Recording dry??

[rhando]

Hi Charlie et all,

I recently acquired a Zoom HD8 recorder but as yet have not had the confidence to record anything.
I know I can load a backing track and then record using my Zoom G2 or M/Stomp (or both).

However on so many occassions I've read that the best way to record is "dry".
I am assuming that "dry" is either straight from the guitar or straight from the amp with no effects.

My question is: If I do record "dry", how do I then take advantage of your (Charlie's) echo settings?
Is it one or the other, Charlie or no Charlie, so to speak??
Do I record with the echo and nothing else..........is that considered "dry"?

When I see Marcelo playing, he lists all the equipment he uses to get his sound (always great). If he were to record dry then how is it possible to add all those pieces after the fact? Or is live recording completely different?

Hope you can understand my question!!

Ray.

[shadfan4]

Hi Ray,

Your question is very understandable. Recording "Dry" is as you say without any added effect ie Reverb,echo, compression etc, the not so tricky part is to now to produce a finished.wav/mp3 file with everything you want and stil leave your pristine recording untouched.

There are at least two ways, the fiddly way is to route your track out of the physical outs of the recorder to the physical ins of your external effectand then take the out of the effect, and route back into your HD recorder onto another track.

If your recorder has "Sends " as part of the software then you need to have the outs as before ie the machines "FX" outs and returns. If you have a plug in ie: etap2 or any other reverb/echo effects then the whole thing is done within software but still utilising the "sends" from the software mixer.

Using a "send" allows you to send part of the signal for processing.

You can also put your external effect into the "insert" slot in your software which means the whole signal passes through, this has exactly the same result as plugging your guitar into say a magicstomp and then to an amp or recorder, except when you do this in your recorder your original track is still unchanged.

The Reason Marcelo needs all his gear attached is as he has replied to my question, if he could do a recording as most do and post mp3's is he doesn't actually have any recording equipment so all is done live on video.

There is no problem recording with the effect printed onto the track if your happy with sound achieved but you will not be able to change it later if you dont like it.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

Mike

[rhando]

Thanks Mike,

I'm going to go over your reply a few more times to get it right in my mind.

But bottom line, for someone like me, ( ) it would be best for now, to record using Charlie's echo settings (I couldn't improve on that!!) and maybe the amp simulation from the Zoom G2 and then adjust the EQ after.......Right??

Or failing that, just record using the whole patch,( which will probably sound better in the end anyway) until I became more comfortable with the process.

Ray.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Ray,
Mike has answered practically everything, except that when recording the echo from the dry track, you need to set the effects unit to only ouput the effect (and not the dry signal as well) to the new track. This is easy enough to do on the Magicstomp as you would just turn the direct signal knob to zero, but with the Zoom units, it could probably be done (I don't remember how right now) but may be more difficult to do in practise. After the recording, you can then mix the dry and effect tracks in any proportion you like, and even pan effects if required (although I prefer guitar echo to be panned the same as the dry guitar track).
I think all in all, you will find it easier to record the whole guitar part with dry and effect together, as when playing with the effect, you may play slightly differently to playing the same part dry.
Regards,
Charlie

[shadfan4]

Charlie has raised a point i forgot to mention.

Even though you are recording "dry" if you utilise the methods I mentioned IE: effects sends and insert effects in your software, you will be able to play with your BT and have the effect just as if it were being recorded this allows you "play" the effect (if your monitoring is set up correctly) just as you would playing live but still with a dry recording.


Mike.

[Charlie Hall]

Hi Mike,
And I had forgotten about the possibility of recording the dry and the effect at the same time, to two separate tracks at once!
Regards,
Charlie

[rhando]

Thanks Charlie and Mike.

I have to admit its all just a tad confusing. But I also have to confess that the more times I read your answers (5 or 6 now) the clearer it is becoming.

Guess it's time to release the "Beast" from the confines of it's box and torture it some!!

I'll start with recording dry and effects together and then try to "progress" from there.

Thanks guys!!

Ray.

[gtangring]

Hi

Recording dry is very good in theory as you can post process the sound with different kind of echo settings until you find the one you like best. However, it's a well known fact that the way you sound, the way you play, meaning that your general phrasing and nuancing is affected by your sound, and not necessarily in a good way.