Please critique my first all analog mix...

Rickson Gracie

New member
'Goodnight Josephine'

This is my first all analog from TSR-8 to 22-2 half track project.

i know theres some flubs in there. i recorded this all analog and kept some of the mistakes.

i am trying to set up a set of monitors and i want to see how off they are. the mix through my car stereo sounds a bit bassy but i kind of like it but i would like your opinions.

i like mixing the panning kind of like a 60s style with some harder panning.

http://www.soundclick.com/wheresthelove
 
I dig it. Hmmmmm, vocals sound fine to me. The panning is not too extreme either. I dig :D But I also kind of don't like drummer sitting in the corner...sort of speak.
I am always for a nice heavy bass almost everywhere ...heh heh. So I'd say the bass there isn't too heavy that's for sure.

Subjective world - Subjective Truth.

:D
 
I like it. I cant tell if its too bass heavy cause Im on earbuds. But with these it sounds ok to me.
I also like the 60,s hard pan sound. From what I have read about the 60,s hard panning was it wasnt on purpose but it was cause stereo was new and mixers like the Redd3.7 I think thats the model number where made for mono mixing and they only had one or two channels of the mixer that would send the tracks to both sides of the mixdown machine.
Atleast thats the reason they give in the book Recording the beatles.
Which I highly recommend getting if you have a extra 100 bucks.

Anyway good job Rickson And would like to hear more about Microphones mixer and things like that you used to record this song.
 
I like it. I cant tell if its too bass heavy cause Im on earbuds. But with these it sounds ok to me.
I also like the 60,s hard pan sound. From what I have read about the 60,s hard panning was it wasnt on purpose but it was cause stereo was new and mixers like the Redd3.7 I think thats the model number where made for mono mixing and they only had one or two channels of the mixer that would send the tracks to both sides of the mixdown machine.
Atleast thats the reason they give in the book Recording the beatles.
Which I highly recommend getting if you have a extra 100 bucks.

Anyway good job Rickson And would like to hear more about Microphones mixer and things like that you used to record this song.

thanks. stuff might sound a bit distorted because i was really pushing levels and im just trying to see what i an get away with.

im using a blue blueberry mic on the vocals through a sabetron mic pre compressed with an ART VLA. the bass is a rogue hofner copy with pyrmid flatwounds into an ampex amp miced with a sure d112 through a UA LA 610. i really like sound of the this mic and pre setup for bass. the LA 610 compressor works well with bass IMO

im mixing through a TASCAM M30 but should be upgrading to a little Trident 8 channel board soon.

the monitors are adam A7s and im using an maudio sub but i still cant get good bass response.

i just finished adding acoustic treatment to the ceiling. i have a really low basement ceiling. this recording was tracked before the acoustic treatment and i had a tough time getting a good vocal sound.

maybe i need bass traps to get better bass response out of my monitors?

by the way i really like 60s style panning because with a good stereo it sound like a bunch of people jamming in a room sitting in different places. i know it turns a lot of people off but for me it sounds great:)
 
I think it sounds great man. Very full and natural sounding. Yeah, the panning is a bit odd, but not so extreme as to be bothersome.

What did you do with the drums? It sounds like there's some kind of reverse reverb on the snare or something? I dunno, it is subtle, but it sounds cool...:D
 
I think it sounds great man. Very full and natural sounding. Yeah, the panning is a bit odd, but not so extreme as to be bothersome.

What did you do with the drums? It sounds like there's some kind of reverse reverb on the snare or something? I dunno, it is subtle, but it sounds cool...:D

thanks:)

i miked the drum set with only two mics. the blueberry on the snare and an audix kick mic then i just compressed it a bit with an RNC. im just playing it with brushes.
 
:) I like it! I also like it when instruments are panned quite a bit, sound great. Vocals are somewhat iffy, I would try and keep the levels lower or use a compressor to avoid too much distortion, but overall, sounds ok, good tune too.
 
sounds good. i like the singer myself.

the arrangement never really takes off imo.

kept waiting for a surprise that never came.

feels like it is the first half of a song

cant tell from my laptop if the bass is too strong or not.

good job
 
I like the sound a lot. Like others have said, I don't mind the panning at all. I like to mix it up. I think panning drum kits standard left and right for every song is pretty boring.

