[LAU] [OT] Help with mixing and mastering?

James Stone jamesmstone at gmail.com
Sat May 9 11:06:18 EDT 2009


On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I had a quick mess around with a bus with TAP reverb, and only 1
>> reverb.. It gave the track a more "live" sound to my ears - more
>> real maybe, but lacking some of the dynamics of a studio
>> recording.. any idea where I am going wrong?
>A
> Absolutely impossible for me to tell from a simple email. Possibly you
> are expecting too much at this point in the process? Maybe it's real.
> We can talk through it, for weeks. I like this stuff. It hardly gets
> discussed around here. I am all for more.

That's really great. Thanks for taking the time with this.

> OK, breaking it down, how does the room compare to your studio
> experience?

More bunker-ish, less studio-like! Room has reflective concrete walls,
I am using the PA mixer to mix the mics, Although turned down very
low, there is also the PA output coming back into the room!! (is there
a way around this without buying my own mixing board?? - I guessed
that disconnecting the speakers from the PA might not be very
advisable for the health of the amplifier??)

> How do the mics compare?

I have a condenser mic (Samson C01) which I could not use because of
the feedback from the PA. Everything was recorded with 1 or 2 Shure
sm58s

Don't assume that inexpensive
> mics will give an inexpensive sound. Don't assume that any personal
> inexperience means you must do worse than an experienced studio tech.
> But do understand it's harder for you at home to approach the results
> you'll get recording at Electric Ladyland with someone who's made 100
> albums. Just keep at it.
>
> As for reverbs, they all sound different and it really takes some
> experimentation to find ones that you like. Jumping ahead, I head a
> LOT of things going on in your studio recording. If you're trying to
> duplicate that in the work you're doing at home then that will take
> some work to write down what the major components are in the sound and
> then working on each one , one by one.
>
>>
>> How about compression? Is it OK to run 2 compressors in parallel
>> like the C* and Satan Maximizer, or is it just a waste of
>> resources?
>
> Well, I'd want to ask why you're using a compressor? I have a *strong*
> impression why, listening to the mp3, but I don't know what your
> current recording sounds like. (It is different, correct?)
>
> My initial guess, and it's just a guess, is that you my be falling
> prey to the two things most people do :
>
> 1) tracking WAY too loud.
> 2) Using boost instead of cut in your EQ.

Yes. I think you are right here.

>
>
> OK, this girl can sing, and I really shouldn't call her a girl 'cause
> everything about her sound was full grown woman. Great voice. Sexy.
> Confident. I did find myself wishing she really got edgy or even a bit
> mean somewhere in the mix, but that can be in some other song. Loved
> the line about lemon bitters. The playing was competent and fit the
> song well. Very present. Not compressed. The engineer used positioning
> tricks, not volume, to help bring the guitars forward at different
> times. Chris Isaak comes to mind for me.
>
> The overall tracking here sounds pretty clean to me, but the mix
> doesn't. It's WAY too loud on my system. It must be 6-9db louder than
> anything else I compared it with. Maybe that's just the way the mp3
> got made. Keep in mind that it's VERY important to make comparisons at
> the same volume. I hear a lot of clipping and clicking, even when I
> turn it down, so that's not good at all.

Hmm.. I certainly heard some clicks that were there from the original
studio recording (on the vocal track IIRC). These have been made
louder by the mixing/mastering process. Is there anything that can be
done about these kinds of problems (assuming it's not possible to
re-record a better version)?

> I get the impression that your first issue is tracking.

Definitely, but I have to do the best I can with less than ideal
equipment - the main problem being how to mix down to 2 tracks to
record without a mixer that is not the PA!

I do also have a cheap microphone amp - so I could make single mic
recordings without using the PA, but this seems less than ideal for
drums!?

> To me compressors are things I don't use until I have a reason (read
> problem) to use them. Note that most of my stuff is more natural
> jazz/rock/pop. I've done a couple of Big Band CDs for friends. Live
> Big Band is tough and compressors there were necessary during tracking
> to get it on disk. Electronica could be very different.
>
> Barry's Satan whatever is to help create a specific sound. That's
> fine. It might be added later, or used during tracking. Whatever gets
> you the sound on the track you are looking for.
>
> Generally speaking reverb is for me something I try to hold off using
> at all until the MIX gets underway. The longer I listen dry the
> happier I generally am when I finally add it.
>
> I suppose what I'm saying as I run out of energy (I'm sick, bummer for
> me) is that I think you should really focus now on tracking your
> guitar or recording her vocal, and getting just that track to have a
> good sound. I understand that sometimes vocalist require reverb to do
> their job, but as the engineer you want to focus on how the voice
> sounds. Send the reverb to her headphones, not your speakers as much
> as possible, Are you capturing what she sounds like? Is it technically
> good. Play with mic distance, different breath screens, different
> mics. Sit in the room with her while she sings, assuming you're not
> using a booth. Ask her what she thinks of her sound. In my experience
> finding something that works at the track level leads to better mixes,
> and better mixes lead to easier mastering.
>
> And, cut, cut, cut, not boost.
>
> Hope this helps,

Fantastically useful!

One thing I was considering, if you are amenable, is to post both
songs in their raw (ardour) form - the first (professional-ish) one
was done in protools, but I have imported individual audio tracks into
ardour and have got pretty much the same sequence as far as I can
tell. The second has all the tracking problems I mentioned - bass
guitar for example, which was recorded by micing the amp in the
low-budget version has some boom where it hits the resonant frequency
of one of the nearby toms! Drums (although recorded with 2 mics only
has one track as the mixer/PA had no pan function!) I would really
appreciate it if you could listen to the raw form and then say how you
would approach them (could repost the mixed versions if you have the
time?) I would find this really educational, but I realise it is
asking quite a lot, so I am happy either way.

James



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