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Post by svart on Mar 29, 2024 7:14:16 GMT -6
When building a mix, I often get hints of areas to fix that I “feel”, more than I can figure out where to listen for. It started when I worked live, where I couldn’t just mute every track and find the problem. I just started to know, for example if I feel myself clinching my jaw, something is wrong and not ok! And well that is one example I’m not sure I ever solved- sometimes the snare crack is too loud, sometimes the kick has too much mids, often its lows are too boomy, etc. It was fun to experiment on the crowd live, I’d watch everyone’s hips.. if they weren’t moving I knew I didn’t have the lows dialed. Then you go and slightly mess with the 31 band below 150Hz and watch as instantly 100 people all start tapping their foot. Then you could make them all stop, or start again. In the studio it’s just me, no visual clues like that.. So do you guys have tips that you “sense” and know where to look? The sections that people gravitate towards in the mix process have been referred to as the "hero" sections by some. These are the parts where you should focus first because it's the best part of the song. Focus on those parts, make them the best they can be, then move to the lesser sections and use them to build up to the hero section.
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Post by svart on Mar 28, 2024 14:14:39 GMT -6
Panasonic hje120 earbuds. 10$ Seriously. Ordered. Cheers, Geoff Cool. Don't think of them as "these should sound good" even though they do sound fine.. Think of them as "anything that sounds good on them will translate well" almost like NS10 earbuds, but without the painful 2Khz.. They're very neutral.
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Post by svart on Mar 27, 2024 19:17:52 GMT -6
Panasonic hje120 earbuds. 10$
Seriously.
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Post by svart on Mar 27, 2024 7:00:26 GMT -6
Do you think a tour of Blackbird could be arranged? It's super cool. I got a personal tour years ago and it was amazing. Not sure what they'll show you, but I got to see some priceless gear and run into some famous country artists in the halls.
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Post by svart on Mar 26, 2024 13:08:37 GMT -6
Man, this is breaking my brain a bit. Doesn’t sound travel at roughly 1 ft per millisecond? Most guitarists play what? 6 feet from their rig at least, no? I routinely give headphone mixes to clients at 6-7 msec and have never had anyone say a damn thing. I have no latency monitoring available but often don’t use it so I can use some processing. Yeah, I mentioned that it's about 1ft per millisecond already. I still find it interesting that some can say that 1ms is hard for them but then say that they can only use real amps because there is no latency, but the math would say that they routinely hear 5-10ms of latency in a room..
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Post by svart on Mar 26, 2024 9:06:49 GMT -6
I am skeptical anyone ever has issues at 1ms latency. For me, issues with rhythm and even pitch/tonality begin to arise between 3-4ms. I can easily work with 1 or 2ms latency. What! How do you know how latency feels to someone else. I can and have passed a double blind ABX latency test. I can easily detect the difference between 1 and 2ms. How - a lifetime of playing real instruments. If someone else can't - that's more than fair enough - but I'm not going to have anyone tell what I can and cannot feel. Sorry if that sounds sniffy - it's not meant to - I'm just saying. So when you stand back from your amp about 5ft, you can detect the 5ms of latency? Sound in air travels around 1ft per millisecond..
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Post by svart on Mar 26, 2024 8:04:11 GMT -6
it depends. If it's a wet/dry combo, then 1ms is noticable. If it's just the wet signal, people don't start to complain until around 20ms up to 50ms or more. hearing it or feeling it? Cannot hear it under 40-50 ms easily because of the Haas effect which will change the sound even with 2-3 ms of latency. Feel is different. Very different things I think. It's easy to hear ~1ms phase anomalies from Haas if you have a direct wet/dry combination. If you just listen to the wet, then I think it's easily up to >20ms before most folks perceive it as some kind of noticeable delay, but probably can't really "hear" it until much higher.
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Post by svart on Mar 26, 2024 7:40:50 GMT -6
I am skeptical anyone ever has issues at 1ms latency. For me, issues with rhythm and even pitch/tonality begin to arise between 3-4ms. I can easily work with 1 or 2ms latency. Yeah, 1/100th of a second seems like a very short time to perceive a change. Human reaction times to external stimuli is about 1 second. We just don't perceive the lag because we're always behind.
