II. The Edit // JAN 18th
I hope you had an intensive first week of recording behind you, collecting different versions and takes of your very own playing in the workspace of our DAW!
After this live stream, you should be able to edit your recordings, thus creating a master take that inhabits the very best parts from all of your takes 
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Please use this thread if you have any questions concerning the workbook or general questions concerning The Edit!
Click here to access Session 2: The Edit // Jan 18th (Live!)
Find the other sessions here: Part 1 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Download the second workbook here
I will post the answers to the questionnaire on Jan 24th!
After the live stream, submit your assignments by replying to this thread!
Answers to this week's questionnaire:
1. Why do we group tracks?
We group tracks for two main reasons:
- When we record several tracks in mono to achieve a stereo sound (using one mic source per channel), we need to be able to quickly apply all the main editing techniques two both of the stereo channels at the same time. This will save in the editing process.
- Left and Right channel need to stay in their correct phase correlation. When L and R get "out of phase" several problems will occur: First, the track will sound weirdly shifted, as sound is coming into your ear from one side and out of your ear from the other side. Second, when summing in mono, your sound will become thin as due tue the phase shift frequencies might cancel each other out, resulting in a thin timbre.
2. Why should you make an edit plan?
We make an edit plan with our score to ensure maximum efficiency during editing, making the execution of the edit just a technical task. When you need to listen back to your whole take, deciding which measure to take from which recording, you are slowing down your editing process and will do edits simply because you can, not because you want to.
3. If you delete an item from your DAW, what happens to it?
Nothing, as the items in the DAW are just references to files on your hard drive. There is only one exception: Right after you stopped recording a take, Reaper will ask you whether to keep this recording or not. This is the only place where you can permanently delete a track from your hard drive.
Here is a link for a step by step instruction of how to implement 4-Point-Editing into Reaper, a workflow commonly used for classical music production but usually only to be found in dedicated DAWs like Sequoia or Pyramix.
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martin Hello Martin, this is my attempt in recording with a sweet sound. I used two active-Ribbon Microphones ( Superlux R102 ). They were placed in the way you showed in the last Workshop.
Mic 1 pointed directly to the string-holder.
Mic 2 doing the room in front of the guitar .Pan l and r with phase inverted on the right channel.
( as i mentioned before - when using two Rode-NT5 Mics in ORTF-Position - for my ears it sounds much to "digital", to "cold and accurate"
QUESTION: is it more useful to record with, for example, a pair of cardioid in ORTF position and doing much equalizing in the post production - or - to record with, for example, a pair of aktive Ribbon-Microphones ( can I also use them also in ORTF ? ) and get very warm sound without the cold high trebles ?
I recorded - inspired from Mirceas last lifestream - a Soundtest Version ( not edited ) of Giulianis OP.48 No. 5.
In Germany known as the "Harfenetüde".
QUESTION: What ist you opinion about the sound ? What would you change
I like the sound of old Bream and Williams recordings - for example:
https://open.spotify.com/album/3CO5Ky04TRewuU5lUjyMJ4?si=7v2BRp1jQUa5Ccxo1oD3WgThank
or:
https://open.spotify.com/album/5m1bfDda38iw8mbYKCgzue?si=n2OqnjAqSWOM6OQHAV8dbwyou so much.
Thank you so much.
Best Regards
Olli
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Olli I do like your sound /tone production and execution. To me you are quite accomplished. I also love the sound of Bream on the recording you link to.
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Philip dear Philip, thank you very much for your comment
. On this bream record, there are many, many cuts we can hear. Anyway, this is one of my all time favorite Albums. -
martin Dear Martin, dear community, in a german internet-forum i read about some people who opened the Superlux R102 Ribbon microphones to remove the foam beside the Membranes to get a little more "air"... I tried this also and made this final recording of Johann Sebastian Bachs "Präludium" BWV 999. I will use this to work on at your great recording workshop part 3 on Monday evening
. In recording workshop part 2 you showed this opportunity to make recordings using those bi-directional (figure8) polar pattern microphones ... to give more "room" or "air" to the recordings.
I tried this also and want to share this holy experience...
Here it is:
- mono recording using active ribbon 30cm distance to the guitar string holder
- mono ribbon + second ribbon ( left and right inverted ) ...three channels mixed to stereo as learned in your workshop.
Best Regards
Olli
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Olli Wonderful, love the enthusiasm from all of you, this is so cool to see you develop over the course of this academy lessons! Love it! Now let's dig into your recordings!
