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Richard Monroe

Well-known member
Oops, I posted this in the mixing/mastering forum. Let's try again-

We've posted up several more of the house mixes. As before- these are rough house mixes of Sahara-dry raw tracks. No panning, EQ, FX/reverb, compression, except on electric guitar. That would be the mixing engineer's job. We uploaded at 192kb/sec, and we still can't re-enable "Requiem" at the new sample rate, but we're working on it. Well, here goes-

"The Woodsman's Lay"- a true Medieval lay, a form of song with a series of verses, no chorus, no bridges. Celtic lap harp, classic guitar, Persian zarb, and muted viola with a slacked bow. Harp was done with a C414B-ULS, classic guitar/wind chimes with a pair of C-4's. Zarb was tracked with C414 and Shure SM7B. Vox and viola with B.L.U.E. Kiwi, muted, with the bow slacked. (verily, that's how viola sounded in ye goode olde days). All tracks into Avalon AD2022.

"Le Pela Finde"- I always wanted to know what you would hear if you sneaked up on the elves in Lothlorien in the dead of night. If anybody wants the English translation, you can find it on my web site at www.bardwire.com. Harp with C414 into the Avalon, classic guitar with the C-4's >Avaslon, lead vox with NTK>Avalon. Doumbek with C414/SM7B, as the zarb above. Violin with the Kiwi>Avalon. Backing vox tracked with Oktava MK319 into Joemeek twinQcs.

"Goody's Song"- First song I ever wrote. Acoustic guitar is tracked DI, using a Taylor 710CE with a Fishman Prefix Plus into the Joemeek. Vox with NTK>Joemeek. Backing vox with AKG C2000B>Joemeek. There's just a ghost of percussion, not quite cut completely.

"Family"- Maureen Fleming, the backing vocalist, wrote this tune. We used to do it with "Horsefeathers" in San Francisco. She recorded a latin beat version on her first CD, "Dreamers". Instruments were tracked pretty much as above, except backing vox was tracked with Studio Projects C-3>Joemeek.

"Donahue"- My tribute to talk TV, it's a Texas two-step. Tracked with a whole assortment of mics and pres. Acoustic and vox, as above, with C414 and Kiwi into the Avalon. snare with C414 and SM7B underneath, C-4's into the Joemeek for overheads. Kick w/ AKG D112 into the Avalon. The electric guitar has one bizarre signal chain. Parker Fly- Piezo pickup into the Avalon and straight to the board, unprocessed. Magnetic pickups to TC Electronics M300 for a little reverb and some slapback, then to Carver PM125 power amp, then to a Marshall 1 X 12 cab, mic'd with SM7B in front and AKG D112 in back, both mics to the Joemeek, and then to the recorder.

"Rock Star"- God, we had fun doing this, if we could stop laughing long enough to play. A bunch of 50-something folkies and jazzmen play circa 1981 hard rock! More boogered-up signal chains. Rhythm guit with SG into POD Pro ( tap-Brit Classic, models a Mesa Boogie IIc drive channel)>power amp> cab> mic'd
with SM7B into the Avalon. Vox with SP C-3>Avalon. Lead guitar also used the POD, same setup, using Tap-Modern Highgain, which models a Soldano SLO Superlead. The D112 was added in back of the (open back) cab. Both mics into the Avalon. Drums pretty much as above, but the MK319 was added for the floor
toms, and Oktava MC012's were substituted for the C-4's as overheads.

I hope y'all are not bored by the mic rundowns, but whenever I listen to MP3's in the clinic, I want to know, "how the hell did they mic that up?" It doesn't matter whether I like it or not. If I do, it's an idea to try, if not, one to avoid.- Enjoy-Richie

Here's the link:
http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/?aid=3239/album680
 
The mic rundown is EXTREMELY important and is a testament to your experience and wisdom, knowing what we need to know to best make an informed listening.

As this is a mixing clinic on an internet bbs, highly technical information like this is welcomed and encouraged.
 
Sounds good, but I don't know if you have used your gear to their fullest potentials yet tho...the vox cover up alot of guitars' details, which is kinda sad because the playing is beautiful. Maybe some hard panning will fix this, and some EQ perhaps.