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Post by svart on Mar 26, 2024 7:38:12 GMT -6
it depends. If it's a wet/dry combo, then 1ms is noticable. If it's just the wet signal, people don't start to complain until around 20ms up to 50ms or more. This is what I'm looking for. Cuz yeah, the phasiness (phasyness? phaseness? whatever...) bothers me even on a wet only signal if it's my voice at literally anything other than direct monitoring. Obviously 1ms is less bothersome than 3ms and so forth, but it's all annoying. Then you go direct and it's like "ahhh... my voice is back, I'm me again." So I guess I'm really just talking for vocals. For other instruments I think our brains are already wired to accept latency because it exists in the real world. I don't expect a guitar string to instantly hit my ears when played in the same manner as I expect it of my own voice. So svart , in your experience, does that 20ms number change if we're talking about vocals? It might. I think vocalists and guitarists have been the ones complaining most about latency. I'm not a singer, but I've tried over the years and honestly, I can't hear myself well enough through headphones when singing for it to even be an issue. I'm basically just trying to keep up with the timing and overall pitch. I might even add some reverb to my vocal cue so I can more easily detect the pitch. When I play guitar, I don't notice any perceptible latency until it's more like 20-30ms and it doesn't bother my playing until 50ms or higher. I wonder how people can actually hear less than 1/20th of a second of delay. It seems so small in context of time. However, to play the devil's advocate, I once had a guy tell me that he didn't like amp sims because they had too much latency. I set up a marshall amp sim to see if the tone would work in the mix. While sitting there he complained about the latency. I went into the other room to set up the amp and came back to change a patch and he started playing and said "that amp sounds much better!!" I had never switched it to the real amp. I never even turned it on.. He never knew I never turned the amp on. Only when he KNEW that he was playing through the sim did he mention the latency, so I think there is a strong perception effect, FWIW.
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Post by svart on Mar 25, 2024 15:49:00 GMT -6
it depends.
If it's a wet/dry combo, then 1ms is noticable.
If it's just the wet signal, people don't start to complain until around 20ms up to 50ms or more.
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Post by svart on Mar 25, 2024 9:32:24 GMT -6
KM184 or M930
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Post by svart on Mar 25, 2024 7:02:58 GMT -6
Mine is always changing, but it's less full than it used to be. I'm considering going down to two racks at this point, but here's a couple-year-old photo:
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Post by svart on Mar 22, 2024 8:43:55 GMT -6
This will be quick, they sound near enough like my Core 59's. The Geithain's are easier on the ear and slightly less confusing, they care far less about setup or placement and of course they go lower, apart from that though we are really splitting hairs.
I very much like them, it's more of a logistical issue with these than anything else. Somehow the 934's are even larger than the Dyn's and as my desk takes up a lot of space I can't put them on stands. Maybe in my next house..
So you're saying that the much more expensive speakers sound a lot like your much less expensive speakers and that the extra cost really wasn't worth it? Fascinating.. Sounds like something I would say. (I'm messing with you, don't get mad)
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Post by svart on Mar 22, 2024 8:41:40 GMT -6
Along with the listening download a FFT or RTA for your phone or pc. Trust your ears but verify, the one thing I learned from Ronald Regan. I learned that ketchup counts as a vegetable. Tomatoes are actually fruit, so that make ketchup a form of jam.
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Post by svart on Mar 22, 2024 8:37:42 GMT -6
Man, the biggest regret was the Tascam Mx2424 recorder. Thousands of dollars and months of trouble before I got rid of it.
That thing couldn't stay stable to save its life. Constantly locking up at random times. Sounded great monitoring through it during tracking but a noticeable reduction in quality on playback at any sample rate. Super expensive and rare SCSI3 harddrives. Really hard to do backups because it did it over ethernet and it took HOURS to backup one song and it might lock up during the process.. Tascam stopped replying to me after a few support requests trying to figure out what was wrong.
That thing really was a lemon and taught me to never buy Tascam again..
I should have gone with the Alesis HD24 like I originally wanted but folks on forums kept telling me that the Alesis wasn't PRO enough and to spend the extra money on the Tascam. I should have sent THEM the fucking bill.
