The Jam Room Blog Thread.

[moose23]

Are they just stamped metal?

Gun metal engraving afaik.

[liquidsmoke]

Good price.

http://www.vminnovations.com/Product_48902/Tascam-DP-008-Digital-PortaStudio-8-Track-Recorder-w-SD-Card-and-USB-2-0.html

[Omlet]

Fuck my country - it costs over 280 euros here :/

[mortlock]

any one here use big cartel. its pretty awesome as far as I can tell for bands and labels.
heres the link to mine..
http://continuumrecords.bigcartel.com/

[JemDooM]

Sell me mortlock, we use bandcamp but we have a few things on the way, should we switch to/also use bigcartel? The bandcamp fees are quite high...

[Omlet]

Yeah, I use Bandcamp too. Yesterday I created a page for my boring and monotonous dark ambient project.
http://wampir.bandcamp.com/
Name means vampire in Polish, I'm quite shocked that the name wasnt already taken by some fucks

[JemDooM]

I like your stuff Omlet, listening to it in work and totally jumped out of my skin when someone came to see me in the office heheh! I'd be up for doing some guitar stuff over stuff like that if your ever up for it sometime, I want to make stuff like that myself just don't know where to start really...

[mortlock]

big cartel gives you 5 listings for free. I like it so far..

[Omlet]

Jem, do I understand you correctly that you want to collaborate on some project or my English sucks even more than I expected?

[liquidsmoke]

Fuck my country - it costs over 280 euros here :/

But you probably get health care even if you are between jobs.

[Omlet]

Yes but between jobs only til 2014

[neighbor664]

I was recently contacted by Racer X's old DRS bass player. He has moved back to the SF bay area and wants to recruit me to fill the guitar spot.
I had to explain to him that I am retired and though I'd love to just jam for fun, I have zero interest in being in a band. Why do people got to take that stuff so personally?

[Instant Dan]

I've been thinking about when I fix up this Mock and sell it, about going all the way and buying an actual Gibson LP and not a Japanese clone. Yet, I just find it hard to drop more than $1k on a guitar. Partially because I am not that great of a player.

[black aspirin]

Finally starting to get some better recorded guitar and bass tones, and still using my isolation cab.  Just gotta keep tinkering away and learn through trial and error, I suppose.  Just asking, but for those of you who have put up some pretty thick, awesome guitar tones on here...like Jake and Corey Y...how many guitar tracks do you usually record?  I currently have 3 guitar tracks on the song I'm working on, and it sounds better, but still not as thick and warm as I'm looking for.

Just curious if you guys are able to pull off those great tones with one track. 

I'm also at the point that I remember so well when I was recording years ago...I like what I have so far, but it's 2 minutes in, time for a change and a big ending...and I'm stuck with no good ideas.  Most of the stuff I wrote back then followed this same pattern until it just got shelved.  I'm trying to finish all that old stuff.

[liquidsmoke]

Yes but between jobs only til 2014

That sucks. Where do you live? I'm probably going to temporarily lose the health insurance I have through my work after the 2 week trip I have coming up because I won't have enough hours worked on average for the 10 week period or whatever. I can't even use personal time to cover the trip because my hours average is already too low(because of illness) to qualify for it. I realize it's expensive for the company to provide and getting worse every year but it's still horse shit.

[Omlet]

I live in Poland. They want to cut the insurance rights for unemployed because um, i have no idea. Probably they want to save money for something "more important".

On topic: I want to learn playing banjo its really rare instrument here and i dont know anyone playing it so im rather afraid, especially by bridge adjustments if i fuck something up. Clawhammer playing style looks really great and relatively easy to learn but that potential bridge issues are really worrying me

[AgentofOblivion]

Finally starting to get some better recorded guitar and bass tones, and still using my isolation cab.  Just gotta keep tinkering away and learn through trial and error, I suppose.  Just asking, but for those of you who have put up some pretty thick, awesome guitar tones on here...like Jake and Corey Y...how many guitar tracks do you usually record?  I currently have 3 guitar tracks on the song I'm working on, and it sounds better, but still not as thick and warm as I'm looking for.

Just curious if you guys are able to pull off those great tones with one track. 

I'm also at the point that I remember so well when I was recording years ago...I like what I have so far, but it's 2 minutes in, time for a change and a big ending...and I'm stuck with no good ideas.  Most of the stuff I wrote back then followed this same pattern until it just got shelved.  I'm trying to finish all that old stuff.

More guitars isn't necessarily better because the more you have the most likely you are to get phase cancellations and therefore a thinner sound.  For a thicker sound I would recommend cutting the gain back, lowering the bass a bit, and adding the mids. 

[RAGER]

Or maybe just a couple tracks with different mic placements.

[black aspirin]

Thanks for the advice.  So far, the following adjustments have helped (since I'm tuned to A)...turning the bass setting down on the amp, using a high-pass filter to cut everything below 80, and recording 3 guitar tracks...BUT, the way I'm doing it is by leaving the mic placement the same, and adjusting the gain, mids, etc. for each track to get a fuller sound.  So phase cancellation shouldn't be a problem if the mic stays put, right?

It's certainly producing better results, but I still have a lot to learn.  I think a single track should sound much fuller than it is so far...I might try to skip the isolation cab this weekend and mic my Matamp 4x12.  Unfortunately, I can't crank it up, so I would be recording at low volume. 

[RAGER]

Can you stuff the amp in a closet or isolate it with a mattress or something?

[RacerX]

I was recently contacted by Racer X's old DRS bass player. He has moved back to the SF bay area and wants to recruit me to fill the guitar spot.
I had to explain to him that I am retired and though I'd love to just jam for fun, I have zero interest in being in a band. Why do people got to take that stuff so personally?

