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Post by Ward on Feb 5, 2016 6:48:40 GMT -6
Hey guys, Eric Strouth here from Locomotive. As far as the sound files and recordings go... Should we have done some things a little differently... Absolutely! It has become clear that some of you really hate it. :-) Its amusing. Over and over. Just as Jesse had stated in an earlier post, being such a small operation prohibits larger budget amenities such as studio time and paid bands. Firebrand Recording was nice enough to help put this thing together and record the song in two short sessions with musicians from around town, one for instrumentation and one for vocals. Should we have had a rehearsed band with a real drummer? YES. Live and learn. It was my decision that we focus on sounds directly from mic to preamp to converters to allow users the opportunity to mold their own sounds and to keep any other external variable to a minimum. After all, we are promoting our own product and that was the point of this. Brian, the owner/engineer at Firebrand, who is indeed a talented and knowledgeable engineer agreed that although he doesn’t normally work like this, that we shouldn’t affect sounds on the way in with EQ and compression... Was this a bad choice? And not what you are used to getting?… Probably! But again, the intention of the recordings were not to write a hit song, but to offer up sound samples of the 286A in a fun way. Until the day we recorded, the drummer and guitarist/bassist had never met each other and were given a short amount of time to work things out, which some of you will say "never worked out." The drums and guitar were tracked together, and then the rest was layered on top. The process in which we chose to record is probably the culprit for most of the issues you hear, I would assume. Unless you just hate everything, which may be the case. No excuses though! I get it. There were mistakes. We'll likely do something similar in nature in the future and I hope that those who were not exactly wowed by what we did will at least give us another opportunity to change that perception. I wasn’t expecting such negativity, but after all, owning a small business and recognizing such successes and failures is a learning process. I imagine that if you either knew me personally or had I contributed on this forum besides being an advertiser, constructive criticism would be much more easy to come by. I’m easy to get along with and open to suggestions. Thank you. Eric, since you're around... in future just put a call out here and one of us will supply something more interesting that will be more challenging to mix in the good way. For example, I've just finished doing a record for a Canadian/Irish/American punk outfit with guest vocals on a couple of songs from one of Dan Lanois's former artists. Stuff is killer and with 22 tracks for drums, 14 guitars, 2 for bass, 8 backing vocals, leads and doubles for lead vocals and lead guitars plus overdubs including horns... and the scattered bit of accordion and mandolin, it would have bit something for contestants to really dig their teeth into. And I'll bet some other guys here have got even wilder things to throw at this!! It's not unheard of. Celine Dion, Angelil and record company allowed the multitrack of one of her songs to be used for a similar contest a few years back. The result was also that an up and coming mixing engineer suddenly got a huge career boost! kind regards.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Feb 5, 2016 7:14:08 GMT -6
Hey guys, Eric Strouth here from Locomotive. As far as the sound files and recordings go... Should we have done some things a little differently... Absolutely! It has become clear that some of you really hate it. :-) Its amusing. Over and over. Just as Jesse had stated in an earlier post, being such a small operation prohibits larger budget amenities such as studio time and paid bands. Firebrand Recording was nice enough to help put this thing together and record the song in two short sessions with musicians from around town, one for instrumentation and one for vocals. Should we have had a rehearsed band with a real drummer? YES. Live and learn. It was my decision that we focus on sounds directly from mic to preamp to converters to allow users the opportunity to mold their own sounds and to keep any other external variable to a minimum. After all, we are promoting our own product and that was the point of this. Brian, the owner/engineer at Firebrand, who is indeed a talented and knowledgeable engineer agreed that although he doesn’t normally work like this, that we shouldn’t affect sounds on the way in with EQ and compression... Was this a bad choice? And not what you are used to getting?… Probably! But again, the intention of the recordings were not to write a hit song, but to offer up sound samples of the 286A in a fun way. Until the day we recorded, the drummer and guitarist/bassist had never met each other and were given a short amount of time to work things out, which some of you will say "never worked out." The drums and guitar were tracked together, and then the rest was layered on top. The process in which we chose to record is probably the culprit for most of the issues you hear, I would assume. Unless you just hate everything, which may be the case. No excuses though! I get it. There were mistakes. We'll likely do something similar in nature in the future and I hope that those who were not exactly wowed by what we did will at least give us another opportunity to change that perception. I wasn’t expecting such negativity, but after all, owning a small business and recognizing such successes and failures is a learning process. I imagine that if you either knew me personally or had I contributed on this forum besides being an advertiser, constructive criticism would be much more easy to come by. I’m easy to get along with and open to suggestions. Thank you. Eric, since you're around... in future just put a call out here and one of us will supply something more interesting that will be more challenging to mix in the good way. For example, I've just finished doing a record for a Canadian/Irish/American punk outfit with guest vocals on a couple of songs from one of Dan Lanois's former artists. Stuff is killer and with 22 tracks for drums, 14 guitars, 2 for bass, 8 backing vocals, leads and doubles for lead vocals and lead guitars plus overdubs including horns... and the scattered bit of accordion and mandolin, it would have bit something for contestants to really dig their teeth into. And I'll bet some other guys here have got even wilder things to throw at this!! It's not unheard of. Celine Dion, Angelil and record company allowed the multitrack of one of her songs to be used for a similar contest a few years back. The result was also that an up and coming mixing engineer suddenly got a huge career boost! kind regards. The problem with this is that the purpose was to record something using all Locomotive preamps, which they did. That's not an option if we lay the tracks.
