Recording through a mixer

[Rhelsing]

First, thanks to all of you that gave advice concerning recording software. Decided to start with Audacity and a Behrenger U-Control UCA222. That works well for the virtual sounds (although volume and wave height in the computer seem pretty low). Problem is, I need to record the reed sounds from the tone chamber mixes as well. Basically, I rarely play the midi alone - sometimes the reeds have the lead, sometimes the midi-sounds - but rarely just one or the other except maybe for some solo instrument runs or fills.

At any rate, I have never used a mixer before so I could use a sanity check on how i set it up. It seems to work pretty well except that the channel gains have to be real low on the mixer channels to not get static or feedback - basically about 20% of full. Then I bring the mixer main volume up to full. I am not sure if that is the desired way to do it - I am just guessing. Nothing else in a mixer matters - I don't mess with the pan, reverb or anything because each midi channel is set for pan, reverb, relative volume, octive, and velocity in the accordion as i orchestrate it and doing anything with mixers or speakers that change any of that just mess it up. It just seems to me that the gain should not have to be that low on the mixer channels and it is true of both the channels with the virtual sounds as well as the channels with the reed sounds. Any insights would be appreciated (someday I will actually record something).

 

[JerryPH]

The one thing that you will NEVER be able to do is... when using an analog mixer/recorder, listen to your mix through the speakers while recording. This causes an endless loop resulting in feedback and forcing you to lower levels so much that they vastly hurt your recording quality.

Let me write another post on this...

 

[JerryPH]

Only way around that is that while you record your accordion, or anything that goes through microphones, you need to be listening on headphones and recording.

This does 2 things:

1. No feedback.
2. Proper levels can be set ( levels that peak but do not exceed the "0" mark on the recording device).

Also when recording, you want your MIDI analog output to be captured to different audio channels from your accordion pickups. That way you can later set each instrument in the sound stage where you want them and also set the volume in comparison with the other instruments.

On more advanced mixers, each input can be sent to it's own channel giving you ultimate control, but for the most part, you need to balance everything out and play things over several times as you layer things out, because most mixers may have 64 inputs, but only 2 outputs (left and right).

Your Audio interface has only 2 in and 2 out. What that means is that you you can capture the MIDI on one side and the accordion on the 2nd channel. Of course to make it sound "not wierd", it will likely have to be made in to a mono track. Or to get a nice sounding sound stage, you first need to capture your rhythm, if you have an arranger or drom machine to (lets say), channel 1 and 2. Then you need to listen to those channels over your head set as you capture your rught and left ands to channel 3 and 4 on the DAW. Then you need to play it all a 3rd time and add your midi instruments to channels 5 and 6.

Then you spend somewhere from a minutes to many hours hours mixing it all down to a nice stereo image and output that final mix to something like an MP3 or WAVE file before uploading it to Soundcloud oe something.

Making pro level recordings is not easy, especially if you are alone. Having someone handle the capture while you play makes things a hundred times easier.

Now can you imagine the complexity of trying to do all this AND adding video at the same time? It's certainly possible, but it is not easy to do right.

 

[JerryPH]

So what mixer do you have? You mention the Behringer, but thats an audio interface, not a mixer.

... also before even starting, setting proper gain structure on a mixer is job #1. Get that wrong and everything sounds too quiet and when you raise them, you get hiss, noise, static and an overall crappy recording.

Too high a setting and everything is distorted, making you an equally crappy recording.

Get the levels right from the start gets you good quality sound that you can work with.

 

[Rhelsing]

The mixer is a SRM-10X line mixer. I am recording with speakers off and over headphones. Interesting concept about recoding reeds and virtual stuff seperately - that would allow me to mix the proper volumes (although I was hoping to record once as I play with everything so I could get a better feel of what it sounds like from "outfront". Yea, the gain thing is bothering me because it seems those should be higher than about 20%. I get the static his through the headset at about 20% gain and it on both the mic and analog channels - even if only one of them is plugged in.

