Mute automation on analog consoles...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roker1
  • Start date Start date
Roker1

Roker1

New member
....how important do you think mute automation is to prevent the "noise" from channels not being used at certain times.....and how much noise is there actually on a channel turned up but not having anything playing back thru it.
thanks
 
That depends. Every format would be different. It is most important with tape recording then digital tape and least important would be harddrive systems.
 
yeah true...I was particularly mentioning the analog system, and the actual noise picked up from an analog board circuitry..I guess it would be more significant with the lower end consoles, as you would expect the high end ones to have better noise specs...
Thanks for input jake
 
Roker1 said:
and how much noise is there actually on a channel turned up but not having anything playing back thru it.
thanks
Click to expand...

actually, in most cases it would be less about the format and more about what was on the track.

On a vocal track, maybe there would just be low level headphone bleed that is inaudible in the mix. But on an electric guitar running through a lot of stomp boxes the noise floor might be really annoying. On close mic'ed drums, every mic is constantly picking up bleed from the rest of the kit, but sometimes keeping the bleed sounds better than eliminating it. (Try it both ways.)

An expander/gate is another way of dealing with track noise.
 
If your 'lower end' boards are anything under $20k then you probably want to be pretty anal about muting unused channels. Even a board like the Ghost needs them muted. A lot of pretty decent boards have SNR down to 70 or 80db with all channels and busses up. It's not a big deal if they all have music playing but it's pretty obvious on the quiet solos.
 
yeah I gather it's just like you said tex...good feature to have on the board indeed...I mean if you're dealing with two or three tracks to be muted every now and again you could do it even manually, but with a few of them at the same time it gets a bit out of hand...
thanks
 
Very important

Wear em out. Use em.

I like them because I prefer to auto the mutes on a board rather than edit shit it the PC. Once stuff gets in the puter people want you to fuck with it in ways I hate to.

In the end I guess it comes down to your production style and requirements.

Another usefull way to use mutes, on doubled rythem guitars you can copy the mute automation from one guitar track and copy it to the other guitar track and now the guitars are tight and clean. Also you can mult a track use creative muting on it with that track going to a effect like reverb or delay, makes for some interesting vocals.

Mute atuomation is a very good feature to have on a console.

Kirk
 
Don't forget about the EQ!

A guitar track that has a little bit of speakerhiss on it might be a big deal, but if you decided to make the guitar sound a little brighter by adding high frequencies, you've made the hiss much more audible. So not only the track and the channel have noise, but the eq settings can add a lot. So mute those suckers!






(now why am I too lazy to do it myself most of the times?)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top