 The Oboe BBoard
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-27 16:59
Question to anyone and everyone who practices with the help of sound recorders:
I have started to record myself playing with Music Minus One CDs playing on the computer. I observed the following very strange phenomena:
1. the computer is playing the CD (piano) so loudly, I think I'll go deaf
2. the sound recorder still picks up my oboe 2ce as loudly as the CD!
=> I have tried putting the recorder closer to the computer speakers and I am facing away, in fact blowing into the doorway to the hall: carpeted. Same result.
=> My recorder is a top of the line portable Stereo high-fidelity (Zoom H4n) that is sold specially for video recording: its specifications are better than anything I could find by Korg or the usual.
Are my ears really that badly out of whack?
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2010-12-27 17:16
Robin,
When I record - I record into a computer program.
I use a AKG1000c condenser mic through an USB Tascam us122l amp.
I also use ear phones/headset - just to hear the music as I play along.
Maybe you can record in this manner then sync the playback files in a sound program.
Goldwave for example is free to download and use ..... you can get it at download.com
I personally was not very impressed with the ZoomH4n line.
Mark
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-27 19:07
I'll look into the setup you mentioned, thanks.
Your advice echoes what the pros do in the studio. Goldwave and Audacity are both really good for that.
But I have to get the microphone into the computer: I'm pretty sure the Zoom does that. And for sure I can get a CD player to play into the computer..... I have to play with that to get some old tapes on CD anyway.
We got the Zoom H4n to get the best quality portable microphone and recording set. The practicality of it just can't be beat. Plus, I have recorded myself (without accompaniment) a few times before and the quality is really top notch. It really does show that I don't hear myself like the audience does. When I plug it into a sound system, from the hallway, my wife can't tell the difference between the playback and my real oboe...
Maybe my Dell speakers - despite their really good sound - don't have the projection quality required. I'll have to try playing the CD in a sound system and setting up the room/placement differently.
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: mjfoboe
Date: 2010-12-27 19:39
To get the mic into the computer you need mic cable into an amp with a USB connection. Then you tell the computer to select the amp drivers in the sound properties.
Try the Tascam US-144.
Good Luck.
Mark
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2010-12-29 03:38
Robin,
If I understand what you are stating, your are recording yourself playing oboe and at the same time recording the accomp. played back on computer speakers.
So you end up with a slight stereo, mostly mono 2 channels combination and no ability to edit or mix oboe against the accomp.?
In that case, I'd place the recorder 12 feet or so, even more if possible away from your computer, stand near the computer and play oboe towards the recorder.
Play the oboe to balance against your speaker sound level and the rest will manage itself.
If your computer volume is as loud as you think, reduce it for playback and see if you can set recording levels on the little recording device.
Within the limits of that setup, a little experimentation should produce useful results.
A lot of small recorders have attenuators to prevent clipping (overloaded signals), and you want to keep the max sound levels below that threshold. Again, some experimentation should give you the feedback you need.
Better still, when you can afford it, get into better gear. These days, if you already have a good modern computer, Mac or PC, Pro Tools LE is really good. They offer many varieties from 2 channel inputs (mBox 2 Pro) to 8 ins (003 Rack Unit... I use that) and up to top end pro gear used in major studios.
The mBox 2 Pro and 003 Rack components plus Pro Tools LE 8.0 cost a couple thousand dollars. Figure in another 300 - 400 $ for a modest mic. $1,000 and up gets you really good stuff. And you need a remote hard drive specialized for audio. I use a Glyph drive with an iMac that ran about $400 for a terabyte drive. The better mics tend to be condensor mics Vs. dynamic mics and require phantom power. The mBox 2 Pro or 003 Rack units provide that for you as do any modern mixers.
Nice thing about Pro Tools re: Music Minus One... you can drag full-qualtiy wave files right into a project (they call it a session) or convert them to mp3 fils and put them in the project.
That is a lot of flexibility. And then, with the mixing and editing, and the use of a little compression and reverb... you get amazing results.
-Craig
Post Edited (2010-12-29 04:09)
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-29 13:18
Good info!
Yes, your 2 first paragraphs are right.
I don't know what phantom power is, but I did read in the recorder's manual that it does have it. By attenuator, do you mean recording level? Yesterday, I tried using an old Aiwa boombox instead of the computer, it worked a bit better but the volume still had to be at maximum.
