I am still having frustration with recording on Genos

[pjd]

I will certainly look at the Decca system.
Great to have helpful hints.
I have got a few Ik Multimedia effect plugins and a few waves effect plugins plus the ones in Cubase

Hi John --

Looks like Decca and the others have used the IRT V76 preamp, which apparently colors the sound in subtle, good ways. They probably recorded each track through the V76. The microphones of that day probably had a big effect on the overall Decca sound, too.

There are a few V76 plug-ins on the market. Nothing free, unfortunately. I'm notoriously cheap.

From the IK line, the EQ73 or (Pultec) EQP-1A might be worth a try on each track.

Good luck!

-- pj

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Babbete
I have finished recording again .
I recorded the intro on track 1
Recorded the main guitar on track 2 and the Marimba's on track 3
The tracks i play have been done

I do have two styles going on ,one being 100bpm and the other 200 bpm. these two i recorded from registration 1 and 2.

when i play the song in Cubase the Intro starts fine and when it comes to track 2 with the main lead the guitar sound changes to an acoustic type guitar
I am scratching my head over this as i have the right setup with the Genos workstation on each track and i put the instrument right in the box underneath the Genos workstaion on the left column.
I can play this a few times and no luck .
On the 5th play it corrected itself and played ok. Puzzling  In a  earlier message  i said all was going great  and i had done all the same things as now. This is all getting unpredictable.
" Oh Sausages to it all "!!

Yesterday I experimented with a couple of tracks recorded from Genos in the sequencer and the two styles ,then transferred over to Cubase and played the two tracks ok.
Put the right connections in for my Focusrite 6i6 and proceeded to record to wave file.
I thought not again as the track 2 reverted to an acoustic type guitar sound again.
This is quite hit and miss and frustrating after a while.
It does this a few times and decides to correct itself and happens again at a later stage
Must be a solution for this or i am missing something technical
I wonder if you know what i am on about--HOPE!!

All the best
John

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Pj

I am in the process of re-doing the song and recording to separate tracks
I am getting strange goings on with midi and recording as i have replied to Babette
I think i have that eq 73 from a bundle i purchased, but i have got to get my re-recorded song back to a wave file with no effects so i can finalize it
It is all fun of the fair at the moment.
I have got to sort this midi thing out once and for all and keep a record of how it works flawlessly, if that is possible, or i will be going around in circles for evermore.
There is no problem working with VST only the Genos and Cubase. I wonder if it has to do with SYS EX.

all the best
john

[robinez]

....

If you engage your Genos Song sequencer and play a song straight through using registrations then you get all sorts of problems in Cubase.
This now means that your track 1 has program changes throughout the song and the styles section would be all in one if you make a style change with different tempo.
This is a quick way to making a song.

When you just want to make minor edits to your timing and maybe note lengths on your lead playing all goes well until you stop and start again.
The sound sometimes changes to drums going manic to different sound levels or even a different instrument sound sounding odd.
This can be frustrating and time consuming.
You can get over this by ignoring the strangeness and go back to the beginning of a song or go back to where the last program change occurred and the Genos plays alright again until you make some edits and restart where you left off.

Last night because of this strangeness i have decided to separate all tracks for Cubase which worked on the Oxygene 8 track i made.
Using Sonarworks for my room ,i made a few adjustments and now i am happy with that . It may not be in the upper reaches of mixing yet, but i am getting there.

So all of this was just using the Genos /Yamaha midi driver and straight through record including registration changes.

....

I've already read some great tips from members here, so i would like to add some extra information.

i've tried to read all your posts to see what caused the problems. Actually it was this post of you that made sense to me.

What you are doing when sending a registration to cubase is sending it directly back through cubase to your genos. This is called a midi loop and it causes all kinds of problems on the song, because every note it sends it immediately recieves back (which is causing double notes, CC's, etc and of course it destroys your sound because when you play the same sound within milliseconds twice it will cause lots of phasing problems in your sound).

It can be solved in two ways:

Method 1:
in cubase in the inspector you can set your input and output channels per track. It would make sense if you just want to record the midi output of the genos into cubase that you set the output to none in the cubase inspector for that track. You have to do this for every track channel in cubase where you activated the input all in the inspector for each track. If you do that you won't send the data back to the genos and that problem that you mentioned above will be gone.

Method 2:
A better way is to setup your Genos for working with a DAW, see the section 12 MIDI SETTINGS in the Genos Reference manual. Especially the explanations of sending and receiving notes and the Local Control (which always should be shutoff when you work with a DAW) are important in that manual.

Also my advice would be to check a few starter tutorials on youtube for cubase, especially when you are new to DAW's or a daw like cubase then some basic midi routing knowledge will save you a lot of trouble.

Now regarding your sound quality questions:
When you record a song on the genos and disabled the Master EQ and Compressor, then when you copy your recorded file to a computer it should sound  the same if you listen through a headphone. If you listen through a PA on the genos and hifi monitors on a computer you can never compare them, but with a headphone you can compare the result.