Al
 
Yo A1A2- I'm sure you're right- see above. I'm not a mixing engineer- yet. I'm working on it, but this project will be mixed professionally, because I'm not there yet, not even close. What I did was *track it*, that's all. I know I'm learning because the current mixes are vastly better than previous efforts, but I could blast my own mixing on into the night. There are problems with the tracking, too, but that too, has improved. Eventually, we'll have a real mix, with EQ and reverb, compression, panning, noise reduction, and a little re-amping, some fader riding, etc. etc. What you're hearing is a mono house mix, unprocessed, as a guide for the project staff. It should sound quite different after about 60 hours of Littledog's loving attention.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
Yo A1A2- I'm sure you're right- see above. I'm not a mixing engineer- yet. I'm working on it, but this project will be mixed professionally, because I'm not there yet, not even close. What I did was *track it*, that's all. I know I'm learning because the current mixes are vastly better than previous efforts, but I could blast my own mixing on into the night. There are problems with the tracking, too, but that too, has improved. Eventually, we'll have a real mix, with EQ and reverb, compression, panning, noise reduction, and a little re-amping, some fader riding, etc. etc. What you're hearing is a mono house mix, unprocessed, as a guide for the project staff. It should sound quite different after about 60 hours of Littledog's loving attention.-Richie
Click to expand...

Ah, I see what you are doing now. Sorry, I have the tendancy to skip long posts, so I only read the part about the particular songs I listened to. I was gonna suggest to use reverb, but then I thought maybe you wanted that dry sound. Well, yeah, I am sure these tunes will sound a lot better with proper mixing, cuz right now I only hear pretty dry tracks with a little bit of room sound, which tend to take away the commercial/studio sound, if you know what I mean.

Post again when you have them finished, looking forward to hear the completed mixes.

Al
 
Yeah, A1A2, not "pretty dry"- bone dry, all EQ flat. What you are hearing is a mono mix, exactly what came off the mics. I wouldn't be surprised if Littledog applies some judicious pitch correction, and some noise reduction. You have no idea how hard it is for me to resist the urge to start twisting dials. And yes, there is some room ambience, excepting those tracks that were done in the vocal booth, which is pretty dead. I think that's OK, as it's really not a bad room. Can I pleeeease have some reverb now, mommy? After many years of live performing, I had no idea how dependant I had become on reverb. My mission is to get the cleanest tracks I can, and hand *all* editing and processing over to the nice mixing and mastering engineers. I'll be damned if I'm going to mess this project up by combining it with my learning curve. I've got enough of a learning curve just trying to track it. My focus is mic selection and placement, and preamp selection. The rest is not my job.- Richie
 
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"Requiem" is now back up, now at a manageable sampling rate.
Pretty much follows the established patterns above. C414 on both acoustic tracks, Kiwi into the Avalon for main vox, Carolyn's backing vocal on MK319 into the Joemeek. Bass DI into the Avalon. C-4's into the Joemeek for overheads. Loosely based on "Martha" from Jefferson Airplane's 1967 album "After Bathing at Baxter's", it's a requiem for the passing of Jefferson Airplane.
I think it's some of my best work, in terms of performance and engineering. As far as gear choices go, if I've learned 3 things that I wasn't entirely expecting, they are - 1. A single LD mic through a good pre can produce acoustic guitar sound on a par with paired small diaphragms, and the C414B-ULS is a very good choice for that. 2.- The SP C-4's are very good mics for a variety of applications. And- The Joemeek twinQcs is an often underestimated preamp, with a boatload of applications. There are so many instances where the Joemeek was used in preference to the Avalon, especially for overheads and backing vox. -Richie
 
wow, hi there

I just kindof jumped in and listened to Familly. Really great songwriting, singing, haromonies and guitar. Very enjoyable. I must check these all out. Thanks. Great sound
 
Thanks for listening, Erland. Mo recorded "Family" on "Dreamers", but I don't think Peter Sprague ever got the choppy acoustic rhythm quite right. I learned that style from playing too much Pete Townsend. They couldn't figure out what to do with the percussion, so as several of her people are from Brazil, they gave it a Latin beat, which never did work. When I started this project, I called Mo up to ask her if I could cover "Family", and she said yes, and would I like her to sing on the project. It took me 2 seconds to sign her up.
Rimshot couldn't figure out what to do with rhe percussion either, so we settled on Middle Eastern rhythm with a Persian zarb. I guess that's just a song that always sucked when Mo did it, and it always sucked when I did it. It only works when Mo and I do it together. Working with her and Carolyn on this project after 20 years has made it all worth it. Mo is flat-out the best singer/songwriter I've ever had the honor of working with. Check her out at www.mofleming.com.-Richie
 
Your intonation is excellent, you aren't even trying. You got a natcherul gift BOWEEY !!!