Neb's a grouchy old fucker like me. Taking music much more seriously than most of the "important" details of our lives was a big reason we got along.

[AgentofOblivion]

Thanks for the advice.  So far, the following adjustments have helped (since I'm tuned to A)...turning the bass setting down on the amp, using a high-pass filter to cut everything below 80, and recording 3 guitar tracks...BUT, the way I'm doing it is by leaving the mic placement the same, and adjusting the gain, mids, etc. for each track to get a fuller sound.  So phase cancellation shouldn't be a problem if the mic stays put, right?

It's certainly producing better results, but I still have a lot to learn.  I think a single track should sound much fuller than it is so far...I might try to skip the isolation cab this weekend and mic my Matamp 4x12.  Unfortunately, I can't crank it up, so I would be recording at low volume. 

An easy way to see if your guitars are working in or out of phase is to zoom really far in on the timeline so you can see the waveforms going positive and negative.  If you see some going negative and others positive then slightly move some of them forward or backward in time so that they all approximately match.  These time shifts are very small and won't make things sound sloppy or anything.

Also, you are panning the tracks, right?  If you're putting everything in the center then you should try spreading them out left to right.  Experiment with how much a track should be left and how much right (50/50?  100/0?  75/25?). 

Finally, it can be cool to use the first technique more extreme and deliberately offset the timing of one (or more) of the tracks (~20ms maybe?).  It gives a nice spread and doubled/chorus sound.  Obviously this is a better fit for music that doesn't require super-precise timing.  Adjust amount of delay to taste.

[Corey Y]

Finally starting to get some better recorded guitar and bass tones, and still using my isolation cab.  Just gotta keep tinkering away and learn through trial and error, I suppose.  Just asking, but for those of you who have put up some pretty thick, awesome guitar tones on here...like Jake and Corey Y...how many guitar tracks do you usually record?  I currently have 3 guitar tracks on the song I'm working on, and it sounds better, but still not as thick and warm as I'm looking for.

Just curious if you guys are able to pull off those great tones with one track. 

I'm also at the point that I remember so well when I was recording years ago...I like what I have so far, but it's 2 minutes in, time for a change and a big ending...and I'm stuck with no good ideas.  Most of the stuff I wrote back then followed this same pattern until it just got shelved.  I'm trying to finish all that old stuff.

There's no one big trick to it. Recording comes down to a lot of subtle parts working together. So part of it is what you're actually playing (riffs), pickups, setup, amp settings, mic choice and placement, how you mix it. I tend to tinker with things until I like the way they sound completely unmixed, then you have a lot to work with during mixing. I tend to start with the EQ settings on amps all at noon and try not to max everything out at the start. The biggest thing is just trusting your ears. Try something, listen critically and adjust. Most of the time I'm not recording at high volumes, so you don't absolutely need that to sound good (unless you need it to get the amp tone you like). The bit about running low cut/high pass filter is a good suggestion. There's no set specific frequency, I usually just raise the cut frequency up until I start to hear a slight change, then dial it back a bit. There is a certain amount of low frequency that gets felt more than heard, even with recordings, so you don't want to go overboard with it. That's more a mixing deal though, how it stacks up with a lot of other tracks in the mix and maintaining headroom for proper mastering. The biggest guideline for me is just making no assumptions about how a particular setting should sound and trust my ears, be reactive to what I'm hearing until I like the result. Sometimes people shooting for really heavy and thick guitar tones default to max Low and Gain and cut a lot of Presence, Mid and Highs. There's no reason you can't record a mid scooped, low heavy guitar tone and make it work well in a mix, but it doesn't necessarily equal instant heavy. I would also play around with your microphone position a bit. If you have a good pair of over ear headphones, put them on and play a bit, move the mic and listen for the sweet spot. Purely a subjective thing, whatever the sweet spot is for what you want to be hearing. Remember that the microphone moves in three dimensions, moving it closer or farther away from the speaker has an effect too.

You don't necessarily need more tracks for a heavier sound. When I'm recording other people I do frequently use at least 2 mics per guitar rig, but I don't always use both. When I'm doing that I'm usually going for contrasting, but complimentary tones. Otherwise it can just sort of muddy up. Sorry I can't be more specific to your situation, most of what I know about recording comes from a lot of experimentation and learning a method for approaching things, as opposed to a specific set of techniques that I always use. What works great for one project/tone, doesn't necessarily work best for another.

[black aspirin]

Thanks for the advice.  Your recent guitar/bass tracks sounded amazing, so I had to ask.

I am using a good pair of Sennheiser over-the-ear headphones, and playing around with mic position.  Gonna record some more guitar tracks tonight and play around to see what gets the best results...I suspect this learning curve will take me a while. 

[spookstrickland]

Thanks for the advice.  So far, the following adjustments have helped (since I'm tuned to A)...turning the bass setting down on the amp, using a high-pass filter to cut everything below 80, and recording 3 guitar tracks...BUT, the way I'm doing it is by leaving the mic placement the same, and adjusting the gain, mids, etc. for each track to get a fuller sound.  So phase cancellation shouldn't be a problem if the mic stays put, right?

It's certainly producing better results, but I still have a lot to learn.  I think a single track should sound much fuller than it is so far...I might try to skip the isolation cab this weekend and mic my Matamp 4x12.  Unfortunately, I can't crank it up, so I would be recording at low volume. 


[/quote

try backing the mic away from the cab.  That will give you a really full sound and not so in you face likr close micing.