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How do ya'all record your CBG's and music

hey ya'all,

i'm sort of new here and am curious about how folks are recording their CBG's and

their songs. don't get me wrong, i am a builder, but i'm a player and recordist too.

so i'de like to hear how ya'all go about capturing that beautiful sound and tone

of these instruments we all build and love. what are you tracking on, what kinds

of mics are you using,how 'bout mic techniques?

i'm using a Roland VS 2480HD, and Studio One in Windows 7 on my laptop for tracking

and i master on the Roland. for the CBG's i'm using large and small condenser mics and

a ribbon mic, and also a few dynamic mics.

for mono tracks i like to use 2 mics. one close mic on the CBG and a room mic for ambience.

on stereo tracks i almost always use the mid-side technique. this setup is fantastic. it gives you

complete control over where the track sits in the stereo field and mix. another big benifit of mid-side

is if your recording is stereo and it gets collapsed to mono things don't disapear from your mix.

if you've ever had one of your tunes played on the radio or television and it was just missing all

sorts of stuff, mid-side will eliminate that. i do use the X-Y technique sometimes, but most of

the time i go with mid-side.

i also use what is called corner loading. it's pretty much what it says. you position the player

facing into a corner as close as possible without being uncomfortable. a mic is placed 2 or 3

feet behind the player pointing at the corner. i really like this setup with unpluged CBG's.

if you have a CBG with no pickup that has an awesom tone and sound but has no projection

or volume, this is a great setup. you can also place a second mic further back and capture the

room ambience too.

are any of you using ribbon mics ? if you've never tried one, try one. they have a figure-8

polar pattern which means it picks up sound equaly from the front and back. to me they

have the most detailed sound of any mic. they kick ass on anything.

anyways, i could go on and on but i'll stop now i posted 4 tunes here and were recorded

using the setups i've described, all recorded, mixed, and mastered at home here in Memphis.

and let me hear how ya'all are doing it. glad to be here.

Myke

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on October 14, 2014 at 2:45am

Matt,

I think there's already a coupla Groups on CBN for precisely that:

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/cbnationrecordingcollective

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/group/garagebandusersgroup

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on October 14, 2014 at 8:51am

I do that too with the tracks I produce in GarageBand. Once they're how I like em, I import the GB .m4a file into Audacity, do some noise correction, some slight gain balancing, add some fade out runout, and export to MP3. Works a treat.

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Permalink Reply by Matthew Borczon on October 14, 2014 at 2:51am

Thanks Ron, sometimes I forget everything that is up here. It can be a lot to sift through. I will ask my questions over there soon. I really could use some suggestions.

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Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on October 14, 2014 at 3:16am

All I can tell you is the process I use, that seems to work for me. PM me...

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Permalink Reply by jeff maurer on October 14, 2014 at 6:30am

I play bass in a rockband and we have recorded 2 albums on our own using a fostec digital16 track recorder. It records 8 tracks at a time and we usually start with drums. We do a lot of close mic on drums and amps using the always reliable shure sm57. We also have some condenser mics we use also. And both albums were recorded in basements. After we get all the tracks done they go to a computer to get final mixes and mastering done. Dont know exactly what programs we use cause I dont get too involved in the mix and mastering process, but I thinkwe have used cubase, audacity, and who knows what else. When I record at home im still using an old tascam mk 424 4 track portastudio. I know cassette tape isnt the greatest recording medium but I like it. Its easy to use as every funtion has a knob, fader, or button and I think analog just sounds warmer than digital. Analog vs didgital sounds like it would be fun to argue about. It all really comes down to the user knowing their epuipment and how to use it. Like said earlier garbage in means garbage out.

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Permalink Reply by Cigarbox Slim on October 14, 2014 at 7:23am

http://www.uaudio.com/blog/mid-side-mic-recording/

here's a great how to on the mid-side technique for anyone that's interested.

in the same way that it yields a beautiful stereo track on acoustic guitar and many

other sources, it can really make CBG tracks shine. i've posted a song here called

Come Alive that i recorded using mid-side with 2 CBG tracks and 2 vocal tracks.

i like the nice live sound m-s gives you, and it really captures the nice "tangy"

sound of a reso CBG quite well. i used a Cascade ribbon mic and a Shure BG 4.1

small diaphram condensor mic on the CBG's and the Cascade alone on the vocals.

Myke

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Permalink Reply by Thorsten Hinrichsen on October 14, 2014 at 11:10pm

I use studio one for recording and mastering. I play the cbgs straight into my line6 interface and use ampire, amplitube or native instruments tools for the amp modelling. Sometimes I just record some tracks on my tiny mobile boss studio which soundes quite good and drag the files into studio one (i recommend the boss br 80 to everyone who doesn't trust in pcs or look for a "cheap" setup). Band recordings we make with different microphones (dynamic for voice, condenser for guitars,...) through various hardware processors into cubase or studio one.
Listen here ... http://youtu.be/lLpqRFU5Bgg