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Post by formatcyes on Feb 5, 2016 14:30:29 GMT -6
Eric, since you're around... in future just put a call out here and one of us will supply something more interesting that will be more challenging to mix in the good way. For example, I've just finished doing a record for a Canadian/Irish/American punk outfit with guest vocals on a couple of songs from one of Dan Lanois's former artists. Stuff is killer and with 22 tracks for drums, 14 guitars, 2 for bass, 8 backing vocals, leads and doubles for lead vocals and lead guitars plus overdubs including horns... and the scattered bit of accordion and mandolin, it would have bit something for contestants to really dig their teeth into. And I'll bet some other guys here have got even wilder things to throw at this!! It's not unheard of. Celine Dion, Angelil and record company allowed the multitrack of one of her songs to be used for a similar contest a few years back. The result was also that an up and coming mixing engineer suddenly got a huge career boost! kind regards. The problem with this is that the purpose was to record something using all Locomotive preamps, which they did. That's not an option if we lay the tracks. They could loan the preamps out for the tracking. The "we have a song but haven’t practised it just fix it in the mix" does no one any favours. This thread has been great but the music could have been so much better and really shown of the preamps which is kind of the point.
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Post by Ward on Feb 5, 2016 14:37:14 GMT -6
The problem with this is that the purpose was to record something using all Locomotive preamps, which they did. That's not an option if we lay the tracks. They could loan the preamps out for the tracking. The "we have a song but haven’t practised it just fix it in the mix" does no one any favours. This thread has been great but the music could have been so much better and really shown of the preamps which is kind of the point. BINGO... I love it when someone gets it!!
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Post by jcoutu1 on Feb 5, 2016 14:38:34 GMT -6
I don't understand why everyone is so hellbent on having perfect tracks for the contest. What would be the challenge in that? We all have more to gain working with tracks like this than something tracked at Blackbird.
I agree that mic placement and selection may have gotten some better tones on the way in, but the performance is pretty real world, from my experience at least.
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Post by Ward on Feb 5, 2016 14:38:52 GMT -6
The problem with this is that the purpose was to record something using all Locomotive preamps, which they did. That's not an option if we lay the tracks. They could loan the preamps out for the tracking. The "we have a song but haven’t practised it just fix it in the mix" does no one any favours. This thread has been great but the music could have been so much better and really shown of the preamps which is kind of the point. And not so much when someone doesn't get it or purposely makes something more tangly than was intended. Hire someone with something great to record, supply the gear and THEN launch the contest to mix it. And of course, donating 6-8 of the preamps to the recordist afterwards would be fair compensation.
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Post by Ward on Feb 5, 2016 14:40:20 GMT -6
I don't understand why everyone is so hellbent on having perfect tracks for the contest. What would be the challenge in that? We all have more to gain working with tracks like this than something tracked at Blackbird. I agree that mic placement and selection may have gotten some better tones on the way in, but the performance is pretty real world, from my experience at least. Maybe not perfect, but how about practiced, tight and less dreadful? A better song would have helped immensely too.
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Post by jcoutu1 on Feb 5, 2016 14:53:57 GMT -6
Just sounds to me like a lot of excuses for not winning the contest.
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Post by Ward on Feb 5, 2016 14:58:15 GMT -6
Just sounds to me like a lot of excuses for not winning the contest. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Ain't nobody got times fo no contests.
