recording a set...

[BritishMurderBoy]

just wondered how you lot went about recording your sets..

inparticularly i wanted to hear from those who use their laptops.. how you record, ie. through the line in or an outboard interface and how u set up the levels..

me and ampassasin (billy) have only just started recording through my laptop and were not sorting the levels out correctly.. any help/advice would be much appreciated..

cheers dan

[DJZeMig_L]

why not go thru an active cubase/ logic/ etc... channel ... put u something like a chain of plug-ins and then record that audio channel..

antares tube/ c4/ Ultramaximer L2...

check which is the resonable level and make sure u don't got totally overboard while mixing!!

Z

[Chazbloke]

i use laptop and soundforge for recording sets...
open up SF (or other similar wav editor) and start a new recording..
connect laptop to mixer with 2xrca->stereo single jack to "line-in"
open WINDOWS vomule properties (double click speaker icon in taskbar)change to recording settings (options, properties, change radio button)
then play a vinyl and set mixer to 0.
go to SF and look at how the VU display meter is going, you should be hitting -2 at the most with just a single vinyl going at 0 on the mixer (leave a little headroom for when you go over 0 on the mixer ;) )
if the VU display meter thing is no where near -2 (over or under) then go back to the windows recoding volume properties and put up or down the "line-in" level - check back to the sound forge VU meter thing and see if your at -2...
if your line-in is not providing you with a good signal, (its all the way up on the windows recording properties) then switch to the mic-in and lower the level ALOT (ie lowest setting, its alot more sensitive then then the line-in!!!)
hope that helps.
Chaz.

[DJZeMig_L]

Don't use the mic in cause on most standard soundcards the input is really noisy and pick's up lots of internal noise, also it's over easy 2 distort!!!

Line In is the way 2 go no doubts at all!!!!

Z

[Basil Rush]

This might be obvious, but it might not, I've seen people recording mixes from decks and starting again over and over when they get to the last track and don't like the way they've done the mix.

If you are using SF and you crash a mix then rewind the previous track to a break, cut back to it on the mixer and just do it again without stopping recording.

Once you've finished the set you can use the markers in SF to mark the identical points (say the end of a break or whatever), you can use the markers to regions function then delete the region(s) with duff stuff in them. You might need to choose some option to do delete's later, I can't remember how it works but you should be able to do all the deletes then choose 'Convert to New' afterwards rather than waiting for it to do the deletes one at a time (which takes ages).

And you are sorted ... perfectly edited mix in half the time, if you get good at it you can do the marks and edits in about 15 seconds per edit ... whether or not you need to get this good at editing depends on whether your deck skills are as below average as mine or not ....

Not that this answers the question at all, but i hate to think of people all over the country swearing at themselves as they repeat the first 15 mixes of their set to get the last one right ...

[tioneb]

hahah funny there are so long long posts for such an easy task ...

i plug my deck booth (or master) out into line in of my socun card. i run wavelab ... play one or two records to adjust volumes (line in and mixer out) so that wavelab get no more than -3dB as peak input....

record, normalize to 99% (100% can make some clipping sometimes) and job is finished, encode in whatever you want if you wanna keep the file in mp3.

[Basil Rush]

-3db is scary, if you've got a 24bit card i'd run a lot quieter than that ...

[tioneb]

i record in 16 bit, usually recording alive set doesnt need mroe quality thant usual CD standard... i dont process files (normalization doesnt need high bitrate)... i never got any saturation doing liek this, and i ahev recorded over 10 sets in the past year.

[BritishMurderBoy]

cheers lads.. what i would say is that except for a mic and headphone jack my laptop has no other audio ports. and the mic distorts like hell when im recording..

i have a usb soundcard tho for my laptop so i can effectivley go from 2xrca - 2xrca then through the usb cable to recieve the data... whether this is better or not i will leave up to you lot...

im gonna change the software that we have been using firstly, while we have been making an effort to run an 0 on thie mixer the software is still registering red lights on both channels....

anymore help would be good...

[Basil Rush]

USB soundcard sounds like a much better idea than mic inputs.


