T Racks - Analog modeling Mastering Software
- Thread starter Animaniac
- Start date
Well when i said hash/digital i did not particullarly meant bad. Some people like the digital sound more because it's cleaner. I did not say that your mixes are not good, neither that i have better mixes than you or better equipmet than you. I believe mastering is an art and there is no good or bad art, it's just a matter of taste. How you master your stuff is your problem.
About the inserts/multiband issue. Yes one is refering to mixing the other is refering to mastering. The reason i though of that is because you said that you compress specific frequences with an eq feeding a compressor. That resembles of a compressor insert to specific channels in the mixing stage. My question again is about mastering, how do you do that in the mastering stage? Don't you compress the whole thing? Only specific frequences? If you compress the whole thing (whole range of frequences) then you need a lot of compressors to do it if you havent got a multiband.
ps: No i dont have a tube mic stand for sale and i dont think you are very funny. If you are a real pro, act like a real pro.
About the inserts/multiband issue. Yes one is refering to mixing the other is refering to mastering. The reason i though of that is because you said that you compress specific frequences with an eq feeding a compressor. That resembles of a compressor insert to specific channels in the mixing stage. My question again is about mastering, how do you do that in the mastering stage? Don't you compress the whole thing? Only specific frequences? If you compress the whole thing (whole range of frequences) then you need a lot of compressors to do it if you havent got a multiband.
ps: No i dont have a tube mic stand for sale and i dont think you are very funny. If you are a real pro, act like a real pro.
Hey Ed... I've got a tube mic stand... it's a dual channel stand so that when I'm tracking vocals I have one arm with my mic attached and another arm off the same stand for the pop filter... makes sense to have both the mic and pop filter hooked up to the tube mic stand don't you think??? 
sonusman
Banned
Animaniac, don't take this the wrong way.
From reading your post's, I think this is a case of "you don't know what you don't know" right now", and until you start to know these things, you are going to have a hard time understanding what I am talking about.
Case in point.
The practice in Mastering is to provide a overall more consistent level of the audio. This can be accomplished in many ways. Mostly though, it entails running the audio through an EQ first, then to a wide band compressor.
Try this.
Take a vocal track and run it to a compressor only.
Now, run it to an EQ then to a compressor. Pay attention to EQing out certain overly hot frequencies.
You will find that on the second way of doing it, the overall level of the track is much hotter, and that the compressor provided much less gain reduction to keep the track sounding level.
Compression causes distortion. The more you compress, the more chance that you will hear the distortion. If you are compressing because the track suffers from some overly hot frequencies, you will have much better luck, and much less distortion potential by dealing with the overly hot frequencies USING EQ rather then compression. This is why I am not a big fan of multiband compressors. Used in extreme moderation, they work well. But it would be impossible to minimize the gain reduction on a mulitband compressor unless the mix was already very level in the first place.
Most of the energy in a mix is in the low end. With that in mind, if you are trying to acheive hotter levels, but the low end is constantly triggering compression, then you have a much greater potential of HEARING the results of compression (distortion, and generally a lack of detail in the low end because the distortion caused by compression usually causes a sort of "splashing" of the sound). Compression tends to "bloat" the sound a bit. If your bass frequencies are primarily what is triggering compression, then the low end will start to bloat out. In some cases, this is desireable, but usually on a very transient signal like a kick drum, or a slapping bass line. On a whole mix though, just about every instrument has low end information contributin to the overall sound. If those frequecies are causing the compressor to trigger, then you get an overall "splashing" of the the low end, and very bad sound in most cases.
The idea of eq'ing first is to ease back the low frequencies that are causeing the compressor to trigger. In this way, the compressor compresses far less, resulting in less "splashing" on the overall sound.
The bottom line is this. If you are getting good results with a multiband compressor applied across the whole mix, well, cool, have at it.
It is my belief though that much better results can be acheived using a bit of EQ before compression, and in this case, a normal wide band compressor will do the job just fine.
My practices in mastering are very consistent with what other mastering engineers predominately use. Like I said earlier, most do not use multiband compression because it is usually an unnecessary device during mastering. I am not saying that it doesn't have a place in mastering, or that in some situations it is not the best solution, just as a rule of thumb, it is not what is used.
