How do you record music?

A

Angelshare1

Well-known member
I've got someone to score my movie and do some songs. They sing and play guitar and are quite good. They have never recorded anything (ie pretty much at the same stage in their career as me!) What's a poor mans way of recording a soundtrack?

I have an AT 4053B (thats a hyper cardio) and an AT899 Lav to work with. I was going to try using those and plugging them into my camera (HPX-170).

I know that wouldn't be great sound but would it be good enough?

Any ideas on a better way? I didn't really budget for music as I was going to use royalty free but then one of my stars said he plays music (and he's quite good!) What kind of prices can I expect for recording music in a studio? (Yikes, that just sounds like an expensive sentence.)
 
First, do you use a PC for editing? If so, there are any number of free or inexpensive software programs to record, edit and mix music. Look for a USB audio interface with a mic input and you're on your way.

Yes, there's a learning curve involved, but between the two of you, getting a piece of music recorded and into a file that you can then import into your editing program should not be too difficult.
 
Consider getting yourself a Zoom H4n or even an H2. A lot of musicians use these little recorders, with their built-in stereo mics, to record live music.

The problem with using your AT's is you're basically going to end up with mono sound, unless you plan to use the lav to record his vocals and the 4053B to record his instrument, and try to mix it yourself. I think you'll get a better stereo sound from one of the Zooms.

I know a lot of people record directly to the PC, and the Zooms can do that (I think). But I wonder about the fan noise from a running PC. If it were me, I'd just record to the SD card in the Zoom, then transfer to the PC for editing.

You can get the Zoom H2 on Amazon for as little as $127 new. The H4n on Amazon is $299.

Hope that helps.
 
Last edited:
As was mentioned there are lots of inexpensive and free DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) softwares you can use to record music. If you're on a Mac there's GarageBand which is fairly inexpensive. Then there's Audacity which is free and works on PC and Mac. You'll also get a lot more musically oriented plug-ins and have more control than would be possible with your camera or NLE software.

A USB converter for the AT 4053B will be passable. There are many FireWire interfaces in the under $300 range such as M-Audio, PreSonus and TC Electronic, and quite a few come with DAW software (PT-LE, Cubasis). They will give you multiple audio tracks which allows you to record the vocals and guitar separately; record the guitar first, then overdub the vocals. Then you can "sweeten" the recordings - doubling the guitar, add vocal harmonies and real & virtual instruments (such as percussion, piano, strings, etc.). There are hundreds of free and inexpensive loop & instrument libraries available as well.

As long as you are doing just songs this will suffice; when you get into scoring you will probably want a more substantial DAW so you can work to picture more accurately and efficiently.
 
Angelshare1 said:
...
I know that wouldn't be great sound but would it be good enough?

....)
Click to expand...

Good enough, never is. Never let anything out your door that is not as good as you can possibly make it.

For an entertaining overview of how to do a quality recording on a tight budget, take a look at the video "Roger McGuinn's Guide To Home Recording on a Computer." A Google on the title will turn up several sources.
 
Last edited:
Is there some reason not to use the 170 as the recorder. It isn't high bit rate, but it will record respectable audio for basic projects. Buy or rent another 4053, experiment with your distances and locations and poof, you are recording.

Grant
 
While "Good enough, never is." has a nice ring to it everything is generally done till it's "good enough". I think what Steve means is "as good as you can make it" should be your bar. For one thing depending on the project it's poss "Good enough" is better than the best you can do. But people usually use Good Enough to imply poor quality. So you need to qualify Good enough with a "for what". Good enough to not be embarrassed or good enough to get into Canes, very different "enough's".

Anyway, you have no $ and everyone is suggesting you spend some. I would suggest that you check out some local musicians. Many of them have some sort of recording set up. This would bring on someone with possibly some better chops in the music recording area and not cost a cent and not require you ending up with gear that might sit around a lot.

The problem with the camera is that well, it's a camera not a sound recorder. It may have a junky audio section or it might be OK but it's still a camera and that makes it a PITA to use as an audio recorder.

Most films in the history of filmmaking were mono (and non-noise reduced optical tracks at that). You don't have to record in stereo. But depending you might very well want more than one hyper mic. With the hyper your going to have to back off to get the whole guitar in the field and that may not be what you want. If this guy is singing then you may have to back off even farther to get it balanced. This is where you might want to spend some $ (if your going to do this by yourself) and get a omni or cardioid mic. Since that can be $$$ you might check out what Radio Shack is selling. I have no idea what they are carrying now so it might be all crap. But RS doesn't make anything, they just rebrand. So their mics in the past have been made by Sony and Crown and ??? You just never know. When they are decent makes they are good bargains (just don't let anybody see the label). And they have a return policy so if it sounds bad bring it back.
 
