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Post by mrholmes on Jul 3, 2019 5:04:51 GMT -6
For pro AE this is maybe old news but for me its intresting if things come up again and again.
If I do more rock or pop orientated music processing seems to be part of the sound.
But even there I sometimes tend to overprocess things.
As soon I do more real sounding music acoustic guitar vocals - a little goes a long way and it starts in tracking.
Finding the right mic spot for tracking acoustic guitar in a less ideal room is for someone -who is not doing it for a living- a harder task.
I cant wipe the impression away.
Lesser processing gives me a more natural sound??
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Post by kcatthedog on Jul 3, 2019 6:50:00 GMT -6
This is where I was going with my comment in other thread about software code not necessarily being benign. I agree that less is more if you want most natural sound: every time you use a plug in you are altering and reforming the sound but mathematically in software. I don’t know how perfect those processors are and I am sure there is some technical paper somewhere saying you can’t hear it, but  |
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Post by swafford on Jul 3, 2019 7:07:57 GMT -6
Lesser processing gives me a more natural sound?? This would make sense, no? If the goal is to produce what you perceive to be a natural sounding recording, the best approach is to capture the sound at the best dynamic range with a microphone that at the most accentuates the character of the thing you are recording with just enough compression. eq and reverb/delay (or none) to achieve something that not only sounds natural, but the dynamics and sound stage feel natural also. |
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Post by svart on Jul 3, 2019 7:22:55 GMT -6
More natural, yes. But is that all we strive for?
We don't deal in purity. We deal in fantasy. Any old Joe can go get some mics and an interface and record something that *sounds* just like the source.. It takes a little gear and almost no skills to do this. Our jobs as mix engineers are to build something greater than just the sum of the parts. We push and pull the sound to create works of art out of building blocks. The tracks are our paint, our gear is the paintbrush, and the mix is our canvas.
That being said, I just re-amped 3 guitars for the 5th time because I wasn't totally happy with how they sounded *in the mix*. They sounded great in solo but never worked in the mix. Now, they sound awful solo'd, but great in the mix..
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Post by Bob Olhsson on Jul 3, 2019 15:42:21 GMT -6
The problem with processing is that once you go past a certain point, it only sounds right on one set of speakers in one room.
Back in the old daze, we learned that whenever we played our ruffs on our hi-fi at home.
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Post by wiz on Jul 3, 2019 16:11:32 GMT -6
I have just decided to redo my entire album.....based on this premise. I was just about to write a post about this when I saw this one.
I have spent the last year working on the record. Not an easy decision to scrap it it....but it’s the right one.
Cheers
Wiz
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Post by Blackdawg on Jul 3, 2019 16:50:14 GMT -6
This is true even in the analog world. I'll never forget a story Bill Schulenburg told me once. He was doing a mix at this studio(this is in the 70s) on the API console he had at the studio he worked for. The mix was kicking his ass, just would go together right. The client was next to him and also getting frustrated and finally said "Can't you just turn everything up and it'll be fine?". Bill paused...then realized that, yeah why the hell was he doing all of this stuff. Cleared the whole console to flat. And bam. Sounded great. (By clear he meant taking out all the eq/filter/compression/ect. not flat faders exactly). KISS Keep It Simple Stupid. Theres a time and a place to do cool effects and do lots of processing. But Its a light touch thing I personally believe. Especially in the stereo realm. Not that you can't have a lot of processing and make it sound naturalI thought this video of how the voice of Venom was done show cases this on both spectrums. For one, there is a TON of processing going on to get the sound of the voice the way it is. BUT each of those processors is only doing a small bit of stuff. Its an additive thing. Less is more in this case, even though there is a lot of processing. www.pro-tools-expert.com/home-page/2019/5/20/how-to-create-the-sound-of-venom-from-the-marvel-film-sound-designer-will-files-shows-how-in-this-free-tutorial-from-nab-2019Of course this isn't supposed to sound natural so it shouldn't. But that said, to make an alien voice still sound natural you have to have a light touch. So really, you can have a lot going on, but it should be small amounts to get an additive product. Less is more usually always. |
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Post by mrholmes on Jul 4, 2019 3:20:25 GMT -6
I have just decided to redo my entire album.....based on this premise. I was just about to write a post about this when I saw this one. I have spent the last year working on the record. Not an easy decision to scrap it it....but it’s the right one. Cheers Wiz
Its maybe intresting how I came to the point to make this observation often, not always.