As far as digital vs. analog goes, I am going to put together an mp3 with both formats on it. I will let you decide which is which. You will be suprised to hear that many people guess it wrong. I have heard far too many analog recordings that have a very harsh and brittle quality to them, and some of these were done using mostly class A gear and 2" machines. Let's face it, most of us cannot afford good analog. We can afford mid priced digital though, which is a far cry better in almost every case then mid priced analog.
As far as being a "pro', and acting like one. Being "pro" means I make money, which is something that has yet to result from me posting on this BBS! I DO NOT get paid to clarify the technical differences between TRacks and Wavelab with Waves plug in's.
If you found my "tube mic stand" joke offensive, well, sorry (not really but I am on record for saying it now...
). While you found that little joke offensive, it really illustrates the point about many software manufactures claims about their product, and the many unsuspecting people that buy it. TRacks is pushed as being a high quality solution to "analog emulation" mastering products, when in fact, it is just a low bit resolution DSP package that has a certain "sound" to it. It IS "emulation", and far from the real thing. If you have ever played around with any of the "real" units TRacks "emulates", you would KNOW that it is a far cry from these products. In addition, TRacks does NOTHING that you cannot achieve with higher quality mastering solutions, NOTHING!!! The difference is that the higher quality solutions can do so much more, and generally have the RIGHT kinds of tools for mastering for a majority of cases as opposed to a "sound" like TRacks which has limited applications in the real world. People buying TRacks as their ONLY mastering solution and using it on everything will soon grow tired of it's one dimensional way of making stuff sound. So, the joke really pertains to the idea of "tubes" are the only way to go in audio, and how silly that is. A tube mic stand is a clever joke that covers this concept rather well because ALL mic stand are generally made out of tube material (tube piping that is). Just like there is "warm sounding digital", and "brittle sounding analog", and harsh sounding tube gear, and warm sounding solid state gear. It is the quality of the gear that counts, not so much the technology behind it. But it is easy to make people think that a certain "niche" is the "magical" solution for everything. And that is exactly what the hype around TRacks is. So, sorry that you didn't get the joke.
Ed
From reading your post's, I think this is a case of "you don't know what you don't know" right now", and until you start to know these things, you are going to have a hard time understanding what I am talking about.
Case in point.
The practice in Mastering is to provide a overall more consistent level of the audio. This can be accomplished in many ways. Mostly though, it entails running the audio through an EQ first, then to a wide band compressor.
Try this.
Take a vocal track and run it to a compressor only.
Now, run it to an EQ then to a compressor. Pay attention to EQing out certain overly hot frequencies.
You will find that on the second way of doing it, the overall level of the track is much hotter, and that the compressor provided much less gain reduction to keep the track sounding level.
Compression causes distortion. The more you compress, the more chance that you will hear the distortion. If you are compressing because the track suffers from some overly hot frequencies, you will have much better luck, and much less distortion potential by dealing with the overly hot frequencies USING EQ rather then compression. This is why I am not a big fan of multiband compressors. Used in extreme moderation, they work well. But it would be impossible to minimize the gain reduction on a mulitband compressor unless the mix was already very level in the first place.
Most of the energy in a mix is in the low end. With that in mind, if you are trying to acheive hotter levels, but the low end is constantly triggering compression, then you have a much greater potential of HEARING the results of compression (distortion, and generally a lack of detail in the low end because the distortion caused by compression usually causes a sort of "splashing" of the sound). Compression tends to "bloat" the sound a bit. If your bass frequencies are primarily what is triggering compression, then the low end will start to bloat out. In some cases, this is desireable, but usually on a very transient signal like a kick drum, or a slapping bass line. On a whole mix though, just about every instrument has low end information contributin to the overall sound. If those frequecies are causing the compressor to trigger, then you get an overall "splashing" of the the low end, and very bad sound in most cases.
The idea of eq'ing first is to ease back the low frequencies that are causeing the compressor to trigger. In this way, the compressor compresses far less, resulting in less "splashing" on the overall sound.
The bottom line is this. If you are getting good results with a multiband compressor applied across the whole mix, well, cool, have at it.
