Recording singer/songwriter - I'm a twit

JJV

So.. I recorded the singer/songwriter tonight. Turns out the guitarist wasn't the singer after all - there were 2 of 'em. So all the advice I received I will have to save up for another time when the singer & guitarist are one & the same!

I spaced the 2 of them a couple of meters apart facing one another & used a cardioid pencil on the acoustic at the 12th fret & a large diaphragm cardioid on the singer. I also took a feed from the acoustic's pick-up. Panned the DI & guitar mic to give a bit of stereo interest & bob's your uncle. The guitar sounded good in a Takamine sort of a way & the vocalist was a revelation.

Anyway, here's why I'm a twit. I set the Pro Tools session to be 24 bit 48kHz & clocked to an external clock in a Focusrite Octo Pre. (Figured the pres in the focusrite have to be better than those in the digi 002) However the Octopre was set to 44.1 kHz. The session sounds fine when its clocked externally, but when I bounce to disk the resultant stereo files play too fast & the singer sounds like he's been at the helium.

Anyone any solutions? I guess I could just take a stereo out from the digi 002 into a CD recorder or DAT machine while its playing back from the octopre's clock. However I can't help but suspect the mess can be sorted out from within Pro Tools.

Thanks

JJV

Found a solution on the Digidesign User Conference

http://duc.digidesign.com/showthread.php?p=1283169&highlight=session+wrong+speed#post1283169

So I'm not the only one!

PaulBrewer

Did you use any 'parallel compression' ? Eh JimmyJazz?

JJV

Are you being fatuous? What on the guitar or vocals? My understanding of parallel compression is that you set a compressor up on a parallel bus when you want the "sound" of compression but without squashing the living daylights out of a signal - you blend the compressed & uncompressed channels. The guitarist was both picking & strumming so I just used compression on an insert to control the peaks.

seannash

JJV wrote: »

Are you being fatuous? What on the guitar or vocals? My understanding of parallel compression is that you set a compressor up on a parallel bus when you want the "sound" of compression but without squashing the living daylights out of a signal - you blend the compressed & uncompressed channels. The guitarist was both picking & strumming so I just used compression on an insert to control the peaks.

if you use logics own compressor there a drop down menu so you can adjust the amount of the compressed signal and dry signal,easy parrallel compression

studiorat

Hate that!
I've done that myself. Didn't half get some funny looks from the band!
Was gonna say import into a new session but I see you got there already.

If you weren't able to do the parallel compression it's probably a spring gone or the ball bearings or something...

PaulBrewer

studiorat wrote: »

Hate that!
I've done that myself. Didn't half get some funny looks from the band!
Was gonna say import into a new session but I see you got there already.

If you weren't able to do the parallel compression it's probably a spring gone or the ball bearings or something...

When did you change the oil last? Make sure both sides of the parallel compression are parallel and in phase.