I am doing a song for my wife.
She is in grief about a loss and it seems there is yet no light on the end of the tunnel. My gueeswork is that she will be on the darkside for a long long time.
On 31. is her birthday and I want to tell her that I acknowledge her feelings. That I dont force her to feel better or anything like the things people in grief dont want to hear.
The idea is to do acoustic guitar vocals and maybe some percussion and base. But in a very tasty way like old Dylan Songs, no tricks no gimmicks.
The more I processed the farer away I was from good taste....
It takes tons of dicipline to strum a simple song extremly consistent becasue compression will kill the sound of the guitar, and the room sound comes up in a non pleasnet way. I am still tracking but my feeling ts worth doing the hassle, tracking again and angain till it sounds right.
It sounds a lot more like a guitar played in front of you. A more natural approach?
Its may not working for all songs but for this one I can hear that no EQ, no compressor can fix what is not happening in front of the microphone. Its a good training for me to remember to use lesser processing in the next rock or pop song too.
To force a singer to go the exta mile - instead fixing in the mix....
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Post by johneppstein on Jul 6, 2019 16:39:02 GMT -6
More natural, yes. But is that all we strive for? We don't deal in purity. We deal in fantasy. Any old Joe can go get some mics and an interface and record something that *sounds* just like the source.. It takes a little gear and almost no skills to do this. I'd be inclined to dispute that, at least in many cases. If fact I'd be inclined toward the view that not only does the average "Joe" not have the foggiest idea how top record something that sounds just like the source, but actually in many cases doesn't even know what the source really sounds like. Not to mention lacking the equipment required to do a quality capture, even if they did know how to use it.
They think nothing of dropping a grand on pedals so they can "play with sounds" but balk at spending more than a hundred bucks on a mic.
That too, although that certainly does appear to be the "modern" way of going at it.
Whose music is it, anyway? "Ours" or the musician's?
I guess your take on this would tend to be influenced by whether one is an "all-around" engineer who does a project from tracking through final mix or a "mix engineer" who is frequently confronted by poorly tracked (or simply mediocre) material sent in by home recordists that one then must turn into some sort of coherent work. And who often have totally unrealistic notions of what they can, do, or even should sound like.
It used to be that there were producers whose job (among other things) was to get the best performance out of the artist. These days the artist puts in a lackadasical performance and expects you to "fix it in the mix". These days people think "producers" are farmers who grow purple roots.
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Post by rowmat on Jul 6, 2019 17:19:03 GMT -6
I think the overuse of plugins is a definite problem.
Who would run a signal through 8 or 10 or more pieces outboard gear?
Most wouldn’t even if they had that gear to spare.
Yet with plugins I can’t believe how many get used on some individual tracks.
It ends up contorting the signal into something that never could (or would have) been possible before DAW’s existed.
All it does is tell me something is wrong either with the original recording, the monitoring or the perception of the ‘said’ plugin junkie.
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Post by johneppstein on Jul 6, 2019 20:11:00 GMT -6
I think the overuse of plugins is a definite problem. Who would run a signal through 8 or 10 or more pieces outboard gear? Most wouldn’t even if they had that gear to spare. Yet with plugins I can’t believe how many get used on some individual tracks. It ends up contorting the signal into something that never could (or would have) been possible before DAW’s existed. All it does is tell me something is wrong either with the original recording, the monitoring or the perception of the ‘said’ plugin junkie. Well, a good part of that is that most plugins don't work as well as hardware so it can take, for example, a chain of several plugin comps to achieve a vague approximation of ONE of the right hardware compressor.
Because software is always at best an approximation of what it attempts to imitate.
But it's a lot more "convenient" and a lot cheaper because you can use an infinite number of instantiations instead of one per channel.
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Post by svart on Jul 6, 2019 20:40:22 GMT -6
More natural, yes. But is that all we strive for? We don't deal in purity. We deal in fantasy. Any old Joe can go get some mics and an interface and record something that *sounds* just like the source.. It takes a little gear and almost no skills to do this. I'd be inclined to dispute that, at least in many cases. If fact I'd be inclined toward the view that not only does the average "Joe" not have the foggiest idea how top record something that sounds just like the source, but actually in many cases doesn't even know what the source really sounds like. Not to mention lacking the equipment required to do a quality capture, even if they did know how to use it.