It is my belief though that much better results can be acheived using a bit of EQ before compression, and in this case, a normal wide band compressor will do the job just fine.
My practices in mastering are very consistent with what other mastering engineers predominately use. Like I said earlier, most do not use multiband compression because it is usually an unnecessary device during mastering. I am not saying that it doesn't have a place in mastering, or that in some situations it is not the best solution, just as a rule of thumb, it is not what is used.
As far as digital vs. analog goes, I am going to put together an mp3 with both formats on it. I will let you decide which is which. You will be suprised to hear that many people guess it wrong. I have heard far too many analog recordings that have a very harsh and brittle quality to them, and some of these were done using mostly class A gear and 2" machines. Let's face it, most of us cannot afford good analog. We can afford mid priced digital though, which is a far cry better in almost every case then mid priced analog.
As far as being a "pro', and acting like one. Being "pro" means I make money, which is something that has yet to result from me posting on this BBS! I DO NOT get paid to clarify the technical differences between TRacks and Wavelab with Waves plug in's.
If you found my "tube mic stand" joke offensive, well, sorry (not really but I am on record for saying it now...
). While you found that little joke offensive, it really illustrates the point about many software manufactures claims about their product, and the many unsuspecting people that buy it. TRacks is pushed as being a high quality solution to "analog emulation" mastering products, when in fact, it is just a low bit resolution DSP package that has a certain "sound" to it. It IS "emulation", and far from the real thing. If you have ever played around with any of the "real" units TRacks "emulates", you would KNOW that it is a far cry from these products. In addition, TRacks does NOTHING that you cannot achieve with higher quality mastering solutions, NOTHING!!! The difference is that the higher quality solutions can do so much more, and generally have the RIGHT kinds of tools for mastering for a majority of cases as opposed to a "sound" like TRacks which has limited applications in the real world. People buying TRacks as their ONLY mastering solution and using it on everything will soon grow tired of it's one dimensional way of making stuff sound. So, the joke really pertains to the idea of "tubes" are the only way to go in audio, and how silly that is. A tube mic stand is a clever joke that covers this concept rather well because ALL mic stand are generally made out of tube material (tube piping that is). Just like there is "warm sounding digital", and "brittle sounding analog", and harsh sounding tube gear, and warm sounding solid state gear. It is the quality of the gear that counts, not so much the technology behind it. But it is easy to make people think that a certain "niche" is the "magical" solution for everything. And that is exactly what the hype around TRacks is. So, sorry that you didn't get the joke.Ed
Here's why mastering engineers love multi-band compression: tons of people screw up the mixes that are sent out. I'd say Multi-band is rarely needed if things are tracked and mixed correctly in the first place.
What parametric EQ are you using, Animaniac? If I had to throw all but one effect away (please don't make me do that!), I'd have to keep a good parametric EQ. From general frequency slopes, to surgical notches to cut ringing... nothing is more useful in the toolbox. I never use a graphic. Not a mouse-friendly tool. If you don't have a good one, find one. Get used to how it works, they can do magic.
What parametric EQ are you using, Animaniac? If I had to throw all but one effect away (please don't make me do that!), I'd have to keep a good parametric EQ. From general frequency slopes, to surgical notches to cut ringing... nothing is more useful in the toolbox. I never use a graphic. Not a mouse-friendly tool. If you don't have a good one, find one. Get used to how it works, they can do magic.
Sonusman,
Thanks for the extensive reply, the truth is i am new to all this, and i 've been reading a lot of articles and ads about say the "finalizer", T-racks, the behringer multiband, the dbx multiband this multi that multi etc. Currently i am using low grade gear for mixing and mastering (which are not my primary areas of interest though because primarily i am a musician not an engineer) but i am about to upgrade soon. The format wars are getting on my nerves. I do have class A tube equipment and i am familiar with the sweet sound you can get out of them and i do have been exposed to pro tape recordings and other tube stuff in the various studios i 've had the luck to work/record/rehearse.
When your favorite recordings are 15+ year old recordings you tend to distinguish between digital & analog sounds, but i do not have golden ears and i cant fault 24bit digital. Having said that even 16bit dithered would be OK for me because when i listen to my cd's, i listen to the music more than i listen to the actual recording. All in all if i cant point anything that attracts my attention (in terms of mixing/mastering) in what i hear it must be good.
