Barnet in SoCal - Posted - 11/12/2012:  09:18:54

Hi all,

I have a nice USB mic, and I use GarageBand on my Mac. I'd like to get the best recording I can of my banjo, preferably with a close-mic sound that reveals its tone the best. The mic has a gain dial, and GarageBand allows input level adjustments, of course.

What is the best combination of elements -- distance from mic, mic gain level, GarageBand input level, acceptable amount of recording level going into the red.

Many of the recordings I hear on BHO sound like they have some compression on them. That can make the banjo sound 'bigger' artificially... I want to get the natural sound, but that captures the power of the banjo.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions!

Barnet in SoCal

___________________________

--Earl… the one… the only….

JoeDownes - Posted - 11/12/2012:  09:43:45

Distance from mic is something you should experiment with. Closer miking will record less room, which is a good thing if the room you record in sounds bad and the other way round. If you close mic you probably want to cut some low frequecies after you recorded, as they get harder the closer you mic. You might also want to add some reverb to a close mic recording to make it sound more natural.

Set the gain dial of the mic as hard as possible without the meters in GB ever clipping.

howseth - Posted - 11/12/2012:  10:59:38

I made my first recordings with USB mike in Garageband (The 2007 version). JoeDownes advice seems good to me. (Recently, I upgraded my microphone - and now have a copy of Logic 8 software - which is really just a more complicated version of Garageband - and might not be any better. Anyway...

One thing I have done now in anticipation of making new recordings is I built a simple cardboard and foam insulation "booth," using a light stand/tripod. I place the mic inside to cut down external sound. I saw a homemade version of this on You tube that I copied. Why? - to cut out some of the 'bad' room sound Joe mentions.  I have a brittle hard echo-y room to record in - and need to isolate the mic. If your room is acoustically good - may not be necessary.

I do think on listening to peoples banjo recordings on the web - that the biggest factor after playing ability is recording technique - and that some terrific players have crappy banjo sound quality recordings - due to bad recording technique. It's not so easy to get that live banjo sound recorded satisfactorily.

rudy - Posted - 11/12/2012:  11:39:24

"acceptable amount of recording level going into the red..."

None. Any excursion into the red zone on any piece of equipment handling a digital signal means it has exceeded zero DB level and clipped.  In analog audio equipment it's permitted, in digital it means distortion.

Barnet in SoCal - Posted - 11/12/2012:  13:54:21

Thanks for the responses so far. I appreciate knowing that there should be no excursion into the red zone when working digitally.

Let me ask part of my question in another way: I have two input gain controls, one on the mic, and one in GarageBand. I'd like to know the best way to have them set in order to get a nice, close-mic sound. Should it be with the gain on the mic relatively higher than that on GarageBand, or vice versa, or "the same" in some imaginary way?

Hope that's clear...

Barnet in SoCal
___________________________
--Earl… the one… the only….

rudy - Posted - 11/12/2012:  16:48:57

I'm not familiar with either Garage band or your USB mic, but I'd look to see if the gain adjustment adjustment can be set to unity or 0 db gain.  (No gain and no attenuation)

If that can be done I would then adjust the mic gain to give absolutely no more than zero DB when you monitor the recorded input.  It's much better to record so the peaks don't surpass -3 or even -6 DB to allow you a bit of headroom for later processing and normalizing of your finished mix.  This is all conjecture on my part since I have neither, hopefully someone will chime in that is more familiar with the software / hardware combination that you're using. 

sundance kid - Posted - 11/12/2012:  17:40:51

I'm not familiar with GarageBand, but the Sony software I use (both SoundForge and Vegas Pro) hit red on the meters at about -3dB.  So it's safe to go into the red as long as you don't exceed digital zero.  But, as noted above, not really a good idea.  If you can record at 24 bits (though I doubt your USB mic can do that), you can leave a little more headroom and not worry about trying to make use of all the bits...

To expand on what Rudy said about gain settings: once the signal has been converted to digital form, any gain or attenuation is done by multiplying the sample values by the gain factor.  You'll get the best resolution if you can maximize the bit usage before the signal leaves the microphone.  And if you have to attenuate it on the computer side, you're clipping the signal in the mic (assuming that the bit depth you're recording at is the same as what the mic is putting out, most likely 16 bits in both cases and that you're trying to peak as close to 0dB as possible)...

Mic placement is another thing to consider.  This article gives some pointers:

prosoundweb.com/article/record...njo_tone/