What counts
- Thread starter sweetbeats
- Start date
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
heheh...heh...hn
Helps to put the link in the post...
Its there now. Thanks, Daniel.
Helps to put the link in the post...
Its there now. Thanks, Daniel.
Herm
Well-known member
Well If that is the m520 and the Rs20 reverb I am amazed. They sound wonderful.
The drumming is great! and the sound of the kit is wonderful. (Is that you playing?) If thats you playing great job Cory.
Good production.
I would like to hear more of how everything was recorded and what mics and stuff like that.
The drumming is great! and the sound of the kit is wonderful. (Is that you playing?) If thats you playing great job Cory.
Good production.
I would like to hear more of how everything was recorded and what mics and stuff like that.
Sounds good! Great job on the drums! My kit doesn't sound that tight. I still have a ways to go on getting a decent pop kick drum sound out of it.
I didn't weigh in earlier on this thread, but as I read it, I wanted to ask about one thing I didn't see discussed much: the source to mike distance. Did you try miking with the primary mike at a working distance in the range of 18 to 24"? I get very good results that way, typically with a figure of eight pattern (AT 4050 or Beyer M130). Happily, I can do that using enough ASC Studio Traps to create what they call a Quick Sound Field, which has really good acoustic qualities to it.
The other thing, which you know, is that it would be good to have some high quality, natural sounding ribbon mikes available to try out. I suspect that a big part of what annoys people about sound in the 4-8K range is all these low-cost, high volume LDC mikes. It's hard to make a smooth sounding LDC, period, and the low-cost, high-volume units from China seem particularly to have strong emphasis in that range. With any condenser mike, you have a thin, tensioned membrane that often has a resonance or two in that critical frequency range. It's just the right size to have fundamental or important modes in that range.
Ribbon mikes, on the other hand, tend to have resonances down near the bottom of the audio spectrum, and nothing unusual at all going on up in the range from 5-15K, just a super light ribbon tracking the velocity of the sound in a beautiful, stress free way. Of course, they have a tendency to roll off above 15K and you have to manage that, perhaps with a bit of boost, but I reach for my M130s all the time and often they totally get a super tone.
Speaking of which... uhh, last night was one of those times and it was late and I had just finished a workout, and I, uh, dropped one of the M130s and it hit something hard enough on the floor (one of my percussion instruments, not sure which one) to knock one part of the grill off!
Just about had a s@#* fit! Anyway, luckily, it is still working as well as ever! I guess dropping a ribbon mike isn't necessarily as deadly as blowing into it! Cheers,
Otto
cjacek
Analogue Enthusiast
First rate production!
Currently listening, as I type. Wow, there is a "creaminess" to the sound. I'm actually stunned that the reverb is solely the RS-20B, spring type. I never expected it to sound so good. Also, setting aside the M___ board and such, which is doing a great job, this is indeed a masterfully tracked / mixed song. The drumming is first rate too! Cory does indeed do more, much more than "tinker".
Amazing job, really.
EDIT: I'm on my 4th listen. Great stuff, man, really great.
Currently listening, as I type. Wow, there is a "creaminess" to the sound. I'm actually stunned that the reverb is solely the RS-20B, spring type. I never expected it to sound so good. Also, setting aside the M___ board and such, which is doing a great job, this is indeed a masterfully tracked / mixed song. The drumming is first rate too! Cory does indeed do more, much more than "tinker".
Amazing job, really.EDIT: I'm on my 4th listen. Great stuff, man, really great.
Don't know if you consider the Beyerdynamic M130 affordable or not, but it is good. Really good. Another one that interests me (but I haven't used) is the AEA R92. Everything Wes Dooley makes kicks serious butt, so you pretty much can't go wrong, but most everything else he makes is more expensive, so... Anyway, the R92 is NOT symmetrical while the M130 is pretty close to symmetrical (about as close as any and much closer than most). There are uses for both and they overlap but not entirely. The R92 is designed for close miking and has a "bright" sounding side. The M130 works great at about 24", my typical working distance in tracking, though you can also get a wonderful, warm vocal sound up close (with a pop filter, of course!).