Benoit - cool, I worry about clipping an otherwise fantastic mix too much ... usually i'm recording other peoples too and I don't want to tell them to start that mix again 'cause i clipped it so 24 bit with lots of headroom does that for me...

[tioneb]

while we have been making an effort to run an 0 on thie mixer the software is still registering red lights on both channels....

anymore help would be good...

well that also depends on the input volume of your soundcard !!!! you can easily chang eit in wavelab if you click on "mixer" in the recording window with the vu-meter.

you should normally be able to change it too double clicking on the speaker icon in your window task bar which will display the output volumes. then you just have to click on "options" then properties then chooose "recording" and selecting the channels to adjust.

[BritishMurderBoy]

while we have been making an effort to run an 0 on thie mixer the software is still registering red lights on both channels....

anymore help would be good...

well that also depends on the input volume of your soundcard !!!!

yeah i appreciate that but when using the usb soundcard the speaker icon becomes deactivated.. so i couln't find a way to control the input volume through the pc.. however i think i have sorted this by using the soundforge software you recommended.. it seems to have sorted everything out..

[tekara]

i think all you have to do is plug it into a good soundcard and start recording from a good waveeditor. Thats pretty much it.

If you are still not satisfied with the sound quality, you can always play around with the EQ's in the editor, or record using a better sound card. If not, just take the set/demo and master it professionally or throw it through a good audio interface or compressor/etcetc...

hope that helps.

[crime]

This might be obvious, but it might not, I've seen people recording mixes from decks and starting again over and over when they get to the last track and don't like the way they've done the mix.

If you are using SF and you crash a mix then rewind the previous track to a break, cut back to it on the mixer and just do it again without stopping recording.

Once you've finished the set you can use the markers in SF to mark the identical points (say the end of a break or whatever), you can use the markers to regions function then delete the region(s) with duff stuff in them...

Cheat!!!

[schlongfingers]

This might be obvious, but it might not, I've seen people recording mixes from decks and starting again over and over when they get to the last track and don't like the way they've done the mix.

If you are using SF and you crash a mix then rewind the previous track to a break, cut back to it on the mixer and just do it again without stopping recording.

Once you've finished the set you can use the markers in SF to mark the identical points (say the end of a break or whatever), you can use the markers to regions function then delete the region(s) with duff stuff in them...

Cheat!!!

:shock: :shock: And when your superbly timed mix gets you a gig at midnight at Atomic Jam . . . what do you do then to hide your trainwreck style??

[Basil Rush]

*grins* well, that's why I don't play out ... and if I cheat for someone else, well that's their blag :)

[eyes without a face]

aye innit, cheating there on the mixing! i dont agree with that sort of editing to be honest

[Analbumcover]

:shock: :shock: And when your superbly timed mix gets you a gig at midnight at Atomic Jam . . . what do you do then to hide your trainwreck style??

You do what Ade Fenton has done for years and claim it is your trademark "sloppy" style. Except he doesn't normally wait until the end of the set to **** up a mix, rather just crams random beats in wherever humanly possible. Having no concept of levels is another useful skill to have as an Atomic Jam resident and is something all bedroom jocks should strive to learn.

[DJZeMig_L]

yo guys please try 2 keep it legal and above the belt :)

Z

[Basil Rush]

Nowt wrong with a bit of editing, 'specially if it's more for repeat listening than to prove you can like DJ or something ... I'd rather not listen to anyones mistakes if I can help it ... :)

[tioneb]

actually the only time i have edited a mix was when my needle jumped . yeah my records are under the table on which my turntables are and after having found the next record i wanted to play i hit my head on the table while standing up again :P

now everybody can say i am a big cheatter and that one of the most essential dj skills is to take care of your head :D

more seriously i always leave the trainwrecks wheni reord amixthat just a matter of being true... if you are a sucker and that your trainwrecks are so big that you feel obbliged to edit them then that means you have to give djing 8)

[ampassasinbirmingham]

You do what Ade Fenton has done for years and claim it is your trademark "sloppy" style. Except he doesn't normally wait until the end of the set to **** up a mix, rather just crams random beats in wherever humanly possible. Having no concept of levels is another useful skill to have as an Atomic Jam resident and is something all bedroom jocks should strive to learn.

right on