Donahue is HILARIOUS !

Your tenor voice in the beginning, and exposed is well recorded with excellent mic technique.

'stab your mother ... ' AHHHahahahah !!!

Your band sounds like they are big fun people.

Yes, you are an excellent comic writer, truth couched in comedy that we can laugh at, it our condition and helps us make it through the day, thanks for sharing with us.

These are some good dry tracks that will yield excellent results. BEWARE of using to much reverb on this, there is already some natural reverb here, and you will lose the acoustic guitar, and you must have that for this genre. The electric fill guitar is mixed a bit to loud IMHO . You are the star, never let your vocal get buried for a split second. YOU MUST retain your voice well out front, never be tempted in your generosity or kindness for your hard working fellows, never be tempted to 'give them the spotlight' unless of course they are soloing. The are the band, keep them in their place ... and no yours ;-) , out front all the time. And this mix demonstrates that you are mostly aware of this.

FAMILY
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Man, that's a really nice resonator type guitar in the beginning here. OHHHHHH, god the vocal is nice fella, nice.

Nice chord progression harmony. I want to put violin on this immidiately.

The back up vocal is a bit to strong, pan it away from center, and she has fantastic pronunciation, so you can put quite a bit of reverb on her, and some delay. Don't do ANYTHING to your vocal on this.

The guitar is to loud. Lower it by 2db at least.

At 1:48, the backup vocal is much, to loud. But this is good, it would be much worse to have it to low. Because she is a damn fine singer, and her backup vocal is golden, so don't lose it.

I understand the subject matter here may call for you to mix her almost as a duet, and that's your call.

Man, your intonation is awesome. I feel like the confidence level on the chorus entrances is not there, and it should be, this is a wonderful chorus, yes it works.

03:27 ... god, that's nice harmony backup vocal .... whew ... nice. Layer this section in the studio, and you'll draw some tears. Ya know, 'they' are trying to destroy the family, we can't let 'them' do that can we, this song helps, thanks.

GOODY'S SONG
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Excellent guitar in the beginning, you don't need any reverb on this, it's excellent as is, but it's to loud, and with vocal headroom on this tune, you can put a little dealy on your vocal here. You are becoming more proximal to the mic, and your vocal signal is really hot here, the upper range of your voice is hitting the vocal hard.

You'll want to double here backup vocal, and pan it 10:15, select one of her stereo vocal tracks after you split it as the 'backup leader'.

Get her to sing some more backup tracks in the studio to pad this out, and you've got dyanamite here. You folks know what you are doing. Your drummer has a very active part here, and is very tasteful, I'm at 2:24 now. The guitar is great, I want to put a violin cameo here, or viola maybe, maybe cello :D !.

The reason you find yoursefl mixing her backup so loud, is number one she's fantastic, but you will sound better if you mix her in back of you, double her tracks, and get the panning and reverb appropriate here.

Le Pela Finde
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Awesome violin, a little bit to much low end in general in the sonic spectrum on the violin, not proximal enough to the mic.

God, this is lovely GOD ! ... what a nice language.

I speak a little cajun french, and your presentation of this language with an American Accent reminds me of how they speak Cajun French down here.

I don't like this little hand-drum or whatever that little drum is, it's EQ is bother some.

Nice violin ... totally nice, you will need to push the EQ in the upper region of the violin's sonic spectrum to make it really sing.

Please post the lyrics to this, if you have a phonetic transcription, please post that.

You sound as if you understand the language you are speaking in also.

Tasteful violin playing, the excitement of the riff she presents near the end does not step on your vocal, and she only does it once.

Rock Star
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The guitar is to loud, the grace of your excellent pronunciation saves your vocal here.

