I know that there are professional musicians on this site, but personally I'm just a hobbiest that plays for the family and that's about it. Do many of the folks here record their music informally at home? Any tricks to hobby recording a violin and making it sound good?
-Mike
I made a CD for my Mom for Christmas a couple of years ago. I took my old Sony professional walkman with the stereo mic and hooked it up to my computer. My sound card in the computer did not take direct input well, but the Sony made it acceptable.
I then was able to record tracks in my dining room which has hardwood floors and a lovely sound. I did it in the winter, however, and to fit in the recording between furnace runs.
Of course you probably need a newish computer with decent disk space and a CD burner.
I made a CD of myself to give to my students who I student taught this past spring. Nothing fancy for this day in age. I took my mom's Sony MiniDisc player, plugged in her microphone, and taped myself. I then got the tracks onto the computer via input/output wires that cost all of $5. Software I used was the audio recording software that came with a webcam. I then managed to get the tracks into a program where I could put them onto a CD. This sounds more complicated than it really was. Sound quality really isn't all that bad, and none of the equipment used was over-the-top expensive. I'm a flute player, but assume that the process would be no different for a fiddler. If nothing else, it's worth doing just to have an official record of your playing at any particular point in your musical journey.
I've been recording on my ipod. It makes it pretty easy to record, upload to computer, and burn to cd in relatively short order. Sound quality isn't perfect, but adequate for my purposes (self-criticism mostly, and making a Christmas present for my tone-deaf mom). I agree with Jason it's a nice idea to have a record of your playing as you learn and improve.
I would place the mike within 3 feet, and somewhere you can easily toggle the record start/stop functions. Don't shuffle around a lot -- the mike will pick up those sounds as well (and burps, furnace noises, passing ambulances, car alarms, animals creating mayhem , neighbor children screetching, etc.).
Fooling around with cd label software is a whale of a lot of fun, too.
Unless you're an expert and have the right recording equipment don't have the mic too close to the fiddle otherwise the tonal response can sound unbalanced. This is because the frequencies of a fiddle's sound come out in different directions, unlike most other instruments. Have the mic far enough away to pick up a balanced range of frequencies (i.e. as it would sound to a listener at that distance), but not so far that the sound of the fiddle is swamped by extraneous domestic noises. Experimentation will probably be needed!
Trevor
This is very useful, I realise I was not recording the right way by standing too close to the microphone, although I did get a better sound when covering the microphone with a light cloth, as a filter. I will experiment this weekend following Trevor's advice.
You didn't really say why you wanted to record the fiddle. If it's to make it sound nice it might be different from, say, just being able to record it for self-criticism purposes. They are two very distinct things, and trying to aim for fantastic sound can sometimes dangerously take the attention away from simply working at the thing to play well - sounds unlikely but I've been there myself and know many others who've fallen into this trap! Another thing which makes it difficult to record any instrument you play is that you are used to hearing it as a player, which is very different from how the audience hears it.
If you can get someone else to bow even some open strings, you could have a listen and see where it sounds best. Either listen with your ears or move a mic around and listen to it on headphones (closed-ear ones are essential for this). The room will also influence the sound of a recording. For self-criticism I'd say probably just use the room you normally play in, and that will give you something useful - basically, a sound where you can hear the detail revealed in all its glory - or not!!
To add to Trevor's excellent advice about mic distances, a further thing about any instrument in a room: make sure you avoid recording in rooms with unbroken parallel surfaces, otherwise the sound bounces between the two and you get really nasty sounding emphasised pitches - or drape a rug or similar over one of the two walls. Also, try to make sure the mic isn't exactly halfway between any two surfaces or it can sound nasty.
Trevor and Mark have made some excellent points. What do you want the recording to accomplish? This is probably the most important question to ask oneself when making any sort of recording. Is it going to be a tool for improvement? A document of an idea? Something to be played for others?
As someone who does this for a living, I can tell you with great confidence that it is safe to ignore all of the advertisements for recording equipment you see in the magazines. There is no magic in any of those boxes, and you already own the most important piece of kit; Your ears and brain.
To be specific on the subject of recording a fiddle there are a few things to consider (most of which have been covered well by Trevor and Mark)
- remember to think of the microphone as your 'ear'. Regardless of what you see in pictures, would you listen to someone playing the fiddle by jamming your ear an inch away from his f-hole? Even if you have some way to add artificial reverberation to the recorded sound, the best and most natural sounding tone is the result of a good player, playing a good tune, in a good room, captured by a microphone placed in a good spot. End of story. No microphone/preamp/recorder ect. will 'make it sound better' than it actually sounds. If you don't have a good room (the most common problem) find a good sounding spot. I do a great deal of my recording at a church down the street from my house; The acoustics are fantastic.
