I. The First Steps // JAN 11th
Welcome fellow tonebase academists! 
This is the place where we will talk about the first lesson of our recording course. Please use this thread if you have any questions concerning the workbook or general questions concerning the first steps!
Click here to access Session 1: The First Steps // Jan 11th (Live!)
Find the other sessions here: Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Make sure to download our DAW of choice using the link below:
The DAW is free to use for 60 days. After that, you can still always prolong the evaluation period. Though a little bit daunting at first, the routing is pretty straight forward once we get accustomed to follow the signal flow!
Download the first workbook here
I will post the answers to the questionnaire on Jan 17th!
After the livestream, submit your assignments by replying to this thread!
Answers to the questionnaire:
What is a DAW?
- digital audio workstation like Reaper, a place where you can record, listen, and edit audio that is either being recorded or imported. Items in the arranger window reference files on your hard drive, so working within the DAW is (generally) non-destructive.
What is the difference between a USB-Microphone compared to a microphone that is connected to an audio interface?
- An audio interface converts analog voltage into discrete digital values for recording and vice versa for monitoring and playback. While an audio interface requires a microphone to record changes in air pressure, an USB-Mic usually comes already equippmed with some kind of AD/DA converter (aka audio interface). Since a computer usually can handle only one interface at a time, professionals use audio interfaces that have a multitude of digital and analog input and output channels.
What describes the Polar Pattern of a Microphone?
- A microphone's polar pattern describes its sensitivity for sounds arriving from different angles. The most popular polar patterns for music are cardioid, omnidirectional and figure of eight, though every polar pattern or directionality is being heavily used in professional productions in order to to achieve either spaciousness and enveleopment or speration and directivity.
See you tomorrow for "The Edit"! 
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I'm really bummed I won't be able to make this as I'll be at work. I'm actually struggling with a recording issue right now. I'm running a yeti x microphone in my MacBook Pro and trying to use an iPhone 11 as a camera using the epiccam application for video. It works through OBS but for some reason the recording quality is very poor. I'm not sure if it's the settings or the app. When I try to select the camera in iMovie or Final Cut Pro x I am getting the spinning wheel of death. Super frustrating. Anyway looking forward to watching the video and perhaps joining in for future classes
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David Chidsey Hi David! Just wanted to point out something (that you probably already know
but here goes): although being there for the livestreams in real time is certainly a lot of fun, you don't necessarily have to watch them right then and there. It's perfectly possible to watch them at some other time during the week and still fully participate in the Recording Course, by sending in the assignments and taking part in forum discussion.
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Hi
I've got Cakewalk and Audacity that I've used (just beginner stuff). Should I install Reaper?
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Mehmet Hi! I'd recommend trying Reaper, since it's the main software we'll be using for the workshop, it's free to use for 60 days and it's lightweight! We will covering general concepts as well, so the principles will apply for any DAW, but especially when we're talking about the editing workflow, it might be quite Reaper-specific.
I've worked with almost every DAW there is, if you know one very well, chances are that other DAWs work similar. But as I said, we will be using Reaper for this workshop, so I'd recommend installing it! -
martin thanks. I'll have it installed.
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Hey Martin, looking forward to the course, not sure how I will go, have gone out to buy a mic and down loaded the Reaper / DAW, will probably have an abundance of questions as this is totally new for me, as well as being technically challenged!
none the less I will endeavour , ciao
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Deb Covell That's awesome, of course I will try to cover all the questions from the live chat and those here in the forum. Just make sure that you install the latest drivers for your microphone (btw., what mic is it?), because it might be quite impossible for me to find a solution for every individual computer and driver issue, haha. But jokes aside, I'll try my very best to get you started
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I am running Reaper on a Linux machine. In setting up preferences I don't have ASIO as an option for Audio System. I've selected ALSA as that show my USB mic (Tascam D-05X). I also have JACK as an option though I don't really understand what JACK is. Perhaps you could explain. I also have Impro-Visor as Linux equivalent to Band in a Box (I'm dabbling in jazz guitar) but don't really use it as the synth is so rubbish. I believe I may be able to use Jack to interface to Reaper to use its synth options but don't know how. Is this possible?
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Mark Edwards Jack is quite a powerful internal routing matrix in Linux as far as I know, but I have NEVER worked either with Linux and thus Jack (only heard in a couple of workshops where we talked about immersive 3d audio, that was complicated enough, haha).
I am quite optimistic that you can get Reaper to work with Jack and send the inputs of your microphone into reaper and then send them back out to the output of your interface to monitor everything, but since I have never worked either with Linux or Jack, I cannot give you any details about that. I know that Jack is specifically made to be a component in a pro-audio/music creation environment, so it will work ... somehow
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Greetings everyone. Do you think it would suitable to use Shure SM58 mic? It's a dynamic mic and I understand it's more suitable for vocals, where you can put it really close to your mouth if necessary. It looks I got it picking the level from acoustic guitar more or less OK, and I'm routing it through Line 6 POD HD 500X (do not anything else able to work as audio interface), but wondering how crucial it's whether you have a dynamic or condenser mic to pick an acoustic sound?
Another question - I have a classical-style acoustic-electric guitar (wide neck, nylon strings), so it can be plugged and recorded in line. Is it reasonable to record it that way for this course, or using a mic and following "acoustic" setup is essential?
