Home Recordists:

[Ricardo.]

How do you guys get all those great mixes? I'm not talking about the guitar tones, but the complete bass/drums that sit in the mix perfectly? I've been prolific in recording ideas recently (in spurts; that is when I plug into Audacity I'll record ideas for awhile and then stop for a week or so). But, usually it's just one or two guitars (sometimes three for percussion). I've looked around the internet for ways to accomplish what others on the forum have but so far I've come up dry.

 

So how do you add drums and bass to a mix (without a bass, or a drum set!)?

 

And for bonus points, give me a little checklist of what can cause hum and how I can stop it. I'm not getting hum from the amp (via a built-in noisegate) but when I plug into the computer with the amp's line-out jack, I get hum in the mix. Monitor? Cables? Ghosts in the Machine?

 

My Soundclick - I've uploaded some of my stuff on here; I don't think they're really worthy of drums and bass yet as I haven't pursued any idea very far yet, but I'd really like to learn how to add other instruments if just to practice playing with a bass and drums when not at band practice.

[spiral light]

The best thing to do is practise and listen. There's only so much you can learn from reading and looking online, you just gotta jump in and try it and keep doing it unil you see what sounds good. Keeping a log of what effect was used on what track and the settings is helpful for future reference and for figuring out how the effect is used.

[Fumblyfingers]

I use Drumcore, iDrum, Discrete Drums and Reason Drumkits. I also have a Roland R-8 drum machine and of course can trigger drum sounds from my keyboard and guitar MIDI controller.

 

The software drums are not cheap though. Also there is BFD drums and another one that is good I forget the name. Once you search it out you will find them, there are a few.

Here's alink check out the samples.

BFD

 

Bass I do myself.

 

There is a lot that can be done but it requires some research. There are all sorts of loop libraries and backing tracks.

 

The hum thing is probably a ground problem...ground loop perhaps.

[Corner Pocket]

Originally posted by Starcaster:

So how do you add drums and bass to a mix (without a bass, or a drum set!)?

 

And for bonus points, give me a little checklist of what can cause hum and how I can stop it. I'm not getting hum from the amp (via a built-in noisegate) but when I plug into the computer with the amp's line-out jack, I get hum in the mix. Monitor? Cables? Ghosts in the Machine?

I use a Boss BR1180CD 8 track digital recording system. It's an all in one box with an integrated CD burner. It has the ability to use preprogrammed drum patterns, or to programme your own. They sound like synthetic drums, because they are, but it gets the point across.

 

It has a "Bass Model" that is basically an octave effect. Play your guitar and it'll transpose down as if it were a bass. I hate it, so I use a real bass.

 

As for hum, turn off the monitor as see how much the hum drops. CRT's are notorious for hum. I don't know if an LCD flat panel is better.

 

Getting the mix right is practice and listening. I like things to sit in the mix so that you don't hear them, but when you mute the part there is a hole. You have to use EQ appropirately. Sometimes a solo'd part sounds like ass, but in the context of the mix, it fits in perfectly.

[Fumblyfingers]

LCD is waaaaay better! Good point on the monitor.

[Dazed]

Recording has put a whole new light on my playing. I wish I would have had this capability years ago!!!

 

For some tips, you may want to check out thsi link http://www.guitaristworks.com/studio/ . It will give you some ideas. Read up on the Stereo Field.

 

If you need some basic drum tracks try here: http://www.guitaristworks.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=63 . The sad thing is you know they are loops. Great for keeping your timing if you do not like click tracks but a bit lifeless.

 

DFH is suppose to have some great drums. Personally we just used a real drummer on our last track. This is some 30 songs later mind you. The difference was amazing. I would like to use a real drummer for all tracks going forward.

 

Hope this helps

[caprae]

Get an iMac (comes with Garage Band) and a midi keyboard. Or move up to Logic Express. You'll have all the recording power you can stand.

[Dazed]

oh additional...

 

as for the hum...LCD is key but also make sure everything is plugged into the same outlet. Sometime you will get ground hum if you are using more than one outlet for amp, computer etc.

[Billster]

Mixing is a very complicated subject, but for a rock & roll mix, I recommend starting from the bottom up. I assume all the parts are recorded.

 

If you imagine it like building a house, the drums and bass are your foundation.

