Lexicon Omega Recording Studio - Guitars101

Mishar McLeud · 09-20-2007, 05:53 AM

I'll put it straight - me and my bandmate want to record our album at home rather than paying money we don't have for studio hours, so we already got BOSS BR600 8-track which is awesome for everything instrumental, and a professional mike - but for some reason when recording vocals directly on the multitrack it sounds very meh. So what we were thinking is to get the following recording studio (aka external super-soundcard) which promises crystal-clear recording, plug the multitrack with pre-recorded instrumentals along with microphone and record simultaneously. Here's the link to the product:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/produ...io?sku=245505X

It's relatively cheap, especially if buying from musiciansfriend, and also comes with Cubase software.

Just asking your opinion - do you think it's worth it? Or there are other ways to improve recording of vocals?

Goport · 09-21-2007, 11:57 PM

The Boss should be good enough to get clear uncompressed signals for vocals. so it is more likely that the acoustics in your room or the mic is compromising the audio quality.

What microphone have you bought? if it is a condenser and you normally use dynamic mics then you have to adapt the way you sing to the mic. You definitely need a pop shield and the foam windscreen cover. ideally you should be about 9" away for vocals closer for whispers/quiet singers and further away for the loud shouty bits.

Also you will probably need a seperate preamp, something like http://www.zzounds.com/item--PRSTUBEPRE should do the trick. A tube pre allows you to add warmth and thickness to vocals or anything else you record with the microphone. Even a cheap ass little Behringer ultragain 100 does a fine job.

Lastly the environment you are recording in is also going to play a major factor. if your recording room has no acoustic absorbers the result will be very "boxy" because the sound will bounce all over the place. Proper acoustic tiles cost a fair bit so you might want to hang some blankets up around the room. Even things like a settee or a bed help.

If you already knew everything I have just written then sorry. But for what it is worth, the boss is a very capable unit and if you are able to record direct with instruments and get a good sound then you should also be able to get a good sound using a mic. That indicates to me that is either a setup problem or something wrong with the mic or room. buying a new recording solution will not necessarily cure the problem.

And its easy to screw up - I recently did a song and the vocal was muffled and horrible. I later found out what the problem was. I use the Omni setting (making the mic very directional) - when the mic is sat in the cradle and the windscreen is on it is hard to know which is the front and which is the back. And, yes, I sang the whole tune into the dead point of the mic. I spent 3 hours trying to get the vocal to sound good and didn't have a clue what had happened.

As for the Lexicon set up, at that price I would buy it anyway, even if it was just for fooling around with. A decent soundcard usually costs more than that, but considering you are getting a version of cubase too ... well you really can't go wrong.

Mishar McLeud · 09-30-2007, 04:07 PM

Okay Goport, you rock and thanks for such a thorough detailed reply. It took me awhile to come back to you on this but that's coz I wanted to try your tips first. Me and my bandmate ended up bying Behringer pre-amp (not so much cheap ass - 110 bucks in the local store but hey, it's Newport UK, not Newport US! Everything is so god-damn overpriced here, and zzounds.com or musiciansfriend.com don't ship over here so meh, at least we got it). I've read the reviews on this pre-amp and while loads of people were complaining about it being too noisy, some others wrote it only is when you don't know how to use it eg pull input/gain further than 1 o'clock, so we decided to give it a try anyway and get something like STUDIO PROJECTS VTB1 later. You know, that little Behringer Ultragain improved my guitar tone so much straight from a box that we didn't doubt for a second it was worth every penny. Took abit longer to find the best settings for vocals, but we managed to get an amazing clean sound - also thanks to getting a pop-shield and moving the recording equipment to my bedroom which looks like a vocal booth in a way (thick carpet, loads of blankets, curtains, and the bed itself). So here it is - one of our songs, I uploaded it as an audio on youtube so it would save you downloading -

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Hh9QW2p1pR8

It might need some more mixing/mastering but I was just so much impressed with this pre-amp and how much it helped to improve the quality of the recording. Thanks again - I owe you one

, and hope you like the song too!

Goport · 10-03-2007, 01:55 AM

Cool - Sorry I didn't read you location more thoroughly. I just glanced and sll I saw was New South wales

I am at work at the moment but I look forward to checking this out when I get home.