Noiz2 said:
You can also drive nails with a wrench. The reason not to use it is because it's a camera and cameras are a PITA to use as audio recorders.
Click to expand...
The 170 has a respectable audio section. I put this in perspective, the OP has one good mic and little budget and this doesn't sound like a high end production. Adding a rental mic may make this work.

Here is a question:

If the OP was wiling to spend a little money, would you prefer to record with say a zoom with the onboard mics, or improve the mics and record to cam. I would choose the better mics to cam every time.

It might be a PITA to record to cam, but the OP isn't going to have a mixer regardless unless he goes outside his existing situation.

Grant
 
Don't record guitar in stereo. As a musician and audio engineer I can say that the AT4053b would be great on acoustic guitar. Place it at the 12th fret about 8" back, and aim it slightly at the sound hole. The more you aim to the sound hole the more bass.

You really want multitracking so you can use your one good mic for both voice and giutar, and forget the lav. You can get a good multitrack app called Reaper free for 30 days, or license it for only 60.00. http://www.reaper.fm/

Then with your one mic you can build a great soundtrack. Just make sure to not get breath pops hitting the mic when singing. Use a pop filter or put it above your mouth a little. You may be able to use your camera as an audio interface, though those are really cheap.

35.00 from Blue no less!
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/571273-REG/Blue_ICICLE_Icicle_USB_Microphone.html

So for 95.00 total you are recording a great multitrack soundtrack. And if you search "Free DAW" you will probably find something totally free.

Or you could just do what you suggested and plug into the camera with a crappy lav and decent mic. But you want suggestions so there you go. If I only had what you had, and wanted to get a guitarist who is singing, I would pull the AT4053b back and get both the voice and guitar with the one mic.

Remember that crappy audio will kill an otherwise good movie. If you can find a musician friend who can record he/she may just do it for free for the experience and credit in your film. OTOH I have seen really decent studios that will record you for 35.00 an hour. If you plan out your songs and record those fast in the studio you could get in and out within a couple of hours if your player can knock it out in 1 or 2 takes.
 
You can start also with shutting down onwanted sounds. You don't need to ask yourself if you can shut down the frigde, heaters, airco's.... Listen very carefully what you hear.

It hasn't much to do with which gear and which setup, but it is important as well.

And one thing.... if you still live at home...Send your parents faaaaaaaaar away.
 
ggrantly said:
The 170 has a respectable audio section. I put this in perspective, the OP has one good mic and little budget and this doesn't sound like a high end production. Adding a rental mic may make this work.

Here is a question:

If the OP was wiling to spend a little money, would you prefer to record with say a zoom with the onboard mics, or improve the mics and record to cam. I would choose the better mics to cam every time.

It might be a PITA to record to cam, but the OP isn't going to have a mixer regardless unless he goes outside his existing situation.

Grant
Click to expand...

If those were the ONLY two choices I might agree. Thankfully they aren't. When your working with a kludgy recorder the quality suffers because it's such a PITA that you give up and settle for what you shouldn't. If this were say a VO I would probably agree with you and go with the camcorder, do a bunch of takes until I though I had enough to work with. But this is music. You NEED to be able to playback takes, you REALLY want to be able to track multiple times. You really want to be nonlinear.

I use the Zoom for some things but no I would not (and notice I didn't) recommend it to the OP. I don't actually recommend he do this himself, but if were going to then I think Chadfish is on the right track. Depending on his OS there are a number of free to cheap DAWs that would work and a USB interface is also a very small investment. Together they are close or possibly less that the cost of renting anything.

But cheaper and better is to find someone with the gear and knowledge to do it. It's hard to get quality free production work but there are 9,000 small personal project studios per square block in any urban area. I would say try Craig's List but around here there are some frothing out of work types that will flag any nonpaying post so that may not be the best route. I would post a flyer up at your local JC, University, etc.
 
Not to beat this to death, but the P2 workflow on a HPX170 is non linear and can be played back exactly as you would from any small recorder, albeit at a lower bit rate. Hook up camera to audio system, select the clip, hit play. As a generalist playing on the audio board amongst pros, maybe I am missing something.

I certainly can't disagree with your suggestion to reach outside the existing box.

Grant
 
As more specialist in sound I didn't realize the camera was P2 based, so I was missing something.

What you may be missing is that you can track, ie record more than one track, in sync but not at the same time. You are also recording HD video that you will then have to extract the audio from. Unless you have some honking P2 cards your going to have to stop and off load fairly often. This last may also be limited experience on my part but a doc that I worked was having to stop periodically because the P2 transfers took longer than real time so the offloads would get backed up.

It's a better wrench but your still trying to drive nails with it.