Cheers,
Otto
If price was no object, I'd indeed get one of them RCA 44 clones, the AEA R44 Series. It is so pricey, though, that they have a separate pdf price list for it!
If you recall, the R44 was near the top of my "if price were no object list". I talked with Wes about it some months ago, when I was discussing preamp requirements for ribbon mikes in general. At some point the R44 came up. He pointed out that it is quite a large and heavy mike (8 lbs., IIRC!). He also makes the R84, which has the same basic transducer, but he had his shop guys design a simpler, smaller, easier and cheaper-to-make body so he could sell that same basic mike to "married guys!" (His exact words). Then there is the R88, a stereo version which is also more open (less protected) and is generally designed to only be used with a fairly large source to mike distance (miking an ensemble in a nice sounding room).
They aren't so impressive to look at, but one nice feature of the M130s is that they have the smooth, effortless sound of good ribbon mikes, but they are very small and lightweight, which makes them very easy to use around the studio, particularly in coincident or near coincident stereo pickup patterns where both mikes are on one stand. A lot easier to deal with two mikes on the same stand (and mike bar) when each one weighs five ounces, rather then eight pounds!
I should add that the M160, the hypercardioid version, is quite popular, too, perhaps more so. The directional pattern is handy when you can't stand to have sensitivity to the rear (the way I work I actually prefer to have the figure-8 pattern most of the time) and the M160/M130 combo is perhaps the best M/S pairing on the planet, so having both is a good thing. I guess my take on the "can't ever have too many microphones" is you "can't ever have too many really nice ribbon mikes".
Cheers,
Otto
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Hey guys! Thanks for the feedback, comments and questions!
Just a point of clarification, Herm, but its not the M-520...the M-520 has a new owner. It was the M-___ mixer (prototype M-50/M-500 mixer) and, again, only used on the vocal track. I would have loved to track everything through it but it is just not up to operational snuff yet...wanted to be able to handle all the cue mixing and monitoring through it too but one channel is still down on the master buss and I've only gone through one input module and after all the issues we dealt with during previous tracking sessions with the M-520 (i.e. before I had gone through it) I didn't want to repeat that experience so I kept it to using just the one channel that has been cleaned, recapped, etc. It worked flawlessly BTW and the eq was really helpful. As mentioned before, her voice has a lot of power and cut and (Otto) I was indeed using a Chinese mass-produced LDC (more on that later) so there was that issue with which to contend. The M-___ made it easy though: I was able to dial in conservative narrow-band cuts at 2k and 4k and applied the 50Hz HPF on the vocal and it worked out great. Anyway, not knocking the M-520. It was my favorite preamp in the studio before the M-___ came into the picture and the guy I sold it to was impressed when he got it home as well as a friend of his who owns Fairfax Recordings in California. They've both worked with one of the EMI consoles out of Abbey Road because it is now at Fairfax but they were both "blown away" by the quality and features of the M-520. Isn't that cool?
And the reverb is the 'B' version of the RS-20...I think both use the same coils but the non 'B' version is just basic in and out while the 'B' version has a switcheable 200Hz HPF and a fixed limiter as well as input and output level controls. I used it as a send effect on the drum overheads, vocal, and guitar tracks. Daniel, I think the "creaminess" comes in part to the keyboard pad but also from the RS-20B. I really like what it does and I really liked what my Boss RX-100 did before I got the RS-20B. They don't all sound poinky like a cheap spring tank on a combo amp. The RS-20 and RS-20B have 4 springs each, two per channel to cover a wider range more effectively.