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Post by tonycamphd on Feb 5, 2016 16:46:02 GMT -6
dude, you're being way too harsh IMV, its real world, a good engineer can tighten this up a number of ways, and accentuate the good stuff, vibe the bland stuff, yes it's time consuming, especially for someone like me who is slow as all FUCK! haha, so I personally was not willing to spend the time, but if you are tasked with taking it on, it is what it is, you have to deal with what you get and make it sound great, i believe good AE's can make these tracks sound very good if need be, my guess is it would take my slow ass about 8-10 hours to do so, but no doubt I've dealt with far worse, so it can be done.
Here's my incomplete mix, I allotted myself 2 hours of effort which goes crazy against my OC behavior, but I stuck to my guns, It's totally static, cept for the challenging intro guitar, I spent over an hour of time panning/leveling, editing, clip gaining, and filtering, then i unapologetically went as fast as I could throwing the same waves renaissance plugin comps, and verbs on things, i eq'd drums a little bit, everything else... Not! I also threw that free vinyl plug on the beginning.. yaay! and then shamefully...., I went against my own rule by dumping it into a waves L2 shavingloud 2-3db, but only because Jess's version is so friggin loud I felt tiny noodled and tried to compete! derp! derp! doy! 8/ haha. The funny thing is as i did this, I could still hear that vague ITB digititus effect that I so despise creeping up on me... even at this early stage, further verification that I'm doing the right thing moving OTB. Still, I believe if i spent another 6-8 hours on this ITB, this could be pretty slamming.
Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! https%3A//soundcloud.com/tonycamp/loco
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Post by wiz on Feb 5, 2016 17:04:46 GMT -6
dude, you're being way too harsh IMV, its real world, a good engineer can tighten this up a number of ways, and accentuate the good stuff, vibe the bland stuff, yes it's time consuming, especially for someone like me who is slow as all FUCK! haha, so I personally was not willing to spend the time, but if you are tasked with taking it on, it is what it is, you have to deal with what you get and make it sound great, i believe good AE's can make these tracks sound very good if need be, my guess is it would take my slow ass about 8-10 hours to do so, but no doubt I've dealt with far worse, so it can be done. Here's my incomplete mix, I allotted myself 2 hours of effort which goes crazy against my OC behavior, but I stuck to my guns, It's totally static, cept for the challenging intro guitar, I spent over an hour of time panning/leveling, editing, clip gaining, and filtering, then i unapologetically went as fast as I could throwing the same waves renaissance plugin comps, and verbs on things, i eq'd drums a little bit, everything else... Not! I also threw that free vinyl plug on the beginning.. yaay! and then shamefully...., I went against my own rule by dumping it into a waves L2 shavingloud 2-3db, but only because Jess's version is so friggin loud I felt tiny noodled and tried to compete! derp! derp! doy! 8/ haha. The funny thing is as i did this, I could still hear that vague ITB digititus effect that I so despise creeping up on me... even at this early stage, further verification that I'm doing the right thing moving OTB. Still, I believe if i spent another 6-8 hours on this ITB, this could be pretty slamming. Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! https%3A//soundcloud.com/tonycamp/locoBest mix so far I reckon... bass is 1-2dB too hot... great stuff mate!!! cheers Wiz
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Post by porkyman on Feb 5, 2016 20:34:14 GMT -6
dude, you're being way too harsh IMV, its real world, a good engineer can tighten this up a number of ways, and accentuate the good stuff, vibe the bland stuff, yes it's time consuming, especially for someone like me who is slow as all FUCK! haha, so I personally was not willing to spend the time, but if you are tasked with taking it on, it is what it is, you have to deal with what you get and make it sound great, i believe good AE's can make these tracks sound very good if need be, my guess is it would take my slow ass about 8-10 hours to do so, but no doubt I've dealt with far worse, so it can be done. Here's my incomplete mix, I allotted myself 2 hours of effort which goes crazy against my OC behavior, but I stuck to my guns, It's totally static, cept for the challenging intro guitar, I spent over an hour of time panning/leveling, editing, clip gaining, and filtering, then i unapologetically went as fast as I could throwing the same waves renaissance plugin comps, and verbs on things, i eq'd drums a little bit, everything else... Not! I also threw that free vinyl plug on the beginning.. yaay! and then shamefully...., I went against my own rule by dumping it into a waves L2 shavingloud 2-3db, but only because Jess's version is so friggin loud I felt tiny noodled and tried to compete! derp! derp! doy! 8/ haha. The funny thing is as i did this, I could still hear that vague ITB digititus effect that I so despise creeping up on me... even at this early stage, further verification that I'm doing the right thing moving OTB. Still, I believe if i spent another 6-8 hours on this ITB, this could be pretty slamming. Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! https%3A//soundcloud.com/tonycamp/locoi like it. its got an edie brickell vibe.
