTrack II.  That mic is a small T-mic with cardioid elements. 

Regarding the position of the mic, I was near the back of the room.  The mic was mounted on a tie clip.  There was no one standing in the space about 8 feet in front of me, so I'm not sure it would matter if the mic were mounted a bit higher. 

I posted a short 2 minute clip here if anyone's interested:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=70CO4IVV

The audio has been normalized, but nothing else was done to it. 

[newplanet7]

Thanks. Grabbing now.

[SmokinJoe]

A couple of ideas... old mics were cards, right?  Pointing towards guitar amp on stage?  Therefore picking up a little bit of that directly.  Omni's pick up all around, and perhaps the drums and vocals fill the room more.  The other idea is simple... different night, different mix. Unless it's the same band, same stage, and nobody touched any knob on the console, it's obviously a huge variable.

I think the idea that 24bit is the magical solution is way overblown.  It's probably the biggest myth on this board.  It's a good idea, don't get me wrong.  I drank the 24 bit cool-aid too.  Then I remembered the EE class many years ago where they taught us about PCM, and realized it was silly. You've got a given voltage coming into the A/D.  If you have a 24bit voltmeter, it reads to .999999999999.  With 16bit it goes to .99999.  Yeah that helps, but it's not nearly as cool and magical and sexy as some people like to think it is.  The magic needs to happen before the A/D.

[jj69]

A couple of ideas... old mics were cards, right?  Pointing towards guitar amp on stage? 

No, the Olympus is a T-mic, so the elements point off to the left and right.  Here's the mic:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/496651-REG/Olympus_145037_ME_51S_Stereo_Microphone.html

[acidjack]

Yikes.  That recording is.. well to be blunt, pretty bad.

First of all, I may just go out on a limb here and say Sound Pros T-mics, and really, all T-mics, are crap for recording music.  Tie clip mics like that are not really designed to do what we we do - they're designed for interviews and other vocal applications, generally.  Besides the problems inherent in placing a mic on your chest to record, the main issue here is that the mic is distorting, badly.  The M10's way, way overexaggerated bass rolloff has cut out some of the loud frequencies that would cause even more distortion, but even with that, the mic is just not capable of handling the sound pressure levels you are getting.

Again, I ask, why does Sound Professionals sell mics to people who are recording rock music without low-sensitivity mods or 3-wire configurations? Without one or the other, everything in their line will distort when recording a band like Skid Row.  If people don't take the time to ask questions before buying, that's their bad I guess, but really, SP has to know at this point that their customer base consists of a lot of tapers, and unless they're taping solo acoustic performances only, most tapers need low sensitivity mods.  It really, really, really frustrates me that SP doesn't tell people this. 

Based on what I'm hearing, you won't be able to fix your issues with this mic with any settings on the M10 - the M10 can't fix overloading of a mic.  In fact, its internal mics may be better than what you got from this thing. 

The previous mic you used, the Olympus, has a response curve that if memory serves is all midrange - so it will emphasize some of the frequencies where you find guitars.  Of course, it will have little bass, and a host of other problems, like generally sounding bad.   I would be surprised if it didn't also distort pretty severely, but I haven't listened to a recording with it.

I would return that product to SP immediately if you can, and either buy one of their mics with the low sensitivity mod that is not a T-mic, or talk to Chris Church on this board. They probably will only give you store credit, so you may be stuck with something they've got.