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Thread: Last Sunday of February

  1. #1
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Last Sunday of February

    and a gristly gnarly icy sleety crappy morning it is here. glad I'm not going anywhere. nice and warm with a cup of coffee.

    I am growing very disenchanted with recording direct to computer. There's got to be a way to do this without spending 10's of thousands of dollars. I'm ready to take the low E string off all my guitars to try to get rid of that fart noise I keep getting when I do more than look at the damn thing. It's not like I'm doing windmills and slamming the string.

    yes, I should be so lucky to have such first world problems. Time for more coffee.

  2. #2
    Forum Member Laker's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post

    I am growing very disenchanted with recording direct to computer. There's got to be a way to do this without spending 10's of thousands of dollars. I'm ready to take the low E string off all my guitars to try to get rid of that fart noise I keep getting when I do more than look at the damn thing. It's not like I'm doing windmills and slamming the string.
    Many years ago we did a recording in the days I played with Bryan Lee where we ran everything direct into a reel to reel tape recorder where we managed to get some really great sounds out of his 335. I think the key was having better gain control on the input.

    She's a sunny, brisk and very windy day here with gusts (according to the little TV weather girl) possible up to 50 mph. In ten minutes it's off to the Sunday morning Bloody Mary and breakfast followed by a few cups of really great coffee.

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    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post
    I am growing very disenchanted with recording direct to computer. There's got to be a way to do this without spending 10's of thousands of dollars. I'm ready to take the low E string off all my guitars to try to get rid of that fart noise I keep getting when I do more than look at the damn thing. It's not like I'm doing windmills and slamming the string.
    It might be that you need an interface like the pod. You can get one of those PodXTs pretty cheap now. I'm using the HD500X now, but I got a lot of good recordings with the PodXT a few years ago. It has models that have that tube whumpf (technical term, ha ha) that are entirely believable.

    Sunday is my prep for classes and house cleaning day. I'm a little down because my daughter was coming home for dinner, but she's got a cold, and I can't take the chance of getting sick since my surgery is a week away. I'm paranoid about getting sick and not being able to get this done.

    Otherwise, I'm hoping to make time to play a little geetar today. I am looking forward to getting the surgery out of the way and getting my shoulder back in shape, but I hate it that I won't be able to play for weeks or maybe even a month or two, depending on what they do when they get in there.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Got going early this am. Beer is halfway through the mash stage...

  5. #5
    Forum Member Don's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    It's a rainy day here. We're just cleaning up a bit. Maybe I'll get to jam on my new Boogie later. I can't get over how good that amp is!

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    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Saw Black Panther this afternoon with my daughter and her son. Outstanding!
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

  7. #7
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post
    and a gristly gnarly icy sleety crappy morning it is here. glad I'm not going anywhere. nice and warm with a cup of coffee.

    I am growing very disenchanted with recording direct to computer. There's got to be a way to do this without spending 10's of thousands of dollars. I'm ready to take the low E string off all my guitars to try to get rid of that fart noise I keep getting when I do more than look at the damn thing. It's not like I'm doing windmills and slamming the string.

    yes, I should be so lucky to have such first world problems. Time for more coffee.
    Same kind of day up here. Freezing rain giving way to just rain. Slippery and wet everywhere - I'm staying in the fire on! Still in late stage of recovery from pneumonia (8th week and counting). Got a specialist appointment tomorrow who will look at the 3rd set of chest X-rays that were done on Friday. Was supposed to fly to Vancouver, BC this week for work but doc put the kibosh on that. interestingly the forecast in Vancouver is not that much better than here....

    @DanTheBluesMan - what kind of interface are you using right now? How are you connecting to your computer?

    Also - have any of you tried BandLab? This is the company that has bought CakeWalk from Gibson - they've got what's essentially an online DAW comparable in many ways to iOS GarageBand. integrates with whatever audio input devices you are running. Looks like a good platform for doing online collaboration for composition, songwriting. I signed up yesterday and threw something together quickly using some of thier loops, a keys track using my midi controller and guitar track from my MOTU interface. Shows promise despite the "social media" aspect of the site being populated by 13 year olds.