They think nothing of dropping a grand on pedals so they can "play with sounds" but balk at spending more than a hundred bucks on a mic.
That too, although that certainly does appear to be the "modern" way of going at it.
Whose music is it, anyway? "Ours" or the musician's?
I guess your take on this would tend to be influenced by whether one is an "all-around" engineer who does a project from tracking through final mix or a "mix engineer" who is frequently confronted by poorly tracked (or simply mediocre) material sent in by home recordists that one then must turn into some sort of coherent work. And who often have totally unrealistic notions of what they can, do, or even should sound like.
It used to be that there were producers whose job (among other things) was to get the best performance out of the artist. These days the artist puts in a lackadasical performance and expects you to "fix it in the mix". These days people think "producers" are farmers who grow purple roots.
So in your belief, there is no reason for mix engineers to exist at all? I mean, what purpose do they serve if not to take what they're given and add their sonic fingerprint? Why would an artist pay someone else to assemble their music if they didn't want more than they could do for themselves? |
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Post by mulmany on Jul 6, 2019 21:25:37 GMT -6
I'd be inclined to dispute that, at least in many cases. If fact I'd be inclined toward the view that not only does the average "Joe" not have the foggiest idea how top record something that sounds just like the source, but actually in many cases doesn't even know what the source really sounds like. Not to mention lacking the equipment required to do a quality capture, even if they did know how to use it.
They think nothing of dropping a grand on pedals so they can "play with sounds" but balk at spending more than a hundred bucks on a mic.
That too, although that certainly does appear to be the "modern" way of going at it.
Whose music is it, anyway? "Ours" or the musician's?
I guess your take on this would tend to be influenced by whether one is an "all-around" engineer who does a project from tracking through final mix or a "mix engineer" who is frequently confronted by poorly tracked (or simply mediocre) material sent in by home recordists that one then must turn into some sort of coherent work. And who often have totally unrealistic notions of what they can, do, or even should sound like.
It used to be that there were producers whose job (among other things) was to get the best performance out of the artist. These days the artist puts in a lackadasical performance and expects you to "fix it in the mix". These days people think "producers" are farmers who grow purple roots.
So in your belief, there is no reason for mix engineers to exist at all? I mean, what purpose do they serve if not to take what they're given and add their sonic fingerprint? Why would an artist pay someone else to assemble their music if they didn't want more than they could do for themselves? I actually think you guys may be saying the same thing just from different angles. I think John is thinking in old division of power terms. Where it was the producer that directed the mix and the engineer executed it. Today the recording engineer is the mix engineer who may be acting as the producer since the band has no clue! |
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Post by svart on Jul 6, 2019 21:40:07 GMT -6
So in your belief, there is no reason for mix engineers to exist at all? I mean, what purpose do they serve if not to take what they're given and add their sonic fingerprint? Why would an artist pay someone else to assemble their music if they didn't want more than they could do for themselves? I actually think you guys may be saying the same thing just from different angles. I think John is thinking in old division of power terms. Where it was the producer that directed the mix and the engineer executed it. Today the recording engineer is the mix engineer who may be acting as the producer since the band has no clue! I thought he was saying that it's the musician's music, so pushing and pulling the tracks to create something bigger is no bueno. If that's the case, then I disagree. Musicians go to mixing engineers to get more out of the tracks. I don't believe that good mixes are just a sum of well recorded tracks. There is a lot more to it, more than I want to argue over at least. |
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Post by mulmany on Jul 6, 2019 21:50:00 GMT -6
[/quote]
I thought he was saying that it's the musician's music, so pushing and pulling the tracks to create something bigger is no bueno.
If that's the case, then I disagree. Musicians go to mixing engineers to get more out of the tracks.
I don't believe that good mixes are just a sum of well recorded tracks. There is a lot more to it, more than I want to argue over at least.[/quote]
I think that is the case today, but there use to be a producer that was pushing and pulling the tracking and mixing to be better then the band was naturally. That is lost for most projects, so we as tracking and mix engineers get to do it.
I am more of a "record what the band is" tracking engineer. When I am just mixing I try to present the song in it's best light... Some time the artist likes it and other times they want what they recorded, just cleaned up. Even that is a fine line!