I would be very interested to read your forthcoming(??) article on mastering. I have already read your other articles on the echostar site and i find it all very informative. Funnily enough i have come to the same conclusions as you are pointing out in relation to recording and mixing.
I am currently in the market for a good audio sequencer/soundcard, a vocal/instrument channel and mastering software. I have desided to take the logic audio route since it's easy for me to work with it's interface, i dont want to invest in 24 bit hardware,i ll get the best sounding 16 bit DAC's i can find. As for vocal/instrument channel i need eq and compressor on it and i dont want to spend lots of money. I am looking at the Joemeek VC6Q British channel and TL Audio 5051(i think) at the moment.
I will be recording a roland xp80, a les paul/marshall and guild/fender acoustics a tama drum kit. My mics are just 57's/58's but thats all i can afford (i wish i had the TLM 103 though). I am after the 60's 70's sound. I wouldn't mind a bit of JCM900 *harshness* but that's as far as i ll go. Smoothnes, punch, clarity and a 3d space is what i am after....
....haha...looking at my post i think maybe i shouldn't bother at all maybe i just book a studio.
thanks everybody for your input
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-05-2000).]
Thanks for the extensive reply, the truth is i am new to all this, and i 've been reading a lot of articles and ads about say the "finalizer", T-racks, the behringer multiband, the dbx multiband this multi that multi etc. Currently i am using low grade gear for mixing and mastering (which are not my primary areas of interest though because primarily i am a musician not an engineer) but i am about to upgrade soon. The format wars are getting on my nerves. I do have class A tube equipment and i am familiar with the sweet sound you can get out of them and i do have been exposed to pro tape recordings and other tube stuff in the various studios i 've had the luck to work/record/rehearse.
When your favorite recordings are 15+ year old recordings you tend to distinguish between digital & analog sounds, but i do not have golden ears and i cant fault 24bit digital. Having said that even 16bit dithered would be OK for me because when i listen to my cd's, i listen to the music more than i listen to the actual recording. All in all if i cant point anything that attracts my attention (in terms of mixing/mastering) in what i hear it must be good.
I would be very interested to read your forthcoming(??) article on mastering. I have already read your other articles on the echostar site and i find it all very informative. Funnily enough i have come to the same conclusions as you are pointing out in relation to recording and mixing.
I am currently in the market for a good audio sequencer/soundcard, a vocal/instrument channel and mastering software. I have desided to take the logic audio route since it's easy for me to work with it's interface, i dont want to invest in 24 bit hardware,i ll get the best sounding 16 bit DAC's i can find. As for vocal/instrument channel i need eq and compressor on it and i dont want to spend lots of money. I am looking at the Joemeek VC6Q British channel and TL Audio 5051(i think) at the moment.
I will be recording a roland xp80, a les paul/marshall and guild/fender acoustics a tama drum kit. My mics are just 57's/58's but thats all i can afford (i wish i had the TLM 103 though). I am after the 60's 70's sound. I wouldn't mind a bit of JCM900 *harshness* but that's as far as i ll go. Smoothnes, punch, clarity and a 3d space is what i am after....
....haha...looking at my post i think maybe i shouldn't bother at all maybe i just book a studio.
thanks everybody for your input
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-05-2000).]
John Sayers
Solar Power!!
What I've discovered recently is that for a vocal - put it into soundforge or wavelab and get the levels of each word right first and then lightly compress it to hold back the peaks - it pisses on anything else and you can only do it in the digital format- as far as digital harshness is concerned that's what it is!! its a square wave above 7Khz but you have to live with it until we finally get 24bit 192Khz sampling - then we can finally say goodbye to analogue. Valves distort in the second harmonic and we can handle that - but transistors and opamps distort in the 3rd and 5th harmonic which is nasty and digital distorts severely if overdriven. I started when all the mikes were valve but the consoles and recorders had no headroom so we were careful with the top end cos you brought up the hiss - when the transistor U77 came out we all cheered cos it had more highs. No we have all the headroom and low noise so the valves are popular again but you must give neumann credit for their new mikes - they are superb and technology really is advancing. The problem that mastering engineers have is that most engineers today haven't learnt how to listen yet - it takes years to learn to listen!!!