I'm really annoyed at the accompaniment CD being so awfully loud to my ears and then so soft on the recording Could the problem bee the small room? My goal is to reproduce the recital hall experience: I have played many times in such conditions and the (real) piano never sounded so blastingly in my ears and so faintly to the audience!
I can adjust the microphone angles to be at 90 or 120 degrees. At 120, the stereo separation is much more distinct, but with less overall impression of a recital hall. I put the recorder between myself and the boombox: the boombox is oriented towards the recorder, but the recorder and myself are facing the side wall. The X-Y disposition of the microphones make the heads face more or less towards the boom box and towards my person (my oboe is facing the side wall, not the recorder).
I'll try playing with my Clavinova: the room is much bigger (20x215 feet) and opens up into other parts of the house making it a much bigger resonating chamber. Perhaps with that and the hardwood floors, I'll be able to stand farther away from the mic and get a better mixing?
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2010-12-29 20:58
Robin,
You, my friend, are in for all sorts of fun! Learning by doing is my favorite method these days, and usually propped up by liberal wicki reads and google research.
What you are doing trying to achieve a live stereo mix should be doable for intermediate quality results.
Your recording device has multiple inputs in addition to the built-in mics, I think.
Does it also have line inputs, either mini jack or rca inputs?
If so, you could record your Music Minus parts directly, then play back to them using a headphone while recording oboe parts.
And if you have the 4-track model, I think it allows overdubs, so you could record piano, reassign the mic inputs to 2 other channels and record oboe along-side the piano so its not overwritten by oboe. The output levels can function as a mini mixer for overall balance.
If you are a Mac guy, even garage band could be helpful and you could drag in HQ MP3 conversion of the CD parts, then record oboe over that.
PC probably has something similar, but I'm all Mac these days so not up on Windows 7.
And at any rate, w/o going to all the entry-levl pro gear acquisition I described before, there are good quality small multi-track HD recorders by various manufacturers. Tascam is not bad these days. Alesis has some great things, too.
$1000 and up gets you into something useful for small projects, and by small I mean 8 tracks or less. And the nice thing is most of those come with a CD production capability and some automated mix down and effects on-board already. They will have phantom power ( 48 Volts running out the balanced inputs to power the condensor mics) and still the old-fashioned dynamic mics work fine.
Sorry for throwing out so many technical terms, but wiki and google are real blessings for quick reads, at least enough to demystify the terms and concepts.
I'd be tempted to go study electronics myself if I were not so busy having fun with the music. Only now and then does a technical problem really require digging deep into new territory.
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2010-12-29 21:22
Robin,
Attenuation is a built-in limiter on the mics they use to try and avoid clipped signal inputs (too much signal level causing distortion) on consumer-grade A/V recorders.
Perhaps you can give something like this a try:
........ Speaker..........Monitor..........Speaker
.............angled........................angled
...................to H4................to H4
.............................H4 (forgive dots... trying to format and losing it over spaces being contracted.)
Try your 90 degrees xy pattern.
The H4 should be at same height as speakers, or close to that.
The xy pattern uses /\ placement where pointed end of the inverted V is
toward the sound source. From a triangle of equal proportions using speakers and H4. I can only type a 60 degree image here, so 90 will be a more obtuse angle for the V.
The mics are producing a cardioid or hyper-cardiold pattern that overlap in space. That zone picks up the sound directly, and it tries to reject other sounds that are off-axis (out of the zone). If you can choose the mic pattern, try cardioid.
Wicki mic patterns and you will find nice graphs of the patterns. In reality they are 3 dimensional space concerns, and the graphs usually look 2 dim. But they are informative.
Play back computer at 75 - 80% of volume
Record just the accomp. adjusting input levels to high but not peaked and play back
Repeat until good strong non-peaked (distorted) piano is recorded.
Once happy with that, position yourself a couple feet behind the monitor mid field between the speakers.
Sorry if you have to move a desk out from the wall or something like that.
Experiment a few times and play back. You will find a suitable compromise in just a few tries.
Remember that fun I promised? This is it. Good luck.
Post Edited (2010-12-29 21:29)
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-29 23:14
HOLY COW, Craig! You really gave me enough stuff to study and experiment for a week!!! Thanks a million!
--- Yes, the H4n has multi-track recording, mixing and editing built-in and everything else you mentioned.
But now, please forgive me while I cuss and swear in Québécois military language.... my lap-top is running Win 7, 64-bit and the Yamaha drivers don't seem to like that, despite the fact that the documentation says they are built for it! No big deal: I have a 32-bit version.... just need to back-up my files, reformat, reinstall and restore... a new version of the 3 R's!!!
