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Post by swurveman on Jan 18, 2017 8:55:38 GMT -6
I was listening to this ac/dc rock song today and the drum kit/sound was very held and centered in the middle with it's own room sound, while the guitars were panned with their own room sound, but it all blended together beautifully imo.
I tried to imitate this in my DAW by narrowing my Drum Bus and any stereo mics feeding it and narrowing the room, but I could not focus it while blending it with the stereo guitars. I'm wondering if there's something else going on?
Like all music, you can hear it much better with your studio monitors.
Note: I know people will want to compare old ac/dc from new. I'm mostly interested in this mix. Thanks!
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Post by jcoutu1 on Jan 18, 2017 9:26:14 GMT -6
Double tracked guitars for sure. That's the only way to get them super wide like that. I almost wonder how real any of the drums are. The kit could totally be sampled/triggered. The cymbals have very precise placement. There doesn't seem to be much (if any) snare in the hats. If there isn't a bunch of replacement happening, it's VERY precision micing in my opinion.
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Post by swurveman on Jan 18, 2017 9:46:16 GMT -6
Double tracked guitars for sure. That's the only way to get them super wide like that. I almost wonder how real any of the drums are. The kit could totally be sampled/triggered. The cymbals have very precise placement. There doesn't seem to be much (if any) snare in the hats. If there isn't a bunch of replacement happening, it's VERY precision micing in my opinion. Thanks for your reply Jesse, Maybe the kick and snare are coming from solely from samples and the overheads have snare/kick filtered out? Still there's this depth as well that is centered. Perhaps it's an ambient snare that's gated? The snare is huge, but there's no decay sound. And the kick snare sound like they're in the same space.
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Post by svart on Jan 18, 2017 10:31:57 GMT -6
I was listening to this ac/dc rock song today and the drum kit/sound was very held and centered in the middle with it's own room sound, while the guitars were panned with their own room sound, but it all blended together beautifully imo. I tried to imitate this in my DAW by narrowing my Drum Bus and any stereo mics feeding it and narrowing the room, but I could not focus it while blending it with the stereo guitars. I'm wondering if there's something else going on? Like all music, you can hear it much better with your studio monitors. Note: I know people will want to compare old ac/dc from new. I'm mostly interested in this mix. Thanks! The drums are wider panned than you think you hear. I've run into that a few times trying to mix stuff folks have tracked in "mono". The extra wide, and full, guitars make them seem more narrow in comparison. As for the guitars, it could be two amps, with both Haas widening (increased delay between them make them seem further apart) and a little slow chorus to give them some difference in phase, but it's 99% that it's just double/quad tracked guitars. This has a lot of HP/LP and gating/expansion going on. Start ruthlessly cutting anything that doesn't need to exist in the frequency spectrum. The clearest example in the song is the guitars, there is nothing going on above 2K-3K on them at all. That's a good call, because it allows the grit in the vocals to stand out without needing to boost or enhance anything. They certainly focused on a few regions. The guitars are cut low so that the vocals have room above them. The kick fundamental is lower than the bass guitar. The bass has a round low-mid bump without much for grit or harmonics that take away from the guitars or vocals. They let the guitar take up most of the mids and low-mids. The cymbals take up most of the high mids above the vocals. They let the vocal effects drift around the upper mids through the highs to give it more of an airy ambiance. I think the takeaway is that the pre-production probably spent a lot of time getting everything tuned and set up to be recorded this way and the mix just exaggerated the separation that the production setup created.
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Post by swurveman on Jan 18, 2017 10:44:46 GMT -6
I was listening to this ac/dc rock song today and the drum kit/sound was very held and centered in the middle with it's own room sound, while the guitars were panned with their own room sound, but it all blended together beautifully imo. I tried to imitate this in my DAW by narrowing my Drum Bus and any stereo mics feeding it and narrowing the room, but I could not focus it while blending it with the stereo guitars. I'm wondering if there's something else going on? Like all music, you can hear it much better with your studio monitors. Note: I know people will want to compare old ac/dc from new. I'm mostly interested in this mix. Thanks! The drums are wider panned than you think you hear. I've run into that a few times trying to mix stuff folks have tracked in "mono". The extra wide, and full, guitars make them seem more narrow in comparison. As for the guitars, it could be two amps, with both Haas widening (increased delay between them make them seem further apart) and a little slow chorus to give them some difference in phase, but it's 99% that it's just double/quad tracked guitars. This has a lot of HP/LP and gating/expansion going on. Start ruthlessly cutting anything that doesn't need to exist in the frequency spectrum. The clearest example in the song is the guitars, there is nothing going on above 2K-3K on them at all. That's a good call, because it allows the grit in the vocals to stand out without needing to boost or enhance anything. They certainly focused on a few regions. The guitars are cut low so that the vocals have room above them. The kick fundamental is lower than the bass guitar. The bass has a round low-mid bump without much for grit or harmonics that take away from the guitars or vocals. They let the guitar take up most of the mids and low-mids. The cymbals take up most of the high mids above the vocals. They let the vocal effects drift around the upper mids through the highs to give it more of an airy ambiance. I think the takeaway is that the pre-production probably spent a lot of time getting everything tuned and set up to be recorded this way and the mix just exaggerated the separation that the production setup created. Thanks for your thought svart. Yes, it's a marvelous example of frequency construction. As for the snare, I'm gonna also look into keying/expanding a room mic and see if that makes the snare punchier with a sense of space.
