I have Sonar Home studio 7 and run Gearbox through it. Can anyone give me a clue about adding percussion from Gearbox to SHs7. Thanks

what are you trying to do here elbau, i'm not an expert with midi stuff or emulation software but will try and help.

are you using gearbox plugin in vst? isn't gearbox for guitars? are you trying to use the guitar effects over your percussion?

are you using midi samples or acoustic percussion?

lots of questions.

have you tried reaper?

if gearbox has percussion functions. it's a guess but i would imagine you would need to trigger it via midi from sonar then record it back in as you do with guitar.

not sure if it works that way but it would be much easier to do your percussion in sonar via midi and samples.

yeh it's cheap plus you get the whole albini library. haven't used it myself as i track real drummers but friends use it and rave about it.

bfd2 combined with reaper and some quality IR based amp sims will cover a lot of ground for next to nothing.

i reckon cubase is over rated. it costs a fortune and i've found it to be unstable with upgrades and vst matches.

for other stuff,

the bricasti IR reverb sims are very good from samplicity and there are lots of excellent free vst plugs stuff out there also.
variety of sound
digitalfishphones
platinumears
stock reaper ones.

most reaper uses seem to use MuseScore. reaper allows you to assign external programs for different tasks.

again not sure on the specific workings as i don't do scoring. friends and i usually just compose on the fly then record once we have something we like.

i had a quick look on the reaper forums and someone tere has created a vst plug to handlenote views. not sure of it's full compatability.

boom boom....

Funky, where ya been!!!

m160 i think i love u. am liking it on guitar cab also. maybe shouldn't have bought the royer

but i think i like it on snare shell and hi hat. ummm.... to much choice....

it's a bottomless pit times 3 the learning curve has been steep to say the least. we now refer to the local tech as uncle. but we built it all with our own hands plus the help of a chippie mate so we're stoked with it. just wiring up the place took 3 of us 2 months or more and that doesn't include my design time

it's soundproof to a high level and acoustically it works well. not as well as a larger room but the job gets done. the removable dowels across the ceiling of the tracking room are for movable acoustic treatment panels and although small the room doesn't sound too bad.

i spent 4 hours in there late today tracking some guitar parts. we're all mates and i've become the quasi engineer/producer.

because we only record every few weeks it takes me a while to get back into the swing of the console routing at the beginning of each session. tracking room gets used daily. there are some new guitars also including an aluminium beast from EGC (missed out on playing it today) plus a jagstang with custom pickups.

talk of a vintage ludwig drum kit at some point.

things are slowly coming together, i've found a nice sounding spot in the room to mic stuff up and am starting to know what to listen for with mic placement. we spent about 2 months working on mic/preamp/compressor combinations.

there is a lot more to learn still but loving it.

tracking room









control room





i like the akg 414 as well, that thing makes anything sound good through a neve type preamp. the other surprise has been the cheapo stellar rm-7 stereo ribbon mic for drums. i wouldn't use it for an acoustic guitar but on druims it's awesome as a room mic and only costs about $250.

have cowbell and prepared to use it.

i really should get mixing with your mind. a lot of people that know what they are doing (like yourself) have suggested it to me.

one thing that has helped immensely for me,
there is a studio in the states (weathervane) that records mainly indie bands and gets in top producers from time to time. they provide all of the raw tracks for download from the bands they record along with session sheets etc. i use those to practice mixing on my home pc. it's shown me so much because i get to see the way they layer the tracks during the creative process and get to hear what a raw track should sound like. it's been invaluable.

my only issue wth the studio is it isn't at my house. we've been collecting gear for nearly 20 years now. a lot of it secind hand. so with time and patience we've got some incredible bargains. picked up a $5000 compressor once for $1000.

the music man amp is "allegedly" the amp the guitarist in powderfinger used to use. when they got their major deal they all upgraded their gear. we grabbed it in the back room of a guitar shop in brisvegas years ago. apparently no one wanted it, probably wasn't shiny enough.

the amp we used yesterday is a 1950's bogen tube PA from ebay that has a fender mod done to the preamp. cost $150 sounds excellent. i modded a bigmuff and a small clone and they seem to get the body of work now as well.