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Post by svart on Mar 22, 2024 8:11:33 GMT -6
When I got my Beezneez U87 I think the conversion rate put it at right near 599$.. Great great vocal mic.
(For 499$ I'd pick any of the Lewitt mics that come in around that price. Also great mics but more general purpose.)
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Post by svart on Mar 21, 2024 10:53:53 GMT -6
2048 samples at 96KHz sampling rate would be about 21ms of buffering time. Not sure how the math works to get you 1.1ms latency. I guess that 1.1ms would be just processing latency, not total audio latency. The buffer doesn't affect latency when you're direct monitoring. You can set it to the highest setting to get the most processing power and best stability, and still get 1.1ms of total audio latency for recording. That's the great thing about the Apollo, for me at least. So it takes the audio from the streams before the DAW? How do you monitor through the plugs in the DAW then? I think that's what wiz was asking about, right?
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Post by svart on Mar 21, 2024 7:16:59 GMT -6
Just a note for those using Reaper. Maybe this is really obvious, but I felt really dumb after discovering it. By default, Reaper does anticipative FX processing (render-ahead) of 200 ms. Which means that if you have ANY plugin in any track, even if it is a zero-latency plugin, the latency will be of at least 200 ms. Make sure to disable anticipative FX processing if you're tracking. Software defaults are powerful, and Reaper has some weird ones (in my opinion). I've never turned off anticipative FX and I certainly have never heard almost 1/4 second of delay..
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Post by svart on Mar 21, 2024 7:14:58 GMT -6
I'm right there with you, Wiz. The Apollo system works great for me and I think it sounds great too. I often pull up a "finished" mix session with 50-60 full of plugs, including on the mix bus, and track an overdub with 1.1 ms latency, even with a really nice reverb or delay being monitored. I can have my buffer set to 2048 and it's rock solid with 1.1 ms latency. I actually was able to do that with a 2012 Macbook Pro too and it was no problem. I've never been able to get that low of latency under that kind of load with native systems, but I haven't tried it with the newer Apple Silicon computers yet. With native systems I always had to disable some plugins, and I couldn't track with reverbs without delay. I think the only thing that can compete latency-wise is HDX, and it costs twice as much money. I put that money into microphones and monitors instead and I'm glad I did. I think the converters sound great. I slightly prefer the sound of the Apogee Symphony AD, but these days when you're buying an interface, you're buying into an ecosystem, and all the other factors still make the Apollo a winner for me. The DA on the Apollo X series blows away a lot of the DACs that top mastering engineers were using 20 years ago. I'm sure a Hilo would be even more transparent, but I work just fine with the Apollo X DAC. I still haven't used Luna. I know I'm in the minority on this, but I find it easy to work with UA Console and Pro Tools. I came up at a time in studios when we were using LFACs as a front end to record into Pro Tools, and this is basically the same workflow but with software. In Pro Tools I'm always switching between the mix and edit windows, this just adds a third window with the same quick keys. I'm super fast with both Pro Tools and Console and it's easy for me. I'm sure Luna is an even better workflow and I'm excited to give it a try when I have time. 2048 samples at 96KHz sampling rate would be about 21ms of buffering time. Not sure how the math works to get you 1.1ms latency. I guess that 1.1ms would be just processing latency, not total audio latency.
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Post by svart on Mar 20, 2024 17:13:46 GMT -6
Yep. Anything will work these days. I bet one could make the same thread about a Behringer interface and reaper, using only stock plugins. Hey do you think with that system you mention, you could overdub into the song as I am doing? with the amount of plugs I am running and get near zero latency? @svaart you are the reaper guy, could it do that? If so that's a very good thing for those financially challlenged cheers Wiz I get around 5ms latency at 128 samples tracking through some plugs in Reaper with my motu interfaces. Occasionally with really high track counts, like 30+ with some amp sims and stuff, I might have to increase to 256 samples and I get around 10ms of latency. Barely perceptible. I generally don't track with reverbs or stuff like Soothe because the PID latency on those is really high and can cause an audible delay. Otherwise yeah, I track all the time with most of my plugs already in place in my template.