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Post by svart on Jan 18, 2017 11:59:23 GMT -6
The drums are wider panned than you think you hear. I've run into that a few times trying to mix stuff folks have tracked in "mono". The extra wide, and full, guitars make them seem more narrow in comparison. As for the guitars, it could be two amps, with both Haas widening (increased delay between them make them seem further apart) and a little slow chorus to give them some difference in phase, but it's 99% that it's just double/quad tracked guitars. This has a lot of HP/LP and gating/expansion going on. Start ruthlessly cutting anything that doesn't need to exist in the frequency spectrum. The clearest example in the song is the guitars, there is nothing going on above 2K-3K on them at all. That's a good call, because it allows the grit in the vocals to stand out without needing to boost or enhance anything. They certainly focused on a few regions. The guitars are cut low so that the vocals have room above them. The kick fundamental is lower than the bass guitar. The bass has a round low-mid bump without much for grit or harmonics that take away from the guitars or vocals. They let the guitar take up most of the mids and low-mids. The cymbals take up most of the high mids above the vocals. They let the vocal effects drift around the upper mids through the highs to give it more of an airy ambiance. I think the takeaway is that the pre-production probably spent a lot of time getting everything tuned and set up to be recorded this way and the mix just exaggerated the separation that the production setup created. Thanks for your thought svart. Yes, it's a marvelous example of frequency construction. As for the snare, I'm gonna also look into keying/expanding a room mic and see if that makes the snare punchier with a sense of space. I'd look more towards the snare itself. Look at the one he's playing in the video.. It's 8" deep.. That's where the bulk of the fatness comes from. Heavy sticks and proper head choice finish out the general tone of the snare. It sounds like he's playing a metal snare, probably brass due to the warmth of the ring. I use a 7" black beauty/black magic and get a similar sound. Check this out: www.theopiumdenproductions.com/WGD2016/rest.mp3For the snare, I tune it higher on the bottom than top (around 400hz lug tuning), tune the top to mid-high (around 260hz lug tuning) and have the strainers between being jangly loose and buzzy (when you find that spot you'll know). The strainers need to be looser than you think so that the heads aren't dampened by the strainers. Now, the top head is usually an emperor CS dot coated. The center dot gives a bit more fatness to the snare attack, but doesn't choke the sound like a sound control ring does. I also usually use a half moongel right on the Remo logo. For the mics, I use an I5 about 2 inches from the head itself, and about 1/2" back from the rim. The angle from parallel to the head is around 30 degrees. I always use an API type preamp for fatness too. Bottom mic right now is a beta 57. It's much further away from the bottom head, maybe 6", and pointed about 45 degrees to somewhere between the strainers and the rim. You don't want it pointed *at* the strainers or you'll get strange brashness. Compression is 1176 on top using the Dr. Pepper settings. I also use expansion so that the bleed of the kit is minimized between hits yet the closing of the expander is smoother than a gate. The meat of the drums comes from the close mics. The glue of the kit comes from the OH or rooms. You want the meat, so focus on getting more close mic perfection.
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Post by bowie on Jan 18, 2017 13:37:53 GMT -6
Thanks for your thought svart. Yes, it's a marvelous example of frequency construction. As for the snare, I'm gonna also look into keying/expanding a room mic and see if that makes the snare punchier with a sense of space. The meat of the drums comes from the close mics. The glue of the kit comes from the OH or rooms. You want the meat, so focus on getting more close mic perfection. ^This. If I were going after that separation and punch, I'd focus on the close mics, using room and OH for support. Space and width are two different things. That snare is super-wide, but not through spaciousness (room/OH). It's in the close mics and I think it sounds like a layered/sampled snare blended to fill out both the 'punch' and 'crack' at the same time. There may very well be several tracks dedicated to that snare. This is a great example of a simple arrangement having a lot going on in the mix so that the sparse instrumentation sounds larger than life. It's sometimes a maddening rabbit hole to go down because seems so damn easy, until you try to replicate it.
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Post by rocinante on Jan 18, 2017 19:07:35 GMT -6
The guitars are using haas effect and I think its possible the drums are using sample and real and possibly using haas effect too. Its a cool mix.
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Post by rocinante on Jan 18, 2017 19:35:37 GMT -6
Okay i just read what Svart said and yeah.... I think he hit it all right on the nose.
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Post by swurveman on Jan 20, 2017 8:28:47 GMT -6
The guitars are using haas effect and I think its possible the drums are using sample and real and possibly using haas effect too. Its a cool mix. Yeah, in the intro you can hear the original chord riff very wide, while the single note riff is tucked a bit inside. Great use of space overall.
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