Yeah that's me. The kit is one that I made back in another season in life. Looks like this:
The shells are Keller maple shells I got back in the 90's. The toms are the DW-inspired 5+3 shells...5-ply with 3-ply reinforcing hoops 12" x 8" and 14" x 12". The kick is 10-ply with no reinforcing hoops 20" x 16". The snare pictured is not the one I recorded with (though the one pictured is also 10-ply with no reinforcing hoops and the size of that green one is 13" x 8" or 7.5")...I used a 12" x 5" 6-ply maple shell drum that also has no reinforcing hoops and only 6 lugs. I have a granite surface block and router jigs setup so I can do the whole precision bearing edge thing and I go a step further than a lot of people and make sure that not only are the edges true but I also make sure the top and bottom of the shell are perpendicular to the cylinder and hence also parallel to each other. A lot of companies do the 45-degree counter-cut with the round-over on the outer edge for the bearing edges but after refurbishing a lot of edges on vintage drums and questioning why people like them so much I realized it is the terrible edges on them. A number of manufacturers in the 60's and early 70's like Slingerland and Ludwig had 3-ply shells maple-poplar-maple; thin maple plies and a thick poplar ply. Poplar is a really great wood to have sandwiched in between the maple because it is has a lot of airspace and you get a resonant chamber...kind of along the lines of what Premier tried to do with their Resonator drums. Problem is that since the poplar is a soft wood and the majority of the bearing edge consisted of that poplar ply the bearing edges became just about flat over the years...but why are those older drums so sought after? Some of it is just a phantom because the drums don't sound today like they did then since the edges have deformed over time, but today's relatively sharp bearing edges do indeed allow for more resonance, but at all frequencies. A more rounded bearing edge will have a muting effect on some of the higher overtones so you get a sort of natural muffling and controlled ring that leaves room for the lower tones. Its subtle in some cases. Long story short I just do a round-over inside and out on mine so the bearing edge has a semi-circle profile. The shells are thinner than vintage shells, and the edges much more consistent so I feel like I got the best of both worlds; the decay and consistent tone of a precision edge with some of the HF control of a more dull edge profile. More than you wanted to know but I think it does play into how they record. The lugs I designed and built in the machine shop. I took some of the concept from the GMS lug with the barrel nut, but applied a solution to a problem with the design (and with all lugs in general) discussed by my main drum mentor in life, George Tuthill. George is gone now but I gained so much from him both from a technique and musicality standpoint but also from his years in R&D at Slingerland and Yamaha. There are a number of his ideas that made it to production in particular with drum corp drums. The issue with drum lugs, and you really see it with cast high-tension lug casings on non-free-floating corp snares, is that because the lug attaches to the shell inboard (i.e. further away from the bearing edge) of the actual lug nut the casing starts to bow away from the shell in the middle...that's why they started putting a screw in the middle of the corp snare lug casings...but they still distort and the chrome cracks...any of you that have played marching snare have probably seen it. George always said that the lug-mount screw should be outboard of the lug nut (i.e. attachment screws for the lug casing are closer to the edge of the shell than the lug nut). So that's what I did, and using tubular steel I got strength with less weight. I was on a high-tension lug kick when I designed it but the reality is (that I've learned) high-tension lugs are silly for drumset drums, with the exception of some snares and tuning preferences, and I think they actually kill the resonance of the shell and I'm not talking about because of contact, but because they create (particularly with my design) a secondary resonance loop which is going to naturally open the door to clashes in resonance...the shell isn't free. Its being restricted by the rigid members spanning the length of the cylinder. But they work good nonetheless.
Okay. Sorry. 'Nuff about the drums.
Sure...here goes...