Just remember that recording is a skill that improves with practice just like everything else, and never forget that a good musician playing a good song WILL result in a good recording, while no amount of studio wizardry or equipment will make a poor song played bady sound good.
Best of luck, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning process!
-holbrook
I witnessed a good example last week, at a fiddle tune-learning workshop, of the difference between what the player hears and what the audience hears.
Our tutor was playing through the tune for us and then stopped suddenly. She said she could hear a shriek on one particular note. We couldn't, so she played the bar again. This time, we could just about hear that very high note - the so-called "shriek". What happened was that she did a 3rd finger cut on the open A and set off a harmonic which was 2 octaves above the open A. This sounded like a shriek to her, with her ear right over the instrument, but it was barely audible to us a few feet away in a very quiet room, and then only when we listened for it. I said it would never get noticed in a session or gig, or otherwise than in such quiet surroundings. Problem ignored, problem solved (rule 16 in the senior management handbook).
This was exceptionally helpfull, I thank you all wholeheartedly...and I've put it to good use folks! There are several reasons I want to record... firstly, I've widened the breadth of people I've played for which was mostly my family to start but now I've been asked by several people to give them a CD of my playing as well as being asked to play for a wedding ceremony...yikes! I also wanted to get to know how I sounded without the thing up to my head. So I set out to do some recording which I quickly found difficult if I wanted it to sound good. I tried everything from computer mics to earphone bud taped to the body of my violin and nothing made the sound 'good'...mainly just audible and screetchy. I ws told to stay away from piezo pickups etc. Which I did. I want to lay some rhythm into the songs as well as some piano chords or guitar as well but there was no way to do this and have it sound good. SOoooo I went and bought a small 6 channel LTO mixer ($150.--CDN which includes all the appropriate cabling) and I bought a shure mic for 40CDN. The mic I got at a used items store. SO all in toll I payed out 200 dollars for a little equipment. I have a good PC already and I employed the use of Sony's ACID studio (I will purchase this because it is sooo good! 70USD). It sounds like a pretty big outlay, after everything including the software I will have spent a few hundred bucks. BUT...and it's a resounding BUT the sound I am getting from that mic set up on a stand roughly 3-4 feet from where I am playing is STELLAR! Note that the room I'm, my living room, is roughly 11x8 meters. I've played some multi track stuff by re-recording and I'm really happy with the result. I don't think I could have gotten the good sound any cheaper and I get all the benefits: good sound, hear my playing the way an audience would hear it, and I can better critique how a tune sounds. It's kind of like stepping away from a painting to see how it looks to a viewer. Again, thanks so much for the really helpful information, I really happy with what I've been able to put together.
Sounds great! - I'm so pleased you've sorted something, and envious of your big room!
I guess we didn't add something else - how you listen back!! I find it almost impossible to enjoy my own playing when I'm listening back - I'm locked into thinking about the technique. So do try listening back to a recording after (say) either many months or even a bit of drink (if that's your poison!!) Then you can listen and enjoy as others in an audience might listen - hopefully you'll be really pleased as you'll not be remembering / hearing all the tiny little niggles that we all do because you might not be expecting and therefore listening for them. AND you can even put stuff up on the web for others to critique if you're feeling brave. I'm always amazed at what the technology makes possible for all of us and I'm so pleased it's worked so well for you!
I've been working hard at waiting a day or two before becoming more critical of what I'm hearing from myself on the recordings so that I can be a little more objective. However, most times I still don't find I'm satisfied while others are saying..."I really like that!" ...that never ceases to amaze me. At this point it is a battle between how good the playing is and how good the recording is. I did post a couple of tunes on the web so I'm going to go out on a limb and give out an URL to my rendition of The Ashokan Farewell (how original... I know). If you'd like to listen and see what you think of the sound quality here's the link:
Recording?
Recording?
I know that there are professional musicians on this site, but personally I'm just a hobbiest that plays for the family and that's about it. Do many of the folks here record their music informally at home? Any tricks to hobby recording a violin and making it sound good?
-Mike
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by c_ya
Re: Recording?
I made a CD for my Mom for Christmas a couple of years ago. I took my old Sony professional walkman with the stereo mic and hooked it up to my computer. My sound card in the computer did not take direct input well, but the Sony made it acceptable.
I then was able to record tracks in my dining room which has hardwood floors and a lovely sound. I did it in the winter, however, and to fit in the recording between furnace runs.
