|
Post by drbill on May 7, 2019 15:10:15 GMT -6
Am I the only one finding that mixing OTB is so much faster? And so much more fun! you are not the only one.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on May 7, 2019 15:17:23 GMT -6
I've received a list as long as my arm from a ton of younger (previously) 100% ITB mixers who tried a Silver Bullet on their 2 Bus as an experiment who claim the heavens opened and revelation poured down. And I'm not really exaggerating. The anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly positive.
That said, I don't think the Silver Bullet is the ONLY piece of gear that will do this - I've got TONS of outboard from a wide variety of manufacturers and use it all, but it is an interesting observation. Uniquely, I'm in a fairly different kind of position to talk and communicate via PM's and email with some of these 100% ITB guys who have literally never been in a real studio before. Previous to the SB, their only "outboard" / hardware has been a microphone, an interface and monitors. Wild, but true. Believe it or not.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 7, 2019 15:34:05 GMT -6
Yeah I like the point that svart made and dr bill your point as well.
It really helps to have a background or a reference point of using real gear and traditional methods of recording.
Today I reached for my BBE Sonic Maximizer. It may be an LOL, but that thing does something useful once in a while, so I patched it into my session, and my patchbay, and got the job done for a fuzz guitar part that needed to cut through a little better.
I tend to like hardware that for that reason, a lot of it is a special case that hasn't been widely emulated. So in that sense, it's "extra" tools for you to use, assuming you have the infrastructure in place to do so.
|
|
|
Post by notneeson on May 7, 2019 15:53:34 GMT -6
Yeah I like the point that svart made and dr bill your point as well. It really helps to have a background or a reference point of using real gear and traditional methods of recording. Today I reached for my BBE Sonic Maximizer. It may be an LOL, but that thing does something useful once in a while, so I patched it into my session, and my patchbay, and got the job done for a fuzz guitar part that needed to cut through a little better. I tend to like hardware that for that reason, a lot of it is a special case that hasn't been widely emulated. So in that sense, it's "extra" tools for you to use, assuming you have the infrastructure in place to do so. Working in Heider’s “lesser” room really opened my ears to what a world class room does for your sounds. Definitely makes me work harder on lesser spaces. That and “time in the chair” cannot be cloned or plug-in’d.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 7, 2019 16:02:50 GMT -6
Yeah I like the point that svart made and dr bill your point as well. It really helps to have a background or a reference point of using real gear and traditional methods of recording. Today I reached for my BBE Sonic Maximizer. It may be an LOL, but that thing does something useful once in a while, so I patched it into my session, and my patchbay, and got the job done for a fuzz guitar part that needed to cut through a little better. I tend to like hardware that for that reason, a lot of it is a special case that hasn't been widely emulated. So in that sense, it's "extra" tools for you to use, assuming you have the infrastructure in place to do so. Working in Heider’s “lesser” room really opened my ears to what a world class room does for your sounds. Definitely makes me work harder on lesser spaces. That and “time in the chair” cannot be cloned or plug-in’d. I had an experience like that at Omega Studios in Maryland. After many years of DIY and forum learning etc, I got my band in a "pro" room with an experienced engineer, the mic locker, the console and so on, and not least of all the room itself. I felt like I learned something in 5 mintues that was very deep. The sound coming off the playback was immediately gratifying in a way that I wasn't used to. Great rooms are sort of like violins at this point, they need to be preserved and appreciated. It will benefit the population in the present and the future.
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on May 7, 2019 17:12:52 GMT -6
I've received a list as long as my arm from a ton of younger (previously) 100% ITB mixers who tried a Silver Bullet on their 2 Bus as an experiment who claim the heavens opened and revelation poured down. And I'm not really exaggerating. The anecdotal evidence is overwhelmingly positive. That said, I don't think the Silver Bullet is the ONLY piece of gear that will do this - I've got TONS of outboard from a wide variety of manufacturers and use it all, but it is an interesting observation. Uniquely, I'm in a fairly different kind of position to talk and communicate via PM's and email with some of these 100% ITB guys who have literally never been in a real studio before. Previous to the SB, their only "outboard" / hardware has been a microphone, an interface and monitors. Wild, but true. Believe it or not. I believe this, becasue I made the expereince myself. All this does not mean that the point by AS is not legit, he can shape the ITB mixbus until it sounds good. He also talked in one Interview about "to overcome" the believe that there is a big diffrence. To be fair, there are some plug ins which are in use as regular as some of my hardware. Slates Revival for exampel gives a nice top end sheen on electric guitar. I cant live with plugs special for the low end. In my ear its a pain in the ass with plug ins to get what is in my mind.
|
|
|
Post by wiz on May 7, 2019 18:02:38 GMT -6
Mixing ITB with tracks recorded with quality outboard, is a different proposition, to mixing ITB with tracks recorded through just an interface.