Okay, vocal was tracked using a Studio Projects B3 set to cardioid, no pad or lo-cut. As was recommended earlier in this thread I used a little half-booth for the vocalist out of acoustic panels and there was a heavy foam mattress on the wall behind her. Otto, She was indeed probably about 18" ~ 24" away from the mic. I would have loved to use an Oktava MK-219 that cjacek gifted to me. It is finicky and needs some fixing up (works sometimes, and then randomly cuts out). We were able to get through another song using it and it sounds awesome, but we couldn't get it to keep working for us by the time we got to "Crimson Road". But I will get it working consistently because it is worth it and confirms for me that I'm going to get rid of my Studio Projects C1...can't stand that thing. The B3 worked pretty good...doesn't have the same hi-register presence as the C1 so it was tame enough but doesn't have the smooth and full character of the Oktava. Okay and then I described already the preamp and eq setup for the vocal track.
Bass was tracked through the hi-z input on my Presonus Digimax FS. Its my favorite except for the hi-z input I had on the M-520...that was such an alive sounding instrument preamp...an ART TCS compressor was inserted on the bass channel...I set it to an optical compressor preset for bass, set the attack and release to keep the bite and so the reduction meter danced cooperatively with the 8th note pulse...threshhold was set to get about -3 ~ -4dB of reduction and there is a tube filter on that TCS too and I had that inserted...ratio was 3:1. The TCS is far from boutique AFAIK...I don't even know what boutique is but the TCS works good for me...I have 3 of them. It's versatile without being one of those Swiss-Army-does-everything-but-nothing-well boxes. The bass instrument was my Ibanez Roadstar II. 80's 24-fret passive bass with two switcheable single/humbucking soapbar pickups on pushpots...one volume, one tone and a fader knob. I can get a good range of sounds out of it. Electronics are stock. Would like to know more about mods but can't seem to find any info.
There are two keyboard tracks: a pad and an arpeggio that comes in and out...both are stereo patches but the arpeggio is panned left. Both are triggered inside the DAW using a virtual instrument that came with my DAW software which is Cubase Studio 4. The vocalist did the main keyboard track that is triggering the pad and I added the arpeggio later.
Guitar tracks...there are 4 of them. One was provided by me which doubles the keyboard arpeggio in several spots. I also added a distorted pickup to the last chorus. My guitar is an Agile 2000 LP archtop knock-off. Set neck, stock P90-style pickups, mahogany body and maple neck...weighs a ton but it is really well-made. Korean...$250. You can kind of see it in this picture:
My guitar tracks were tracked through a Digitech GNX2 using stock patches. A/D conversion was handled by my Yamaha i88x.
The other guitar tracks (clean leads, chord comps and drive crunch at the end) were handled by my friend on his original Ibanez Iceman guitar through a Digitech RP80, again, using stock patches and tracked through the i88x.
The drums were mic'ed using Studio Projects B3's in cardioid with the pad inserted for overheads, 57's for the toms, and an AKG D112 and an Audix D6 on the kick. No snare mic. I placed the B3's while listening to my 4 year old playing the kit. Just went for a good balanced sound that captured the kit well. If you picture a clock face over the kit and you're loooking down over the kit the left mic was at about 8 o'clock and the right mic at about 4 o'oclock. Both were maybe 6' up and angled toward the kit...I think one was lower than the other and again that was just based on listening...I had a set of those acoustic panels behind each mic creating a little trap. Tom mics were as standard, hanging over each tom and pointing to the center of the head...I wanted attack, but I've started placing them maybe as much as 6" above the head. I feel like I get a more full sound that way and can still get the attack pointing it to the center. The toms have Remo Emperors on top and clear Diplomats on the bottom...damping rings placed on the top like in the pics above...I wanted them pretty controlled for the session. Snare has an old Fiberskyn2 on the batter and a snare-side Diplomat on the bottom, no damping. The kick has a Clear Emperor on the batter with thick foam gasketing stuck around the perimeter on the inside...the first ply of the head is worn through so I glued a piece of an old head over it to hold it for the session. That glued piece was starting to come up which gave a nice attack definition in the end. Hard plastic beater. Resonant head is a Fiberskyn3 with just a small hole in it close to the edge big enough to get the XLR cable through to the D112 which is mounted inside about 2/3 back from the batter head pointing straight at the beater contact zone. There is an old feather pillow inside the drum as well as a folded towel laid against the front head. The kick is pretty dry. Works good for recording but for live acoustic or just recreational playing the pillow comes out and just the towel stays. Then I made a tunnel out in front of the kick out of poly-foam camping pads. The tunnel was about 3' deep and the D6 was mounted at the end of the tunnel. So the D112 picks up the attack and punch and the D6 gets the boom and those were on separate tracks so I could adjust the balance. Overheads were hooked up to the two pre's on the i88x, the rest went through the Digimax FS. No inserts, eq'ing or other processing up front. I did a little eq'ing in the DAW for one of the kick mics...the D6 I think just to control the boom because it got unruly when the two mics were summed...I think it was like -3dB's centered at around 100Hz. The overheads were given a +1 or +2 wide-band rise at around 1k and narrow-band cut of maybe 4dB's at around 2.5k...that helped the snare come out but controlled the cymbals that were clashing with the vocal especially during the last chorus. Toms were just given each 1 narrow-band cut of about 3dB's at each head's resonant frequency just to control the sympathetic ring in the mix.
