isolated solo button not really isolated

I, hueseph, hereby refuse to answer anymore of your questions on the grounds that it may drive me criminally insane!This is due to the fact that you seem to be blatantly oblivious to the obvious. You sir seem to excel at being obtuse and I can't help but feel that you are either mentally unstable or doing it on purpose or even worse, BOTH! Therefore, please, if you want to progress in any way in the field that you are so desperately striving to learn, go read a book. Enrol in a school. You obviously have the money for it.

Pretty obvious from the first couple of Q's that this would be a road to insanity. Troll maybe?

Y'know, I don't know how to put this lightly but I can't help but think that he ia a genuine moron with a lot of spare cash.

Troll maybe?

I was going to say the same thing!!!!

never just stuggling

So are you saying you're not a Troll?

Dude!!!, follow the links that people gave you! The link Moonrider gave you was a gem!!! You fire off questions left and right like you know what you are talking about but, at the same time, you don't make any sense!

As someone else said, learn your terminology and learn what you are ‘trying' to do!

I, by far am NOT a professional but, I can smell a skunk a mile away.

Can you please give us a bio of yourself (a little background if you will)?

If you ask me, something stinks!

Edit!!! I meant to say NOT a professional!!!!!!! Sorry! But, I think the original way I wrote it sounds the same....... I, by far am a professional? Same thing if you ask me!

I happen to be a pennyless Dad with three kids. I happened to spend a good amount of money on an engineering course before I found out my girlfriend was pregnant 10years ago. At which point I decided that I would rather feed my child than spend time chasing after a carreer that may or may not pan out. I'm not whining just telling you the way it is. I know the gear pretty well only because I spent a lot of hours after class and time in other studios. My bro in Washington has a "modest" home studio and an indie label. I have a hack and slash home studio. The bro that lives with me is a guitar teacher and may end up touring with a fairly major project this year. I live around music. I can't help it. Then again I have 4 yes 4 other brothers that don't have a musical bone in their body( well one designs speakers. I don't know if that counts). Point is, if you want to learn the trade, immerse yourself in it. And, above all, learn to listen! Seriously! I believe your questions have been answered threefold and you still ask the same questions (essentially). Still you don't seem to get it! Get a book on acoustics. Learn so that your questions will be educated.

walters,

I'm by no means as educated in sound engineering as hueseph, but when I want to do something, I research the subject, so that if I have questions, I can express myself clearly (although that depends on the current alcohol level in my blood - or occasionally the blood level in my alcohol).

It seems to me as if you're trying to run before you can walk. You don't seem to have learnt the basics on which to build more complex techniques. Start with a simple system - one mic into one channel, going into the sound board of the computer. Record one channel and see the results. Keep doing this until know what is going to happen when you do xx or yy or whatever. Then try with 2 channels, but keep it simple.

You seem to have loads of expensive gear, but no knowledge on how to use it - what good's a Ferrari if you've never learnt to drive?

Allright. Listen closely! A gate functions as, well..... a gate! In that it opens and closes. When you set the threshold say at -20 dB, anything under -20dB will be suppressed and the gate will remain closed. When the signal breaches that -20 dB threshold, the gate opens and any sound being picked up by the mic will be let through. Hopefully the wanted signal will be considerably louder than the unwanted "noise" or bleed from other sources(in the case of drums and you want the snare to sound but not the kick. ). So, the other noise will still be there but it will be overpowered by the sound of your intended source. And finally to answer the question: Yes, you can get a degree of seperation by using gates but NO, you will not be able to totally eliminate unwanted noise. Also a word of warning; gates can be as much a hinderance as a help. If your threshold is too low, you will end up cutting off the trail of a cymbal or the resonance of a guitar. Be cautious how you use a gate and EXPERIMENT! This is the only way to get a grasp of how to make best use of expanders. You have nineteen years to fo before you become an engineer.

Well the gate requires a signal so in essence it can only work while you are recording or in playback. It won't completely isolate the signal. How well it works depends on how well you mic'd the kit and how loud the drummer played.

Bussing doesn't change anything. You're just relocating the track. The bottom line is the mics are in the same room and if there is bleed there is bleed. Gating can help, as well as good mic technique. signal path is always governed by the lowest common denominator. The source.

If your guitar was recorded in a seperate room, it was already isolated. If it was recorded in the same room as the drums and there is some bleed, it will still be there even after gating. What usually is done is that a scratch track is done with all the instruments and then whatever needs to be re-tracked for the sake of isolation is done. So in the end you cannot escape overdubbing if it is necessary to isolate a track.

I'm not the best at explaining for folks to understand but I'll try to put you in the ballpark.

If set up right the noise gate can allow you to keep just the kick and snare from a track while removing say the hi-hat. Not knowing what equipment is being used or the sound your looking for it will have to come from you. If your trying to isolate tracks to create a dubbing effect why not run the tracks throught a compressor with a equalizer connected to the side chain then routed back throught the mixer. That will allow more control over the signal.

This again is a personal choice, you can also use a compressor and gate together, some like using the compressor first , somel ike the gate first. There is a different out come when the compressor is used before the gate, rather than the gate before the compressor.

just thinking.

Joe

There's lots of ways to be creative and I love being creative thinking up ways of patching and connecting units to see how far I can push beyond. Like to adjust the release time to set the "openness" of the sound.Long release times maintain the natural envelope of the input while a slower release brings up the gain to bring out the nuances at lower levels.Then I use a short attack to give a tight , well controlled sound.

Sometimes I add the compressor and set its' slope to 1:1 and get a programmable level control on the input of the analog signal chain. This works great as a variable distortion drive, then re-patched and replace the input signal on the "Dry" portion of the mix. This is great for getting a compressed guitar signal mixed with the distorted guitar signal.

Then using a Expander which is an extension of the compressor, add in some harmonic exciter to enhance and add life or clarity. Then if you put a tube preamp at this point in the signal chain it acts like a harmonic super-drive which will brings out the growl of the distortion.

And then follow into my favorite unit that I call a AES (Acoustic Environment Simulator). which allows me to simulate adding baffles or sound absorption materials to alter the high end response of my signal. Which is better than an Equalizer because I can use it to knock out frequencies over the entire spectrum, simulating real world acoustics, and that allows me to sizzle your ears off with presence or just make my guitar sound more natural.

All in all combining analog and digital effects parameters which are Midi controllable, plus allowing real time adjustments by using variable foot controllers you end up with guitars that rule the world.

Joe

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. Why look at just the stars when there is so much more beyond.

Joe