Anyway... - AndyR Original

[AndyR]

Mine's kind of over the stairs

The cupboard under the stairs has too much decorating cr@p in it and it would be far to small to get anything decent going anyway. However, when we've finished the decorating and have moved the cr@p somewhere, I do recommend that we use it as the guest room...

[Oldrottenhead]

mine is a bit too small for that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGZWl_RESJw

[AndyR]

[henwrench]

Seriously good. I mean seriously fucking good. 'Nuff said...

                                                           henwrench

[DeificDave]

Excellent, great dynamics

[AndyR]

Seriously good. I mean seriously fucking good. 'Nuff said...

                                                           henwrench

Many thanks.

You helped in a way - it's not "no reverb", but it's pretty damn close for me. I thought of you as I was trying to make the thing usable (this was before the organ). I tried all sorts of reverbs, none of them gave me the right mood. And then I thought "Henny". I couldn't bring myself to cut the reverb altogether. But I went for a really tight Plate, no early reflections, just a smidgeon. Without the organ you can hear it, but with the organ it's gone.

I might look into this no reverb vibe again!

[henwrench]

I might look into this no reverb vibe again!

    Yes. It's the answer. It's the room you're in. 

                                                                  henwrench

[AndyR]

I hear what you're saying. And I do like the effect in this case...

But I have two problems I usually face:

One relates to "the room you're in" - what about when you haven't got access to the room you want? I certainly haven't got that at the moment . I love the little room for being in there and getting stuff done. But I am not in love with it acoustically - I spend most of my time with a mic trying to exclude as much of the room as possible. The noise this room makes is "he recorded it with a cassette player sat on his bed in his bedsit" - I've been trying to get away from that sound for years!!!

The second is that I've started to use reverb for "mood" - especially on the vocal. I only discovered this the other day. I found that I can use reverb to subtly enhance (or f**k up!) the emotion that I was trying to force in the listener when I sang it. It seems that you can make it seem warmer, colder, whatever...

A third issue ("better put some reverb on... sh1t, can't hear it! Better put some more on..."), I think I'm almost over now!

At least I've finally managed to do one that proves to me "less is more". I've been using that notion and reaching for it for some time (together with an equal and opposite "when you really want the listener to hear some reverb - don't p1ss around, PILE it on!!" )

[Hilary]

I spend most of my time with a mic trying to exclude as much of the room as possible.

Have you thought about one of those screens you can get to fit around the mics - they're about £70 on ebay - cheaper than moving house.

[AndyR]

I've actually got the vocal mic situation pretty much sussed now. I did look at those portable screens, but decided to try "other methods" (mainly because the room is hard enough to get into anyway). Now, I occasionally use a DIY method - drape a nice (er, used) soft duster over the back of the big condensor mic . Seems to work pretty well for that mic.

It's the mics I'm using for acoustic instruments at the moment. If I sing as well, they pick up the room reverb on the vocal (and quite often a large proportion of the performance itself). What I really need to be able to do is remove my head!! (Vocals in one room, hands and guitar in another).

Incidentally Henny, I'm using SM57s for the guitars at the moment (I picked these because they can handle a resonator's output better than my big condensor) - I get HUGE amounts of hiss when I use two of them on the guitar. I've tracked a lot of it down in signal chains and eliminated it, but there still seems to be much more inherent hiss on an SM57 than the condensor (Rode NT1000). I've never used them before - is this just a natural state of affairs?