I did use a mastering plugin that came with the i88x; a multi-band dynamics processor as well as an image widening plugin.
Let me know if there are any other questions.
To take it back to the OT for a moment, this experience, again, took me right back to what really counts: some decent gear that works for you and that is familiar to you, and AFAIC nothing beats a good analog mixer...anything from Tascam in the 300/500/1500/1600 series will do well...it is the hub of the studio. Others as well like the 200 series. I was using my Yamaha 01X for cue mixing and DAW control and while I really like it (it is a fantastic tool especially in conjunction with Cubase and the i88x and Digimax FS), I longed to have real controls for everything...I got so weary paging through stuff to make the adjustments needed in spite of being very familiar with navigating on the 01X...I wanted to hear the need and be able to go "okay, that is controlled there" and make the adjustment. And my aspirations to get a full analog tracking facility up and running consistently was reaffirmed. I hit a wall with "Crimson Road" trying to get certain parts pleasing and prominent and get a good overall master level and you could hear things starting to push and break apart with very little threshhold...I wanted to be able to have a range of push and not have things get so harsh as you push...It was really frustrating. I had to just stop at one point because I couldn't stand it any longer.
Just a point of clarification, Herm, but its not the M-520...the M-520 has a new owner. It was the M-___ mixer (prototype M-50/M-500 mixer) and, again, only used on the vocal track. I would have loved to track everything through it but it is just not up to operational snuff yet...wanted to be able to handle all the cue mixing and monitoring through it too but one channel is still down on the master buss and I've only gone through one input module and after all the issues we dealt with during previous tracking sessions with the M-520 (i.e. before I had gone through it) I didn't want to repeat that experience so I kept it to using just the one channel that has been cleaned, recapped, etc. It worked flawlessly BTW and the eq was really helpful. As mentioned before, her voice has a lot of power and cut and (Otto) I was indeed using a Chinese mass-produced LDC (more on that later) so there was that issue with which to contend. The M-___ made it easy though: I was able to dial in conservative narrow-band cuts at 2k and 4k and applied the 50Hz HPF on the vocal and it worked out great. Anyway, not knocking the M-520. It was my favorite preamp in the studio before the M-___ came into the picture and the guy I sold it to was impressed when he got it home as well as a friend of his who owns Fairfax Recordings in California. They've both worked with one of the EMI consoles out of Abbey Road because it is now at Fairfax but they were both "blown away" by the quality and features of the M-520. Isn't that cool?
