The official "El Borrachito" Q&A thread

[Kerouac]

I can give you a bit of an answer to that.

Auralex won't do a thing to keep sound from escaping the room. What it will do is keep nasty echos and standing waves from happening within the room.

To keep sound from escaping a room, what you really need is isolation. IE, build a room within a room. It's a very expensive undertaking. Basically, you don't want the floor, walls, or ceiling of the interior room to be directly coupled to the outside floor, walls, or ceiling. The cost of doing this is prohibitive to most home recorders, so the best bet is to use lots of insulation and a heavy material like drywall on the walls and ceiling.

Of course, in my home studio, I've got lots of insulation, and drywall, and you can still hear me pretty well from the outside. Good thing my neighbors are A. Not close by, and B. Very understanding.

My closest neighbor is an older dutch lady who says she grew up in an apartment over a bar in Holland, so hearing the noise from my house helps her sleep.

THIS.

I swear, I get asked how to soundproof a room all the time.

 

[Kerouac]

Yes. My current career focus is composing for picture.
I use Pro Tools for everything. Most of my composer clients use PT as well.
Some guys use Logic. I rarely see any of the others.
At the end of the day, the show is assembled and mixed in PT, so going back and forth between PT and Logic can be a hassle.

Thanks for the response. Can you give us a little background on how you transitioned into that part of the industry? This is something I've been wanting to do more and more of, but other than doing some shorts for friends and 48 Hour Film Festivals, I'm unsure how to approach it.

 

[Mark Wein]

THIS.

I swear, I get asked how to soundproof a room all the time.

Thats why I brought it up

 

[Kerouac]

Thats why I brought it up

Parents of drum students are the most notorious.

 

[Dew Knot Hump]

Yes. My current career focus is composing for picture.
I use Pro Tools for everything. Most of my composer clients use PT as well.
Some guys use Logic. I rarely see any of the others.
At the end of the day, the show is assembled and mixed in PT, so going back and forth between PT and Logic can be a hassle.

I have a question for you. I recently upgraded to PT 8 LE after spending about 8 years using Pro Tools Free. In PT Free when I bounced to disc and burned the bounce to CD it would play in all of my CD players. In PT 8 when I bounce to WAV or AIF they don't play on CD players.

What is the best format sound wise to bounce and then burn to disc?

 

[Mark Wein]

Parents of drum students are the most notorious.

That usually happens after you've resolved the "Does he actually need a drum kit to take lessons?" question.

 

[Dew Knot Hump]

I have a question.

When you're recording bands, do you usually do a live take for the rhythm section or do you usually do all overdubs?

Most of the recording I do is just me playing everything, but occasionally I'll record a full band, and while capturing the live feel is great, I don't have proper isolation so I get a lot of bleedover. Also, I find that most of the time, the band members can't play the song without the rest of the band playing with them.

I'll tell you the way I do it, not sure if it's the best way but we cut drums first and play the bass and guitars run through modellers live along with the drums with everybody wearing headphones. This gives the drummer a feel for playing the song live and then we recut everything to the drum track using the mic'd amps or plug-ins.

 

[Kerouac]

That usually happens after you've resolved the "Does he actually need a drum kit to take lessons?" question.

:HB::HB:

 

[Mark Wein]

I have a question for you. I recently upgraded to PT 8 LE after spending about 8 years using Pro Tools Free. In PT Free when I bounced to disc and burned the bounce to CD it would play in all of my CD players. In PT 8 when I bounce to WAV or AIF they don't play on CD players.

What is the best format sound wise to bounce and then burn to disc?

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

 

[T-BoneBarnet]

Scott, thanks for your response.

 

[Dew Knot Hump]

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

Good suggestion, I've been recording and bouncing at 24 bits, I'll try to bounce to 16 bit and see if that works!

 

[El Borrachito]

Thanks for the response. Can you give us a little background on how you transitioned into that part of the industry? This is something I've been wanting to do more and more of, but other than doing some shorts for friends and 48 Hour Film Festivals, I'm unsure how to approach it.