That and my desktop computer seems to have fried on me! So I have to spend the day tomorrow with Dell support to be sure the problem gets fixed before the extended warrantee runs out! Luckily, it is a business model with on-location service: they usually do their job.
I know enough about operating systems to prefer the Mac a million to one. I don't know about the hardware, but if it wasn't for the applications I already have for windows --- and the fact that the warrantees might give me new computers for free --- I'd buy a MacBook pro in a heartbeat!
Wish me luck!
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-30 20:30
Say, Craig, Mark and anyone else who might know,
Do you have any favourite MIDI editors/players.
Right now I'm using Finale 2008 (heavy and long to load or do anything) and Muse-Score Editor (does not easily change tempo during the same piece. A long time ago, I used Voyetra (so called sequencer).
I'm mostly interested in freeware (easier to remain legal), but searching for MIDI in freeware is giving LOTS of hits, most of them for ring-tones and such.
I don't mind editing MusicXML directly in a plain text editor: I do that to help with Muse-Score editor.
But if you have favourites of your own, I'd like to know. Working MIDI files for accompaniment seems easy enough, but its actually time consuming!
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2010-12-30 21:59
Robin,
Back to the entry-level pro topics.... Pro Tools' Midi editor is the best I've worked with.
Very graphical for note placement and duration, plus velocity, and audio volume and pan settings.
Other parameters, too, but these I use the most.
Otherwise, for software-only (no front-end hardware...) , check out Cakewalk or SONAR.
On the notation software side of midi, Sibelius seems to have a lot of control so the score and notation apply lots of things like dim., cresc., etc.
But since you mentioned midi editing as important to you, I will say, its extremely important to me, even as a part of the final product. Avoiding certain pitfalls, like quantizing (auto-aligning notes, lengths, velocities which impact attack and volume characteristics and risks becoming too robotic...) if left as a live part with minor tweaks the way I like to do it, its still a live human performance that might forgive a missed note, or too strong attack.
Placing importance on that would possibly negate my suggestion for a Tascam HD recorder, unless the midi is done, edited and happy before becoming committed to disk as a audio track.
I like the flexibility of being able to tweak things all through the mixing process, even selecting a diffferent VST (Synth sound) late in the process or even rerecording a different midi part. Preserving that flexibility is powerful for a project.
-Craig
Post Edited (2010-12-30 22:08)
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Author: RobinDesHautbois
Date: 2010-12-31 16:14
STRANGE THING, acoustics.... I really wish I could have taken courses during Engineering school, but it wasn't even offered in my program.
So I found a good place to put my microphone (recorder) relative to my computer so it doesn't have to blow my ear-drums out. If I sit close by and blow sideways away from the mic., the balance is great but of course I hear my mouth noise (licking reed, breathing and such): if I stand 6 feet away and play to the microphone, no mouth noise and I sound "foggier": you can tell I'm farther away.
Now the funny thing is that when I stand farther away (closer to the room walls) I hear the computer more loudly than when I sit close by!
Any comments/observations are very welcome! Especially comparisons between studio (home or other) recording and live recital/concert recording.
Robin Tropper
M.A.Sc., B.Mus., B.Ed.
http://RobinDesHautbois.blogspot.ca/music
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Author: Oboe Craig
Date: 2010-12-31 23:07
The room or recital hall really is part of the instrument.
Acoustically, its very difficult to EQ (equalize) the small rooms, especially symmetrical rectangular boxes which most rooms are.
EQ is used to suppress excess acoustical energy occurring naturally in the overtones of the acoustic space or to enrich those that get too suppressed. The room is a resonant chamber usually, and has its own fundamental pitch and overtones. The player has to work with that for good effect.
A thing called a pink noise generator is used to analyze the room and level it with EQ out so no overtones or pitches stand out too much. An acoustic treatment using special sound absorbing material can help 'reset' the room physically for a persistent solution.
This acoustical stuff is so sensitive that even moving a few inches around can change things considerably. You might be able to hear this by simply playing a note and slowly moving your oboe left and right. Even standing in one position, you will hear some notes become stronger or weaker as you move around.
In performance, you can find the sweet spots and use them to assist your projection. Try this with your eyes closed for a while, then once you find the thing I describe try it with eyes open.
Ok, so all this because with your interests and apptitudes and ability to afford it, you are really heading for some pro level gear, and these things will matter.
Post Edited (2010-12-31 23:10)
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