That doesn't get discussed THAT much.
Often saying you can do as well ITB as with outboard, doesn't really address that situation.
Cheers
Wiz
|
|
|
Post by wiz on May 7, 2019 18:03:57 GMT -6
The other thing is regards plug ins vs hardware.
The hardware sounds different from one piece to another, one instance of the same plug in copied to another track, the sound is the same.
If you keep these two points in mind, I think its a good first step
cheers
Wiz
|
|
|
Post by mrholmes on May 7, 2019 18:20:25 GMT -6
Mixing ITB with tracks recorded with quality outboard, is a different proposition, to mixing ITB with tracks recorded through just an interface. That doesn't get discussed THAT much. Often saying you can do as well ITB as with outboard, doesn't really address that situation. Cheers Wiz I prayed this fact myself for years. In the QA AS stresst, that it does not has to do with this fact. In other words he can get what ever he wants -all ITB- not depending on using HW in tracking.
|
|
|
Post by Blackdawg on May 7, 2019 18:35:20 GMT -6
Either way. The lesson here is it's not the tools you're using but how you use them.
Simple as that.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on May 7, 2019 18:57:15 GMT -6
Either way. The lesson here is it's not the tools you're using but how you use them. Ahhhh, if it were only that simple. From my experience, it's not that simple.
|
|
|
Post by ragan on May 7, 2019 19:35:58 GMT -6
It always is and always has been the answer none of us wants to hear: it’s all of it.
Song, performance, arrangement, gear, room, production chops...it’s all of it.
|
|
|
Post by the other mark williams on May 8, 2019 1:03:32 GMT -6
It always is and always has been the answer none of us wants to hear: it’s all of it. Song, performance, arrangement, gear, room, production chops...it’s all of it. yep, and that’s an equation with SIX variables. No simple quadratic equation is going to help there.
|
|
|
Post by pope on May 8, 2019 5:42:05 GMT -6
Either way. The lesson here is it's not the tools you're using but how you use them. Simple as that. Sure, you can hammer a nail with a shoe or... with a hammer But I get your point and I don't totally disagree
|
|
|
Post by svart on May 8, 2019 7:27:47 GMT -6
It always is and always has been the answer none of us wants to hear: it’s all of it. Song, performance, arrangement, gear, room, production chops...it’s all of it. yep, and that’s an equation with SIX variables. No simple quadratic equation is going to help there. No, but that's why they invented polynomials!
|
|
|
Post by swurveman on May 8, 2019 8:18:17 GMT -6
On a side note, are there any all ITB mixers that truly inspire anyone here as a mixer? Tchad Blake is 100% ITB and I hear a lot of engineers say they are inspired by his work. I think there are a lot more big time mixing and mastering engineers working 100% ITB than many people realize. These days artists feel like they NEED to ask for revisions. Sometimes they ask for changes just because they want to experiment. For me spending even 10 minutes on recall is too much. How much hardware compression and console (and outboard) eq is Chad Blake using during recording? Here's an interview with Rob Kirwin the recording engineer of Hozier, who Andrew Scheps mixed. Lots of hardware during tracking. Not taking anything away from Andrew Scheps, who Kirwin praises, but when you look at the recording gear it's all top shelf and lots of hardware is being used. Check out Al Sutton and Steve Lehane, who recorded Greta Van Fleet too. Same thing. Lots of hardware EQ and compression during recording. What would be really interesting is to hear the before/after of what Scheps gets and what he does with it. It's not one thing or the other-plugins vs hardware- it's both.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on May 8, 2019 10:34:11 GMT -6
I went and listened to his recent releases. Honestly you can hear where he has to fix things with plugins, because it sounds like everyone else that uses plugins. There's the signature hollowness in the mid range that is flat, the low end distortion is a little tubby and loose sort of undefined and mushy. For me, it bothers me and I hear that I and I think 'well I'm just not good enough, I need to tweak more and more' (x weeks/months/years).. For him, he's ok with it and can focus more on tonal balance and loudness, flow of the track, etc. Turn in the mix, the confirmation bias sells the listener "this is pro, by pro mixer, ready for radio"... I'm not saying I can get mixes are perfect as his, its just I have trouble even wanting to get there. But if a mix I turned in like that suddenly blew up as a huge hit... F-it I guess, whatever.
|
|
|
Post by christopher on May 8, 2019 11:01:40 GMT -6
There is a hybrid solution for unlimited recalls that I've tried and its way better than plugins alone. Its not at all as great as actually mixing down in analog, but the whole recall excuse is avoided and the sound is greatly improved. Something the radio guys should try.
here it is: It takes approximately 1 hour to re-record every track through some gear one track at a time.
