Recording guitar LIVE with PC MIC?!?!?

[kewlpack]

Hey guys,

I was puzzling over what to do (because the line out thing is NOT the way to go)... and I really wanted to jam... so...

I dug around in my closet and found an old Boom-style PC microphone ($25 best buy)... I figured - eh... why not?! :roll: So I plugged it in and recorded acoustic and lead (awful LOL) scratch tracks with it... This is really thrown together in like 20 minutes or something. I had to play everything whisper quiet because everyone is in bed! So all things considered - I was suprised! The sound is actually FINE for what I had! LOL :lol:

Applied a little mixing from the HomeRecording BBS forum methods and voila! Check it out - what do you think of the overall sound? Remember just an old cheapo boom mic (teeny thing).

http://www.kewlpack.com/misc_files/music/SomewhereInTheMist.mp3

EDIT: I redid the Lead track with the little mic and it did not clip this time. I think the lead tone is clipping because of the mic being too close to the amp or it's too sensitive and the moving air is causing unwanted distortion... have to fiddle with the positioning. Oh ya, I was changing pickup selections here and there to hear the differences.

Pardon the playing, I was really just throwing it down improv and rough. Mostly I am posting because I was completely surprised that it worked! :D
~A~

[Crunchyriff]

Kewl- if you are unaware of this: remember that recording in the digital domain is a totally different beast than analog. Whereas going up to +3 to +5db past 0db on transients was the norm (and on certain mic preamps was a great technique to drive the channel and analog tape); you cannot get away with any of this for digital recording (whether on tape or HDD)- 'cause digital clipping is NOT a beautiful thing. It's monkey bare-bottom ugly!! :shock:

Your transient managment will have to be priority #1 so as to NEVER clip the circuit. Get this under control, and get used to this technique, and the rest will follow. I haven't listened to your clips yet- just keying off your remarks about what you've heard of it.

[kewlpack]

Uh... you just went clear over my head bro. Can you simplify what you said there??? :shock:

~A~

[stephen]

I think he said, "its monkey bare-butt ugly!" Did that help?


:lol: I'm sorry, I couldnt resist!

bad webmaster, bad webmaster!

[Crunchyriff]

Kewl-

Sorry..not to bury you with tech-talk. (I'm not much of a techie, either, to be honest..)

See, in the days before digital, you could push the gain on the channels pretty hot- hotter than 0db in fact; and one of the great tricks of old was to:

A. drive the old mic pre's pretty hard

and/or

B. actually get from +3db up to +5db peaking signal on the tape.

Of course, proper limiting and compression techniques made it all work out in the end- but those analog tape-saturation techniques won't work in the digital world. If you go any hotter than 0db, you get ugly sounds. Actually you have to be real careful as you approach 0db, cause you'll think you are okay, but every now and then a peak will clip the signal, and ANY digital clipping is a no-no. Just one teensy step over the threshold, so to speak, and your otherwise pristine track just becomes garbage.

Whereas not only could you get away with this in analog, & many times it was downright welcome; digital clipping is very ugly and un-musical. So, what I'm saying here is that your mic placement may NOT be the problem. OTOH, if digital recording is not new to you, then you already know this..and ignore my post!

Hope this clarifies what I was trying to say.

[kewlpack]

That cleared it up perfectly.

Thanks!

I've been playing with placement of the mic and it does make a lot of difference. Oh, and dropping the level of the Microphone input quite a bit...I need to get a decent microphone though to do anything usable. I think the dynamic range on this little PC mic just isn't quite "there" - duh.

~A~

[kewlpack]

Try listening to it now - the lead still isn't very good - but the tone is fine and didn't clip this time around.

http://www.kewlpack.com/misc_files/music/SomewhereInTheMist.mp3

Wheee -
~A~

[kewlpack]

Here is a few simple photos of the microphone "in action" and with a sharpie pen for scale.

It is a simple LabTec pc microphone... about $29 at your local computer store.

http://www.kewlpack.com/misc_files/other/TinyMic.jpg

Hehehe... necessity is the mother of invention after all eh?
~A~