Be Brutal (within reason)

[Aski]

53

So... the idea here is to learn by critique. I was wondering what you guys/girls thought of this... musically it is what it is, but I am more interested in your thoughts on the engineering side of things. Obviously, the client want a modern rock-type of sound, so we are working within those boundries.

Known issues - the crash cymbal was shit to begin with. Only one available - not much we could do there.

Specific questions would be :
Do the drums sound too processed? Too much/not enough ambiance?
Guitars are pretty much untouched? Should they be EQed, compressed, etc.?
Thoughts on the mix?

I am open to whatever... Thanks for helping.

[hardtoe]

Your title sounds like something you tell a dominatrix before your session begins.bthead

[Tomasz]

53Specific questions would be :
Do the drums sound too processed? Too much/not enough ambiance?
Guitars are pretty much untouched? Should they be EQed, compressed, etc.?
Thoughts on the mix?

I am open to whatever... Thanks for helping.

the hi-hats and to a lesser extent, the cymbals, are a little sibilant to my ears...could be the mp3 though
and the drums overall sound processed (treading lightly here) especially compared to the guitars which sound a little more in-your-face...
the mix is a little sterile sounding, but again, mp3s can neuter stuff.. of course so can computer speakers....
just my hay-penny.

[Tomasz]

Your title sounds like something you tell a dominatrix before your session begins.bthead

aha speaking from experience are we? :p Just Joking hardtoe...

[Sandyrb]

Hi Aski.

Do the drums sound too processed? Too much/not enough ambiance? Guitars are pretty much untouched? Should they be EQed, compressed, etc.? Thoughts on the mix? I am open to whatever... Thanks for helping.

K... overall, I like it. See, these days people tend not to make a record but a collection of sounds. But I prefer to listen as a whole and give a "macro" opinon first... so there you have it. MP3 quality notwitstanding, I like it. :)

To specific points: I agree with Tomasz; the top end of the kit sounds a bit smeary. However, it's an MP3. Also, I don't think your clients will mind too much. Maybe get some more space going on round the kit too.

The snare sounds a little thin... perhaps knock some more LM in there?

Listening on speakers it works although the bottom end / bass is a little undefined. It lacks "authority". Again this may be down to the whole MP3 destruction... err... I mean encoding process. Yes, encoding... that's the term I was hunting for. :)

However when I listened on cans there was something weird and disorientating about the guitar. It's like some kind of phase / delay thing going on across the channels. Very strange to describe but after having listened on cans I now hear it on monitors too. What the heck is that?

I'd be very intrigued to hear a higher quality version of this but I guess a WAV or AIFF is going to bust the upload limit. Wonder if we should start using FLAC on here?

Anyway, hope this helps. :)

Cheers,

[Mixwell]

Thanks for helping.

The MP3 is not helping your cause, since all I can criticize is the piss poor conversion quality of that MP3 encoder. I would advise in loading a shorter .WAV file if you can.

[Aski]

Ok. Here is a very short clip in .wav format. Thanks for the feedback! This is exactly what I need...

54

[Sandyrb]

Ok. Here is a very short clip in .wav format.

LIGHT YEARS better! Thanks for the update.

There's some really high EQ boost or something going on with those overheads... on the cymbals and hats for sure but maybe something else too. It's above 15K whatever it is... have you really cranked the high highs?

Now the guitar isn't buggering up my ears as much and the bass end is way tighter (even though the bass guitar itself isn't really thundering like I'd hope; he seems to be playing quite high) so I'm going to blame the MP3 encoder for most of the sh*t. :) Well, okay, I confess there's still something sounds a bit odd about those guitars. Anyway.... as I said before, I like it. :)

Cheers,

[Aski]

There is an 8k boost over the entire track. A little mastering trick I personally like... I think it does make the cymbals sound a little strange and overly-shimmery, but that crash cymbals was awful to begin with.

It's interesting that you noticed some phasing on the guitars. The room mics are panned to the opposite side of the close mic. For example, the close mic hard L and the room mic (Condensor about three feet away) panned to the right. So, perhaps those mics are out of phase? I must be bad at hearing when things are out of phase. Is there any tricks to telling or is it just one of those experiences that I need to accustom myself to?

Thanks for your comments though!

[Sandyrb]

There is an 8k boost over the entire track. A little mastering trick I personally like...
Okay... but there's definitely something higher, REALLY high going on there, some really high EQ spike. It stands out like a sore thumb. Were you heavily EQing the tops while tracking? I'm not taking a pop at you, BTW, I'm now kinda curious why there's this spectral artifact. :)

It's interesting that you noticed some phasing on the guitars. The room mics are panned to the opposite side of the close mic.
Uh huh, uh huh... Well that's interesting. 3 feet is very close for a room tone... short enough to introduce some comb filtering. Perhaps that's what I'm hearing. I dunno man, maybe flop the phase of the room mic and see what happens. Or introduce some additional delay maybe?