1 hour! just 1! I know I'm lazy too... I'd rather spend an hour typing this lol.
1 hour = unlimited recalls.
It feels just like being at the tracking session, except its MUCH faster, no stress, actually its a lot of FUN because you know you can't ruin anything ...and there's no annoying somebody over your shoulder!
Record the tracks through the summing bus back in stereo = the stereo summing bus is already part of the sound. I figured to try this because in a song when an instrument is solo, say a singer, they are the only thing going through the stereo summing buss... and it sounds great. So why not each instrument by itself in stereo? Tried it, it works. Sounds a little looser-wide than a normal sum as everything is on its own wide bus, but still sounds pretty neat. Can always ditch one leg of the stereo file and get mono if its too wide.
I use this for the tone of the hardware. I'll also do an extra 'distortion' track on a few things, sounds so much better than the plugins emulating overdrive. So if I think I'll need it, its already there part of the project. Also some compression passes.
Backing vocals, solo's, and toms take less than a minute. just scroll over to where they are at, hit record, done. This makes multiple experimental passes quick and easy as well.
Then ITB its time to be surgical and print.
I need to try this again and I'll share some before after.
|
|
|
Post by drbill on May 8, 2019 11:24:28 GMT -6
There is a hybrid solution for unlimited recalls that I've tried and its way better than plugins alone. Its not at all as great as actually mixing down in analog, but the whole recall excuse is avoided and the sound is greatly improved. Something the radio guys should try. here it is: It takes approximately 1 hour to re-record every track through some gear one track at a time. 1 hour! just 1! I know I'm lazy too... I'd rather spend an hour typing this lol. 1 hour = unlimited recalls. It feels just like being at the tracking session, except its MUCH faster, no stress, actually its a lot of FUN because you know you can't ruin anything ...and there's no annoying somebody over your shoulder! Record the tracks through the summing bus back in stereo = the stereo summing bus is already part of the sound. I figured to try this because in a song when an instrument is solo, say a singer, they are the only thing going through the stereo summing buss... and it sounds great. So why not each instrument by itself in stereo? Tried it, it works. Sounds a little looser-wide than a normal sum as everything is on its own wide bus, but still sounds pretty neat. Can always ditch one leg of the stereo file and get mono if its too wide. I use this for the tone of the hardware. I'll also do an extra 'distortion' track on a few things, sounds so much better than the plugins emulating overdrive. So if I think I'll need it, its already there part of the project. Also some compression passes. Backing vocals, solo's, and toms take less than a minute. just scroll over to where they are at, hit record, done. This makes multiple experimental passes quick and easy as well. Then ITB its time to be surgical and print. I need to try this again and I'll share some before after. this type of "re-amping" - if you will - is exactly the work flow we advocate with the Silver Bullet. It's one of the reasons we have the mix / tracking i/o on the box instead of just being stereo in, stereo out. Some guys do it, some don't, but the ones that have have commented on the exponentially positive result they get. The sum (sorry, pun not intended) total of the finished result comes in much further ahead than just running the 2 buss thru the Silver Bullet alone. Well worth it, and you can essentially do it with any analog gear you have.
|
|
|
Post by seawell on May 8, 2019 11:57:09 GMT -6
A few observations...
Some of the guys that are doing the bestIMHO) ITB mixes are using a bunch of stuff on their master buss. Way more than I would ever think to use. Often times 2-3 different tape emulations. I also had a chance to ask Tchad and Jacquire King(when he was some ITB work) if they used any console emulation plug ins such as Slate VCC and they both said no.
I went through a long period of committing to working all ITB and I was trying to emulate an ideal OTB set up. Tape emulation plug first in the chain on every channel, followed by VCC, etc.. For whatever reason I haven't found one of the top guys doing that. It seems they learned they had to treat ITB as a completely different beast instead of trying to emulate their console set ups.
As others have said previously, tracking through a bunch of outboard gear certainly makes the job easier when mixing ITB. Having said all that, I still don't think ITB sounds great. Good..yes...professional, certainly by today's standards but I have never heard an ITB mix that had the depth and technical mystery to me as an engineer that my favorite console or hybrid mixes do. As good as some of them are, there is something that is inherently flat and 2D to my ears.