Thanks in advance.-
Slavik Lavryk Dynamic Mics are typically used for louder sound sources (the sound pressure phyiscally moves a piece of magnet which then induces a voltages. A piece of magnet is waaaay heavier than the membrane of a condenser membrane, thus the difference in use cases). You could something like a tritone fethead, an inline mic pre amp to boost your signal coming out of your dynamic mic: https://www.thomann.de/de/tritonaudio_fethead.htm?gclid=CjwKCAiAi_D_BRApEiwASslbJ9Zpq4nySCUpyNGSHIbF319RJbY93UJDS4nXTXZf-VGjNAFDYe_tqBoCHhUQAvD_BwE
The sound coming from the resonating body will be hugely different from the DI-sound created by the piezo pickups. But nothing stops you to record both signals and mix them in post production! Typically, piezo pickups are more for amplification purposes as they are quite feedback resistant!
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Hi, Martin. I won´t be able to join today -since I´m still at work-, but I´m really interested in the course. I´m new to (and a bit scared by) this recording world , and this is my question at this point: can I use my Zoom H4 as a microphone? Thank you!
By the way, I¨m not sure I´ll be able to keep pace with the course. We shall see..
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Igor You can watch the recording of the livestream, it will be available like every other livestream we did, so it's no problem at all if you cannot make it today!
The Zoom H4 is an excellent choice, you can use it either as a mobile recorder or as an audio interface to directly record into your computer! I believe Mircea is using a H4 for his live streams as well!
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Oh, thank you for answering so fast!
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Hi. I have a Samson Meteor USB mic. It’s active as input device on my laptop. Reaper says: no ASIO drivers found!
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joosje look for Roberts answer in the General Rules Thread:
https://guitar-community.tonebase.co/t/y4htrnx/read-me-first-rules-faq-for-the-recording-course
Here we are talking about using a USB-Mic without dedicated ASIO drivers! You probably will need a piece of software called www.asio4all.com!But maybe - as you plug in your USB-Mic - it got automatically selected as new default sound card, you can try to select DirectSound or WaveOut, then it's possible that your Mic will show up under input devices!
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martin thanks Martin. I fixed it myself during yesterday’s lesson ;-)) I made the first soundtrack.
i did miss some info though. About suggested equipment. RE the workbook: The focusrite comes in a price range 130- 3000 euro. You suggest the 2i2 does the job, correct? (It seems to have a USB connection.)
You mention a XLR cable for the connection. What kind of cable do you mean? (Too much choice at Thomann website.) Is it to connect the mics? Or the focusrite to the PC.?
C, it’s not so simple, if you have no technical experience or knowledge at all....
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joosje Wow, awesome, I am glad to hear that! Did you use the Asio4All driver? Because a couple of users are experiencing similar issues with USB-Mics, if this driver seems to help I will edit my FAQs for the workshop!
I have been using the Focusrite 2i2 since 10 years and am very happy with it, however you cannot use the Samsong USB-Mic with it, you would need a condenser mic (or a dynamic, though I would recommend a condenser mic) like a AKG 451 (https://www.thomann.de/de/akg_c451b.htm?glp=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiArvX_BRCyARIsAKsnTxMxNJlyUVQZ12SCIOSdMtJ5RNYZhKpcMMGnbVXPw9aTWy5x9oqBizgaAqkmEALw_wcB) or a Line Audio CM4, the one i have been talking about in yesterday's live stream (http://www.lineaudio.se/CM4.html). This would add to the 139€ (?) that you're spending on the interface.
Yes, there is an abundance of different cables out there, I like the cables by "Sommer" a lot, since they are very easy to coil and flexible (https://www.thomann.de/de/sommer_cable_stage_22_sg0q_10m.htm) -
martin tanks a lot Martin. You’re a great help. Yes , the Asio4all works. I had to activate in the settings: the mic as input device and pc’s altek as output device.
I am searching for the mics: the AKG is quite expensive, you need 2! Would this be a good alternative. https://www.thomann.de/de/rode_nt_5.htm?
the lineaudio c4, €139 https://www.nohypeaudio.com/lineaudioproducts.htm
Is it worthwhile to pay double price for AKG ?
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joosje The Rode NT-5 are nice and an excellent start! I actually sneaked those into an orchestral recording as well, because I just needed all the mics I could get for my 32-channel recording
If you could get the lineaudio somehow, they would be definitely worth their price! (If you're based in Germany, you can get them through https://www.ths-studio.de/cm4-nieren-kondensator-mikrofon.html).
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martin ok, & lineaudio is affordable. They’re very small? 77mm x 20mm. I can get them from Belgian site. I live in 2 places: Prague and Belgium. So I’ll order them when I’m back in BE. In the meantime work with the USB mic
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joosje Awesome, these are great mics! My Sennheisers are about the same size, small mics are very good if you do commercial work with a professional video crew (because they HATE seeing microphones, haha). Furthermore, you can try different stereo setups, sometimes microphones are just too big to use i.e. the ORTF stereo setup.
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What is the best position for microphones to record in stereo? I have an pair of AKG P170. Thanks
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Joao Franco If you have stereo bar, you can try the ORTF-Setup: The capsules are supposed to be spaced 17,5cm apart with a 110° angle. I'd go for something around 1m away from your guitar, slightly off axis pointing towards your bridge.
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Hi Mircea,
Please provide me the link of the video tutorials regarding the "Rercording for Guitarists Course".
Thanks,
Ricardo Paz
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
