|
Post by joseph on Nov 4, 2015 16:35:54 GMT -6
Recognizing that sometimes a customer will want a certain extremely polished sound, especially with pop music, I still know what I personally like.
Would be good to get Bob's input on this, because those Motown recordings are "pop" but sound very alive. Didn't they just overdub strings and vocals?
I think it's best to do several takes of a song with as many live parts as possible. Then depending on complexity, carefully splice the best sections together, much like you would with tape. If you edit too much, you mess with the momentum of the performance. And if you don't notice a problem with this, then perhaps the song isn't being performed well enough in the first place!
The best musicians need only a few takes and not 15, but sometimes you really nail the bridge or the intro, or the verse dynamics, or whatever. Though you have to balance that with what's going to work when spliced together, due to tempo fluctuations in the transition.
As I understand it, the Beatles in their early days and some great recordings on DG, EMI and Decca were cut similarly, but movement by movement with 4-5 takes. You did have the bar by bar thing though too, but you can often hear the bad tape splices anyway, which went along with the spot-miking craziness in the 70s that creeps up today.
Then you overdub vocals if the band is too loud to do them live in the room and resist the phrase by phrase comping as much as possible. And headphones can really mess with some singers' performances, so you use monitors for them. But still, the sectional thing works provided the takes are from the same session, and the mic hasn't moved, and so on. But of course with some melodies, there will be one note that's just hard to land, so you do that over and over.
Anyway, this is just my own view, I hate music that sounds canned. I'd rather take mistakes and preserve the life of the performance. Just cut the songs that don't work out.
One of my favorite ideas about music comes from the conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt. He repeats this saying a lot, but here's an example:
"For me, security and beauty and not compatible. When you seek beauty, you have to forget security, and you have to go to the rim of catastrophe. There you find the beauty. If a musician makes a mistake, a crack, because he risks everything to get the most beautiful thing and he fails, then I thank him for this failure because it is only with this risk you can get the beauty, the real beauty. The real beauty is not available at all. If you seek security, you should make another profession."
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Nov 4, 2015 15:53:06 GMT -6
Besides EchoBoy, I like the delays in Exponential Audio Excalibur, and the tape slap in U-he Satin.
The Moog delay is BBD, which generally works better for guitars and synths than vocals. Granted, it's more hifi than a guitar pedal, but for that kind of money you can get a used fulltone tape echo.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 30, 2015 13:12:46 GMT -6
The rack versions are almost twice as much and yet these have the same "punch and mojo."
Wonder how they managed that, whether the cost cutting is cosmetics and more important if they were able to derive a similar but smaller transformer design, which besides look is the main reason to buy a pulse over a warm.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 28, 2015 12:21:50 GMT -6
Very cool.
Having line input, DI, and reamp all in one unit is pretty great, in terms of ADC and efficient switching between tracking and hardware/pedal inserts.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 26, 2015 23:05:05 GMT -6
I have 6 GIK 242 panels and agree with the endorsements.
On the other hand, if a room is boxy with hard early reflections, ain't nothing you can do to make it sound great, loud drums especially. I'm not a fan of super dry sounds either for most music.
For low ceilings, underheads or just tom mics and a front of kit mic is something to try. Thin cymbals, can't stress this enough!
Martin, you might want to demo DMG Expurgate. I've found it more flexible than any other gate at removing noise without fucking with tone too much, and you could automate it for intermittent annoyances.
Also Beyer M88s and M160s will reject the hell out of everything not right in front of them. I've used them all the time with band/amps/drums in room recordings for this reason.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 15, 2015 22:02:12 GMT -6
Like hardware inserts, comping in Cubase and Logic is very similar. Pro Tools is arcane in comparison, but the artistic advantage could go either way. You could either get bogged down with the extra steps of Pro Tools or lose perspective of the performance as a whole in Cubase/Logic as you can easily grab syllables from every phrase.
