Recording The Concertina At Home Using A Computer

[Old Blevins]

Does anyone have any experience recording the concertina or live music in general at home onto a computer?

 

If so, what kind of results did you get, and what kind of harware/software did you use?

 

I am not an expert on this, but my experience is as follows:

 

I recently recorded a Bluegrass Concertina album at home. If you are interested, you can read more about it and find a link to download by clicking the following link:

 

Bluegrass Concertina Album Post

 

My story goes like this. A few months ago I bought a USB turntable for converting old vinyl records to digital. It came with some recording software for the computer. I recorded a few old vinyl albums onto the computer and was really happy with the results. So I thought, I wonder what I can do with this software if I plug a microphone into laptop? I quickly got it working and played a little concertina into the mic. It sounded pretty good, so the experiment quickly evolved into a project. First a song, then another one, and pretty soon plans for a whole album, which I completed over a couple of weeks vacation time.

 

To make the album, all I used was the following:

 

1. The laptop (Dell Inspiron 9300) which is 2.5 years old. It was a good middle of the road laptop when new with a pretty good soundcard, but nothing special

2. The recording software called Audacity, which came with the turntable.

3. A $50 Shure microphone that we use for Karaoke at home

 

The results were pretty good considering it was done on a whim, and I didn't buy or use anything I didn't already have. It was also a learning experience, and I got better at it as I went, particularly with the editing. But I didn't go back and redo anything that was already considered "finished" and "good enough".

 

It was a little tricky playing the concertina into a single mic and getting good level volume from both sides. The mic had to be pretty close to the source, whatever I was recording. Even so, the volume of the finished songs turned out a little lower than the average commercial CD, but not bad. I suppose I could have amplifed everything digitally, but I avoided doing that. I was little concerned about things sounding "unnatural" if I did too much digital manipulation.

 

So to try to improve the results in the future, I have ordered a better microphone ($100) designed for instrument as well as voice, and a USB pre-amp that enables recording from 2 microphones simutaneously (also $100). I figure this will enable me to record the music at a higher volume, and enable me to mic both sides of the concertina and/or record two sources (instruments or voices) simultaneously. That is about the maximum I wanted to invest at this time, and if I get the hoped for improvements, that will probably be good enough for me.

 

Does anyone have any comments or other suggestions?

[Richard Morse]

Does anyone have any comments or other suggestions?

Experiment with reflected recording. My experience is that a single mic works fine if you position it to receive the concertina's sound reflected from a large hard object - like a wall, or to be more precise: two walls. Place the mic about 3 feet in from the corner of a room and play the concertina facing that corner about 3 or 4 feet in front of the mic. The sound seems to reflect off the walls well to arrive at the single mic with minimal volume loss.

 

Besides needing only a single mic and having improved volume levels, having the mic further away will minimize the concertina's action noise.

 

-- Rich --

[Lakeland Fiddler]

I have a couple of AKG C1000S mics that I plug into a small Behringer mixer, then into Audacity on my laptop. If you set the pan controls full left on one input and full right on the other you can record two separate channels or instruments.

 

 

My fiddle and mandolin sound great recorded this way, but the concertina sounds terrible. That probably has more to do with my playing ability than the recording gear though

[Old Blevins]

Thank you. Sounds like a good suggestion.

 

My concertina is pretty quiet as far as action noise, so it wasn't a big problem for me. I can hear just a little of it on a couple of the songs I recorded. But generally speaking that is another consideration.

 

 

Does anyone have any comments or other suggestions?

Experiment with reflected recording. My experience is that a single mic works fine if you position it to receive the concertina's sound reflected from a large hard object - like a wall, or to be more precise: two walls. Place the mic about 3 feet in from the corner of a room and play the concertina facing that corner about 3 or 4 feet in front of the mic. The sound seems to reflect off the walls well to arrive at the single mic with minimal volume loss.

 

Besides needing only a single mic and having improved volume levels, having the mic further away will minimize the concertina's action noise.

 

-- Rich --

[Chris Timson]

I deliberately don't record onto a PC, because the software is to my mind overly complex and the environment fragile. I record into Fostex D108 hard disk recorder via a Soundcraft 16 channel mixer and DBX 386 dual channel tube pre-amp. I use the PC only for the final mix. However I am in the minority on this, so I'm not going to try and change your mind.

 

To mic the concertina I prefer a matched pair of small diaphragm condensers as a co-incident stereo pair. I've used a pair of SE Electronics SE1a's successfully, but my favourite is the Rode NT4 - a really beautiful stereo mic.