I am struggling to understand the words, and I am an extremely keen listener, with good equiptmnet.

Compress this guitar, and I'm sure your mixer will do this for an excellent ballsy rock guitar wall tone.

OK ... next tune :D

WOODSMAN'S LAY
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I've left this one for last because it is AWESOME, it's the best tune of all in my opinion.
Your vocal is mixed the best of all here. You will need to 'notch filter' the EQ on your high notes, as after you master this, your high notes will become aggravating, but this is very common with your vocal type, and is simply more good stuff for the mixer to work with.

And your vocal is NOT distorting, so this can easily become the showcase tune for gigs you want to demo for within this genre.

At 1:44, the harp is a bit to loud, and your mixer will know how to mix this by riding the fader, but I suggest side-chain compression on the harp. And that means, when the vocal comes in, the compression on the harp kicks in , and it falls into the background, and some to transient peaks on the plucking are erased, which is a good thing ;-).

Ok, viola time ... shut up and listen ... HEY DOWN IN THE FRONT !

She is doing a great job of 'period' playing ! Good 'viola acting' , I like. Be sure and directly give my Kudo's to her for humiliating herself into this 'whimsy' of historical accuracy. Very well done, and GOOOOD intonation that violist has yessireeee !

You are riviting as you tell this story !.

I would add some delay to your vocal here, and compress the hell out of this vocal, as if you are in the forest, telling the story while peeking from behind a tree IMHO ! :D

I'm sucked in here, good storytelling ... but I know the punch line !

Lovely show sir, great writing, you have some great signal here ... now GET TO WORK and post and SHARE !!!!

Peace
 
My God, Studioviols, thank you for your kind words, and your very detailed analysis, which reveals a quite thorough listen.
You're right about one thing. I don't have the pure musicianship to carry a project like this, I'm a storyteller. If my vocals get mixed as an instrument, so you can't understand the words, the story will be lost, ans that will suck. They understand they are sidemen in this case, but I am keenly aware that my sidemen are real musicians, unlike me. Fortunately, they believe in my story enough to help me out here. Some of them, like Mo Fleming, are also storytellers. She's a great one. Seriously, buy her album. I know you like strings, and she uses Sara Watkins from Nickel Creek, and I regret I can't remember the name of the cello player right now.
Your response is so well thought out and so detailed that I'll make sure Littledog reads it. He's the guy who will be doing the mixing. Unfortunately, re-tracking Mo will not be practical. I live in Massachusetts, she lives in San Diego, and I did fly her and Carolyn in here twice, and it was worth it. She's working on building her studio (I put her up to it), and soon, we'll be able to just transfer files, and she can do overdubs for me out there, and vice versa.
You're right that there is some natural room reverb. Some of rhis was tracked in a live room. For instance, compare "Sunset Nostalgia" (live room) to "Po' Cat Blues" (vocal booth). From the mixing engineer's point of view, it would have been better if I did it all in the booth, but it's easier to set levels by tracking right in the control station, where I can see all the indicators, and set levels on the fly.
You wanted the lyrics to "Le Pela Finde"- You'll find a link to all the lyrics, including that one, with the English translation, on my web site, at www.bardwire.com. And yes, at one time I could speak Arkavean fluently.
You obviously are a string player, and I am a big fan of cello in particular. The string player here is Audrey White, a good friend of mine. She's a full professor at the New England Conservatory.
I'll be working with her tonight on the last pass, I think. I know I could get more out of her if I understood the language of music and the sonic characteristics of her instruments better. She's just one more in a list of great musicians who have honored me by believing in my story.
Probably "Sunset Nostalgia" is the best version I have up of what I really sound like just sitting around playing, and "Requiem" is the best overall collaboration, where contributions by overdub staff have made a huge impact on the song. A collaboration with Maureen "Mo" Fleming is in the planning stages, where she will be a featured singer-songwriter. On this project, she engaged in what she calls "indentured chirpitude".
Thanks for listening, and for your inciteful comments. I look forward to hearing your comments on a couple of other songs, the 2 you haven't gotten to yet, and the rest of the project, which isn't up yet. We did a very cool cover of George Gershwin's "Summertime", which I can't put up on Nowhere because it's a cover. It sounds a lot like Santana with girls.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said :
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I don't have the pure musicianship to carry a project like this, I'm a storyteller
-----------------

Ok, but I think you said that :)

I think you are a fantastic singer and a fine guitar player and an excellent musician.