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Post by formatcyes on Feb 5, 2016 21:45:01 GMT -6
Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! Ok I am impressed. Your ITB vs OTB have you tryed the harrison mixbus? No refection on this mix just curious what you think.
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Post by tonycamphd on Feb 5, 2016 23:01:37 GMT -6
Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! Ok I am impressed. Your ITB vs OTB have you tryed the harrison mixbus? No refection on this mix just curious what you think. thanx man, i have not tried Harrison MB, i've heard from a few pals that it's good stuff, what do you think of it? hopefully i'll try it when i go up to winetree's place next time.
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Post by formatcyes on Feb 6, 2016 0:01:13 GMT -6
Ok I am impressed. Your ITB vs OTB have you tryed the harrison mixbus? No refection on this mix just curious what you think. thanx man, i have not tried Harrison MB, i've heard from a few pals that it's good stuff, what do you think of it? hopefully i'll try it when i go up to winetree's place next time. I love it sounds very different to the other daws but I don't operate at your level. I also have no experience OTB so would be keen to hear what you think it may take away your OTB craving and it may not.
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Post by Ward on Feb 6, 2016 10:34:13 GMT -6
Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! Are you kidding me? Best mix yet. Locomotive should GIVE you a pair of their preamps just for letting us hear this! The way you brought out the subtle nuances of the snare? Totally pro. Hard to believe you got this from what you had to work with. I bow humbly in your general direction.... please don't fart.
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Post by popmann on Feb 6, 2016 12:18:12 GMT -6
Well, at least Tony has a sense of humor.
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Post by tonycamphd on Feb 6, 2016 13:23:11 GMT -6
Ok fella's, rip me to shreds!! Are you kidding me? Best mix yet. Locomotive should GIVE you a pair of their preamps just for letting us hear this! The way you brought out the subtle nuances of the snare? Totally pro. Hard to believe you got this from what you had to work with. I bow humbly in your general direction.... please don't fart. thats nice of you to say man, I'd be happy to finish it for the stereo pair of pre's! haha, Eric does some very seriously nice builds, i've seen/played with them in person at AES 2014, super clean and precise point to point work, sounded very impressive through headphones as well.
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Post by tonycamphd on Feb 6, 2016 13:33:52 GMT -6
Well, at least Tony has a sense of humor. Pop, curious what you are seeing as "ideal" DR numbers for specific genre's of music? taking into consideration that the majority of people are actually doing the majority of listening in their cars with a pretty high noise floors.
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Post by popmann on Feb 6, 2016 20:17:17 GMT -6
Ive never heard a single digit master beat double. On any playback system. The closest would be comparing TTB's DR9 (avg) 88.2 vs the DR11/12 vinyl. But heavy rock is the WORST mastered loud. There ARE no nuances worth a shit to push up--and it kills the pick attack and drum punch that drives the genre. Clean pop CAN take way more and still be nice sounding, but I simply see no reason to do so. But, mostly I don't see any point--I was surprised how little genre mattered OTHER than heavy rock and "metal"--be it country rock soul funk jazz....I find DR13,12,11 ideal.....DR 10,9,8 can sound nice with certain styles done well....DR7,6 only works with ultra clean pop, and frankly any time I've heard the actual mixes or more dynamic master, it's better. Dynamics trump format all day. A 24/96 DR8 master is easily bested by an old DR12 red book of the same material. Usually an MP3 OF that CD will still best it.
Dynamics on poor systems only starts at 14+, where underpowered little boom boxes and lousy car stereos can handle it. I have a DR17 of The Wall, since you have ape chant for classic rock, that's really annoying to listen to in the car.
But, mixes haven't changed much. The only thing that's changed about mixes really is the poor quality that needs lots of work in mastering. But, DR simply isn't a concern for me in mixing other than the last minute litmus test of throwing a look ahead on and making sure it doesn't fall apart right away. Usually when there's a DR17 mix, it's a poor mix. Exceptions, probably, but does that mean there's a drum machine constantly whacking the same volume and you've mixed it really loud? Or frequent tom peaks that can be clipped without touching the rest of the mix? Heck that's part of what I look for with the look ahead-where is it clipping and why? Is that something I can take care of more transparently before running it down?