Somebody asked about the graphic,
well the stuff i *master* with the graphic are usually the local band's new death metal /blues MTV superhit they think they 've come up with earlier this afternoon and decided to record it in the drummers basement which is next to a bust stop, on .... an answering machine....because it sounded *strange but cool* )))))))))))))). What need do i have for a parametric in that case? none. 
wrong frequencies all over the place. I use the graphic to take off the 16+ where the tape his usually is, take some mud from the 50-200 area, fix vocals a bit (haha), record to pc, normalize, throw in the enhancer, and ....where did i leave that multiband??, did i forget anything?? Oh right...the barking during the solo...well i am sorry guys...i have to use a parametric for that! come back tommorow.
next customer please,
.
.
oh no the rap trio again...please..
well the stuff i *master* with the graphic are usually the local band's new death metal /blues MTV superhit they think they 've come up with earlier this afternoon and decided to record it in the drummers basement which is next to a bust stop, on .... an answering machine
....because it sounded *strange but cool* )))))))))))))). What need do i have for a parametric in that case? none. wrong frequencies all over the place. I use the graphic to take off the 16+ where the tape his usually is, take some mud from the 50-200 area, fix vocals a bit (haha), record to pc, normalize, throw in the enhancer, and ....where did i leave that multiband??, did i forget anything?? Oh right...the barking during the solo...well i am sorry guys...i have to use a parametric for that! come back tommorow. next customer please,
.
.
oh no the rap trio again...please..
sonusman
Banned
I don't know, I use QMetric, which has 3 full parametric mid bands (that are adjustable over the whole frequency spectrum... ) and a Low Shelf EQ with adjustable frequency center, and a High Shelf EQ with adjustable fequency center, and a Low and High Cut filter. The Low and High Shelf filters and Cut filters all have either 6 or 12 db slope selection. I have yet to find where this much EQ isn't enough, even on lousy mixes.
You should check out QMetric. I does double sampling processing and is probably the most transparent digital EQ I have heard yet!
I think the advantage of a Parametric EQ is that once you find the frequency you want to cut, you now have a greater degree of control over how far above and below that frequency you will effect. A full parametric offers adjustable Cue (or Bandwidth) so it is easy to expand of shrink the Cue with one knob. On a Graphic, if you need to effect above and below the frequency center, you have to adjust another band. Usually though, the smallest Cue you will get from a grahpic is 1/3 octave, which for mastering purposes may not be tight enough if you are looking to really zero in on a frequency to cut down some ringing without killing that frequency. A Graphic just doesn't offer this kind of detailed control, and still requires that you adjust several bands if you are looking for a "dip" in a certain frequency range. With a Parametric, you find the frequency center, then just widen the Cue. Much easier, and assures a uniform cut in the region of sound.
Ed
) and a Low Shelf EQ with adjustable frequency center, and a High Shelf EQ with adjustable fequency center, and a Low and High Cut filter. The Low and High Shelf filters and Cut filters all have either 6 or 12 db slope selection. I have yet to find where this much EQ isn't enough, even on lousy mixes.You should check out QMetric. I does double sampling processing and is probably the most transparent digital EQ I have heard yet!
I think the advantage of a Parametric EQ is that once you find the frequency you want to cut, you now have a greater degree of control over how far above and below that frequency you will effect. A full parametric offers adjustable Cue (or Bandwidth) so it is easy to expand of shrink the Cue with one knob. On a Graphic, if you need to effect above and below the frequency center, you have to adjust another band. Usually though, the smallest Cue you will get from a grahpic is 1/3 octave, which for mastering purposes may not be tight enough if you are looking to really zero in on a frequency to cut down some ringing without killing that frequency. A Graphic just doesn't offer this kind of detailed control, and still requires that you adjust several bands if you are looking for a "dip" in a certain frequency range. With a Parametric, you find the frequency center, then just widen the Cue. Much easier, and assures a uniform cut in the region of sound.
