Recording is a whole other beast

September 4, 2010 at 5:50 AM

Today was my first day to record... I've never done anything like this before except for tape tests in highschool. I dove right in and got up to the 2nd variation and played back what I had done. I'm telling you, I wanted to melt into the floor! It sounded fine to me, maybe a few intonation mistakes but, but the microphone picked up things I HAVE NEVER HEARD in my entire life. Playing live is well and dandy, but recording live music is a whole other beast. There are angles to worry about. certain ways to hold the bow and basically my technique had to change, I can no longer play in the way I would in a concert hall, I have to play quieter so as to not max out the decibil thingy... I'm very new at this and it's interesting. So basically today I only worked on things that would improve the tone of my recording. I worked on melodic pieces such as the meditation and Salut d'amour and I'm happy with the Elgar, but the meditation which is my favorite sappy piece needed something more to make it come alive. I'll post up an excerpt of the Elgar when I figure out how to upload things. Tomorrow I'm going to try and record the theme of the Last rose of summer, and maybe the second variation if I can get it the way I like it.

Vernon

From Anne-Marie Proulx
Posted on September 5, 2010 at 8:21 PM

Hi, happy that you discovered recording! Personally, I had a strong reaction to never do it again when I tried to record myself with my computer's sound recorder for fun... Wach... it was my sound but all distorted with no harmonics at all and many buzz because the recorder couldn't take the sound sometimes... Though I do record myself sometimes, but just to get stressed and simulate an audience (nerve managements). I deleate all of them after lol...

Good luck in finding a good setup and courage, it will work!!!

Anne-Marie

From Casey Jefferson
Posted on September 6, 2010 at 5:35 AM

Before any long session recordings, long session sound check and rehearsal are equally as important in the recording procedures.

Most $10 mics or built in sound card will not do your sound's justice. Distorted sound also means dynamic levels are being cut off (input level goes beyond the level the computer can translate). You gotta get a good recording device to start with. Zoom H4 or H4N are good device to start with and not awfully expensive, you can even hook it up with your PC and use it as soundcard.

Always try to play the loudest passage to check if it'll hit the peak of the input level (clipping, or you'll see the recording meter goes full bar), lower the input level until it reach about 80% when you hit the loudest part.

From Pauline Lerner
Posted on September 6, 2010 at 8:54 AM

The first time a friend and I made a tape together, we listened to it and decided, "Destroy all copies of this tape." You have nowhere to go but up.

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Recording is a whole other beast

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