  8. #8
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by dirtdog View Post
    @DanTheBluesMan - what kind of interface are you using right now? How are you connecting to your computer?

    Also - have any of you tried BandLab? This is the company that has bought CakeWalk from Gibson - they've got what's essentially an online DAW comparable in many ways to iOS GarageBand. integrates with whatever audio input devices you are running. Looks like a good platform for doing online collaboration for composition, songwriting. I signed up yesterday and threw something together quickly using some of thier loops, a keys track using my midi controller and guitar track from my MOTU interface. Shows promise despite the "social media" aspect of the site being populated by 13 year olds.
    hope you keep getting better. The girl who comes to our house to help take care of my mom was out sick all last week and will not be tomorrow and possibly Tuesday as well. Her boy came down with the flu a week ago Friday (16th) and his sisters two days later. Knock wood that it didn't get here. The girl and her kids were as sick as they've ever been. The youngest girl still has a fever that they are watching and waiting for it to break plus 24 hours before she can come back.

    I'm using either direct into the mic input of my mac mini or through USB (not one of the newer kinds) via Behringer UMC404HD. Granted I may need to adjust my playing technique but I mostly play with a soft touch which probably causes me to dial in more gain than I need then when I accentuate notes, riffs or chords can either get the red clipping light on the Behringer to flash or I hear it in the monitor (headphones). Part of the problem is a lack of easily visible waveform. I don't know what happened but I used to be nice big easy to see waveforms and now they're like baseline of a seismometer except even my clipping moments are very marginal in appearance. I didn't change any settings to my knowledge. I did have a couple of OSX updates and I'm holding off on High Sierra and I sure as hell don't want to update GarageBand and lose all the cool drum stuff that the newest version took away. I've barely scratched the surface of that stuff. Right now I'm trying to get my guitar in there in a fashion I find pleasing.

  9. #9
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post
    hope you keep getting better. The girl who comes to our house to help take care of my mom was out sick all last week and will not be tomorrow and possibly Tuesday as well. Her boy came down with the flu a week ago Friday (16th) and his sisters two days later. Knock wood that it didn't get here. The girl and her kids were as sick as they've ever been. The youngest girl still has a fever that they are watching and waiting for it to break plus 24 hours before she can come back.

    I'm using either direct into the mic input of my mac mini or through USB (not one of the newer kinds) via Behringer UMC404HD. Granted I may need to adjust my playing technique but I mostly play with a soft touch which probably causes me to dial in more gain than I need then when I accentuate notes, riffs or chords can either get the red clipping light on the Behringer to flash or I hear it in the monitor (headphones). Part of the problem is a lack of easily visible waveform. I don't know what happened but I used to be nice big easy to see waveforms and now they're like baseline of a seismometer except even my clipping moments are very marginal in appearance. I didn't change any settings to my knowledge. I did have a couple of OSX updates and I'm holding off on High Sierra and I sure as hell don't want to update GarageBand and lose all the cool drum stuff that the newest version took away. I've barely scratched the surface of that stuff. Right now I'm trying to get my guitar in there in a fashion I find pleasing.
    Thanks DTBM - yeah, I wouldn't wish this particular illness on anyone. It's been a grind and it's now officially been worse than when I broke 5 ribs in a bike accident a few years back. That was nasty to begin with, but I was back on the bike within six weeks!

    As for your signal issues - sounds like a gain structure issue. Unless something has really crapped out on your Behringer interface - and you have the gain cranked on that device - I wonder if it's not an input levels thing on the Mac itself? If you go into "Audio MIDI Setup" app in your Utilities folder, what do you see for "Built-in Input"? Should be set somewhere around the middle. If those are set low, that may explain part of it. If you have the Behringer cranked, you're sending a clipped signal to the Mac and then attenuating the clipped signal if the input levels are set too low (won't get rid of the clipping). Also check the input levels in Garageband or whatever recording software you're using.

    If that all looks good, I would suspect the Behringer as the next possible culprit.

  10. #10
    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    It's been a gloomy, rainy weekend here. But I'd take the rain and temps in the 50s over snow, any day!

