A Little Help Please----Newb Here

Special Interest Groups Recording Techniques
1

Brand new to the board, PC recording and Audacity. I’m just now getting going with my rebuilt PC and the following specs below.

I have immensely enjoyed the tutorial offered through Audacity and have found it very helpful with the basics. I have not done a great deal of searching on this forum yet but plan on utilizing its vast resources. After tinkering around with Audacity before I finally got up and going, I had no problem playing a track simultaneously while the top track played, therefore being able to play in sequence to the bottom track while listening to the top track. When attempting this yesterday (eventually planning to use headphones) all of a sudden I lost this feature. The top track stayed completely silent. I must have played around trying to figure out the issue for a couple of hours but with no success. I’m completely flustered, and the tutorial only shows how to play around with stereo after two tracks are already recorded. I can’t seem to figure this out at all, and I’m sure it has to be something completely simple.

On another note, (keep in mind I’m just getting up and going) I’m getting a very extreme bass feedback/echo bottom end in my recordings. I’ve played around a little trying to get rid of it, but are there any obvious things I need to do from the get go to help rid myself of some of this? I play Metallica/Iced Earth metal and everything sounds pretty clean coming out of the amps.

I plan on spending most of my spare time outside of my hectic work schedule learning and recording on this system, so I’d appreciate any help to get the ball rolling on these two issues.

Thanks for the time.







Audacity 1 2.6 Cubase SE Wavelab 5.0 VST’s and Plug Ins Gearbox w/Line 6 Software
Kingston HyperX 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Desktop Memory
2 Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 250GB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ 2.4GHz Socket AM2 89W Processor
ECS KA3 MVP (V1.0A) ATX AMD Motherboard–500 Watt Power Supply
Samson CO1U USB Microphone placed four feet away with foam surroundings
Digitech RP G7 Effects Pedal w/direct Fender Amp and Stack
7 String BC Warlock played with six strings at E and Drop D

2

The first thing that comes to mind is to check that you haven’t accidentally hit any of the “Mute” or “Solo” buttons on any of the tracks.

A couple of possibilities here - you say that you are “eventually planning to use headphones” - so I presume that you are currently monitoring through speakers? If so, hurry up and get some headphones - they are essential for monitoring when using a microphone (or anything else that can behave like a microphone which includes DI’d guitars etc.)

Another possibility is if you are DI’ing through your Digitech - this can cause substantial exaggeration of the bass. When using a guitar cab, much of the low bass gets rolled off by the natural acoustics of the cab, but when DI’ing this does not happen, therefore much care should be taken in keeping the bass down (tweaking the EQ on your Digitech?). My preferred method of recording electric guitars (in a home studio situation) is to use a small but decent quality practice amp and mic it up - that way I can crank it without it being too loud.

It’s also worth considering what you are using to monitor with when you are mixing down. Computer speakers are a waste of time for anything like serious music recording, and the same goes for using instrument amps or (most) PA’s. Studio monitors are the best option and will generally provide far more accurate reproduction than equivalently priced hi-fi speakers.

3

arthdice wrote: I had no problem playing a track simultaneously while the top track played, therefore being able to play in sequence to the bottom track while listening to the top track. When attempting this yesterday (eventually planning to use headphones) all of a sudden I lost this feature.


The first thing that comes to mind is to check that you haven’t accidentally hit any of the “Mute” or “Solo” buttons on any of the tracks.

earthdice wrote: I’m getting a very extreme bass feedback/echo bottom end in my recordings



A couple of possibilities here - you say that you are “eventually planning to use headphones” - so I presume that you are currently monitoring through speakers? If so, hurry up and get some headphones - they are essential for monitoring when using a microphone (or anything else that can behave like a microphone which includes DI’d guitars etc.)

Another possibility is if you are DI’ing through your Digitech - this can cause substantial exaggeration of the bass. When using a guitar cab, much of the low bass gets rolled off by the natural acoustics of the cab, but when DI’ing this does not happen, therefore much care should be taken in keeping the bass down (tweaking the EQ on your Digitech?). My preferred method of recording electric guitars (in a home studio situation) is to use a small but decent quality practice amp and mic it up - that way I can crank it without it being too loud.

It’s also worth considering what you are using to monitor with when you are mixing down. Computer speakers are a waste of time for anything like serious music recording, and the same goes for using instrument amps or (most) PA’s. Studio monitors are the best option and will generally provide far more accurate reproduction than equivalently priced hi-fi speakers.

Hey Steve, thanks for replying. I’ve checked the mutes and solos a hundred times, but one thing I haven’t checked is the silence button. Seriously, if I can’t figure this out I’m going to remove the program and add it all over, but I really don’t want to do that and risk my settings with the mic etc. That can be a real nightmare to get the Samson Mic recognized. The problem is, I’m doing all this at once…newly rebuilt PC, all new programs to work with, new gear, new setups, etc., so one little thing can really throw a person off from moving on and learning more without setbacks. I’m all about teaching myself and learning, but time is at a premium, and wasting it over dumb stuff is not cool.

My reference to playing with phones was once I can play along to a track, and right now, I still can’t do that. Good advice on the bass bit, but I was hoping to duplicate the exact tone I hear coming out of my amps with the recording gear. I would hate to have to use my little amp rather than my real amps. I’ve got a lot of work to do learning this program, and this site will be a great teaching ground. I may look into some low/high pass filters, but I’ve been spending and spending on things and still can’t record decently.

I’ll get there, it just gets frustrating. Thanks again for the response. Once again, I can play back a track fine, but when I try to record another track below it while listening to the top track I don’t hear anything coming out of the top track. Therefore, I can’t solo behind my rhythm track basically.

4

Behringer MS16 Active Personal Monitor System (New, Pair)

Just purchased these.

5

I would try using a pair of small diaphragm condenser mics, positioned about 30cm apart at about head height, a little in front of me, facing the amp.

Check in “Edit > Preferences > Audio I/O” and make sure that “Play other tracks while recording new one” is selected.

6

That’s gotta be it Steve, I’ll check when I get off work tonight. I didn’t have time last night.

Thanks again.

7

That’s what it was Steve, very simple solution that I should have saw myself. Thank you very much.

Now I need to work on listening through phones while playing along with recorded track on another. Still trying to find the right variance.