Tips, tricks, Q&A, discussion for anyone recording banjo & acoustic instruments using Apple's GarageBand

32 Members, Created 11/16/2012 -

Administrators: MrNatch3L (owner)

Bits & pieces on how I use GB

From MrNatch3L on 11/18/2012 5:34:20 AM

Below is most of email I sent to Slick Salmon who contacted me via PM. It wanders thru various things that I've picked up by experiment and research. Might be some nuggets in there for others. Here goes:

The best tip I can give you for banjo in GB is to record in stereo... meaning 2 tracks recorded simultaneously using 2 mics. Same for guitar or dobro. I use a large condenser Audio Technica mic on one track, and a small condenser on the 2nd track. No special reason for those mics other than they were on sale as a set a few years ago. 

I have a Presonus AudioBox USB audio interface. Presonus has pretty good preamps. I set the relative recording levels for each mic on that. The real trick is placement of those 2 mics and I'm still trying to find the best spots. They're different for every banjo (I have 3) and I don't know any other way but try, listen, try again. I make sure there are no effects anywhere, on the tracks or the master track. The general placement that seems to deliver in my room is to put the large condenser down on the lower half of the head, closer to tailpiece than neck, and about 10-12" away from the banjo. Then the small condenser points right about where the neck meets the pot, about 6-8" away. But as I say, you really have to find what sounds best for your banjo in your space.

I usually create at least 2 projects per song: My Song Trax and My Song Remix. The first is just to capture the tracks. Once I have them all down, I export all the real instrument tracks to "Best" quality (24 bit) AIF files on disk, and then do Save As on the project and save it as My Song Remix. I delete all the real instrument tracks in that project and import the stereo AIF files and all that is what I mix down, putting on various compression, EQ, and reverb.

When I export the 2 banjo tracks, I click the Solo icon on both of them to isolate them for export, then pan one -2 and the other +2. I listen to that and I might adjust the level of either track til I like the balance between them. It's usually a good idea to reduce the Master volume at least 3db when exporting to avoid clipping. You can always boost the volume of the imported file later.

Lately I have been trying a trick I read about and creating a THIRD project for a final mix (I have a big external drive, so I can afford to do this). I export the final mix to a AIF file on disk with all track effects, but with Master effects turned off. I then import the final mix into 2 tracks in a new project, and put the same master effects on that project. I pan the 2 tracks about -5 and +5, and set the level of one just a tad lower than the other. It seems to make for a bigger sound image. Adjust track volume if there's clipping when the Master volume is set at zero DB.

OK that's probably a LOT more than you really wanted but maybe you can wade thru it a little at a time - take what works for you, and forget what doesn't. As I say, it's a learning process that's mostly trial and error.