 

Get a drum mix you are satisfied with. Solid kick, cracking snare, whatever you want.

 

Add the bass. Level wise, get the bass to sit nicely with the drums. You will have to adjust it later, but get in the ballpark.

 

Now add your rhythm guitars. They need to play nicely with the bass. You may want a really blended sound like one big instrument, or you may want a more distinct presence for the bass. This is the walls of your house.

 

Add lead guitars and vocals. You want them present, but not so overwhelming that you can't hear the rest of the instruments. This is the paint on the walls. Is your house blue or red?

 

Everything else is window dressing

 

Try to give each instrument it's own space in the frequency spectrum - too much rhythm guitar in certain frequencies will make it difficult for the vocal or lead guitar to stand out. If something seems lost, seek to cut the other instruments via selective EQ first, instead of just boosting what you feel is getting buried. If you just keep boosting stuff, it becomes a dead end of everything getting louder until you have no room to manuever.

[Dr. Ellwood]

"Try to give each instrument it's own space in the frequency spectrum - too much rhythm guitar in certain frequencies will make it difficult for the vocal or lead guitar to stand out. If something seems lost, seek to cut the other instruments via selective EQ first, instead of just boosting what you feel is getting buried. If you just keep boosting stuff, it becomes a dead end of everything getting louder until you have no room to manuever"

 

Yes SIR! Bill knows of what he speaks!OH and by the way, for you live players, thats exactly the forumla for getting great live mix too.

[Fumblyfingers]

Storytime. I was doing a gig in Hollywood some years ago and we were the main act that night. We were waiting to do our soundcheck and the band after us, the last band of the night was checking. They checked like that so the last band to check was the first band on and usually pretty close to opening time when they finished. Plus the headliner got to leave their gear setup, everyone else tore down after check except the first band up.

 

So this band is doing soundcheck the usual way. Soundguy calls for kick only boom boom boom etc etc and he tweaks it. Then snare same deal. Then toms Diem Doom Dom Diem Doom Dom.Then hihat, then overheads then finally he would have the drummer play a full kit groove.

 

On to bass, the bass player played a nice groove by himself over and over using high and low notes and soundguy tweaked. Then he asked bass and drums to play a groove and he tweaked that until he had a good mix on them.

 

Next he asked the guitar player to play a bit of what he might do, solo, no kit no bass.

 

The dude steps up to the front of the stage, cops a major guitar God pose leaning waay back guitar in the air, pulls the prerequisite facial expression and starts doing a two handed finger tapping lick......AT ABOUT 2 ON THE VOLUME...you could hardly hear it it was so low. It was fucking genius. The whole place just cracked up. Of course next came the soundguy trying to explain what he wanted and it deteriorated from there but it was so funny.

 

Sometimes these are the things that make it all worthwhile in the long run.

[Billster]

Originally posted by Fumblyfingers:

The dude steps up to the front of the stage, cops a major guitar God pose leaning waay back guitar in the air, pulls the prerequisite facial expression and starts doing a two handed finger tapping lick......AT ABOUT 2 ON THE VOLUME...you could hardly hear it it was so low. It was fucking genius. The whole place just cracked up.

Did he have an actual sandbag sitting on stage?

[Fumblyfingers]

Oh no I am not hip to this....does someone use a sandbag? Please tell me it is not Steve Vai!

[Warthog]

You might consider the cables as a possible source of hum. Hi Z mic cables are notorious for it. While Low Z cables are better, quad cables that are 95%+ shielded are the quietest. Lots of folks spend tons of $$ on gear and then settle for cheapo cables or the ones thrown-in for free. You really need to spend a decent amount on good cables, especially mic cables. I've found that you generally can't get a good cable for under about 25 bucks. Here's a decent primer:

 

How to Choose a Mic Cable

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

Originally posted by Fumblyfingers:

Oh no I am not hip to this....does someone use a sandbag? Please tell me it is not Steve Vai!

No, I don't get it either. I've seen him use fans on stage to blow his hair around but I didn't notice any sandbags..?

[Billster]

Fumbly and Kramer,

 

The sandbag thing is a joke.

 

Sandbag: ... 3. Slang ... c. To downplay or misrepresent one\'s ability in a game or activity in order to deceive (someone), especially in gambling: sandbagged the pool player by playing poorly in the first game when stakes were low.