So for my part I don't know which is better, really. Probably everyone not knowing that comping existed in the first place would be ideal.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 5, 2015 16:13:43 GMT -6
Btw Sascha Eversmeier, the guy who coded Satin, is the same guy who did Spitfish, which was one of the most transparent plugin deessers for mastering until Essence came along.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Oct 3, 2015 11:19:59 GMT -6
I have thought about this a lot, and the only plugin that can be made not to degrade the audio more than I care for is u-he Satin. Unlike the other tape sims, it can be extremely transparent. Reason is you have control over all parameters, and the physical/theoretical interactions appear to be actually modeled with great sophistication, not just the general vibe, which is what most tape sims seem to do. Things like asperity, ips, head bump, bias, NAB/IEC curves. All on a per track/group basis, which can make a big difference to the variable texture. So you can soften transients slightly, lets say, or add subtle movement among groups, but can choose to not add much noise or shift the balance entirely, the way the other tape sims do. Has delay/flange, dolby decoding. Sounds closer to me than any effects box outside of a fulltone tape echo. uhedownloads.heckmannaudiogmb.netdna-cdn.com/manuals/Satin-user-guide.pdfThese guys make Diva, which is an extremely comprehensive and filter accurate analog synth emulation. That said, like others here, often I just use outboard line stages, compressors and a mixer to do similar things.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 25, 2015 23:29:00 GMT -6
Hydrogen peroxide bought in the pharmacy is heavily diluted in water.
It's a safe remedy to dislodge wax, along with mineral or baby oil. It's not like you're exposing yourself to it on a daily basis.
Be patient. Wait a couple days and the wax should come out itself. I've been there. Do not jam a Q-tip up your ear, as everyone should know by now.
If nothing happens, then you go to the doctor.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 15, 2015 16:26:23 GMT -6
Hey, I don't disagree with that.
Everything is too production driven. Hence the low talent and performance standards legitimized, the elephant in the room.
People delude themselves because it pays, but appealing to producers and the lowest common denominator does not make good music and is nothing to be proud of.
There are easier ways of making money, anyway.
Also, half the guys in LA with crazy gear collections make car commercial music for a living. How stupid is that?
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 15, 2015 15:08:34 GMT -6
Buy it nice or buy it twice.
Of course, this does mean that yours truly walks into the guitar store to buy a parlor guitar and instead gets a used but far superior 00-18v, rationalizing the purchase as a good value, which it was. But way more than I wanted to spend initially, fuck.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 15, 2015 15:06:01 GMT -6
The problem with GS is all the EDM idiots, let's be honest.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 11, 2015 21:30:36 GMT -6
Really like the frequency choices on the left (LC25) eq.
I thought I just wanted an FC526, fuck.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 8, 2015 12:25:20 GMT -6
Just to address realities again, the Bricasti is amazing from a technical/illusionary perspective, but not a magic box that can solve all practical issues.
I've said this already, but it won't fix early reflections in a shitty or hard sounding room, and it while it could stand in for some room fill mics, it definitely won't replace a well placed front of kit mic to glue the close mics.