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Post by Ward on Feb 7, 2016 10:46:26 GMT -6
A 24/96 DR8 master is easily bested by an old DR12 red book of the same material. Usually an MP3 OF that CD will still best it. Dynamics on poor systems only starts at 14+, where underpowered little boom boxes and lousy car stereos can handle it. I have a DR17 of The Wall, since you have ape chant for classic rock, that's really annoying to listen to in the car. But, mixes haven't changed much. The only thing that's changed about mixes really is the poor quality that needs lots of work in mastering. But, DR simply isn't a concern for me in mixing other than the last minute litmus test of throwing a look ahead on and making sure it doesn't fall apart right away. Usually when there's a DR17 mix, it's a poor mix. Exceptions, probably, but does that mean there's a drum machine constantly whacking the same volume and you've mixed it really loud? Or frequent tom peaks that can be clipped without touching the rest of the mix? Heck that's part of what I look for with the look ahead-where is it clipping and why? Is that something I can take care of more transparently before running it down? Nobody follows Redbook 'rules', unwritten ruiles, accepted practices anyhow... not any more. It's all loudness wars nowadays innit?
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Post by popmann on Feb 7, 2016 16:16:17 GMT -6
Ward quoting me shows the funny autocorrect: I intended to say you have a penchant for class is rock.
I don't care about the loudness war. Rockers should care. Once you do the offsets that replaygain or Soundcheck does....and/or use something like the 64bit engine of Neutron (portable android/iOS) to reduce the output volume to where there are no intersample peaks, clean pop sounds fine. Mind you--not "as good" in direct comparison....and MORE importantly there's simply no good reason to do it....rock is where all the square waving sucks. Slash on vinyl at DR12 is a completely different experience than the DR5 CD. Now, if they actually WANTED for the digital to sound good, a DR11 96khz transfer from the analog tapes would kick the ass of both available versions.
I have to say, since Jason Isbell is popular round here, I listened to his album more than most last year...AND I'm not a big fan. I like it, but I don't love it--but, I listened a lot more than other records that are mastered loud and brightly. I only realized that looking back for a kind of year end wrap up and iTunes play counts--it challenges the whole "sonics don't matter". i don't think one can discount making everything look ahead loud and its side effects OR the use of click tracks....all have a cumulative homogenizing effect. In an art of pop music where you're selling humanity, sounding like computers can't be denied as being a factor in the lack of sales/valuation to the public.
That said, how does this even come up? Unless you need an EXTREMELY loud master (DR6/5/4) there not really much to change at mix time. Good mix is a good mix. Do you tap your toe to this one? I did when I was done.
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Post by Ward on Feb 7, 2016 17:44:55 GMT -6
Well we're way off topic now... but yes, smashing the crap out of rock or country or any of their variants does tend to destroy the impact. Unfortunately, if everything isn't as loud as what's loudest on the market, artists are conditioned to believe it doesn't sound as good.
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xengs
New Member
Posts: 4
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Post by xengs on Feb 8, 2016 10:33:55 GMT -6
Hello everyone I only found out about this forum just now! Some very interesting mixes on here, I especially liked tonycamp's vintage vibe! Anyway, I took a completely different approach and went for a wide and modern sound... It's obviously far from perfect (Rather mushy in the low mids and I could handle the vox volumes better), but hey, let me know what you think! (I haven't done much on the 2Buss, so you may need to turn your monitors up) https%3A//soundcloud.com/steliosmac/locomotive-audio-mixGood luck to everyone that took part, and many thanks to Locomotive!
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Post by tonycamphd on Feb 8, 2016 19:15:55 GMT -6
Hello everyone I only found out about this forum just now! Some very interesting mixes on here, I especially liked tonycamp's vintage vibe! Anyway, I took a completely different approach and went for a wide and modern sound... It's obviously far from perfect (Rather mushy in the low mids and I could handle the vox volumes better), but hey, let me know what you think! (I haven't done much on the 2Buss, so you may need to turn your monitors up) https%3A//soundcloud.com/steliosmac/locomotive-audio-mixGood luck to everyone that took part, and many thanks to Locomotive!hi Hi xengs, welcome to the forum! I'm looking forward to checking ur mix out later tonight. edit; I listened, unique no doubt, i like the delay use 8)
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