Ed
Sounds like a great piece of software, i aint got that much money though. I think i am not up to that level of investemnt for a single plug in since i am not what you 'd describe as a full time mastering engineer.
I am waiting for things to come down in price
we ll see,
question:
What makes a mix sound good?
plus...do you accept constructive critisim?
The drums in fear are too dry, like in a rock 'n roll band of the 50's, Vocals are excellent, lose the weird delay panning though, (in your own words) it does not sound one with the vocals. Same goes to the drums (it sounds that they 're coming out from another room, isolated boot, did you close miked? I think you should do both close and ambient miking). I think you need a bit more *mud* in it, just sligtly, not to sound sterile that is.
On the upside, superclean, superbalanced, and sharp idea to encode in 192kpbs, i am following here.
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-10-2000).]
I am waiting for things to come down in price
we ll see,
question:
What makes a mix sound good?
plus...do you accept constructive critisim?
The drums in fear are too dry, like in a rock 'n roll band of the 50's, Vocals are excellent, lose the weird delay panning though, (in your own words) it does not sound one with the vocals. Same goes to the drums (it sounds that they 're coming out from another room, isolated boot, did you close miked? I think you should do both close and ambient miking). I think you need a bit more *mud* in it, just sligtly, not to sound sterile that is.
On the upside, superclean, superbalanced, and sharp idea to encode in 192kpbs, i am following here.
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-10-2000).]
sonusman
Banned
Yeah, not bad for the first recording project that I ever did in this studio, over 3 years ago. The mix is about 2 years old, and didn't have the benefit of many of the mixing tools I have now. Of course, it was recorded to a Fostex D-5 DAT using the onboard converters, flown into the computer for mastering, which meant working with 16 bit files that came from relatively lousy converters.....Oh well....
The drums were recorded at another studio, 1" Tascam machine none the less. The drums are a constant source of annoyance to me because not only were they not tuned properly, but the mics were not very good (some EV drum mic, forget the model, but the drum tracking engineer likes them, I don't!), and they were running through Mackie preamps, which I hate with a passion. The band could not afford to retrack the drums, so I only retracked the bass, guitars, and vocals. They yis what they yis. There was no ambiance available on the overheads as the mics were entry level AT condensors, forgot the model on them too. Hell, that was over three years ago. So, you can see that I had to make do with what was there. I sure wish I had the push mixes available from the other studio that they originally tracked in, you would hate Tascam 1" machines and Mackie preamps for life after hearing those...
As far as the vocal effect, well, you are the only person that has not found that vocal effect to be a nice touch to the song, and this includes many local producers I work with. No accounting for taste... Granted, with a better vocal take, and a nice class A compressor, and better automation on the console, I could have really cleaned it up, but, budgets prevail in production. Hey, I would be happy to send you the tracks and see what you could do with them, seeings how you have so much to say about it... (not really....that project is long dead)
I have still yet to see a link to any of your recordings. It is so easy to nitpick isn't it? I can't wait to hear your stuff!!! I am sure that it is very big time sounding.
Did I mention that that mix was done in about 5 hours, and mastered in about 20 mins? Certainly not in line with a lot of the other production I do.
Go download some of the other songs I have available, much more recent, and in the case of Porterhouse, 24 bit mixing to hard drive. And please, let us hear your stuff...
Ed
The drums were recorded at another studio, 1" Tascam machine none the less. The drums are a constant source of annoyance to me because not only were they not tuned properly, but the mics were not very good (some EV drum mic, forget the model, but the drum tracking engineer likes them, I don't!), and they were running through Mackie preamps, which I hate with a passion. The band could not afford to retrack the drums, so I only retracked the bass, guitars, and vocals. They yis what they yis. There was no ambiance available on the overheads as the mics were entry level AT condensors, forgot the model on them too. Hell, that was over three years ago. So, you can see that I had to make do with what was there. I sure wish I had the push mixes available from the other studio that they originally tracked in, you would hate Tascam 1" machines and Mackie preamps for life after hearing those...
As far as the vocal effect, well, you are the only person that has not found that vocal effect to be a nice touch to the song, and this includes many local producers I work with. No accounting for taste...