 

[Rhelsing]

"Your Audio interface has only 2 in and 2 out. What that means is that you you can capture the MIDI on one side and the accordion on the 2nd channel. Of course to make it sound "not wierd", it will likely have to be made in to a mono track. Or to get a nice sounding sound stage, you first need to capture your rhythm, if you have an arranger or drom machine to (lets say), channel 1 and 2. Then you need to listen to those channels over your head set as you capture your rught and left ands to channel 3 and 4 on the DAW. Then you need to play it all a 3rd time and add your midi instruments to channels 5 and 6. "

I was trying to have the two in and out carry left and right for both analog and tone chamber ousting the out from the mixer into the in on the audio interface. Thought was I could then adjust the relative volumes of the mics using the volume controls on the accordion face. Thought was that I could do that through the headphones until I get them where I want them, and then play normally (bellows for reed volume and expression pedal for midi). Is that reasonable? The obvious down side then is that I can't later using the software edit the accordion sounds from the virtual sound - but I am not sure how successful i would be playing while accompanying myself on a separate track - that seems like a new skill to learn in itself.

 

[JerryPH]

Well, the mixer you have is a 10 channel input, so at least in theory, you should be able to reserve ch 1-2 for the acoustic left and right hands of the accordion and channel 3 and 5 (used in mono mode) to capture the output of the midi analog outputs (and channels 7 and 9, again in mono mode, if you needed 2 more channels).

It's far from optimal, but you will have to get everything to sound "right" before you record, as later on, it is all being sent to a singular left/right channel to Audacity for capture, and once recorded, you cannot, for example, afterwards raise the right hand acoustic accordion level by itself. If that was needed, you would need to do that on the mixer and re-record the song again from the start.

So there is some control, but not a whole lot. Because accordion mics are in flux, you will be doing this all in complete silence with headphones on of course.

Oh, and playing a 2nd or 3rd instrument on a separate track is not all that hard, it's just to know how to accompany yourself and a little timing!

 

[Rhelsing]

Thanks. Interesting about choosing mono on the mic's. My current problem is where I am living for the next 60 daysI can't really play out load, so I will have to play with the reed recoding later. I finally actually got everything set up pretty good (at least the recording sounds true), and recorded something simple - and finally figured out how to expert it to MP3. Now following your tutorial to get it on SoundCloud. I am not sure I will be particularly proud of the first song I post - but will be proud that I finally got something recorded and posted. Gotta start somewhere and i really appreciate the help from you and others.

 

[Rhelsing]

FINALLY GOT SOMETHING RECORDED! Simple but nice - could not add the reeds because where I am living right now I cant play except through headphones so some of the depth of sound is missing that the accordion itself provides - and I have a new appreciation of how hard it is to record something (and by that I dont mean the mechanics - I mean playing it without having to redo it for mistakes - mistakes really jump out in a recording!). Anyhow thank you to all who helped. <SOUNDCLOUD id= url=></SOUNDCLOUD>

 

[JerryPH]

You are definitely recording "too low". I am not sure if that is the hardware or you, but I suspect it is the settings you are using.

Like I said earlier, after the hardware is set up, the #1 thing to do is setting the gain structure on each channel.

What is that some say? This is where you optimize the volume of the incoming sounds at the mixer. You adjust the gain/trim knob to the highest possible position *before* it distorts. You then control the location of the instrument within the image using the pan control (this is why you want to record in 2 mono channels instead of a single stereo channel setup), and you control the volume of each mono channel better for more control.

Look up how to set proper gain control on a mixer in youtube, it shoukd give you some good ideas.

The sound of the Concerto is nice, I'm looking forward to when you can play and record without restriction.

 

[Rhelsing]

I suspect it is me also, not the harware. I will try to google how to deal with the gain. I was working on Battle Hym of the Republic which really sowed the concertos abilities a bit better - but in the lower sections of it I just crackled my headset (not sure if that was the headset or the gain on the mixer). I do know it doesn't bother the speakers although i can't use them right now. I will play with the gain and re-do this one or try something different. I appreciate the assistance.