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Post by EmRR on Jul 6, 2019 21:50:55 GMT -6
I actually think you guys may be saying the same thing just from different angles. I think John is thinking in old division of power terms. Where it was the producer that directed the mix and the engineer executed it. Today the recording engineer is the mix engineer who may be acting as the producer since the band has no clue! I thought he was saying that it's the musician's music, so pushing and pulling the tracks to create something bigger is no bueno. If that's the case, then I disagree. Musicians go to mixing engineers to get more out of the tracks. I don't believe that good mixes are just a sum of well recorded tracks. There is a lot more to it, more than I want to argue over at least. With that rare properly produced, performed, and recorded example, the flat fader mix with no processing (not even eq) is perfect and anything else done detracts. I’ve seen it a few times. |
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Post by forgotteng on Jul 7, 2019 3:26:56 GMT -6
I have been experiencing this a lot lately.After reviewing Al Schmitt's book and some other interviews I started to question my use of EQ's and compressors for tracking as apposed to getting the mic placement right. The next step was running things out of the patch bay and processing each track individually and printing the treatment back into the DAW and mixing the stems. I switched to more a of a Brauer approach where I was using 4-5 Stereo Compressors to get harmonic depth of field as apposed to controlling everything. Then filling that in with the unprocessed sound in more of a parallel compression fashion. It opened things up again. Then the thing that surprised me was adding a pair of WARM EQP-WA's across the 2 buss. I had one of these EQ that I used occasionally then I was at my local Guitar Center and the manager was begging me to take this used EQ off his hands. Since I had one already and I have the Stam on order I was a little reluctant but then he offered the Warm eq at $395 and I caved, thinking I could try it in stereo and then sell it when I got the Stam. Well I put it across the stereo buss with a little 16K boost and the the whole mix came together. it rounded off a couple of rough edges on the vocals that I had been using eq's and compressors to try to solve along with different reverbs and delays. I was fudzen around way to much making things worse. Once I simplified it all came together. This shouldn't come as a surprise but that's what I love about this recording mixing thing. 20 years into it and I still feel like I'm learning new things all the time.
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Post by svart on Jul 7, 2019 10:45:28 GMT -6
I guess there's a lot of folks on here that love the way old home videos look more than Hollywood movies, at least based on their belief that "real" is better..
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Post by EmRR on Jul 7, 2019 12:08:32 GMT -6
I guess there's a lot of folks on here that love the way old home videos look more than Hollywood movies, at least based on their belief that "real" is better.. That seems like a derogatory POV, based on a personal sense of style. You seem to argue that no classical or other acoustic music recorded with a purist approach is listenable. That's a style preference......you have made it abundantly clear that you like a lot of processing....that's fine....for you. |
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Post by Tbone81 on Jul 7, 2019 12:56:58 GMT -6
Imho, unless you’re recording with one of those binaural mannequin heads, and leaving the mix faders up with no processing, than it’s all illusion. Even if your using the illusion to achieve a sense of natural “realism”.
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Post by christopher on Jul 7, 2019 13:05:02 GMT -6
For pro AE this is maybe old news but for me its intresting if things come up again and again. If I do more rock or pop orientated music processing seems to be part of the sound. But even there I sometimes tend to overprocess things. As soon I do more real sounding music acoustic guitar vocals - a little goes a long way and it starts in tracking. Finding the right mic spot for tracking acoustic guitar in a less ideal room is for someone -who is not doing it for a living- a harder task. I cant wipe the impression away. Lesser processing gives me a more natural sound?? About 20 years ago I was driving along, listening to some college channel when a song came on that sounded so realistic and honest and stood out of the speakers, I waited for them to say who it was, pulled over and wrote it down: Eric Bibb, from the CD Spirit of the Blues. I ordered it when I got home. When it showed up, I was again floored at realism, smoothness, a sound that fell on the eardrums so effortlessly. Reading the liner notes they talked about how they wanted an authentic sound: a great mic, straight into a recorder. I’m not sure they said this or not, but my impression was AKG C24 into mic inputs on 2track ampex. Looking back now, I don’t know if that’s the truth, or if mastering did a lot, or even if there were a bunch of backup mics or not. But it was well received album, still a go to for me when life feels like crap. I still like to listen and imagine a C24 going straight to tape. (YouTube does not do this justice) |
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Post by mrholmes on Jul 7, 2019 13:16:42 GMT -6
About 20 years ago I was driving along, listening to some college channel when a song came on that sounded so realistic and honest and stood out of the speakers, I waited for them to say who it was, pulled over and wrote it down: Eric Bibb, from the CD Spirit of the Blues. I ordered it when I got home. When it showed up, I was again floored at realism, smoothness, a sound that fell on the eardrums so effortlessly. Reading the liner notes they talked about how they wanted an authentic sound: a great mic, straight into a recorder. I’m not sure they said this or not, but my impression was AKG C24 into mic inputs on 2track ampex. Looking back now, I don’t know if that’s the truth, or if mastering did a lot, or even if there were a bunch of backup mics or not. But it was well received album, still a go to for me when life feels like crap. I still like to listen and imagine a C24 going straight to tape. (YouTube does not do this justice)
Wait
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Post by johneppstein on Jul 7, 2019 13:36:19 GMT -6
I'd be inclined to dispute that, at least in many cases. If fact I'd be inclined toward the view that not only does the average "Joe" not have the foggiest idea how top record something that sounds just like the source, but actually in many cases doesn't even know what the source really sounds like. Not to mention lacking the equipment required to do a quality capture, even if they did know how to use it.