Then spicing up the sound, i see all kind of terminology in your posts that implies that you know your way around mixing and mastering, so i will skip the detailed explanation and give you just some small tips (which you probably will know, but just to be sure):
-14 lufs is a good way to start when you want to join the loudness war and create a video for youtube. Keep in mind that several platforms online uses different kind of lufs levels for their platform.
- it is possible to create a full wav file song on the genos and do some mastering on the end result. If you do that pay some extra attention to the EQ leveling of your song on the genos itself. Especially when you use a kick and bass that are fighting in the same frequency area and are causing masking problems, those things should be fixed in advanced by modifying the EQ levels per sound before you are recording your song.
- if you are going to master your song on the computer then be sure that your output level is not higher then-3DB to save headroom for your mastering process
- when you create your final master limit the output on -1 db so that the platform you are uploading to doesn't go into the digital clipping phase when they process your sound,

if you sent me a message with a link to your last demo that i will listen to it to see which areas you could improve.

Let me give you a link to a cover I've created in the way you want to work from the following song: Hanz Zimmer - Time (Theme from Inception)
In this video you can see and hear what i do when i combine a keyboard with a daw, it's quite powerful once you have set it up correctly. This demo was done on my korg Pa4x, but the same demo could be done on the Genos. I bought a Genos a few days ago so i couldn't give an example yet with the Genos because i didn't record any videos yet on the genos, but the process is more or less the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syT8T3APdPg

hope this helps you to assure you that there's nothing wrong with the yamaha driver, it's just a matter of setting it up correctly (which can be quite difficult if you are new to cubase).

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Robinez

A big thankyou for replying with a lot of detail.
I will get on the case immedietly to solve this.
I have read through what you have said and give it a go.
Being now retired i have time on my hands and will digest all of this slowly.
I will take a look at the Manual as well as what you have said.
I will get back to you in a few days and let you know what i have acheived.
Once solved i will write it all down as when you go about your keyboard practice and other things and come back to recording ,you tend to forget some detail.
It is all about keeping it going until it sinks in that wooden top..

All the best
John

[panos]

Although since I have bought my s750 I don't feel the need to use fl studio to create tracks anymore, great tips from Babette and Robinez for a better sound using the pc.

My friend Robinez now that you got a Genos you can now use the preset style "Sci-fiMarch" in the movie folder for an even more powerfull arrangement of the movie theme, where you can play even the electric guitar parts without needing to record any note by yourself,combining tracks,creating a midi file etc.
That's the true power of the arranger we've got in our hands..

John wanted to take advantage of the Genos' voices and styles to use it with Cubase but he is having troubles because he hasn't start first by learning how Cubase works with voices just from vst's and a simple midi controller.
By using straight away Genos' great voices and their effects with a DAW, he just chose to get into deeper waters too early but he is doing fine so far

[robinez]

My friend Robinez now that you got a Genos you can now use the preset style "Sci-fiMarch" in the movie folder for an even more powerfull arrangement of the movie theme, where you can play even the electric guitar parts without needing to record any note by yourself,combining tracks,creating a midi file etc.
That's the true power of the arranger we've got in our hands..

Wow, just tried that style, it's absolutely fantastic, thanks for the tip!

John wanted to take advantage of the Genos' voices and styles to use it with Cubase but he is having troubles because he hasn't start first by learning how Cubase works with voices just from vst's and a simple midi controller.
By using straight away Genos' great voices and their effects with a DAW, he just chose to get into deeper waters too early but he is doing fine so far

Absolutely, i have no doubt that he will succeed

[beykock]

John :

Like you, Robinez owns a Genos and Cubase. I do not.

T5, XGW ( midi recording ), Cakewalk ( audio recording ), a Midas mixer and a Lexicon interface etc. are my main tools.

I am absolutely not familiar with your midi/audio interface nor with your other hardware equipment.

Teaching someone ( by e-mail messages and Youtube only ) how to work with Cubase, ain't easy and demands a lot of time.

A personal Cubase Teacher would be the best solution for you, I guess.

Wish you good luck and hopefully you will be successful !

Take care,
Babette

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Robinez
Things are looking brighter after reading mehod 1 .
no glitches so far. I can understand what you are saying about feedback loop
I will go over the manual tonight and look at method 2.

All the Best
john

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi babette

Robinez has great advice there and I appreciate that.
Once i get Genos to understand Cubase i will be away.
You do not get problems with VST ,it is  all mainly separate track bulding , but i have just got around using vst.
With Cubase i have learnt how to put a reference track in and switch between my song and the reference track and have a good idea about EQ for different frequencies, but it is getting it right which obviously will take time.
I like practicing and doing covers  and that is why i wnt to get Genos working great in Cubase .
Later my thoughts are in the writing own compositions using vst track building and maybe combining Genos with VST.
In the meantime it is nose to the grindstone.
I have got that song nearly done and then i will as you say put it back in Cubase flat as a pancake


All the best
john

[panos]

Wow, just tried that style, it's absolutely fantastic, thanks for the tip!
Absolutely, i have no doubt that he will succeed

You may also like to take an idea here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqhK295fSt0
of how you can use apart from the piano sound (which in any arranger is the weakest point) and the electric guitars also symphonic horns,strings and other orchestra sounds where arrangers are really strong.
Don't forget to apply all possible effects for richer sounds and the appropriate harmony effect when it sounds good.
Not just for this song but for any song.People sometimes seem to forget the power of combining sounds and effects and also forget to use the brilliant sounds of previous models in the legacy folder.