And the reverb is the 'B' version of the RS-20...I think both use the same coils but the non 'B' version is just basic in and out while the 'B' version has a switcheable 200Hz HPF and a fixed limiter as well as input and output level controls. I used it as a send effect on the drum overheads, vocal, and guitar tracks. Daniel, I think the "creaminess" comes in part to the keyboard pad but also from the RS-20B. I really like what it does and I really liked what my Boss RX-100 did before I got the RS-20B. They don't all sound poinky like a cheap spring tank on a combo amp. The RS-20 and RS-20B have 4 springs each, two per channel to cover a wider range more effectively.
Yeah that's me. The kit is one that I made back in another season in life. Looks like this:
The shells are Keller maple shells I got back in the 90's. The toms are the DW-inspired 5+3 shells...5-ply with 3-ply reinforcing hoops 12" x 8" and 14" x 12". The kick is 10-ply with no reinforcing hoops 20" x 16". The snare pictured is not the one I recorded with (though the one pictured is also 10-ply with no reinforcing hoops and the size of that green one is 13" x 8" or 7.5")...I used a 12" x 5" 6-ply maple shell drum that also has no reinforcing hoops and only 6 lugs. I have a granite surface block and router jigs setup so I can do the whole precision bearing edge thing and I go a step further than a lot of people and make sure that not only are the edges true but I also make sure the top and bottom of the shell are perpendicular to the cylinder and hence also parallel to each other. A lot of companies do the 45-degree counter-cut with the round-over on the outer edge for the bearing edges but after refurbishing a lot of edges on vintage drums and questioning why people like them so much I realized it is the terrible edges on them. A number of manufacturers in the 60's and early 70's like Slingerland and Ludwig had 3-ply shells maple-poplar-maple; thin maple plies and a thick poplar ply. Poplar is a really great wood to have sandwiched in between the maple because it is has a lot of airspace and you get a resonant chamber...kind of along the lines of what Premier tried to do with their Resonator drums. Problem is that since the poplar is a soft wood and the majority of the bearing edge consisted of that poplar ply the bearing edges became just about flat over the years...but why are those older drums so sought after? Some of it is just a phantom because the drums don't sound today like they did then since the edges have deformed over time, but today's relatively sharp bearing edges do indeed allow for more resonance, but at all frequencies. A more rounded bearing edge will have a muting effect on some of the higher overtones so you get a sort of natural muffling and controlled ring that leaves room for the lower tones. Its subtle in some cases. Long story short I just do a round-over inside and out on mine so the bearing edge has a semi-circle profile. The shells are thinner than vintage shells, and the edges much more consistent so I feel like I got the best of both worlds; the decay and consistent tone of a precision edge with some of the HF control of a more dull edge profile. More than you wanted to know but I think it does play into how they record. The lugs I designed and built in the machine shop. I took some of the concept from the GMS lug with the barrel nut, but applied a solution to a problem with the design (and with all lugs in general) discussed by my main drum mentor in life, George Tuthill. George is gone now but I gained so much from him both from a technique and musicality standpoint but also from his years in R&D at Slingerland and Yamaha. There are a number of his ideas that made it to production in particular with drum corp drums. The issue with drum lugs, and you really see it with cast high-tension lug casings on non-free-floating corp snares, is that because the lug attaches to the shell inboard (i.e. further away from the bearing edge) of the actual lug nut the casing starts to bow away from the shell in the middle...that's why they started putting a screw in the middle of the corp snare lug casings...but they still distort and the chrome cracks...any of you that have played marching snare have probably seen it. George always said that the lug-mount screw should be outboard of the lug nut (i.e. attachment screws for the lug casing are closer to the edge of the shell than the lug nut). So that's what I did, and using tubular steel I got strength with less weight. I was on a high-tension lug kick when I designed it but the reality is (that I've learned) high-tension lugs are silly for drumset drums, with the exception of some snares and tuning preferences, and I think they actually kill the resonance of the shell and I'm not talking about because of contact, but because they create (particularly with my design) a secondary resonance loop which is going to naturally open the door to clashes in resonance...the shell isn't free. Its being restricted by the rigid members spanning the length of the cylinder. But they work good nonetheless.
