10-22-2013, 07:21 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-22-2013, 07:27 AM by Qualitymix.)
Hey all, I thought I would share my experience with going start to finish with a paid gig recording a college metal band in our home studio.
The first thing I'd like to address are the claims that sure, Mixbus sounds great, but its not all that great to track in. I whole-heartedly disagree. It was fantastic tracking in Mixbus. A large part of the time spent in the studio was actually trying different things to get the sound we were after. Since tracking and doing quick edits was so easy, we could focus all our time on the music.
The hardware is a Windows XP machine with 3gig ram and a duo core processor (can't remember the exact one at the moment). Attached to the computer is an M-Audio Delta 1010 (the full one with the outboard I/O unit). Attached to that are the outputs from the mixing board, a Mackie CFX-20.
That is where the weakest link is in our setup and we know it. We have to use the inserts on the board as our outputs (1/4" cable plugged half-way in). The preamps on the board are okay, but certainly not great for high quality recording. Next in line of course, are the mics. Again, because we are a home studio we don't have the largest selection of awesome mics.
Having said that, drums were tracked with a 57 on the snare, two Nady drum mics on the toms (high and low), Nady kick drum mic, and two Samson CO2s for overheads. Let me also add that I am a drummer, and I tried my hardest to convince their drummer NOT to use his snare, it sounded like I was hitting a tree with a whiffle ball bat. This quickly became by far my largest obstacle in the mixing phase. Yet he insisted....(sigh)
Guitar was tracked with a single 57 at a 45 degree angle, about 2 inches from the speaker. I placed the mic about halfway between the center of the cone and the edge. The guitarist had a sweet Peavey 6505+ head with a Mesa Boogie cab.
The bass was tracked DI through a SansAmp.
Vocals (and I don't endorse what they are singing about) were tracked with an AKG 214. This was the toughest part because in many of the tracks the vocalist would change between singing and screaming, and without access to my usual outboard compressor this was the hardest part to manage.
After everything was tracked, without hiccup I might add, then I could start mixing. A real advantage to Mixbus is that while we were listening back to what we recorded, I could change EQ, compression, routing, all of the bread and butter things that normally take a while in my other DAW (which is not a free one, but a rather expensive commercial DAW). This meant that when I got the tracks home to my mixing monitors, much of the work was already done, and I could dig in and start really mixing and editing. In terms of general stability, during recording Mixbus was solid as a rock. When mixing, it would crash every now and again if I tried the wrong plugin, but no work was ever lost.
Here is a song they posted on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/hailthevisionary/...your-glass
EDIT: Explicit content! Don't listen with your kids around!
That's enough text for now. If anyone has any questions regarding anything throughout the process, just ask.
The first thing I'd like to address are the claims that sure, Mixbus sounds great, but its not all that great to track in. I whole-heartedly disagree. It was fantastic tracking in Mixbus. A large part of the time spent in the studio was actually trying different things to get the sound we were after. Since tracking and doing quick edits was so easy, we could focus all our time on the music.
The hardware is a Windows XP machine with 3gig ram and a duo core processor (can't remember the exact one at the moment). Attached to the computer is an M-Audio Delta 1010 (the full one with the outboard I/O unit). Attached to that are the outputs from the mixing board, a Mackie CFX-20.
That is where the weakest link is in our setup and we know it. We have to use the inserts on the board as our outputs (1/4" cable plugged half-way in). The preamps on the board are okay, but certainly not great for high quality recording. Next in line of course, are the mics. Again, because we are a home studio we don't have the largest selection of awesome mics.
Having said that, drums were tracked with a 57 on the snare, two Nady drum mics on the toms (high and low), Nady kick drum mic, and two Samson CO2s for overheads. Let me also add that I am a drummer, and I tried my hardest to convince their drummer NOT to use his snare, it sounded like I was hitting a tree with a whiffle ball bat. This quickly became by far my largest obstacle in the mixing phase. Yet he insisted....(sigh)
Guitar was tracked with a single 57 at a 45 degree angle, about 2 inches from the speaker. I placed the mic about halfway between the center of the cone and the edge. The guitarist had a sweet Peavey 6505+ head with a Mesa Boogie cab.
The bass was tracked DI through a SansAmp.
Vocals (and I don't endorse what they are singing about) were tracked with an AKG 214. This was the toughest part because in many of the tracks the vocalist would change between singing and screaming, and without access to my usual outboard compressor this was the hardest part to manage.
After everything was tracked, without hiccup I might add, then I could start mixing. A real advantage to Mixbus is that while we were listening back to what we recorded, I could change EQ, compression, routing, all of the bread and butter things that normally take a while in my other DAW (which is not a free one, but a rather expensive commercial DAW). This meant that when I got the tracks home to my mixing monitors, much of the work was already done, and I could dig in and start really mixing and editing. In terms of general stability, during recording Mixbus was solid as a rock. When mixing, it would crash every now and again if I tried the wrong plugin, but no work was ever lost.
Here is a song they posted on soundcloud:
https://soundcloud.com/hailthevisionary/...your-glass
EDIT: Explicit content! Don't listen with your kids around!
That's enough text for now. If anyone has any questions regarding anything throughout the process, just ask.
And I was mistaken before, its not a Mackie Onyx 1640i, its a Mackie Onyx 1640 with the Firewire option. Unfortunate, but still a really nice board.