 

Trying to soundcheck on 2, when everyone knows you're going to crank it up to 10 during the show is pretty much sandbagging.

 

[Pappy P]

Here are the two books that I refer to all the time. They are decent books. But definatly take any advice you get from Billster or Bill@welcomehome studios. Their advice always helps me.

 

Mixing Engineers Handbook/guide

 

The Musicians Guide to Home Recording

[Warthog]

Kill the Hum. When laying out your studio, route all the AC cords first. Put them in a pathway that will cross audio cables at a 90 degree angle. Should you use cable ties? I say no, though clearly your studio will look neater if you do. However, you might find that if you ever want to move a piece of gear you have to undo the harness and it's a pain. Avoid all situations where an audio cable travels parallel with an a/c cable as the audio cable will pick up dreaded 60 cycle HUM. Keep audio cables away from wall-warts (adapters). At a normal listening level, with nothing playing, gates switched off, your audio should be silent. Now, carefully put all your faders to 100% and slowly turn up your amp till you hear noises, hums, rfi. Isolate the most offensive of these noises to single pieces of gear and see if moving the ac/audio cable paths helps. Usually, you can improve your signal-to-noise ratio substantially by running this test, and you learn which pieces in your studio are the noisiest. This helps during the mix as you can make better decisions about boosting a single level or cutting everything else to make an instrument cut the mix.

[dreibel]

for drums I often use samples or loops - loops courtesy of Garageband, samples I pick up here and there from the sample libraries I have like Halion Player and Sampletank, plus stuff I pick up from computer mag cover CDs. And recently I got ahold of Steinberg's Groove Agent 2, which is a program with a lot of different styles of drum patterns, loops and fills, and very flexible.

 

Bass? Get a real bass and learn how to play that. You can certainly get one cheap enough now - OLP, Peavey, Squier all make some great inexpensive basses. I find the less quantizing I need to perform, the better the feel of the track will be - when I relied on playing synth bass in my older tunes the feel suffered. For plugging in my bass, I use a Johnson J-Station, which has some models of bass amps. I note that Line 6's new line of Toneports have bass amp models included with them.

 

If you live in a city, check and see if there are any user groups for the program you're using. I often attend the classes run by the Club Cubase user group, and they are generally helpful if you have questions or want to see how to get things done, or find shortcuts.

 

Anyway, what Billster said. It's a matter of finding balance and frequency, often by starting with the drums and adding instrument by instrument.

[Ricardo.]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I am using a cable with two bad contact points between the amp and guitar, but as the amp barely hums the problem's not there. The cable from the amp to computer is a 1/4 jack with a converter at the end to go into the computer, so there may be hum coming from there. I have an LCD monitor and computer sitting next to the amp, but as the amp doesn't hum when the two are on...

 

Anyways, the thing I'm trying to learn how to do is find said loops and fills. I would LOVE to get a bass, but it's currently out of the question for me. And as I'm beginning college pretty soon, it will likely be out of the question for a while.

 

I suppose there isn't a quick solution for drums and bass out there. As I have no immediate way to add drums and bass, there isn't a way to start experiencing with the mix aside from guitar orchestration.

[caprae]

Use your educational discount and get a mac. It's all built in. Plug in your guitar and you have it all.

Examples: http://www.garageband.com/

[Justus A. Picker]

Anyways, the thing I'm trying to learn how to do is find said loops and fills. I would LOVE to get a bass, but it's currently out of the question for me. And as I'm beginning college pretty soon, it will likely be out of the question for a while.

 

I suppose there isn't a quick solution for drums and bass out there. As I have no immediate way to add drums and bass, there isn't a way to start experiencing with the mix aside from guitar orchestration.

You can download some free loops from:

http://www.smartloops.com/

The link to the free stuff is about 3/4 of the way down the page.

[Pappy P]

Bump

[Warthog]

I use a Boss DR-880 drum machine. It has programmable drums and bass lines and offers over 100 different sounding drum kits and 40 different basses.

[Ricardo.]