Again, I get the economics of it but it's depressing to me none the less.
|
|
|
Post by professorplum on May 8, 2019 13:28:58 GMT -6
Posted by wiz: "Mixing ITB with tracks recorded with quality outboard, is a different proposition, to mixing ITB with tracks recorded through just an interface. " Couldn't agree more - I've had the pleasure of working on some stuff that was tracked really really well, and it practically does 75% of the mixing job for you. Not to say the next 25% can't be very difficult to attain or make a huge difference, but what you're given obviously determines the sound from the get go. And oftentimes stuff that's tracked really well has outboard involved, although it doesn't have to. Nigel Godrich/Darrell Thorp have been pretty vocal about using so much EQ and compression while tracking that Darrell actually got nervous about it while tracking Beck's "Mourning Phase"... Posted by seawellabout: Some of the guys that are doing the bestIMHO) ITB mixes are using a bunch of stuff on their master buss. Way more than I would ever think to use. Often times 2-3 different tape emulations. Also agree with this - Shawn Everett is known for putting heaps (10-20+) plugins on his master buss and he's one of the biggest names right now. Tchad is using alot as well regularly it seems. Although using less units but still massively shaping the final sound on their master busses are Mick Guzauski, Michael Brauer and Tom Elmhirst, all known for some pretty great sounding contemporary records. Whatever they use and whatever their methods, I think the overall takeaway is something about most of these people's productions/mixes sound "different" in a good way, whether it comes from tracking, mixing, or both.
|
|
|
Post by seawell on May 8, 2019 13:43:16 GMT -6
I really dig Shawn's work! The crazy part is he is doing all that with plug ins on the 2 buss, plus usually a bunch of outboard and a console. The results speak for themselves. I'm really enjoying his work on Jenny Lewis - "On The Line" lately.
|
|
|
Post by Guitar on May 8, 2019 13:46:16 GMT -6
Posted by wiz: "Mixing ITB with tracks recorded with quality outboard, is a different proposition, to mixing ITB with tracks recorded through just an interface. " Couldn't agree more - I've had the pleasure of working on some stuff that was tracked really really well, and it practically does 75% of the mixing job for you. Not to say the next 25% can't be very difficult to attain or make a huge difference, but what you're given obviously determines the sound from the get go. And oftentimes stuff that's tracked really well has outboard involved, although it doesn't have to. Nigel Godrich/Darrell Thorp have been pretty vocal about using so much EQ and compression while tracking that Darrell actually got nervous about it while tracking Beck's "Mourning Phase"... Posted by seawellabout: Some of the guys that are doing the bestIMHO) ITB mixes are using a bunch of stuff on their master buss. Way more than I would ever think to use. Often times 2-3 different tape emulations. Also agree with this - Shawn Everett is known for putting heaps (10-20+) plugins on his master buss and he's one of the biggest names right now. Tchad is using alot as well regularly it seems. Although using less units but still massively shaping the final sound on their master busses are Mick Guzauski, Michael Brauer and Tom Elmhirst, all known for some pretty great sounding contemporary records. Whatever they use and whatever their methods, I think the overall takeaway is something about most of these people's productions/mixes sound "different" in a good way, whether it comes from tracking, mixing, or both. Just a small clerical note. Nigel Godrich had no part in the Morning Phase album, that I love by the way. I am in love with the mixing work by Tom Elmhirst on that record. Just stunning sounds for my taste and ears.
|
|
|
Post by professorplum on May 8, 2019 13:59:08 GMT -6
Just a small clerical note. Nigel Godrich had no part in the Morning Phase album, that I love by the way. Whoops, got my Godrich/Thorp projects mixed up... Thorp has talked about Nigel's philosophy in a few different interviews of getting almost 100% of the sound upfront (or as close as possible) including tons of tracking EQ and compression. Defintiely inspiring from a production standpoint, but a testament to really picking who you work with and in what ways. Look at most of the people Godrich has decided to produce- many of them sound great on a SM58 or a vintage M49; and the musicians are great players with great sounds too!
|
|
|
Post by craigmorris74 on May 8, 2019 13:59:37 GMT -6
I find it absolutely comical for someone to say that they can hear the sound of an ITB mix. Of course you can when someone has told you it was, but when it comes to picking one blind, there's now way I or you could do it.
If ITB had an awful sonic signature, don't you think that Andrew Scheps could hear it and do something about it?
|
|