I'm on headphones, and the bass doesn't sound too heavy to me.

heatmiser, I think the "reverse reverb" you're talking about is the result of the compressor pumping. That's what it sounds like to me anyway.

I do agree with Zorf though about the song. He said it perfectly: it feels like the first half of a song. I, too, kept waiting for something else to happen.

What you've got sounds great though. It was an enjoyable listen! :)
 
I liked it. The production seemed pretty slick too. I often have my vocals slightly hot anyway so I didn't really mind the distortion, I thought it added a nice edge to it.

As for the bass, there was something a little odd about that, it might be worth getting it mastered. But yeah, I liked it.
 
heatmiser, I think the "reverse reverb" you're talking about is the result of the compressor pumping. That's what it sounds like to me anyway.

Yeah, maybe that is it...it just sounds like a small inhalation immediately prior to each snare hit...
 
Good job. I like the 60's sound. The panning I think is a lost art. Doesn't anyone record like Brian Wilson or Jimi Hendrix at Electric Ladyland anymore? That's were the sound's at.
 
Yeah, maybe that is it...it just sounds like a small inhalation immediately prior to each snare hit...
He said he did it with a brush. Sounded like that's the sound he was aiming for.

For the OP, how are your brush skills? Just a one song thing or do you regularly use brushes?
 
I turned up the volume to a comfortable level during the drum kit intro only to be blasted away by the vocal tracks. :eek:

There are several sections where the vocal distortion is rather noticeable. I am hoping that it didn't go to the multitrack sounding like that so that you can remix it. If on the other hand the vocals are distorted on the multitrack tape, I would suggest punching in and re-doing the verse sections, where the distortion is most noticeable.

Also a bit of compression on the entire vocal track would be well placed. I'd like to hear a soft knee with a fast to medium attack, and a slow release on the compressor.

This mic would sound even sexier through a tube mic pre. With a bit of tasty tube overdrive, you'd get more of the second-order harmonic distortion, which is usually more pleasing to the ear than the third-order harmonics characteristic of solid-state electronics.

Good job so far, and excellent use of the tape levels. I heard absolutely no noise to speak of at the listening volume.
 
I like it... On the subject of '60's panning, the bottom picture below shows the "mixing console" that I first used in a studio. It was custom built, had 12 inputs and only Left/Right/Center and direct outputs. Going to the 4 track 1/2" Ampex required patching the output to the proper channels of the machine. On mixdown if you wanted something other than LRC you would patch the return signal from the Ampex into two inputs on the board, assigning one of the inputs to L and the other to R and control the "pan" by changing the levels of the two "faders", really rotary pots, in relation to eachother. I taught a class on recording using this gear and "panning" was one of the subjects covered in the class because of the console layout. Using this sort of console back then (mid '70's) really made the engineer think "out of the box", even though today's "box" didn't exist.

Some of the goodies in the picture are the Ampex and Presto tape machines, an Altec compressor, a Fairchild compressor, a home brew equalizer (probably from a kit) and, if you look on the far right of the bottom picture you can see the left edge of an EMT plate reverb. I wish that I had bought the Neumann U-67 pair that they had before I moved on.

3370998.jpg

A few more old studio pix are here: http://www.pbase.com/rking401/ancient_studio_stuff
 
He said he did it with a brush. Sounded like that's the sound he was aiming for.

For the OP, how are your brush skills? Just a one song thing or do you regularly use brushes?

actually, i mess around with brushes but its not a regular thing. im really a guitar player lol

for the the post above about using a tube pre i actually used a sebatron tube pre for the vocals:)

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
i remixed it this song again and replaced the last mix with the remix last night (4/7) if anyone wants to listen to it again let me know what you think:)

- thanks
 
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