I've been working with my roommates and music majors here at the CSU Stan dorms and I've made some good mixes recently by going to this free sample website (they're all governed by the Creative Commons license). I also play things on the guitar in higher octaves so I can play the bass on the guitar itself. But a collaboration with an actual bassist isn't too far away. I've come a bit of ways since the bedroom; though now it's just a different bedroom

[BillWelcome Home Studios]

First, I suggest that you concentrate on the writing and let some other recording geek do his job. Why split your forcus?

 

Now, drums and bass are not 'added'. If you try this, they will -sound- 'added'. Write the song, get the whole idea happening, then write the bass and drum tracks, and play along with them. If you do this the other instruments will fall into the drum/bass groove.

 

The best tool for this that I ever worked with is no longer available... it was called Drummer, from Cool Shoes software, and I would sit with my acoustic and write drum tracks for whole songs measure by measure, and when I was finished I had a completed drum track. (I also play bass a little, so I just played my own bass parts... hint.... it ain't lead. Keep it simple and crisp.)

 

About mixing... the best way tot hink of the sonic palatte is as a glass.... it can only hold so much, then you're screwed. Everyone tries to mix every single instrument so that it is KILLER... killer hot, killer tone, full spectrum balls to the wall KILLER. well, okayyyyyy..... but an instrument that full of level and harmonic content does not mix with anything. Each instrument has to leave room for the others, or you just end up with mud. So mix these instruments in context, while listenting to he rest of th song, and you'll find that you use a much gentler hand on the controls and get better mixes quicker.

 

Also, in the typical pop song the instruments support the vocal, so if you start with a killer vocal sound at a good level and mix the other instruments in to support that vocal, the whole thing will make more sense than if you start with something like the kick drum and try to build your mix from there.

 

Bill

[A String]

Originally posted by Bill@Welcome Home Studios:

First, I suggest that you concentrate on the writing and let some other recording geek do his job. Why split your forcus?

 

Now, drums and bass are not 'added'. If you try this, they will -sound- 'added'. Write the song, get the whole idea happening, then write the bass and drum tracks, and play along with them. If you do this the other instruments will fall into the drum/bass groove.

 

The best tool for this that I ever worked with is no longer available... it was called Drummer, from Cool Shoes software, and I would sit with my acoustic and write drum tracks for whole songs measure by measure, and when I was finished I had a completed drum track. (I also play bass a little, so I just played my own bass parts... hint.... it ain't lead. Keep it simple and crisp.)

 

About mixing... the best way tot hink of the sonic palatte is as a glass.... it can only hold so much, then you're screwed. Everyone tries to mix every single instrument so that it is KILLER... killer hot, killer tone, full spectrum balls to the wall KILLER. well, okayyyyyy..... but an instrument that full of level and harmonic content does not mix with anything. Each instrument has to leave room for the others, or you just end up with mud. So mix these instruments in context, while listenting to he rest of th song, and you'll find that you use a much gentler hand on the controls and get better mixes quicker.

 

Also, in the typical pop song the instruments support the vocal, so if you start with a killer vocal sound at a good level and mix the other instruments in to support that vocal, the whole thing will make more sense than if you start with something like the kick drum and try to build your mix from there.

 

Bill

Great stuff Bill. This is why you are such an asset around here. Thanks for the post.

[Pappy P]

Bill:

 

If you wrote a book, I would buy it.

 

Thanks.

[Dr. Ellwood]

Bill if you wrote a book, I would borrow it from Pappy and photocopy it!! A very nice post!!!

[Billster]

Originally posted by Bill@Welcome Home Studios:

Also, in the typical pop song the instruments support the vocal,

No doubt. However,

 

Originally posted by Bill@Welcome Home Studios:

so if you start with a killer vocal sound at a good level and mix the other instruments in to support that vocal, the whole thing will make more sense than if you start with something like the kick drum and try to build your mix from there.

 

Bill

I kind of disagree with that, but it all good, that's why music is so cool. I don't think you can determine the vocal level before you have a soundscape to place it in. I DO think that you need to be familiar with the character of the vocal before you start constructing the soundscape, as in "I need to leave space in these frequency ranges, stereo and spatial areas to allow for a full vocal."

 

Please refer to my previous post in this thread for my method.

 

I prefer leads, whether vocal or instrumental solos, to sit within the music instead of on top of the music. I think the other Bill covered this right up front by pointing out that the bass and drums are not add-ons, but integral to the music.