So much of that sound is the mono reinforcement, plus the character of the mic itself. And that mic will pick up the room to some degree in a way distinct from the close mics. So the room better sound decent.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 7, 2015 21:12:35 GMT -6
I've only ever used an original C12, a vintage U87, U47 FET, but never a U47, M49 or an Elam 251. The C12 was amazing. Having that arsenal to choose from is a dream come true. Well, to be fair those appear to be Flea and Telefunken USA mics, the 47, 49, and 251. So not vintage except for the best mic, the U67. Although the 251 is pretty damn close, I guess enough to deserve the ELA M name.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 5, 2015 14:52:15 GMT -6
Suggest you audition Questeds along with the Amphions.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Sept 1, 2015 13:53:51 GMT -6
I'm a drummer 1st and foremost, in the past I've used a mono overhead, and a FOK mono mic ad nauseum and to good effect, I always HP both. I absolutely love the Glyn Johns technique, it's my go to, i've always used HP on every track. I love big open tuned drums mic'd minimally and with distance, and with my new personally built drum rig, i was lucky enough to get an endorsement with paiste, so I got to hand pick all of my cymbals at their headquarters in brea cali, they are a combo of giant beat, and 2002 thins with 15" hi hats and a 24" ride, big and thin, hit and out the way, awesome for recording. Well, I think with your kind of setup/technique it's hard to go wrong regardless. Highly recommend you check out the Paiste 602 20" thin crash, it is incredible.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 22:02:40 GMT -6
That's cool! Hope to check them out some day.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 21:43:41 GMT -6
I mean, really. The best sounding work I ever do is a stereo pair on an entire band, spending the time to orchestrate and arrange the music for the stereo pair. Duh. What pairs are your go-tos? I have yet to do this on anything but acoustic ensemble.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 21:38:50 GMT -6
I gotta ask, do you track full bands live in the same room frequently, as I do? Everything from loud rock to bluegrass, with keeper vocals thrown in? HPF's get really useful in those cases, to get more specific. I didn't intend to put words in your mouth, simply responding to that which sounded potentially absolutist through vagueness; a constant pitfall of printed conversation. Thanks for saying that. To clarify I usually use LPF that begins in the inaudible range or like a 2db 16khz shelf cut. With tape I wouldn't bother. All I do is track bands live in the same room if I can help it! That's how I worked on my mic placement and decided which mikes I like best. I guess you can say I leave most of the filtering to the microphones, which sounds way more natural to me. Live vocals I use Beyer M88, nothing better for cymbal bleed. RE20 if I can get away with it, but often not. Sometimes you just gotta overdub the vocals, though. I'm often amazed how little low end bleed there is with the right microphones vs how much crap with the wrong ones or poor placement. But I use small amps and thin cymbals. Forget about controlling bleed in most rooms if you don't. I always start with figuring out where the drums sound best in the room, and it's usually not the center of it. Then I'll add the other instruments and amps. E22S is the best microphone I've used for drums and pleasant rejection of things you don't want like too much cymbal wash and high-hat, capture of all you do. It is crazy good in almost any acoustic environment. KM84 for overhead, but I don't want to break it and E22 is slightly better for close miking, reverse being true for acoustic music. M160s can be useful because they are like laserbeams on amps near a drummer. Hey, of course I screw things up too, but usually I get the most important mikes right and lose what's not working or like I said use an expander keyed to snare if I want more room mic but it's getting muddy otherwise. I don't use a lot of mikes because I both prefer the sound and try to get each one just right in the time that I have, using the best mikes available. If a room sucks, I just avoid it, period. Thankfully, you can track anywhere with a laptop and 500 series. That's the big benefit these days. If the drummer plain sucks, then the drummer will suck no matter what you do. I will simply give up and refer elsewhere, not my type of service. I will talk to cymbal bashers though about how to favor their shells but not him them so hard they choke, and let them use my insured thin cymbals and 5as. Once I tell them about Grohl and Crover reigning it in, they tend to listen.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 20:29:58 GMT -6