Granted, with a better vocal take, and a nice class A compressor, and better automation on the console, I could have really cleaned it up, but, budgets prevail in production. Hey, I would be happy to send you the tracks and see what you could do with them, seeings how you have so much to say about it... (not really....that project is long dead)I have still yet to see a link to any of your recordings. It is so easy to nitpick isn't it? I can't wait to hear your stuff!!! I am sure that it is very big time sounding.
Did I mention that that mix was done in about 5 hours, and mastered in about 20 mins? Certainly not in line with a lot of the other production I do.
Go download some of the other songs I have available, much more recent, and in the case of Porterhouse, 24 bit mixing to hard drive. And please, let us hear your stuff...
Ed
Sonus,
I am putting a cd together, it's gonna be called "opposing forces". Inspired by the OT discussion at VSplanet, Lot's of people argue with a passion there. Topics like religion, vegeterianism, patriotism and other stuff. Lots of fanatics, stupids, and -dokntknowanything- people. I had a look around homerecer's OT and it's all the same so i think "opposing forces" are a common thing these days. Thats the artistic part of the cd, it's gonna be finished (i hope) by the coming Christmasts (a long time from now but who cares). I am planning to put all the skills i 've gathered from places like here in the production but i want it to have a live feel in it, like real people actually playing together and having fun. I am recording digitally, but my technique rely's on good sounding instruments primarilly and well rehearsed musicians more that top of the range equipment.The context of the album will be accoustic, pop, and rock stuff.
Before that, and if the project gets on well i ll be releasing an acoustic track for the Synthzone BBS compilation cd, wich is taking form as we speak.
I have to make this clear, i am a musician, who records. Not an engineer.
When these stuff become availiable you ll be the first to know. I am very happy that you have the same opinion about the drums in Fear cause that means i am getting better. I have a lot more to learn.
The other song Neopolitan, is good in terms of recording/mixing/mastering. No tubes there
though, a bit sterile, i dont particularly like the music style as well. I am gonna have a listen to the others today as well. I think as an enginner you would excell in mastering and remastering tape recordings. You should try it.
If you want to get an idea of what i mean live and tubey get "live at the Regal" by BB king. One of my favorite *WARM* recordings ever, another good hit to get my idea of finished product would be "Best of Cream", warm and tubey again. If you have time please try to remaster something from it and post it here, i would be very very interested to have a listen cause i think the original recording are a bit muddy, you might be able to clean it up with out sucking the life out of it. try. AND if you you really want to get talking try remastering something from "More hot Rocks" by the stones, there is a lot of mud there.
Thanks for the reply, i am off to your songs now,
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-11-2000).]
I am putting a cd together, it's gonna be called "opposing forces". Inspired by the OT discussion at VSplanet, Lot's of people argue with a passion there. Topics like religion, vegeterianism, patriotism and other stuff. Lots of fanatics, stupids, and -dokntknowanything- people. I had a look around homerecer's OT and it's all the same so i think "opposing forces" are a common thing these days. Thats the artistic part of the cd, it's gonna be finished (i hope) by the coming Christmasts (a long time from now but who cares). I am planning to put all the skills i 've gathered from places like here in the production but i want it to have a live feel in it, like real people actually playing together and having fun. I am recording digitally, but my technique rely's on good sounding instruments primarilly and well rehearsed musicians more that top of the range equipment.The context of the album will be accoustic, pop, and rock stuff.
Before that, and if the project gets on well i ll be releasing an acoustic track for the Synthzone BBS compilation cd, wich is taking form as we speak.
I have to make this clear, i am a musician, who records. Not an engineer.
When these stuff become availiable you ll be the first to know. I am very happy that you have the same opinion about the drums in Fear cause that means i am getting better. I have a lot more to learn.
The other song Neopolitan, is good in terms of recording/mixing/mastering. No tubes there
though, a bit sterile, i dont particularly like the music style as well. I am gonna have a listen to the others today as well. I think as an enginner you would excell in mastering and remastering tape recordings. You should try it.