Of course you probably need a newish computer with decent disk space and a CD burner.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Jode
Re: Recording?
I made a CD of myself to give to my students who I student taught this past spring. Nothing fancy for this day in age. I took my mom's Sony MiniDisc player, plugged in her microphone, and taped myself. I then got the tracks onto the computer via input/output wires that cost all of $5. Software I used was the audio recording software that came with a webcam. I then managed to get the tracks into a program where I could put them onto a CD. This sounds more complicated than it really was. Sound quality really isn't all that bad, and none of the equipment used was over-the-top expensive. I'm a flute player, but assume that the process would be no different for a fiddler. If nothing else, it's worth doing just to have an official record of your playing at any particular point in your musical journey.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Jason G
Re: Recording?
I've been recording on my ipod. It makes it pretty easy to record, upload to computer, and burn to cd in relatively short order. Sound quality isn't perfect, but adequate for my purposes (self-criticism mostly, and making a Christmas present for my tone-deaf mom). I agree with Jason it's a nice idea to have a record of your playing as you learn and improve.
I would place the mike within 3 feet, and somewhere you can easily toggle the record start/stop functions. Don't shuffle around a lot -- the mike will pick up those sounds as well (and burps, furnace noises, passing ambulances, car alarms, animals creating mayhem , neighbor children screetching, etc.).
Fooling around with cd label software is a whale of a lot of fun, too.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by pakooper
Re: Recording?
Unless you're an expert and have the right recording equipment don't have the mic too close to the fiddle otherwise the tonal response can sound unbalanced. This is because the frequencies of a fiddle's sound come out in different directions, unlike most other instruments. Have the mic far enough away to pick up a balanced range of frequencies (i.e. as it would sound to a listener at that distance), but not so far that the sound of the fiddle is swamped by extraneous domestic noises. Experimentation will probably be needed!
Trevor
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Recording?
I am going to make a CD very soon waiting on some supplies to get here.
# Posted on September 16th 2004 by Why Bother?
Re: Recording?
This is very useful, I realise I was not recording the right way by standing too close to the microphone, although I did get a better sound when covering the microphone with a light cloth, as a filter. I will experiment this weekend following Trevor's advice.
# Posted on September 17th 2004 by Cath
Re: Recording?
Thanks for the usefull info folks!
# Posted on September 18th 2004 by c_ya
Re: Recording?
Hi Mike / all,
You didn't really say why you wanted to record the fiddle. If it's to make it sound nice it might be different from, say, just being able to record it for self-criticism purposes. They are two very distinct things, and trying to aim for fantastic sound can sometimes dangerously take the attention away from simply working at the thing to play well - sounds unlikely but I've been there myself and know many others who've fallen into this trap! Another thing which makes it difficult to record any instrument you play is that you are used to hearing it as a player, which is very different from how the audience hears it.
If you can get someone else to bow even some open strings, you could have a listen and see where it sounds best. Either listen with your ears or move a mic around and listen to it on headphones (closed-ear ones are essential for this). The room will also influence the sound of a recording. For self-criticism I'd say probably just use the room you normally play in, and that will give you something useful - basically, a sound where you can hear the detail revealed in all its glory - or not!!
To add to Trevor's excellent advice about mic distances, a further thing about any instrument in a room: make sure you avoid recording in rooms with unbroken parallel surfaces, otherwise the sound bounces between the two and you get really nasty sounding emphasised pitches - or drape a rug or similar over one of the two walls. Also, try to make sure the mic isn't exactly halfway between any two surfaces or it can sound nasty.
Have fun - recording can be a really useful tool.
# Posted on September 19th 2004 by Mark Harmer
Re: Recording?
Greetings Mike and others,
Trevor and Mark have made some excellent points. What do you want the recording to accomplish? This is probably the most important question to ask oneself when making any sort of recording. Is it going to be a tool for improvement? A document of an idea? Something to be played for others?
As someone who does this for a living, I can tell you with great confidence that it is safe to ignore all of the advertisements for recording equipment you see in the magazines. There is no magic in any of those boxes, and you already own the most important piece of kit; Your ears and brain.
To be specific on the subject of recording a fiddle there are a few things to consider (most of which have been covered well by Trevor and Mark)
- remember to think of the microphone as your 'ear'. Regardless of what you see in pictures, would you listen to someone playing the fiddle by jamming your ear an inch away from his f-hole? Even if you have some way to add artificial reverberation to the recorded sound, the best and most natural sounding tone is the result of a good player, playing a good tune, in a good room, captured by a microphone placed in a good spot. End of story. No microphone/preamp/recorder ect. will 'make it sound better' than it actually sounds. If you don't have a good room (the most common problem) find a good sounding spot. I do a great deal of my recording at a church down the street from my house; The acoustics are fantastic.