low level, ultra low freq grunge is a part of life in recorded music, it comes from and happens for a lot of different reasons, the more time your speakers spend trying to reproduce that useless shit, the less time they're spending accurately representing the good stuff, it's really just common sense, and every serious AE in the world totally gets the importance of proper filtering, including Steve Albini. Bruce Swedien stuck with the Harrison 32 console for the entire 2nd half of his career based on the fact that he loved! and couldn't go on without the 32's filtering sections. What can I say? I agree. One more bit, and I'll leave the topic alone... I use eq and high-pass filtering only when I need to, and avoid them wherever possible, particularly the latter. Low-pass is different because I feel groups and drums tend to work well built on foundation from the ground up, not the top down. Digital recording at high sample rates can really benefit from LPF and more serious shelf cuts that go down more gently or musically into the audible range, like with cymbals or condensers on guitar amps or synthesis or to counteract a bell boost. The resonance tends to sounds better to me and doesn't affect the midrange like a hpf often does. But I like rhythm guitars to have body and drums built from the FOK, room mics or overheads. Like Svart said, I try to focus more on mic selection, placement and shock mounting. I use aggressive filtering only as a last resort when I fucked something up. I don't boost highs as a matter of course either, as it pulls on the midrange, and with condensers there are usually plenty highs without tape in the cymbals and vocals. Rest and any full mix sweetening I'd rather trust to mastering engineer with experience about what matters, and full range system.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 19:33:16 GMT -6
Big assumption that you'll get proper mastering from a truly full service facility that digs into spectral editing. Usually doesn't happen. If you haven't fixed those problems before sending it to them, you usually hear about it as feedback. Assuming you have honest dialog with a regular mastering engineer. I rarely see bus compression reveal sub-sonic problems, but then I don't use it very heavily, barely a touch. You aren't gonna convince me that a 40Hz hpf on toms will "separate the body and cohesion in the midrange. And you have to resort to more compression". I'm struggling with the idea of getting rid of subsonic junk on the kick, but NOT on anything else. You can open up lots of different ribbon mics to still air in a quiet room, and see all kinds of junk at pretty good level down into single digit Hz. Put any sort of movement in front of it, and said junk goes way up. A lot of it you never hear, but it's happy to mess with your dynamics processing and eat your amplifier power, problems that get bigger the more compression one applies. Well of course, automate the truly egregious plosives that eat up to 250Hz or so. What about the ones under 50Hz your studio and home speakers don't reproduce, but a sub in a club will? Assuming again, that you have any say in the matter. I mean, HELL YES let's all make unwaveringly professional recordings WITH professional studio musicians in ASTONISHING sounding rooms, spending PLENTY OF TIME ferreting out every gremlin of mic placement and type, then we won't have to use all these fix-it tools. I'm all for it. It's usually not reality. I don't ignore the practicalities you describe, but try to deal with them in other ways. First, high-passing floor tom at 40hz is way different than overheads or even snare from 100-1000hz, obviously. I'm not an absolutist, so don't put words in my mouth. If you like to hpf everything but kick at 50hz, fine by me. I prefer gentle shelving because like I said I tend not to like the resonance bump most filters have reaching into the mids and the loss of depth with more aggressive hpf. With vocals or guitars, the unnaturalness of aggressive hpf is pretty easy to detect. Usually if I've done things right, I'm adding lows with electric guitars, not taking them away. This is something I try to apply from Joe Barresi. My monitors translate pretty well down to ~40hz. An SSL or 2254 style compressor without any sidechain engaged, and the limiter on cheap computer speakers will quickly reveal if your bass info is blown out. Beyond that, I do what I can with headphones and analyzer. Rest I leave to mastering engineer. As jazznoise said, always using good shock mounts makes a big difference! I don't close mike within an inch of a tom skin or a singer's mouth. This creates more depth so you need less eq and compression and it helps with proximity build up. Same deal with mud and using expander on room mics where necessary. I avoid the sources of build up if I can and try to use quality mikes that I am familiar with and can predict well (top choices being KM84, E22s, M88, RE20), or again pulled back far enough from the source (like M201 on snare). Yes, a good mastering experience will have some feedback, involve trust, and I don't expect to nail everything every time. That's how mastering engineers earn their reps, not by being aloof. These days, everything is portable, good rooms are cheaper. There's not much excuse for compromise on an important production. About the other issue, I think it's better to give tips to musicians to control their dynamics better and listen to each other. Rather than try to repair poor technique, because it never sounds as good. Bass players without touch and drummers especially, but same thing with singers and mic technique.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 17:30:33 GMT -6