1) The Harfenetüde is at the moment a little bit hard to follow as the L and R are out of phase. Try to be very sensitive about the sensation in your ears, at the moment it feels a little bit like sound is coming in from one side and gets pulled out from the other! This is caused by the side channels of the MS-Setup! Try reducing the side signals and everything will be probably fine!2) Your Question: It's always best to get the sound you want to have from the beginning, less processing means higher audio quality and less digital artifacts!
3) Mic Modding, this is getting really advanced now, haha! The stereo setup you can try "Blumlein Setup" which uses to figure of 8 mics!
4) I think I need to invest in a couple of nice ribbin mics, haha! That is really a lovely sound! Try to get the capsules as close together as possbile, this will guarantee phase coherency and makes the sound more glued together! -
martin said:
3) Mic Modding, this is getting really advanced now, haha! The stereo setup you can try "Blumlein Setup" which uses to figure of 8 mics!I´ll try after receiving the needed mic-stands !
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martin Dear Martin, i could not wait for the Microphone-Holder to buy and arrive - so I build a custom holder on my own.
The following recording is done with Ribbon-Blumlein-Setup
- Channel 1 -top Microphone- turned 45` to left- balance full left
- Channel 2 -bottom Microphone- turned 45` to right- balance full right
- Distance approximate 50cm in front of the guitar
- the guitar-sound-hole is at exact hight between both microphones, but not pointing to the center of them - it´s pointing to the top of the microphone stand.....maybe with 45` upside...trying to get fine sound without without "dröhnen" or "wummern".
- it`s not edited - just made for soundcheck.
Question: Do you hear any strange things (except me playing guitar
)? If everything is ok - this will be my recording setup for future recordings
. Thank you very much for you advices
Best Regards
Olli
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Olli Excellent Sound! Damn, gotta get those ribbon mics!
(btw. I will get probably a pair of those, they seem to be very well priced for their quality ... but you gotta assemble them on your own! https://www.bumblebeepro.com/)
The only thing which is a little bit unfortunate is the difference between the left and the right channel. This might get solved by searching for another position in the room, but I suspect that the ribbons just have a slightly different polar pattern for different frequencies, which makes sometimes certain notes jump slightly from left to right. You can hear that especially in the bass frequencies.But I have to admit, ribbon mics have always been kind to guitars: Giving this natural body and warmth to your timbre while slightly rolling of the top end, masking squeaks and nail sounds. Choosing the right microphone is one of the decision that gets overlooked very often, since most of the time we just work with what we got!
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Here's my version of Mertz Adagio in E Minor. You can find the piece and performance by Peter Graneis here on Tonebase.
Microphone is in the same position as with the recording of Greensleeves.
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Philip I also like your recording. It sounds with a good Tone production. What kind of Microphones did you use - what distance ?
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Philip Thank you for that recording! If I remember correctly you used the Behringer C-2 which suffer from quite a high noise output! We will look in the upcoming live stream to tackle different kind of noises, but microphone noise is not the easiest one to get rid off!
Besides that, the performance sounds wonderfully natural! And I especially like the drama of that piece!
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Olli Thanks Olli :-) My microphones are Behringer C-2. I place them approx. 40 cm away from my playing position. I'll probably buy the Line Audio OM1 and do some more serious recordings. The Behringers are too cheap. You get what you pay for.
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martin Thank you :-) It's a fairly simple piece that took me a couple of days to learn. But there's actually quite a few things that I can do to improve my playing and musicality.
Looking forward to the next live stream.
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Philip Sounds wonderful. Beautifully played. This piece is a favorite of mine as it is one of the first I learned when I started taking lessons. I don't play it nearly as well as you.
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Hello to Martin and to all the other community members! I am rather new here, but here is my first try...; hope it works ;-)
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Thomas Hi Thomas, I would be interested what setup you used, since it's clearly a stereo recording!
It is remarkable how well your sound source is placed in the middle of the panaroma stage! Usually, a mid-centered recording tends to suffer from a boominess of the sound hole, but your overall timbre sounds very natural to me! Congratulation to this wonderful first recording! We can probably elevate this recording by reducing the noise level with some of Reapers built in capabilities!
Oh, and you implemented a beautiful fade in the beginning and the ending of that recording, awesome!
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martin Hi Martin, thanks a lot for this great course and your kind reply! I am glad you liked the recording and I am looking forward to elevate it with your great support.
Setup:
I used a "Torres-Copy-Guitar", a H4nPro with the internal mics (90 degree - position) and placed it as you suggested a little bit to the right and pointing towards the bridge from a little bit above. The distance to the guitar was about 50 - 60 cm. Therefore I used a desktop-tripod on my desk. Then I recorded the stereo track and "splitted" it to mono-tracks in reaper.