Glad to read that probably you don't like either the "fixed" loudness war for creating "fixed" music 

[robinez]

You may also like to take an idea here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqhK295fSt0
of how you can use apart from the piano sound (which in any arranger is the weakest point) and the electric guitars also symphonic horns,strings and other orchestra sounds where arrangers are really strong.
Don't forget to apply all possible effects for richer sounds and the appropriate harmony effect when it sounds good.
Not just for this song but for any song.People sometimes seem to forget the power of combining sounds and effects and also forget to use the brilliant sounds of previous models in the legacy folder.

Glad to read that probably you don't like either the "fixed" loudness war for creating "fixed" music 

that was a great video!

I agree with the piano sound, i created my own piano expansion packs and imported those in the genos, those piano sounds are more to what i like. The combining of sounds is indeed a great feature, i think the korg pa4x is a little bit better on that area because there you can save those combinations as user keyboard sets which you can load anytime. On the Genos it's bound to a registration or the ots settings in the style. So registrations is probably the way to go on the genos but i still have to look into that.

Actually i also use reference tracks, i have software for that (neutron) that analyses my own song and set the gain and EQ profile for my own song according to the reference track. I always reduce the loudness of the track to make it a little bit more dynamic, but i'm not against the loudness war to be honest, but you have to use it carefully.

[JohnS (Ugawoga)]

Hi Robinez

Well ,i have been working hard at this today and after your recommendations i have not had a glitch in few hours now.
I think your suggestion worked. I have redone the song and tidied up some note lengths and velocity levels in Cubase and happy with that .
Like Babette said, take off the effects which i will do tomorrow and convert all midi tracks to wave.

You must admit that this is better than our maybe future prime minster Boris Johnson who likes splitting up wood crates and making busses out of them, painting them red and then putting people in the windows and painting their happy faces. " I'm sure he was winding up the broadcaster! No wonder the UK is in trouble!!
Boris said it is what i do to relax.!!!!!!!


All the best
John

[beykock]

 Hi John :

Plse share some of my additonal experiences, as follows.

I am often recording 16 track midi files.
Each track mostly represents another voice
( instrument or choir multipads or percussion etc. ).
After I have taken off all effects of the individual tracks separately, it is obvious the original keyboard sound of each voice is mostly completely " different ".🔔
All mistakes ( inluding wrong velocity and wrong timing ) are to be removed and/or corrected.
Try to avoid to use more than one style. All styles are different ( effects, tempo, velocity, voices, volume and timing e.g. ).
When you start with your recording " lessons ", avoid tempo changes !


Once you start to edit each recorded individual AUDIO track, you are creating a new sound which means the total sound of your original style might be completely away and different. 

Whilst editing it is important to select the right VST(s) and/or effect(s) and volume(s). Too much effect is killing your production.😡

For me drums ( which I mostly split in different tracks ) is one of the most difficult instruments to edit in audio.
Also the vocal(s) track is a pain in the back.

You will find out editing and mixing need a lot of time, practice and especially a couple of good musical ears.

NEVER start to edit all tracks if your vocals have not been recorded yet ! 🎤.  ( I like 48V mics to record vocals ).

Never use any effect when you are recording your vocals !👅

" Dry " remains the key word. Only add effects etc. AFTER you have recorded your vocals.

Creating a Master, after having edited and mixed all tracks and vocals, is one the most important parts to make your production complete.😎
It is the final product you and your audience will hear.

Multitrack recording, editing, mixing and mastering is a complete different job than playing an arranger keyboard.

Many arranger keyboard players here like their keyboard audio recorder to share their productions.

I believe it is the best solution to avoid a lot of trouble.😁

In their perception ( I think they are right ! ) playing an arranger keyboard and improving their playing skills ( if they like ) mean : having fun and joy.

Having fun and joy is all what we want, do not we ?

John, if you are looking for a professional recording quality at your home, it will be hard to make your dream come true.
A lot of frustration might follow.
Building a good demo recording home studio is expensive and often never gives satisfaction.

If you are recording to have fun, be smart and keep it simple, IMHO.

Babette

[dinapoli]

John,
The first question is, do you play the recording through the same speakers as when you play live?

A long time ago I used to record in midi, now I record multitracks on my mixer's recorder, usually I also videotape.  Later I use Sony Vegas to edit the tracks.

The Genos and many other keyboards can be set up to send all the parts to different outputs it's very useful even in a live performance.

I hope this will help.