I couldn't agree more with this! My favorite Albini production is Pod. And the kick drums are not subby like you said but sound huge because of the all the midrange and the bloom into the soundstage coming from the room mics. Back then, he didn't even really use overheads per se, apparently, but room mics (often M/S) + toms and kick/snare. I like a combination of elements/lessons from this philosophy with a simpler more mono centered sound that you get with fewer mics and less than ideal rooms but with character. And like Bob has said, always having a mono mic as a fallback for the core drum sound. For me, this is usually the FOK mic, 47 type Charlie Watts being the ideal. Or a KM84 overhead. Title TK sounds great too, and that's a more close miked, crisp and refined sound. Fucking love The Breeders. You are now pretty cool. Ha, I love them too. Because their songwriting is very broad strokes and not trying too hard. Female in the sense that they are not trying to control the flow at all times and assert their personality. They just let it come out naturally. Also the humor comes across in most likable way, and I hate bands that take themselves too seriously. For this reason, to me in some ways they are better than any other band, including the Beatles. I would kill to be able to write music like them. So every time I work on a new song I try to keep their naturalness in mind. Slowly I am getting better at faking this.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 17:20:22 GMT -6
I'll agree there's no value in using a HPF if you don't know how to set it, paying attention to lowest fundamentals of the instruments in question, setting enough below that. I think fully variable multi-slope HPF's are the single greatest contribution of DAW's to recording, hands down. I rarely set one as high as 100Hz, usually under 80, many under 40. I wish I had one that I could set lower than 20 (I do in hardware). Cars going by. Talent stomping around, even with a shock mount on the mic. Plosives. Wind, natural or talent generated. DI'd bass guitar; that's almost always full of giant spikes down to near-DC when the instrument is played hard. Some mic techniques exaggerate subsonic mud, and you don't get those sounds without it, and then you high pass. Etc. I'm not at all afraid of using a HPF while tracking, just don't do it while remotely guessing at the outcome. Take a listen to a bunch of your work on something like a Meyer line array with plenty of their subs, in a nice big room like a 400+ seater. It'd be rare if you didn't find some nasty surprises that are not at all obvious on the average small studio monitor. Right, but a cab paired with the right microphone naturally high-passes bass. And beyond checking on headphones/checking with an analyzer/watching how your bus compression reacts, that's what the mastering engineer is for. Like I said, I do high-pass kick drum on occasion for this reason. But since that's the lowest point of reference usually, then that's okay. Once you add the other instrumentation, high-passing as well as high shelving can separate the body and cohesion in the midrange. And you have to resort to more compression. This is what all the EDM folks do and it sounds like absolute shit. Unfortunately, yeah, it's true that digital recording allows the build up of mud more easily than tape. Plosives are better dealt with mic positioning or a mic that is not over-reactive, like a U87 or one of those Josephson LDCs. Or you can automate high-pass if absolutely necessary.
|
|
|
Post by joseph on Aug 31, 2015 17:12:42 GMT -6
I've done the HPF thing on the overheads and moved on. Cause the real power in the kit is not the sub, that's easy to add in, it's the midrange. If you listen to a really great kit sound like the In Utero stuff, or even some of the better Beatles stuff. The kick drum is full of prominent 600Hz stuff, it really stands out on any system nicely. Because the midrange is really nicely done, more than anything else. I couldn't agree more with this! My favorite Albini production is Pod. And the kick drums are not subby like you said but sound huge because of the all the midrange and the bloom into the soundstage coming from the room mics. Back then, he didn't even really use overheads per se, apparently, but room mics (often M/S) + toms and kick/snare. I like a combination of elements/lessons from this philosophy with a simpler more mono centered sound that you get with fewer mics and less than ideal rooms but with character. And like Bob has said, always having a mono mic as a fallback for the core drum sound. For me, this is usually the FOK mic, 47 type Charlie Watts being the ideal. Or a KM84 overhead. Title TK sounds great too, and that's a more close miked, crisp and refined sound.
|
|