Just remember that recording is a skill that improves with practice just like everything else, and never forget that a good musician playing a good song WILL result in a good recording, while no amount of studio wizardry or equipment will make a poor song played bady sound good.
Best of luck, remember to have fun and enjoy the learning process!
-holbrook
# Posted on September 19th 2004 by holbrook
Re: Recording?
I witnessed a good example last week, at a fiddle tune-learning workshop, of the difference between what the player hears and what the audience hears.
Our tutor was playing through the tune for us and then stopped suddenly. She said she could hear a shriek on one particular note. We couldn't, so she played the bar again. This time, we could just about hear that very high note - the so-called "shriek". What happened was that she did a 3rd finger cut on the open A and set off a harmonic which was 2 octaves above the open A. This sounded like a shriek to her, with her ear right over the instrument, but it was barely audible to us a few feet away in a very quiet room, and then only when we listened for it. I said it would never get noticed in a session or gig, or otherwise than in such quiet surroundings. Problem ignored, problem solved (rule 16 in the senior management handbook).
Trevor
# Posted on September 19th 2004 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Recording?
This was exceptionally helpfull, I thank you all wholeheartedly...and I've put it to good use folks! There are several reasons I want to record... firstly, I've widened the breadth of people I've played for which was mostly my family to start but now I've been asked by several people to give them a CD of my playing as well as being asked to play for a wedding ceremony...yikes! I also wanted to get to know how I sounded without the thing up to my head. So I set out to do some recording which I quickly found difficult if I wanted it to sound good. I tried everything from computer mics to earphone bud taped to the body of my violin and nothing made the sound 'good'...mainly just audible and screetchy. I ws told to stay away from piezo pickups etc. Which I did. I want to lay some rhythm into the songs as well as some piano chords or guitar as well but there was no way to do this and have it sound good. SOoooo I went and bought a small 6 channel LTO mixer ($150.--CDN which includes all the appropriate cabling) and I bought a shure mic for 40CDN. The mic I got at a used items store. SO all in toll I payed out 200 dollars for a little equipment. I have a good PC already and I employed the use of Sony's ACID studio (I will purchase this because it is sooo good! 70USD). It sounds like a pretty big outlay, after everything including the software I will have spent a few hundred bucks. BUT...and it's a resounding BUT the sound I am getting from that mic set up on a stand roughly 3-4 feet from where I am playing is STELLAR! Note that the room I'm, my living room, is roughly 11x8 meters. I've played some multi track stuff by re-recording and I'm really happy with the result. I don't think I could have gotten the good sound any cheaper and I get all the benefits: good sound, hear my playing the way an audience would hear it, and I can better critique how a tune sounds. It's kind of like stepping away from a painting to see how it looks to a viewer. Again, thanks so much for the really helpful information, I really happy with what I've been able to put together.
# Posted on September 21st 2004 by c_ya
Re: Recording?
Sounds great! - I'm so pleased you've sorted something, and envious of your big room!
I guess we didn't add something else - how you listen back!! I find it almost impossible to enjoy my own playing when I'm listening back - I'm locked into thinking about the technique. So do try listening back to a recording after (say) either many months or even a bit of drink (if that's your poison!!) Then you can listen and enjoy as others in an audience might listen - hopefully you'll be really pleased as you'll not be remembering / hearing all the tiny little niggles that we all do because you might not be expecting and therefore listening for them. AND you can even put stuff up on the web for others to critique if you're feeling brave. I'm always amazed at what the technology makes possible for all of us and I'm so pleased it's worked so well for you!
# Posted on September 22nd 2004 by Mark Harmer
Re: Recording?
I've been working hard at waiting a day or two before becoming more critical of what I'm hearing from myself on the recordings so that I can be a little more objective. However, most times I still don't find I'm satisfied while others are saying..."I really like that!" ...that never ceases to amaze me. At this point it is a battle between how good the playing is and how good the recording is. I did post a couple of tunes on the web so I'm going to go out on a limb and give out an URL to my rendition of The Ashokan Farewell (how original... I know). If you'd like to listen and see what you think of the sound quality here's the link:
http://www.acidplanet.com/artist.asp?PID=428916&T=8436
Just note that I layered it over two tracks so there's a mild acompaniment and the playing is not as polished as I would like.
# Posted on September 25th 2004 by c_ya