Mishar McLeud · 10-03-2007, 12:14 PM

Haha I'm happy it's South Wales anyway, it's lovely here. No sheep jokes though

!

And for when you're back, check also my bands myspace at http://www.myspace.com/seclusionovernight - we recorded one more track since my last reply. Hope you had a kick-ass day at work!

Goport · 10-03-2007, 02:07 PM

well I am an old fart - this metal thing is not really my thing but I liked the songs. The Flight of the dragonfly is a cool instrumental type tune. the vocal ones are better - there is some good ideas in there, especially the way the vocals work together. and the recording sounds very clean indeed. what's great about this is I can hear you are a young band and you are well up for it. And you welsh have a knack for a different enunciation on the vocals which is very classy. The manic and Lost Prophets (poppy I know) both have used thir accents for identity and it really does sound different and fresh.

Honest observations now.

Tighten up the bass and guitars - this sort of music seems to work better with crisp bass echoing the more heavy and defined guitar parts.

Drums. Make them more prominent in the mix. They will drive the song, giving it impetus and a feeling of motion. Also bring the drums up to define the bass/guitars on the aforementioned heavier passages.

Also think about exporting the finished tracks into cubase or similar so you can master the overall mix. Apply a global vst like ozone to add a slight touch of reverb and loudness/tape saturation emulation to give it a more lively feel.

Also - and this is more for slow time reading I have put together a little EQ reference guide over at guitarblast (hope the admin don't mind the link) http://www.guitarblast.com/showthrea...home-5933.html - this is just a pdf of typical EQ tips and reference material. I hope it helps.

And finally - well done. because what you have so far achieved is very impressive and you will improve in leaps and bounds.

Mishar McLeud · 10-05-2007, 03:58 AM

Lol I thought ericgt was admin of both of the sites! But thanks for the link, I'll register over there and get the manual. EQ improves a great deal of the sound, from my experience with media players, but I wasn't sure if I should buy something for my home studio, like BOSS Equalizer, or just do this in a software. I just got a Cubase as well, so I'll see what I can do with it (especially that there's a sticky-thread/tutorial in this forum).

And again - thanks for the tips and songs review, it's really encouraging

Goport · 10-05-2007, 03:14 PM

lol!! I dunno what screamo is but I like what you are doing

Mishar McLeud · 10-10-2007, 02:59 PM

Alright, so I thought I had the recording/mixing thing figured until we moved on to more complex songs.

Just a very lame question - am I supposed to bounce the final track using the build-in feature in the digital recorder, or I'd rather export all tracks in sepparate and then post-process, level and mix them in some software like Cubase

?

These are two of our new songs on myspace for the reference -

http://www.myspace.com/seclusionovernight

In the "Layers" song - in the chorus I use a second, more distorted guitar which added to the volume and everything, but after then follows a more mellow bridge, and when I cut out the lead guitar it created such an awkward gap I spend ages trying to figure out what to do about it, coz increasing the volume of the rythm guitar made it even worse! I had to add a harmonizing bit on the background, but it's not what I originally wanted, even if it kinda worked.

In the "Dragonfly" song.. wow that one was truly *a* bitch. I can't hear a damn thing in my headphones while mixing, and sometimes it turns out totally weird like I think my voice is too loud so i turn it down to what seems to be a normal level, but when I export it to a final track I could barely hear them at all! Do I need studio monitors for mixing? Then obviously the nature of the vocals. That's your screamo haha but as much as it's down to singers abilities such vocals are always filtered - but since I don't have any software and I'm mixing it all in the Boss multitrack all I could do was to run my mike thru tubescreamer with the gain turned to 6 o'clock. It did make it sound ear-piercing as it was meant to, but however it sounds abit out of place, maybe coz it's more muddy comparing to the rest of the tracks. Maybe what I'm trying to say is, it stands out abit too much, like it's a sepparate track being played, but when I tried to level it down it would just drown in the mix and wouldn't sound 'parallel' to the overal mix.

Ugh, whole two days playing around and getting annoyed with the results

. I still think they're much better than what I would have done without your original tips, but I hope you might know how I could improve the quality even more, regarding what I said in this post.