 

Chris

[Anglo-Irishman]

I deliberately don't record onto a PC, because the software is to my mind overly complex and the environment fragile. I record into Fostex D108 hard disk recorder via a Soundcraft 16 channel mixer and DBX 386 dual channel tube pre-amp. I use the PC only for the final mix. However I am in the minority on this, so I'm not going to try and change your mind.

 

To mic the concertina I prefer a matched pair of small diaphragm condensers as a co-incident stereo pair. I've used a pair of SE Electronics SE1a's successfully, but my favourite is the Rode NT4 - a really beautiful stereo mic.

 

Chris

 

I also record externally on a minidisc recorder and do the final equalising and exporting in WAV or MP3 on the PC using Audacity. I do this because I have a better mic for my minidisc than for my PC. It's a one-piece stero mic.

 

When I'm doing multitrack recordings, I do them under Audacity on the PC - perhaps with the main instrument recorded first on minidisc.

 

Cheers,

John

[Larry Stout]

I usually record using my edirol and then do a bit of editing using Audacity.

 

I haven't figured out how to do good multitrack recording yet. How do others deal with the latency problem in Audacity? I'd like to record the melody and then try out different counter melodies and listen to the results or perhaps try using both a treble and a baritone concertina in different voices. For that I want to listen to what is already recorded and play along, recording the new part as I go. I always seem to get about a 1/10 second delay making the voices badly out of synch.

[Old Blevins]

I usually record using my edirol and then do a bit of editing using Audacity.

 

I haven't figured out how to do good multitrack recording yet. How do others deal with the latency problem in Audacity? I'd like to record the melody and then try out different counter melodies and listen to the results or perhaps try using both a treble and a baritone concertina in different voices. For that I want to listen to what is already recorded and play along, recording the new part as I go. I always seem to get about a 1/10 second delay making the voices badly out of synch.

 

For all the songs on my album, I recorded 3-6 separate tracks one at a time.

 

I assume by the "latency problem" you mean the slight lag you get when you output the music currently being recorded along with previously recorded tracks. It really is unacceptable, and it screws you up. It's is probably the only frustrating/disappointing thing I experience.

 

To work around that, I listen only to what has previously been previously recorded through headphones and select the option to not playback/output what is currently being recorded. I set the volume on the lowest audible level for playing back what has previously been recorded, so I can hear that through the headphones, but I can still hear myself playing or singing what is currently being recorded outside the headphones.

 

It seems like this kind of thing shouldn't be necessary, but it is, and actually it worked very well, and I got good results.

[Chris Timson]

Audacity is good within its limits (it's what I use for mix down) but you would probably do better with software written for the purpose. Frequently good interface cards come with some pretty powerful software. I've got an Emu 0202, for instance, which is an external USB2 inteface that comes with a huge software bundle including Cubase LE and Sonar LE.

 

There is a very good forum devoted to everything to do with recording here run by Sound on Sound magazine. I can sometimes be found making a fool of myself in the Newbies section under the name ConcertinaChap.

 

Chris

Edited September 28, 2008 by Chris Timson

[David S]

I have been experimenting using Protools and a Golden Age Tube large capsule capacitor mike (or a Rode NT1) which do seem to capture the Linota tone well. I close the curtains behind the mike and the concertina to deaden the room as much as possible and work about two feet away form the mike so that it doesn't favour either end. I have also fitted a fanless cooler to the CPU to quieten the computer. Playback / mixing is on a pair of Tannoy 5a active speakers which had to be smuggled into the sitting room and then gradually revealed to 'her indoors' as they are not elegant! I have also used a Boss 1180 recorder, but they are really geared for electric guitars effects for which I have little use nowadays.

 

Sound processing is far less important than the quality of the original recording; the microphone is all important. I have used a pair of NT4's and I do like the stereo effect but the large capsule mikes do a good job on vocals and guitar and I had to give the NT4s back! The old adage of "you can't polish a t*rd" really does hold true on recording.... you need to have best original that you can make - which means the best microphone and recording environment available to you.

 

Richard Morse mentions manufacturing reflections when recording; I have tried to minimise these as although they do give life to the recording, they cannot be removed and just sufficient reverberation / delay is easily added later.

 

Latency hasn't been a problem for me in Pro tools as the Mbox allows to you monitor the input direct whilst recording and hear it without any latency

 

The thing I like about Pro tools is that is not destructive; you always have your original recording however much you play with punch ins, etc whereas the Boss system seemed to overwrite the original recording with new data with no proper 'undo' facility

 

What I don't like is that it is totally addictive.... I thought that recording my playing would focus my practice times with a bit of critical pressure - just like playing live - and it does, but the actual time I spend playing tends to diminish, as I can so easily get sidetracked into tweaking the recording through the software rather than getting on and playing. Still, it beats watching telly any day!