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2024 13:59:19 GMT -6
I dunno, I think they do the job just fine. Had a guy send me a bunch of JCM800 tracks and they were so muddy they were unusable, but cutting the lows made them shrill and no better.. Luckly there were some DI tracks and I used the ML jcm800 plug to get a great tone without the muddiness. I used a tiny bit of the original tracks just because, but they were turned down really low. Dude was over the moon with how it turned out and kept going on and on about how amps sounded so much better than sims.. I would just record the amp properly first…a badly recorded amp is a badly recorded amp… The problem is that a lot of people don't *know* what a good recording tone is. They like the ball-shaking volume in the room and they're conditioned to believe that it has to be LOUD to sound good. More often than not, a good tone for recording a raucous amp like this is barely above talking volume. Anyway, have you ever actually tried to talk a guitarist into tracking with low volume who has never done it before? It's harder than getting a singer to not hit the vape between every take.
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2024 13:50:58 GMT -6
Amp sims have certainly come a LONG way, but every time I get one sounding good, I mic up whatever its trying to emulate and its like "Ohhhhhhhhh". For whatever reason, the amp always just sounds like "more" and is easier to get happening in the mix. I had a client send me tracks this week to mix, saying he loved his Neural plug. It was trying to emulate a modded Fender of some sort pushed with a TS9 and SD-1, so I re-amped his DI through said pedals and a BF Deluxe Reverb I got here through a closed back cab. He didn't find the plug quite as impressive after! For me, its the 200-400 hz range that never sounds quite right on an amp sim. Maybe its because they don't emulate cab and room resonance quite like the real thing.... I dunno, I think they do the job just fine. Had a guy send me a bunch of JCM800 tracks and they were so muddy they were unusable, but cutting the lows made them shrill and no better.. Luckly there were some DI tracks and I used the ML jcm800 plug to get a great tone without the muddiness. I used a tiny bit of the original tracks just because, but they were turned down really low. Dude was over the moon with how it turned out and kept going on and on about how amps sounded so much better than sims..
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2024 13:12:27 GMT -6
The death of music….instead of getting a good tone…use someone else’s preset…or if the singer is out of tune…use Autotune…. ?? Nah.
Presets have driven music creativity for many decades. It's not the preset (which can be quite excellent) but rather the individual use of them.
Technology has always defined popular music direction and inspiration.
It is well documented that presets from every major synth, drum machine, reverb units, effects processor etc are found on hits, hits and hits...and 1000s of records that we consider classics of most genres that use electronic technology.
One could say that watching videos or reading articles about artists/musicians/producers/mixers and buying a pedal/amp/guitar/rack unit/console/etc and then trying to recreate a tone you heard is the same as having a "preset".. It just takes a lot more time, money and energy.
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2024 12:58:37 GMT -6
Well let me tell you that after decades of tracking guitars in the realspace.. ITB is a godsend. Exactly 2 minutes after trying to get tone with an amp in a room and your ears are so blown out you can't tell the difference between notes.. Then you start moving the mic around and you can't even keep track of where it sounded best as you're running back and forth from cab to console. Sometimes "get the tone in the room" isn't all it's cracked up to be. Couple that with spending 30 minutes trying to find the crackling noise by going through all the cables and replugging them.. Yeah. When I want to sit down and work, thumbing through a menu is so much easier and less stressful. The death of music….instead of getting a good tone…use someone else’s preset…or if the singer is out of tune…use Autotune…. Music is in the eye of the beholder, I guess. I've never once sounded like the person who created the preset did, but at least you can see what they were going for. But music is about the melody and the arrangement. One could argue that a lot of really badly recorded songs were super popular anyway (looking at you Beatles)..
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Post by svart on Mar 19, 2024 11:59:37 GMT -6
Well let me tell you that after decades of tracking guitars in the realspace.. ITB is a godsend. Exactly 2 minutes after trying to get tone with an amp in a room and your ears are so blown out you can't tell the difference between notes.. Then you start moving the mic around and you can't even keep track of where it sounded best as you're running back and forth from cab to console.
Sometimes "get the tone in the room" isn't all it's cracked up to be. Couple that with spending 30 minutes trying to find the crackling noise by going through all the cables and replugging them..
Yeah.
When I want to sit down and work, thumbing through a menu is so much easier and less stressful.
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