Don't forget to buy some mini-traps for your buddy's new studio from Ethan Winer :D
 
some excellent tracking and levels on the instruments and voice. The engineer and producer can take it from there with very little trouble i`d think. The only issues I had was with the snare tones, a little thumpy and missing the crack for me. Eq could resolve that without any trouble maybe. Very good stuff, all of them. Threw me towards the clean precision that Seals and Croft used to produce .
 
Don't worry about the snare, Toki, it's a pure mixing issue. We have 2 mics on that snare, 414 on top and SM7 underneath. You can mix those 2 tracks to make it sound like anything you want. *I* just can't do it, partly from lack of experience, and partly because I'm moderately hearing disabled. The first pass on the drum kit truly sucked, by the estimation of the engineering staff, it was our biggest problem. So I brought in the tracking engineer (yeah, I have a consultant on staff). The "crack" you want to hear *is* there, but I can't mix it because I can't hear that frequency. In fact, I can't hear anything over 6k hz, which I believe includes the "crack" you're looking for. I know it's there, because the content of both tracks (top and bottom) has been verified by somebody who can hear my watch 10' from a condenser mic, and is a drummer. There's nobody who wants to hear this stuff mixed properly more than I do, but aside from the limitation above, I'm also deaf in one ear, which forces me to mix by algorythm. You'll never know what I would give to be able to hear what most of you take for granted.
And that's it. I don't use all this professional help because I'm loaded, I use it because it's the only way I can make a CD worthy of the effort.-Richie
 
Then you are all set my friend.. :)

as to the hearing I understand and appluad your determination. I do quite a bit of live stuff with a guitar player that has a constant 4k ring in his right ear. He`s in misery most the time. I have to do a monitor mix on a rig just for him..
 
Nice tracking, especially on the celtic/acoustic stuff. That is where you truly shine.:cool:

Thanks for the details on the micing. Info like that is gold around here.

The drumming on the last couple tunes (Donahue, and Rock Star) has some groove issues though. It feels very tentative, like he had too much coffee or somethin'. The hard rock tune especially needs to have a better backbeat feel to work right. I didn't care much for the rythym guitar tone in there either. Sounds too midrangey & distant. Hopefully that's a mix-fixable thing due to the multi-micing.


Definately post a link to the finished mixes, or PM me ;) I know some people who would be into this when it's done.:)
 
Thanks for the input, M.Brane. You're right, the drums on "Rock Star" are a problem child. We've got 2 versions, one that was fairly well played, but tracked badly, and the other which was tracked better, but not well played. We're sending both complete sets of tracks to the mixing engineer, so it will be a project for him.
The version we have up is the first version, and the kick and snare, in Littledog's word, "sound like they're in another room." Unfortunately, I don't think that's a pure mixing issue, it's poor mic placement. The second pass, the mics were placed by the project tracking consultant, and I tracked it. Sound is much better, but I think Littledog's going to be moving some things around in Pro Tools to clean it up, and he may mix and match tracks from both versions.
As far as timing/tempo issues with "Po' Cat Blues", I think I have to take the blame. Most of the issues there are the drummer and the bass player trying to cover for me. It's pretty much the only song on the project that was done without a click track, because I never could figure out the right metronome settings. Unfortunately, it shows. Oh well, if I wanted perfection, I would've hired someone to replace- me.
Guitar tone- I think that's mostly an EQ issue, namely the fact that none has been used- yet. Of course, the tone controls on the guitar have to be set somewhere, but no EQ was used after that point. I think it can be made to sound like a lot of different things, depending on how it's processed. I'll get to hear very soon. There's still an outside chance that "Rock Star" will get the axe before we go to mastering. That decision will be made after I hear the mix.-Richie
 
Performance trumps sound quality every time IMHO ;)

ProTools is an amazingly powerful tool. A good engineer can work real magic with it. It is a tedious, and time consuming task however. From what I've seen of LD's posts here I'm sure your in good hands.

With my patience level I tend to just fix the major clams, and move on to the next song.:D
 
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