PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here my tips...

tips...006.
In control panel ideally you should see no flags of device problems.
(check periodically.)

PROTECT your pc/gear and watch for ground loops.
Particularly if you live in an area prone to power surges or problems
with anything to do with power. Buy a surge protection device and place it
between your pc and the wall socket.
Also be aware you open yourself up to ground loop problems possibly
if for example some gear in your studio is connected to a different wall socket than your pc is. Think of implementing this chain of power.
wall socket>>>protection device>>>>a series of power bars (also with basic surge protection) feeding your pc and gear with power.
some studios even go as far as to install a dedicated electrical circuit).
a qualified electrician can help you in this regard.
Also you do have insurance coverage for your gear ??

Test your hard drive transfer speed.
hard drive transfer speed n seek time spec is very important for audio recording.
the faster the better. a slow hard drive can bog things down.
Various manufacturers offer hard drives with high transfer speeds.
what does transfer speed mean ?? Basically it means how much data can be read or written to a drive every second. the more the merrier.
for example in a test one of my drives can transfer at plus 50mb/sec.
meaning fifty megabytes per second. Enough for my needs as i dont
run a zillion tracks and plug ins. And this brings up an important point.
There are many ways to do a song. Think carefully about do you really need all those tracks and plug in processes running ?? Over 35 tracks ive found for example one starts to loose control and ones perspective on a song.
Often one ends up over producing ?? I'll talk more on this later.


ptw trik...what to do if ya got a garbage sound card and NO MONEY.
Want to see how noisy your on board sound chip is ?? run this test.
bring up the ptw meters. notice the calibration ??
with nothing connected to the input of the sound card and with line in selected,
DO YOU SEE ANY GREEN LED's lit up ?? If you do ...this is typically sound card
noise. not good. Also built in sound chips can lead to other issues like
latency and/or tracks not lining up. SO WHAT DO I DO YOU SAY ?? WITH NO MONEY ??
well there are a couple of tricks you can employ.
first trick. record your audio track. and bring up the audio edit window in ptw.
hilite a blank area of the track. click PLAY SELECTED AREA.
notice you can hear the noise ?? if you solo it ?? and of course if you speakers are high enough.
so lets clean the track up. EDIT>>>AUDIO EFFECTS..select NOISE GATE.
MAKE SURE BEFORE YOU DO THIS YOU HAVE CLICKED SELECT WHOLE IN THE AUDIO EDIT WINDOW.
ensure compressor is not selected in the displayed dialogue.
ONLY noise gate.
in the dialog for noise gate, try various thresholds from -27 db to -15 db.
which one ?? thats easy. the hotter the recording the more you can set nearer the
-15 db setting. if the track is quite low in level, nearer the -27 db setting.
the idea being you dont want the noise gate to cut out bits of the track.
by hiliting a section of the track and testing the noise gate with different settings you will, after time, and experimenting get a feel for which threshold value
doesnt cut out signal. an optimum value to start off with is remember those LED's showing noise
of the sound card ?? if the LED's show -24 db. try setting the threshold around -24db.
another trick with built in sound chips is youll botice they "sizzle" if you listen carefully.
as do lots of electronics these days. particularly cheaper devices.
a way round this is to do judicious cuts of EQ in the 2k to 8k area.
if you really want to nail it. use the included pg real time analyser plug in.
bring up the ptw mixer (ctrl-8). click FX and select the rta plug in...and note the frequencies displayed,
(HAVEING RECORDED JUST A BLANK TRACK FROM SOUND CHIP.)
and use an eq to cut the offending frequencies in the track.
NOTE...parametric eq is normally used to hone in on a specific narrow range versus graphic which is more broad based.
(More on EQ tricks later on.)
Another trick to consider with on boardbuilt in sound is to record a track in sections.
to minimise latency problems and things not lining up.
heres how to do it. eg......vocals.
name two tracks lead vocs 1 and 2. record your first verse at the beginning of the song,
on the lead vocs 1 track. BUT STOP AFTER THE FIRST VERSE. dont carry on recording while the
backing track is playing for ten seconds befor the next verse for vocals plays.
the audio edit window is your "friend" here. bring up the lead vocs 2 track. It will be blank.
and click on it a few seconds before the backing music starts...then record the second verse.
for the third verse..same idea. bring up the audio edit window now for lead vocs 1...and click a few seconds just before
the third verse starts and record your third verse.
in summary ....by alternating between the two tracks for vocals we are minimising
"drift". if instead we recorded all three verses in one go on poor sound chips in multitracking over time youll find
that things drift in timing possibly. This is about the best you can expect useing this trick.
you can do the same for lead solos...ie..dont start from the beginning of the song
recording blank audio until your first solo starts at say one minute.
start recording 10 seconds before (ie..50 secs) to minimise drift possibilities.
OK you say...now i have two tracks of audio but i want one. no problem.
name a third blank track FINAL LEAD VOCALS. and cut and paste to this track
from the two tracks you did. (more on track tricks later on).
but youreally should look at getting a decent soundcard rather than useing an on board or
built in soundchip.