Anyway, hope this is all helping. :)

Cheers,

[Tomasz]

Is there any tricks to telling or is it just one of those experiences that I need to accustom myself to?

Thanks for your comments though!

something to try:

flip the polarity on one of the mics and move it around 'til the guitar is gone or almost gone, then you know that you're roughly there. then reflip the polarity and you should be in the ballpark...
I am making sense?

[Sultan of Swing]

Hey Aski,

I think Tomasz' suggestion about flipping the phase is very astute. I listened to your mixes switching between mono and stereo, and there does seem to be a phase issue. I would pan the room mics back to the same side as the close mics and try having the majority of the guitar sound be the close mics. Also try boosting the kick, bass and maybe snare 1-2 dB each. I would add some ambience (reverb) to the drums and guitars. I think the mix is overall a bit bright. What if you moved your 8k boost up to the 11-12.5k range? That might get you the sparkle and air without the harshness. The .wav file does sound MUCH better than the mp3 and I say you did a fine job overall. Thanks for being brave enough to show your stuff.
Regards,

[phrenology]

brave indeed! few quick comments:
snare: roll back the attack on the compression and squash it a little more to morph a peak onto the attack of the snare drum, release dependent on if there is "resonance" you want to bring up. that and add some i.5k and some 5k or so on the snare and it will poke and crack more. the kick is tight, but lacks ass shaking, so depending on what you are going for, some low end eq, or better yet a subharmonic synth like a dbx 120xp in the hardware realm. other people have talked about phase in guitars. again some more aggressive slow attack compression might do the trick of getting them to bite more. depending on what gear you have, there are a number of outboard units which will do nicely, but software might have to be it (although i always have a harder time working with software plugs to get "that sound"). are you mixing digital or through analog summing? AS might get you the stereo field you want without phase inducing trickery. that all being said, my head was bobbing to the tune, which is always a good sign, and it holds up at lower volumes, which is crucial.

[Aski]

Thanks to everyone for the help. Some really good ideas. That super high pitched sound might be coming from one of the preamps a Chandler Germ 500 series. Maybe Im using it incorrectly.

Unfortunately, I don't have the money to get into analog summing yet. I am thinking about getting a Rolls Summing box and using some of my preamps. What can I expect from analog summing vs. digital summing? I know that is a hard thing to describe, from what Ive heard... thanks again everyone

[phrenology]

i use the RMS Folcrom myself, and it's a steal, especially if you have some nice preamps kicking around to do the gain make up. total world of difference with that box....i refer to it as "magic box" to my clients, and give them "oooo, what did you do?" when I a/b the analog summing version with the digital 2 bus. It's probably the cheapest way you can get into the analog domain that i can thing of, and the quality is superb.

I think the major difference is the stereo field goes much wider to my ears. That AND you can do all your processing with the outboard you happen to have (if you have some kicking around) with zero latency issues. THAT is life changing.

All i can say is try it. Get an RMS Folcrom from someone reputable who will let you send it right back if you don't love it. best sub $800 i've spent.

[Aski]

Thanks again everyone. This has been super-helpful...

Phrenology, could you recommend a compressor setting to start with for the guitars and snare. How slow is slow is what I mean mostly?

Thanks again!

[phrenology]

I've honestly never paid attention to the actual times of attack or release. my favorite boxes don't even have them--the germ comp and the distressor are labeled 1-10. i start with 5 and go from there. hell, with the distressor half the time i just set both on 5 and only adjust how much GR i'm doing. grab a knob, close your eyes, twist. maybe there are folks who really know what they are doing who can be of more assistance? It's a little harder with plugins because they aren't always designed to "not sound bad" like the analog stuff can be. When using plugins, i start with a preset for the instrument, and then tweak till it sounds right (in logic, for me). hope that helps!

with compression, the only way to learn to use it is to learn to hear it, which takes essentially hours of f'n around with parameters. start with that snare soloed, and listen while you screw around for literally as long as you can without loosing your mind, then try it in context. rinse, repeat.

but keep in mind: i'm studying to be a doctor, not an engineer!

[cookseyeng]

I though id throw my stuff up as well its the first 3 un-mastered, podcasts are up as well
http://www.mediafire.com/incmusicnation


"if any one tried viewing my first link it didn't work i fixed it."