Need some feedback

[cassius987]

Miguel, I kind of think you've nailed it. I am normally pretty good about stopping my signal from clipping (although as Mattia pointed out that low E is so fat it can clip when the others aren't doing it), but I usually record direct and this time I was using my amp too. I actually think some of the signal buffered by my amp was getting clipped at that stage, then the clipping was passed forward to my DAW setup; the internal mic clips too and that doesn't help. Perhaps I will try to use a simpler setup next time, although to be clear I was not using any effects and everything was set flat, and I thought I had done a proper job of gain staging. Perhaps the preamp-into-DAW setup is less useful than I thought. Next time I'll probably just use my Punch Factory with the effect off to go into the MacBook.

Mattia and Kevin, thanks!!!

[coolingitdown]

Just for my own enlightenment...

So eq was set flat. How were the volumes and tones on your bass set?

[Kopfjaeger]

Without hijacking the thread, is there a "how to" section or info on the internet that explains the procedure to record and post to YT?? I'd like to give it a whirl but don't know the first thing about it. I just purchased an HD digital AV recorder.

Sepp

[cassius987]

Just for my own enlightenment...

So eq was set flat. How were the volumes and tones on your bass set?

Yeah, EQ was set flat. The preamp from the head had a tiny bit of three-band compression on and tube distortion, but so little I doubt either had much effect. The instrument was set with volume and tone controls all the way up except during the Coltrane song when I backed the tone down to around half. I will have to sit farther back next time so more of this is visible.

[iiipopes]

To me, it doesn't sound like just a clip as such. To me, it sounds like the low E string side of the pickup needs to be lowered just ever so slightly, as I hear the "clipping" progress in intensity as the open strings go down G-D-A-E. On a good amp, which either has a compressor or "natural compression" (i.e. tubes), with even order harmonic distortion components, through a speaker it will sound as a good E string with lots of harmonic development. So for live playing, this is a good setup. For recording, where every hair is magnified, it might need to be backed off slightly and re-eq'd accordingly, maybe even with a slight boost in the mid bass with a slight bit of added compression to stay in the envelope. But that's just what my ears are doing right now. I could be totally off bass (pun intended).

[johnallg]

Need feedback?? Turn it up really loud and stand right in front of the speaker cab facing it.

[heinpete]

Need feedback?? Turn it up really loud and stand right in front of the speaker cab facing it.

Yeah, that works perfectly

[cassius987]

So this time I saved the video as HD and uploaded it by Share With iTunes from GarageBand as Full Quality... only one audio track, from the direct in... but what gets uploaded is, as if by magic, just the internal mic from the iMovie recording. You are hearing the bass "acoustically"/unplugged and none of the actual signal I made with GarageBand. Never mind the fact that I deleted all of the audio from iMovie in GarageBand before creating this file! What the heck??

The best part? In iTunes, it works just like it should.

[rikk]

I wonder if it's a 5.1 project. Not sure garage band can even do 5.1, but this is what happens in Apple's Soundtrack Pro sometimes and it drives me nuts. Now when you upload it to YouTube it strips out everything but the left and right. Just a guess here. If you open it up on QuickTime player and hit command I you will be able to see the audio specs. That is if you saved out a file.

[cassius987]

Apparently I'm not the first with this specific issue--so I am taking some advice from the Google help forums and exporting the movie from GarageBand to an .mp4 extension and uploading that. Fingers crossed! I hope to have something actually listenable up soon...

p.s.: The .mov Full Quality issue described above for YouTube also applies to Vimeo.

[cassius987]

...it lives! Not perfect performance on my part, I'm just happy to finally have most of the quality/recording barriers gone so I can just focus on myself.



For those wondering, yes, MPEG4 uploads perfectly. A bit less quality than .mov but what the hey.

[antonius]

I don't know if this might help:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqU062G0 ... ture=share

[sloop_john_b]

Joshua, the only thing I didn't like about the video is that you qualified it with "I forgot to tune and there are mistakes". I find it very irksome when people put up YT videos but feel the need to "prepare" us for the mess-ups. I realize you're just testing the waters right now but just wait till you get a good take and upload that one.

Oh, and nice shootin', Tex.

[cassius987]

Antony, thanks. That should help me hone my craft a little more. Now that I've gotten a rough idea of what to do this is getting more fun!

Joshua, the only thing I didn't like about the video is that you qualified it with "I forgot to tune and there are mistakes". I find it very irksome when people put up YT videos but feel the need to "prepare" us for the mess-ups. I realize you're just testing the waters right now but just wait till you get a good take and upload that one.

Oh, and nice shootin', Tex.

Thanks John--I guess from my end, I didn't want anyone thinking the slop in there was the bass's fault, because it was all my fault--but I get what you are saying 100%. It's very good criticism and important that I take it to heart. In the future, if I get "serious" about doing videos like this, I'll be sure to take your advice. Forgetting to tune was stupid, but the main thing I was worried about was my performance on Roundabout--I'm just not that good at it. I probably shouldn't have played it but I felt like a good "generalized" Ric demo (as opposed to a true cover video, etc.) needed some familiar material. Thanks for your input!

[sloop_john_b]

My pleasure - I look forward to lots of good videos from you. I certainly uploaded lots of bad ones before I started to up the production values a bit. It only takes a little more effort to get good audio and if you're already going that far, get *the* take. I'm sure it won't take you very long.