I'll do an in-depth post on this in the near future.

sf

 

[Kerouac]

I'll do an in-depth post on this in the near future.

sf

That would be awesome. Thanks.

 

[Mark Wein]

Good suggestion, I've been recording and bouncing at 24 bits, I'll try to bounce to 16 bit and see if that works!

 

[El Borrachito]

Are you bouncing at 16 or 24 bits? For it to work on a CD I think it will eed to be bounced at 16 bits even though you recorded it at 24...

Any project you do, ALWAYS work 24 bit, especially if you are mixing in the box.
16 bit sounds inferior to 24 bit in general, but those extra bits become really important to the number crunching going on in the computer when summing tracks, processing plug-ins, etc.
There is no reason to not work at the highest bit depth and sample rate available. If I'm recording any sort of record project I am going 24bit/96k unless there is some technical reason prohibiting it.
Hard drives are cheap! Treat them as reels of tape. Any project I do, I buy drives specifically for that project, and that project only.
Anyone who degrades the quality of a project to save drive space is nuts! 1TB costs less than a reel of 2" tape used to, let alone now.
Keep the quality as high as you can for as long as you can.

If you're doing bounces to burn a CD, then they need to be 16bit 44.1 stereo aiffs. Usually I'll bounce a mix at the rate of the project, tell PT to automatically import the file and then export it as CD audio or an mp3 or whatever I need. This way I have an archive of mixes at the highest quality available within the session. Very handy if someone wants an mp3 of a rough mix from a month ago. One click and it's made!

sf

 

[Prages]

I'll tell you the way I do it, not sure if it's the best way but we cut drums first and play the bass and guitars run through modellers live along with the drums with everybody wearing headphones. This gives the drummer a feel for playing the song live and then we recut everything to the drum track using the mic'd amps or plug-ins.

When I'm doing everything myself, I'll cut a scratch guitar track to a click, and maybe a scratch vocal track too.

Then I'll do the drums along to the click and the scratch guitar part. Then the bass with the scratch guitar track just loud enough to be heard. Then I'll cut the keeper rhythm guitar tracks, then vocals, then lead guitar.

But like I said, I mostly just do everything myself. The few times I've recorded full bands, I've either gone with the whole rhythm section live and bleedover be damned, or I've done the direct bass, modelled guitar thing to a live drum track.

 

[El Borrachito]

hi Scott!! Can ya get me on the list at Skybar?

wait...stay on topic stay on topic...

is there ever anyone you worked with that made ya nervous? like someone so famous you couldnt help but think "lord please dont let me screw up"

Projecting confidence is very important.
Knowing what you are doing helps a great deal toward that end.
The first couple days with high profile clients (ie. Mr. Rock Star) can be a little tense until you get a sense of how they are. At that point the tension turns to relief if they are cool or dread. As in: "Six more weeks with these assholes?"

sf

 

[Dew Knot Hump]

Projecting confidence is very important.
Knowing what you are doing helps a great deal toward that end.
The first couple days with high profile clients (ie. Mr. Rock Star) can be a little tense until you get a sense of how they are. At that point the tension turns to relief if they are cool or dread. As in: "Six more weeks with these assholes?"

sf

This is great advice because no matter what business you are in if somebody hires you to do a job they will feel comfortable if they know you are good at what you do.

 

[El Borrachito]

I have a question.

When you're recording bands, do you usually do a live take for the rhythm section or do you usually do all overdubs?

Most of the recording I do is just me playing everything, but occasionally I'll record a full band, and while capturing the live feel is great, I don't have proper isolation so I get a lot of bleedover. Also, I find that most of the time, the band members can't play the song without the rest of the band playing with them.

A really good band playing together in a room is a beautiful thing. Bleed or no bleed. Too bad it almost never happens. If you don't have iso space then di the bass and gtrs. This is one thing having a Pod or amp farm is very handy for. Get the bass and drums happening, (you can always reamp the bass) and just treat the gtrs as scratch.

sf

 

[Prages]

^^^Thanks. That's kind of how I tend to approach it, but was wondering if it was different in the real world.