Okay. Sorry. 'Nuff about the drums.
Sure...here goes...
Okay, vocal was tracked using a Studio Projects B3 set to cardioid, no pad or lo-cut. As was recommended earlier in this thread I used a little half-booth for the vocalist out of acoustic panels and there was a heavy foam mattress on the wall behind her. Otto, She was indeed probably about 18" ~ 24" away from the mic. I would have loved to use an Oktava MK-219 that cjacek gifted to me.
It is finicky and needs some fixing up (works sometimes, and then randomly cuts out). We were able to get through another song using it and it sounds awesome, but we couldn't get it to keep working for us by the time we got to "Crimson Road". But I will get it working consistently because it is worth it and confirms for me that I'm going to get rid of my Studio Projects C1...can't stand that thing. The B3 worked pretty good...doesn't have the same hi-register presence as the C1 so it was tame enough but doesn't have the smooth and full character of the Oktava. Okay and then I described already the preamp and eq setup for the vocal track.Bass was tracked through the hi-z input on my Presonus Digimax FS. Its my favorite except for the hi-z input I had on the M-520...that was such an alive sounding instrument preamp...an ART TCS compressor was inserted on the bass channel...I set it to an optical compressor preset for bass, set the attack and release to keep the bite and so the reduction meter danced cooperatively with the 8th note pulse...threshhold was set to get about -3 ~ -4dB of reduction and there is a tube filter on that TCS too and I had that inserted...ratio was 3:1. The TCS is far from boutique AFAIK...I don't even know what boutique is but the TCS works good for me...I have 3 of them. It's versatile without being one of those Swiss-Army-does-everything-but-nothing-well boxes. The bass instrument was my Ibanez Roadstar II. 80's 24-fret passive bass with two switcheable single/humbucking soapbar pickups on pushpots...one volume, one tone and a fader knob. I can get a good range of sounds out of it. Electronics are stock. Would like to know more about mods but can't seem to find any info.
There are two keyboard tracks: a pad and an arpeggio that comes in and out...both are stereo patches but the arpeggio is panned left. Both are triggered inside the DAW using a virtual instrument that came with my DAW software which is Cubase Studio 4. The vocalist did the main keyboard track that is triggering the pad and I added the arpeggio later.
Guitar tracks...there are 4 of them. One was provided by me which doubles the keyboard arpeggio in several spots. I also added a distorted pickup to the last chorus. My guitar is an Agile 2000 LP archtop knock-off. Set neck, stock P90-style pickups, mahogany body and maple neck...weighs a ton but it is really well-made. Korean...$250. You can kind of see it in this picture:
My guitar tracks were tracked through a Digitech GNX2 using stock patches. A/D conversion was handled by my Yamaha i88x.
The other guitar tracks (clean leads, chord comps and drive crunch at the end) were handled by my friend on his original Ibanez Iceman guitar through a Digitech RP80, again, using stock patches and tracked through the i88x.