yesterday was fun, we tracked the main guitar part with the jazzmaster through the bigmuff/small clone bogen into the musicman cab,

then used the jagstang to give us a double track for the right side during mix. then got the guitarist to do some whacky choppy sonic youth sounds for some extra grit in the song for the interludes and middle 8, ended up using the DS-1 for that after we tried a few other distortion pedals. we had tried the 2nd guitar part before and it didn't fit but yesterday everything was firing.

we've still to finish the studio fully, the rear rack needs some further wiring and we need to label the patch bays. *that might make thing easier*, also need to make up some extra patch leads for mixdown routing.

i'd also like to make up some transformer boxes to add some more joy to the group buss and master buss on the console.

the console also has a midi section that if we hook up will allow us to control the daw and forget the keyboard mouse.

i never forgot your advice that gear doesn't need to be expensive to sound good. it's so true. we judge everything in the studio by it's function and it's sound. if it doesn't tick both boxes it's traded for something else. have some vocal tracking to do soon and i'm going to throw up an sm57 beside the vocal mic to see how that goes.

i reckon everyone should have a studio. even if it's just to listen records and cd's or play xbox.

By the way, your studio came up really nice! Looks great!

I had a 'studio room'.
Then it also became playroom for the kids.
Then the kids stuff took over, now there is a fridge in there too and my puter and speakers are pushed into the corner and getting dusty..

Can't even get any time in the dunny without the fam banging on the door.

Need to get a studio/bloke zone happening!

That's quite ironic : Not that long ago, our cream-coloured persian cat pushed our favourite B&W 805 off the stand and on top of the Rotel CD player. Must say all 3 survived, but one of them nearly got thrown out. We had non-furry kids after this, and had to part with the grown-up toys. Too depressing Can't wait until the kids are out on their own, although suspect that the hearing won't be quite the same then...

Absolutely. Best match I had was the Rotel RB1080 with B&W CDM-7's. Those speakers demanded a big room though. I did demo Krell monoblocks for them at the time, and they were a touch tighter, but too expensive. I also demoed a Meridian CD-player to replace the Rotel, and it was quite good, but you'd expect that for the price. We sold all of that at a fair loss, because we decided to emigrate to Oz with suitcases, for the experience of it. Dumb idea, in retrospect.

Recently, I convinced wife that buying mid-range B&W floorstanders would be cheaper than potential psychologist's bills. But these late-model B&W's are very dissapointing - they are no longer made in England (all China now), the fit and finish is average, and the sound is very bassy, smudged, uncontrolled, and kind of very Sony/Yamaha-like. I cannot really recommend them any longer.

Have you tried Focals for the studio? Pro friend swears by them.

seems to be a few music folk around here.

thought i'd throw one of those stupid noob studio type questions out there and ask.

mic placement.,..... what's your method, i kinda just go with what ffels good on the day. but to get the ball rolling,

i usually find a spot where the mic sounds as close as possible to the instument i'm recording. i figure i'm not good enough to get all creative and find places to shape the mix.

thoughts????

i think it's called binaural recording. there is a whole expert field into it and it's way over my head. no pun intended.



lately i've been pulling the mics back a little, but depending on instrument that could be a couple of inches (like on drums) versus a foot (like on guitar cabs).

i then mix in a room mic.

the funny thing about rode mics is they cost half as much if you buy them in america yet they are made in australia.

they don't get a lot of love in some circles. i believe the early nt1 was designed by jim williams who is a bit of a legend. the guy that does some of our mic modifications seems to think of them as good value mics.

like a lot of cheaper mics and some expensive ones i tend to find them too bright. the nt1 is probalby prety good on females vocals though. i've heard an amazing recording.

i've tried a few comparing them against other mics in the cabinet and they rarely win. have used the ntk, nt2a and the nt3. the ntk got modified by an expert and it is an amazing mic now. (new capsule, new basket and components) the nt2a has recently been modified but i haven't tried it since. it will get a run on vocals soon as the mod is reportedly excellent.

so for me they're not my cup of tea. i guess from a brand point of view beyer dynamic stands out sound wise versus cost to my ears.

what i can't comment on is really high end mics. like sony and the neumann's of the world. there are others out there as well.

i would like to try some josephson, vintage rca and mojave mics.

will they pay air fares as well. i think the rode factory is in tasmania

i feel the need to get you to the control room. when are you next in qld?

we can tinker then hit the water.

ok, so i'll get a copy of mwym! till now i've been drinking from the fountain of albini.