They think nothing of dropping a grand on pedals so they can "play with sounds" but balk at spending more than a hundred bucks on a mic.
That too, although that certainly does appear to be the "modern" way of going at it.
Whose music is it, anyway? "Ours" or the musician's?
I guess your take on this would tend to be influenced by whether one is an "all-around" engineer who does a project from tracking through final mix or a "mix engineer" who is frequently confronted by poorly tracked (or simply mediocre) material sent in by home recordists that one then must turn into some sort of coherent work. And who often have totally unrealistic notions of what they can, do, or even should sound like.
It used to be that there were producers whose job (among other things) was to get the best performance out of the artist. These days the artist puts in a lackadasical performance and expects you to "fix it in the mix". These days people think "producers" are farmers who grow purple roots.
So in your belief, there is no reason for mix engineers to exist at all? I mean, what purpose do they serve if not to take what they're given and add their sonic fingerprint? Why would an artist pay someone else to assemble their music if they didn't want more than they could do for themselves? I don't see that there should be any real distinction between a tracking engineer and a mix engineer. When I'm tracking I'm already thinking about the mix. In fact, the mix should be more or less implied by the time tracking is done and all that's left is the details and some sweetening.
From what I see the reason that mix engineers now exist and are popular is the fact that the cheap gear/home studio revolution has loosed a flood of material that has been tracked by people who don't have a clue how to record and need somebody with skills to clean up their mess. Those "tracking engineers" have no business operating recording gear in the first place.
So yeah, there's definitely a reason. It's just not a good reason. And I don't want somebody adding their "sonic fingerprint" to my tracking. If somebody's going to do that they should be tracking the project.
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Post by johneppstein on Jul 7, 2019 13:51:37 GMT -6
I guess there's a lot of folks on here that love the way old home videos look more than Hollywood movies, at least based on their belief that "real" is better.. No.
Those are people who have no business operating a movie camera, at least not for commercial comsumption.
Amateurs have every right to "play with gear". But they shouldn't fool themselves (or be encouraged to fool themselves) into believing that they can do a professional job. You wanna make movies? Go to film school. Or get a gig as a set carpenter and work your way up.
People think they can do the job without having to put in the time and hard work to learn what they're doing. It devalues both the art of recording and the music ityself. Welcome to the digital world. (Not that there's anything wrong with digital technology. Digital era marketing, OTOH, is another thing entirely.)
If you've never spent time in a real studio, in the presence of real engineers, why on earth would you believe that you're qualified to record? Would you think you could drive a car if you've never even ridden in one?
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Post by johneppstein on Jul 7, 2019 13:59:38 GMT -6
Imho, unless you’re recording with one of those binaural mannequin heads, and leaving the mix faders up with no processing, than it’s all illusion. Even if your using the illusion to achieve a sense of natural “realism”. Of course. But a lot of stuff that's around these days is all frosting and no cake. This also touches on some of the things that (IIRC) JohnKenn and others have said about the demise of the well crafted song in today's commercial market.
Answer me this - How much of, for example, a Sinatra recording is "real" and how much is "illusion"? Or Bob Dylan's first electric period?
The illusion should enhance the reality, not replace it. (Yes, that does open a discussion about "what is reality" when you get into electronica...)
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