I'm not sure what you mean by bit rate. If your recording audio in a non compressed format you have bit depth and sample rate. Bit rate usually refers to compressed formats like MP3. If this camera is recording sound in a compressed format that is a big reason not to use it for music.

ggrantly said:
Not to beat this to death, but the P2 workflow on a HPX170 is non linear and can be played back exactly as you would from any small recorder, albeit at a lower bit rate. Hook up camera to audio system, select the clip, hit play. As a generalist playing on the audio board amongst pros, maybe I am missing something.

I certainly can't disagree with your suggestion to reach outside the existing box.

Grant
Click to expand...
 
You can't record a guitar track on a camera, then play that guitar back and sing over it on a different take. YOu need a DAW for that. That's why I suggested the DAW I did, or to search "Free DAW". Then all you need is the little USB interface I suggested, and you're recording like the big kids.

If you don't plan on spending anything at all, then you may as well not start a thread, and just record into the camera like you were hoping we would say was a decent way to do it. The thing is it's not a decent way to do it. So now that you have the solutions to choose from you just need to make a decision. When you do please share your solution!
 
The HPX170 records at 16bit/48kHz. And for a cam, the pres and limiters are decent. The older tape based DVX100 was about the same.

Not that it matters much, but here are a few P2 workflow factoids. A modest P2 card is 16gigs. If you record at highest resolution, 1080P, you are recording 1gig/min so you only get 16 minutes. 720/30 native gives you 30 min. Used as a audio recorder, you could set the cam to record DV quality, increasing the recording time to over 60 minutes on the same 16gig card. Many folks have 32gig cards, doubling those times.

P2 cams have at minimum, 2 slots, with continuous hot swap capability. Theoretically, with two cards, and a offload option without using the cam, you could record continuously till judgement day.

P2 workflow records 4 tracks of audio, but in the case of the HPX170 there are only 2 preamps and 2XLR inputs, tracks 3 & 4 come from the built in dynamic mic...argh! Though it is useful for a reference track or backup. Higher end Panny cams have 4 XLR inputs and 4 preamps, so all four tracks can be utilized.

If the P2 wrangler you worked with couldn't offload faster than realtime, they are behind the curve or have some glitch in their workflow. Using good equipment, you should be able to offload at appx 2x real time via firewire.

Grant
 
Chad,

I am going to sound like a dinosaur here, so forgive me. My Dad, now long gone, and older brother (presently) are acoustic jazz musicians at a pretty high level. Between them, they have made hundreds of recordings, including major label, dating from the late 1940s to the present. I can't say how it went on the major label recordings they did, but in the smaller recording sessions they did, I don't think they ever dubbed a track. Their attitude was, "take it the way we played it", and the first take was usually the best take unless something went real bad. Of course the engineers would sweeten things afterward, but dubbing just was never in their vocabulary. Now we are talking about some of the better studio guys in LA who are very traditional and believe the music should just flow in the most natural way and playing means all in the same space at the same time.

I wish I could be that good at what I do.

Grant
 
Yes, if you have a person/people who can perform the tracks needed in one take at the same time, then one certainly can do it in the camera. Though I would not throw in the lav mic for that. It'd be best to capture the perfoemance with a well placed stereo mic, but even with a well placed mono AT4053b, it will sound good. I was assuming that the performer would need to do multiple tracks.

I have to hand it to the real jazz guys. I started off as a jazz guitarist in a big band, and I appreciate getting the performance all at the same time. But as a singer/songwriter I like to make sure my vocals are performed well and are well separated from other instruments so I can add reverb etc without other crap getting in. If I was a better singer I would be more confident doing both playing/singing at the same time for important recordings!

So if the performer is a great, in tune, performer then go for a camera recording. But even with a great one take recording, as an audio engineer I would still want a DAW to work on the tracks with.
 
Chadfish said:
I started off as a jazz guitarist in a big band, and I appreciate getting the performance all at the same time.
Click to expand...
Funny 'bout that ... I've now got more facilities and technical capabilities in my home studio than I ever had when I was actually producing music for a living, but the best recording I ever made was of a jazz band in 1974 - all in one take - just superb musicianship. You don't get that kind of performance when you record, edit and mix as forensically as we tend to do these days.

Oh dear ... showing my age again:cry:
 
I guess experience counts. 3 of the guys in my brothers recoding group including him are late fifties to early 60s. The flute player, Sam Most is 80 and still making great jazz and is a local legend in LA and beyond. Chad, you are right about the vocal tracks, but these guys rarely play with screechers.

It's a strange thing, when these guys record, they know there is a wart here and there. They consider that part of the recording, like a feature in the grain of wood furniture.

Thanks for indulging my family history.

Grant
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top