In your livestream yesterday you mentioned "denoising", but that was a little bit too fast for me to understand; do you have any suggestion (sorry about that word ;-)), what I should try out?
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martin said:
Try reducing the side signals and everything will be probably fine!- In Harfenetüde i pushed the side signals + 5 DB and reduced the mono signal - 5DB.
- In "Präludium" i changed absolutely nothing before hitting the rendering-button and used to pre-ampflificate both microphones with the same settings. ( 2 o´clock ).
Next week i´ll try to order another Microphone holder to put both microphones in the same position over each other ( like you did ...) hopefully the "phase coherency" will then be correct ?
Thank you very much for your advices - Ribbon mikes are awesome - i love this sweet sound so much
(And !!! Using the "Superlux Ribbon R102" -active Microphones (they need 48V Phantom-Power)... the sound is kind of "warm and vintage" but the rustle is ( for me ) absolutely ok - comparing to Rode NT-5 and the T-Bone SC450 - let noise on NT-5, then comes R102, and then the SC450)
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*less
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Answers to this week's questionnaire:
1. Why do we group tracks?
We group tracks for two main reasons:
- When we record several tracks in mono to achieve a stereo sound (using one mic source per channel), we need to be able to quickly apply all the main editing techniques two both of the stereo channels at the same time. This will save in the editing process.
- Left and Right channel need to stay in their correct phase correlation. When L and R get "out of phase" several problems will occur: First, the track will sound weirdly shifted, as sound is coming into your ear from one side and out of your ear from the other side. Second, when summing in mono, your sound will become thin as due tue the phase shift frequencies might cancel each other out, resulting in a thin timbre.
2. Why should you make an edit plan?
We make an edit plan with our score to ensure maximum efficiency during editing, making the execution of the edit just a technical task. When you need to listen back to your whole take, deciding which measure to take from which recording, you are slowing down your editing process and will do edits simply because you can, not because you want to.
3. If you delete an item from your DAW, what happens to it?
Nothing, as the items in the DAW are just references to files on your hard drive. There is only one exception: Right after you stopped recording a take, Reaper will ask you whether to keep this recording or not. This is the only place where you can permanently delete a track from your hard drive.
Here is a link for a step by step instruction of how to implement 4-Point-Editing into Reaper, a workflow commonly used for classical music production but usually only to be found in dedicated DAWs like Sequoia or Pyramix.
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Hi Martin
Here is my attempt. I've not had a lot of time this week so to simplify things I have recorded a simple piece by Tarrega with a AB structure with both A & B sections repeated (i.e. AABB). I did 3 takes and use the last one as the base for the final output. I then replaced the first A with material from take 1 and replaced the first bar of the first B with material from take 2. I didn't have time to pick out the 'bad bits' of take 3 and replace them with 'good bits' from the other takes so the final outcome is probably not as good as the original take 3 but at least I practised the editing process. I'll keep practising this as I'll be recording some videos for our local guitar club next week for our now 'virtual' monthly meeting. Hopefully I can apply some of the lessons from this course.
Thanks Derek
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Derek PS Microphone is an 'Apex' large diaphragm condenser mic routed into a Behringer Tube Ultragain pre-amp and then into a Behringer U-PHORIA UM2 audio interface
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Derek Awesome, practicing is what makes us better! Since we are only working with digital sound files, you can always come back and redo if you are not satisfied with the recording!
But what you should take of are the input levels of your recording, we can clearly hear some clipped peaks which cause distortions. I am not sure whether you clipped while recording (bad!) or you clipped while rendering (not so bad!). When you record, try to land with your peaks between -12db and -6db, this will give us enough headroom to work with in post production!
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martin hi Martin. I think the clipped notes were in take 1 and I adjusted the levels for the later takes. I foolishly used the section from take 1 to edit into take 3. The position of my computer monitor and my playing position made it a it tricky to see the levels (I need better glasses!) So I need to sort that out for the next recording. Thank you for your time
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Derek Yes, mixing takes with different noise and input levels is a very tricky task resulting in a lot of post processing which is why I actually never do that (because laziness, haha)!
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So, here's my recording. I've opted for Landslag I.
I'm playing on a Yamaha C40 II (saving big for an upgrade BTW) with Savarez 510-ARP Alliance Cantiga Premium medium tension strings. Recorded with a Zoom H4n Pro about 40 cm from the guitar.
I messed up quite some takes (10 or so) in rather diverse ways. Tempo, too many repetitions and some foul notes. But decided to use them anyway as a proper challenge
I find that there's quite some noise in the recording and still have some issues getting the recording level high enough. Some transitions were also quite tricky. Enough room for improvement.
