9 May
2009
9 May
'09
1:06 p.m.
On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 2:11 AM, Mark Knecht <markknecht(a)gmail.com> wrote:
That's really great. Thanks for taking the time with this.
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. 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.
Yes. I think you are right here.
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.
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