    I finished assembling my bedroom. The frame was finished last weekend. The new mattress arrived Wednesday, and the comforter set yesterday. I'm still getting used to sleeping on a firm, memory foam mattress. I like firm, but my hopes of getting out of bed without back pain haven't come true (I broke my back when I was 17, but it's only been 40 years later that problems started to appear).

    As for recording direct to computer, I bought an Apogee ONE system for that purpose. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't hooked it up, but the reviews on it are generally positive. It's Mac/iPad/iPhone only though, so unless you're in that camp...

    http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/one/mac

  11. #11
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by dirtdog View Post
    Thanks DTBM - yeah, I wouldn't wish this particular illness on anyone. It's been a grind and it's now officially been worse than when I broke 5 ribs in a bike accident a few years back. That was nasty to begin with, but I was back on the bike within six weeks!

    As for your signal issues - sounds like a gain structure issue. Unless something has really crapped out on your Behringer interface - and you have the gain cranked on that device - I wonder if it's not an input levels thing on the Mac itself? If you go into "Audio MIDI Setup" app in your Utilities folder, what do you see for "Built-in Input"? Should be set somewhere around the middle. If those are set low, that may explain part of it. If you have the Behringer cranked, you're sending a clipped signal to the Mac and then attenuating the clipped signal if the input levels are set too low (won't get rid of the clipping). Also check the input levels in Garageband or whatever recording software you're using.

    If that all looks good, I would suspect the Behringer as the next possible culprit.
    they are both (left and right) set at 0.5 (halfway). should they be higher or lower?

  12. #12
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by OldStrummer View Post
    It's been a gloomy, rainy weekend here. But I'd take the rain and temps in the 50s over snow, any day!

    I finished assembling my bedroom. The frame was finished last weekend. The new mattress arrived Wednesday, and the comforter set yesterday. I'm still getting used to sleeping on a firm, memory foam mattress. I like firm, but my hopes of getting out of bed without back pain haven't come true (I broke my back when I was 17, but it's only been 40 years later that problems started to appear).

    As for recording direct to computer, I bought an Apogee ONE system for that purpose. I'm embarrassed to admit that I haven't hooked it up, but the reviews on it are generally positive. It's Mac/iPad/iPhone only though, so unless you're in that camp...

    http://www.apogeedigital.com/products/one/mac
    oh, yeah, I'm in that camp, alright. I'm going to give this a lot of consideration.

  13. #13
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post
    they are both (left and right) set at 0.5 (halfway). should they be higher or lower?
    Halfway seems to be right - that's where I have the controls set on my iMac for built-in devices.

    Next, look at the input settings in your recording software - there may be a general setting under "Preferences" but in practice, you're controlling input gain from a control on each channel - in Logic, it's way up top of the channel strip (virtual rotary control in the case of Logic X Pro). Probably something similar for other packages. Not the same as your channel fader - that controls output signal to the main bus.

    Does the Behringer interface use some sort of intermediate software control between the hardware and your recording software? I know if I mess around with the MOTU Audio Control software that sits between my MOTU hardware and Logic, I can screw things up easily.

  14. #14
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by DanTheBluesMan View Post
    oh, yeah, I'm in that camp, alright. I'm going to give this a lot of consideration.
    Apogee is good stuff. The preamps in your Behringer are MIDAS, so that should sound fine too - as long as your unit is not malfunctioning...
    Last edited by dirtdog; 02-25-2018 at 05:11 PM.

  15. #15
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Last Sunday of February

    Quote Originally Posted by dirtdog View Post
    Halfway seems to be right - that's where I have the controls set on my iMac for built-in devices.

    Next, look at the input settings in your recording software - there may be a general setting under "Preferences" but in practice, you're controlling input gain from a control on each channel - in Logic, it's way up top of the channel strip (virtual rotary control in the case of Logic X Pro). Probably something similar for other packages. Not the same as your channel fader - that controls output signal to the main bus.

    Does the Behringer interface use some sort of intermediate software control between the hardware and your recording software? I know if I mess around with the MOTU Audio Control software that sits between my MOTU hardware and Logic, I can screw things up easily.
    I believe the Behringer is stand alone, plug and play. There was no need to intall or upload anything to get it working. GarageBand's preference is kind of rudimentary. It's either the built-in (Mac) stuff or the UMC. There is only the 24-bit to click.

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