 

David

Edited September 28, 2008 by David S

[Chris Timson]

I have been experimenting using Protools and a Golden Age Tube large capsule capacitor mike (or a Rode NT1) which do seem to capture the Linota tone well. I close the curtains behind the mike and the concertina to deaden the room as much as possible and work about two feet away form the mike so that it doesn't favour either end. I have also fitted a fanless cooler to the CPU to quieten the computer. Playback / mixing is on a pair of Tannoy 5a active speakers which had to be smuggled into the sitting room and then gradually revealed to 'her indoors' as they are not elegant!

Yes, I have recorded using a Rode NT1A in exactly the way you described, in fact you can hear one such recording here:- Fiddle Maker's Birthday (Anne playing an Aeola). It's a very sensible approach with just one mic. I completely agree with what you say about good mics. The recording chain starts with the mic. Incidentally, I monitor with a pair of passive Tannoy Reveals. Very nice speakers. All my kit lives in one corner of the bedroom. We have a large bedroom with curtains strung all over the place that make it relatively easy to get a clean recording.

 

I've got quite a bit of kit that I've built up slowly over the course of years by buying carefully and selectively through ebay. It's quite a lot of fun when you start getting recordings sounding, at least to my ears, reasonably decent.

 

Chris

 

Edited to remove typppo.

Edited September 28, 2008 by Chris Timson

[RatFace]

The recording chain starts with the mic.

 

Pish! It starts with the playing, then the location, then the mic placement, and then the mics themselves!

 

Practically any mic will give you at least an OK sound if everything else is right, but get any of the first 3 wrong and it can sound terrible.

[Chris Timson]

Pish! It starts with the playing, then the location, then the mic placement, and then the mics themselves!

And tush! Of course you need a good performance, else why record it? Of course the mic(s) need to be placed where you get the best sound. But if you are looking at the bits where you are going to actually spend money then put some of it into the mics first! To my mind the recording chain starts where the electrons are generated and ends where they are recorded for posterity at the tape or disc or memory card or whatever. The externals are important of course, extremely important in fact, but if you want to go beyond that, where do you stop? Is the concertina part of the recording chain? Or the CD cover design?

 

Chris

 

Edited to add PS: another reason for putting money into mics is that unlike most bits of recording gubbins mics last nearly forever and are pretty unlikely to go out of fashion. The argument is not dissimilar to that for buying a good concertina.

 

Another PS added later. This is a quote from the SoS forum which neatly encapsulates the difference between a recording chain and making a recording. It's a sentiment I, and I suspect Danny, agree with:-

 

In my view the voice is just another instrument/piece of gear. You need to learn how it works, and how to get the best out of it. You could spend megabucks on trying to find a recording chain that suits your voice and still end up with a poor recording. You could invest a quarter of that money in singing lessons and have a very workable result with your current set up.

Edited September 28, 2008 by Chris Timson

[Robin Madge]

I have more trouble with recording my voice accurately than the concertina. I now use an AKG C1000S, like Martyn above, and find that this can cope with the low notes!

For a quick result for songs I just point the mike slightly more towards my mouth than the concertina at a range of about 3 feet and record using Audacity.

If it's an instrumental I use the Microvox pickups.

 

Robin Madge

 

p.s. edited for spelling

Edited October 16, 2008 by Robin Madge

[Nanette Hooker]

Hi All

This is just the question I have been thinking about posting on the forum, so I am really pleased with all your comments. I need to buy a microphone and know nothing about them so I went to Allans Music Store in Adelaide and asked for advice. A Rode M3 recording mike was suggested (costing AUS$189).

 

Has anyone got any comments on this microphone for recording?

[HoldThePhone]

single mic seems fine to me

[Simon H]

I've been delighted with the Tascam DR1. http://www.tascam.com/products/dr-1.html It is a complete musician's friend. Record at CD quality mp3/wav, overdub, tuner, metronome, slow downer, looper, the list is pretty long. To me it is like the ideal answer to "If you could have the perfect electronic recording and playing aid device to go in your concertina bag, what features would you want?" Everything is saved onto SD card for easy transfer to PC or directly via USB.

[Lakeland Fiddler]

On a similar theme to the previous poster, I just bought the Zoom H2 recorder. A very useful piece of kit for home and session recording.

 

http://www.samsontech.com/products/product...cfm?prodid=1916