On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 12:22 PM, Joe Hartley <jh(a)brainiac.com> wrote: He really does. Now that I'm deeply into middle age, if not early old age, I related strongly to Craig Ferguson's comment the other night that he's finally accepted that if he's even heard of something that means it's out of date and not cool anymore, and I agree. My 29 year old niece, who's belly danced with Panic at the Disco and managed road tours for Glass & Ashes as well as Cyndi Lauper (go figure, right?) mentioned Animal collective a couple of years ago to me. Cool band. Fun. I got to mention Particle recently in return. Derek Truck sounds like a cool guy to check out but I haven't had a chance yet. Watched a Moody Blues concert yesterday on NetFlix on-line. The world's full of great stuff new stuff but I'm glad to know others still enjoy the old stuff. My 17 year old does, and believe it or not my wife just discovered the Stones! (No kidding - she wouldn't listen because she did like the looks of Jagger!)

On Fri, May 8, 2009 at 3:35 PM, James Stone <jamesmstone(a)gmail.com> wrote: 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? How do the mics compare? 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. 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. A big part of managing digital sound is never letting it get overloaded. you may end up with more background noise, recording at home instead of in a studio, but if you record the tracks loud to overcome the noise, then when you mix them together it gets louder and starts clipping. to eliminate the clipping you start using compression and this instills a new sort of distortion to the sound. It's subtle, compared to clipping, but it's distortion and doesn't sound clean and certainly doesn't sound real. Instead of recording at the top of your VUs and then having to lower levels and add compression, etc., try recording tracks at lower levels and trust that when you put it all together 12 tracks at -10db will come out near 0bd, whereas 12 tracks at 0db is a recipe for problems. Using boost in your EQ is the same problem, but only in certain frequencies. The problem is that it's the most natural thing to do. "I don't hear as much treble as I want so I raised the 2K band". Better to lower all the other bands just a little bit to preserve the headroom. Please note that the these are all guesses. I'd have to listen to the work, probably a few stubs, etc., to hear the different parts, etc. 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. OK, I'll probably get banged on for talking nomenclature, but since you used the terms in your title I'll offer for your consideration: 1) Tracking - getting the individual instruments recorded 2) Mixing - combining tracks into a song, adding effects, coming up with a listenable piece of music 3) Mastering - the process of consolidating a bunch of different song mixes into a single database to make a CD. Adjusting relative song levels, balancing EQ between mixes to build a more coherent sounding CD. I get the impression that your first issue is tracking. 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, Mark

On Sat, May 9, 2009 at 8:06 AM, James Stone <jamesmstone(a)gmail.com> wrote: Someone please correct me if I am wrong, but I am under the impression that running a PA with no speakers is in no way harmful. It is similar to having an electric outlet without anything plugged into it, your real danger is too heavy a current drain (ie. sticking a fork in the electric socket, or a low impedance speaker in a speaker jack that cannot handle that low and impedance).

On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 09:33:40AM -0700, Justin Smith wrote: As a previous respondent pointed out, this is basically correct except when the final drive of the amplifier includes a transformer. But check with the designer, e.g. the specifications provided by the manufacturer. They take precedence over public opinion. ;-} A well designed semiconductor amplifier will take into account the possibility of either shorts or open circuit. The design can detect either insufficient current or excessive current, and take corrective action. With a typical eight ohm speaker load this isn't that difficult. Take pity on radiofrequency amplifiers used in radio transmitters, where the load depends on the frequency being used, and a typical antenna looks like a dead short unless it is being driven at close to the right frequency. -- James Cameron mailto:quozl@us.netrek.org http://quozl.netrek.org/

That sounds good. I have made some experiments with recording live with rather dismal results. The problem I get in the practice room is that the drums drown everything else out. We managed to get a live recording from one of our gigs from the desk, but that was pre-mixed so I guess its not possible to do too much with that? Some of the recordings are on our myspace page: http://myspace.com/kittencakeband Fair enough.. I play bass, and for the studio recording, the bass was DI'd straight in, so I wouldn't think there would be too many problems reproducing that (aside from the fact I don't own a DI box yet!). I can certainly work on getting a good guitar sound though - although I'm not 100% sure how I would tell if I got one. By the way, the mix I made of the low-budget recording (no effects, no lead guitar yet) is here: http://drop.io/pretty_monster So you can maybe get an idea what the tracking was like? This was really a quick take (30 mins max) to see if this method worked at all, and I am pretty happy, although nobody liked their performances, and the click from ardour was not loud enough through the laptop soundcard to be used to play the drums to.. I can post one of the individual tracks from that if you want. Yes, I was using the PA to mix it. I do have a mic preamp but was not using it for the last recording.. I was just wondering what is the best approach of the two (I could only use one mic if I go down the mic preamp route) and whether I can safely unplug the PA speakers when recording from the PA mixer. Thanks for all your help! James