If you want to get an idea of what i mean live and tubey get "live at the Regal" by BB king. One of my favorite *WARM* recordings ever, another good hit to get my idea of finished product would be "Best of Cream", warm and tubey again. If you have time please try to remaster something from it and post it here, i would be very very interested to have a listen cause i think the original recording are a bit muddy, you might be able to clean it up with out sucking the life out of it. try. AND if you you really want to get talking try remastering something from "More hot Rocks" by the stones, there is a lot of mud there.
Thanks for the reply, i am off to your songs now,
[This message has been edited by Animaniac (edited 07-11-2000).]
Animaniac,
This is a question that I have from one of your earlier comments a few days ago (On 7/4). This is not meant to insult your intelligence, but you do realize that you master after you've MIxed the multitrack song down to two tracks?
If your answer is "yes" then please forget my question.
I asked this because you made a comment about having to have many compressors to master if one was not using a multiband compressor.
Rev E
[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 07-12-2000).]
This is a question that I have from one of your earlier comments a few days ago (On 7/4). This is not meant to insult your intelligence, but you do realize that you master after you've MIxed the multitrack song down to two tracks?
If your answer is "yes" then please forget my question.
I asked this because you made a comment about having to have many compressors to master if one was not using a multiband compressor.
Rev E
[This message has been edited by Rev E (edited 07-12-2000).]
this is becoming boring and painfull,
Rev, yes
1 record, 2 mix, 3 master. If you have to skip mixing, in the case of a live event that was recorded on stereo minidisk and given to you for example, or you have a really bad mix and you cant afford to remix it (because its 10 years old and you ve lost the original tracks), i think a good idea would be to master using a multiband. And when i say master in my case i actually mean more *remix* than polish. The guys here suggested the eq to compressor method when mastering. Now, out of ignorance i was wondering how a multiband mastering processor would compare to the eq -> compressor method. They probably though that the mix was alright and only a small part of the frequency range needed be processed (which is typical for mastering). In my case whre some radical changes needed that wasnt enough so (out of ignorance again) i though they might be using two or more compressors on the final mix, feeding each one different frequency ranges (although i cant see how this could happen). A multiband essentially gives you control over 2,3 or more different frequeny ranges at the same time, somehow you are simulating the mixing stage where you can have compressor inserts in different instruments like bass guitar and horns for example, i also mention graphic eq instead of parametric, this again because with a graphic you simulate channels somehow, so you can have say a *fader* for vocals, bass, and hi hats. This is how i try to *remix* live crap i get. I know that mastering is a polishing stage, where you dont really radically change stuff, you just improve. How should i call the case i am describing then? Sonus, you 've been patient longer than your typical i can see, in mastering you only get 2 tracks, might be mixed by me, might be mixed by Ryan Micajah, might be remastered 30 times. My job is to do what the customer wants. Clean up in that case,
shall we finish with this thread already then...
Rev, yes
1 record, 2 mix, 3 master. If you have to skip mixing, in the case of a live event that was recorded on stereo minidisk and given to you for example, or you have a really bad mix and you cant afford to remix it (because its 10 years old and you ve lost the original tracks), i think a good idea would be to master using a multiband. And when i say master in my case i actually mean more *remix* than polish. The guys here suggested the eq to compressor method when mastering. Now, out of ignorance i was wondering how a multiband mastering processor would compare to the eq -> compressor method. They probably though that the mix was alright and only a small part of the frequency range needed be processed (which is typical for mastering). In my case whre some radical changes needed that wasnt enough so (out of ignorance again) i though they might be using two or more compressors on the final mix, feeding each one different frequency ranges (although i cant see how this could happen). A multiband essentially gives you control over 2,3 or more different frequeny ranges at the same time, somehow you are simulating the mixing stage where you can have compressor inserts in different instruments like bass guitar and horns for example, i also mention graphic eq instead of parametric, this again because with a graphic you simulate channels somehow, so you can have say a *fader* for vocals, bass, and hi hats. This is how i try to *remix* live crap i get. I know that mastering is a polishing stage, where you dont really radically change stuff, you just improve. How should i call the case i am describing then? Sonus, you 've been patient longer than your typical i can see, in mastering you only get 2 tracks, might be mixed by me, might be mixed by Ryan Micajah, might be remastered 30 times. My job is to do what the customer wants. Clean up in that case,
shall we finish with this thread already then...