Mark Knecht wrote: I suppose it would be possible (given separate tracks of each instrument) to mathematically filter out of each track the highest-level signals from each of the other tracks? -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

James Stone wrote: That's a very nice sound. Good recording quality - very clean, nice separation between instruments. Duly added to the playlist! -- David gnome(a)hawaii.rr.com authenticity, honesty, community

On Sat, May 09, 2009 at 09:50:35AM -0700, Ken Restivo wrote: Thanks for the really kind words. This recording was not done on Linux though (hence the OT) and I had nothing to do with the mixing/mastering process - we paid a studio to do it for us as none of us had access to protools. I just played bass! Let's hope my low-budget linux-based approach can get close! :) Interesting what you say about Candice's voice - someone else said that about Portishead. I'm still puzzling about what genre we fit into though.. Still that's probably a good thing! James

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 07:13:25PM +0200, Peder Hedlund wrote: I can't really hear a difference between the wav and the mp3, so you are probably right. The audio does hit 0dB a lot. I have the original audio files imported into ardour, and it would be good to hear (and see) how someone else would approach mixing/mastering it (or a part of it). Let me know if you (or anyone else for that matter) are interested. James

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 3:36 AM, Mark Knecht &lt;markknecht(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: <SNIP Hi Mark! > You might want to get a copy of Bob Katz' book at the library > Mastering Audio, Second Edition: The art and the science > I have the first edition and it's without parallel in the area of real > mastering. (It doesn't cover mixing which is where I think you are > really working, except in how the mix might be done to get better > mastering. > Anyway, Katz convinced me that keeping the VU's below maybe -15 on > peaks makes a better CD and doesn't actually effect SNRs, at least the > way you really hear SNR and assuming some use of dithering which is a > topic that doesn't come up all that much around here. I now keep all > my mixes and final CDs very quiet and then just let the listener turn > it up a bit. To me it really does sound better. I will look it up. I guess my ears have got used to hearing very compressed music (probably partly related to listening to mainly mp3s these days). Any recommendations for books on tracking/mixing on a no-budget basis? Sounds great. I will certainly try to find it. > I want to come back to you later on your recordings. I haven't had a > chance to listen to the guitar part except for a few seconds. My > immediate question was whether this was the same song as the studio > production. I've honestly not had even a second to get to the machine > where that mp3 was, but if it's not then I think we could best spend > our time focusing on the question 'How can James get the same sound in > his basement as the studio engineer got in the studio using Pro > Tools?' If we approach the problem that way, my thought is that if you > can track your instruments at home as well or better than he did in > the studio then we could move on to mixing it. Moving to a different > song makes it far harder to compare the work in both locations. Yes I agree with this idea of changing as few things as possible, and - as you noticed - the new tracks are a different song. However, there is a bit of a sticking point with re-recording the original song - I will need to convince the rest of the band that it is a good way to spend their time in the rehearsal studio (which we pay for). I'm not convinced they will necessarily see the value in redoing something just for the good of my education, although it is possible.. I'm not necessarily looking for exactly the same result that we got in the studio, I'm just aiming to get something down where we can hear all the instruments, where they sit well together, and don't sound thin or muffled. And to be honest, the mix I have at the moment doesn't sound too much different to the unmixed/unmastered studio version of the previous song to my ears (the main problem being with that bass guitar resonance problem which I hear when I solo it, but when it is in the mix it seems to disappear). I realise you are very busy, and probably don't have time for this, but I really value all the helpful suggestions you are giving. James

On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 06:21:57AM -0700, Mark Knecht wrote: Yes.. a bit of a shame Sounds like a good idea. Only problem is we all live at different places across London, and getting together for our weekly rehearsal is difficult enough. I will run by the idea of meeting at the drummers house instead of at the studio with the other members and see how feasible it would be. We will be even more limited with mics and amps but it still seems like a good idea to me. Will let you know how it goes with that. I am pretty happy with the guitar (although it could do with another take as it doesn't start at the right time). The bass is not so good because of that resonance problem. I have a DI on my amp, but not on the one in the studio. Perhaps I could re-record the bass at home. The drums are a little trebly with no real kick drum.. Also the drums clip in ardour at 2 points despite tracking for most of the time at -15. They were recorded with 1 mic (SM58) over the kit and 1 inside the bass drum mixed thru the PA. One thing I noticed - on the PA there was a light that came on with the bass drum - I worried it was clipping so I turned the volume right down, but this did not stop the red light coming on, and I think I may have overdone it as I think the mixed drum track is missing too much bass drum. Ideally I want to be able to record the drums to an adequate level with only 1 mic. Is that even slightly likely? James

On Mon, May 11, 2009 at 07:13:25PM +0200, Peder Hedlund wrote: Finally found the time to listen to this, and I agree. It's rather horrible - the song would probably more expressive without this excessive compression and limiting. Ciao, -- FA Io lo dico sempre: l'Italia è troppo stretta e lunga.