The drums were mic'ed using Studio Projects B3's in cardioid with the pad inserted for overheads, 57's for the toms, and an AKG D112 and an Audix D6 on the kick. No snare mic. I placed the B3's while listening to my 4 year old playing the kit. Just went for a good balanced sound that captured the kit well. If you picture a clock face over the kit and you're loooking down over the kit the left mic was at about 8 o'clock and the right mic at about 4 o'oclock. Both were maybe 6' up and angled toward the kit...I think one was lower than the other and again that was just based on listening...I had a set of those acoustic panels behind each mic creating a little trap. Tom mics were as standard, hanging over each tom and pointing to the center of the head...I wanted attack, but I've started placing them maybe as much as 6" above the head. I feel like I get a more full sound that way and can still get the attack pointing it to the center. The toms have Remo Emperors on top and clear Diplomats on the bottom...damping rings placed on the top like in the pics above...I wanted them pretty controlled for the session. Snare has an old Fiberskyn2 on the batter and a snare-side Diplomat on the bottom, no damping. The kick has a Clear Emperor on the batter with thick foam gasketing stuck around the perimeter on the inside...the first ply of the head is worn through so I glued a piece of an old head over it to hold it for the session. That glued piece was starting to come up which gave a nice attack definition in the end. Hard plastic beater. Resonant head is a Fiberskyn3 with just a small hole in it close to the edge big enough to get the XLR cable through to the D112 which is mounted inside about 2/3 back from the batter head pointing straight at the beater contact zone. There is an old feather pillow inside the drum as well as a folded towel laid against the front head. The kick is pretty dry. Works good for recording but for live acoustic or just recreational playing the pillow comes out and just the towel stays. Then I made a tunnel out in front of the kick out of poly-foam camping pads. The tunnel was about 3' deep and the D6 was mounted at the end of the tunnel. So the D112 picks up the attack and punch and the D6 gets the boom and those were on separate tracks so I could adjust the balance. Overheads were hooked up to the two pre's on the i88x, the rest went through the Digimax FS. No inserts, eq'ing or other processing up front. I did a little eq'ing in the DAW for one of the kick mics...the D6 I think just to control the boom because it got unruly when the two mics were summed...I think it was like -3dB's centered at around 100Hz. The overheads were given a +1 or +2 wide-band rise at around 1k and narrow-band cut of maybe 4dB's at around 2.5k...that helped the snare come out but controlled the cymbals that were clashing with the vocal especially during the last chorus. Toms were just given each 1 narrow-band cut of about 3dB's at each head's resonant frequency just to control the sympathetic ring in the mix.
I did use a mastering plugin that came with the i88x; a multi-band dynamics processor as well as an image widening plugin.
Let me know if there are any other questions.
To take it back to the OT for a moment, this experience, again, took me right back to what really counts: some decent gear that works for you and that is familiar to you, and AFAIC nothing beats a good analog mixer...anything from Tascam in the 300/500/1500/1600 series will do well...it is the hub of the studio. Others as well like the 200 series. I was using my Yamaha 01X for cue mixing and DAW control and while I really like it (it is a fantastic tool especially in conjunction with Cubase and the i88x and Digimax FS), I longed to have real controls for everything...I got so weary paging through stuff to make the adjustments needed in spite of being very familiar with navigating on the 01X...I wanted to hear the need and be able to go "okay, that is controlled there" and make the adjustment. And my aspirations to get a full analog tracking facility up and running consistently was reaffirmed. I hit a wall with "Crimson Road" trying to get certain parts pleasing and prominent and get a good overall master level and you could hear things starting to push and break apart with very little threshhold...I wanted to be able to have a range of push and not have things get so harsh as you push...It was really frustrating. I had to just stop at one point because I couldn't stand it any longer.
Cory:
Thanks for the details on the drums. Not really the place to start a huge thread on it but I play a drum kit I built in the 80s: I even made polygonal-cross section shells from 1" lumber (kind of like a barrel) and cut and shaped rims by hand from plywood. Lots of amusement to this story. Low tech because I was a poor college kid. Anyway, I came to the same conclusion about edges and have a semi-circle profile on mine, mostly because it seems to be more forgiving of the imperfections in my rims because they were made by hand, without a precision jig of any kind. BTW, I couldn't see clearly, but what do you use to damp the bass drum heads to give that nice tight sound while still having some good punch in the attack? It looks like a towel held onto the lower part of the resonant head with a bungee cord strung around the whole drum?
Cheers,
Otto
Thanks for the details on the drums. Not really the place to start a huge thread on it but I play a drum kit I built in the 80s: I even made polygonal-cross section shells from 1" lumber (kind of like a barrel) and cut and shaped rims by hand from plywood. Lots of amusement to this story. Low tech because I was a poor college kid. Anyway, I came to the same conclusion about edges and have a semi-circle profile on mine, mostly because it seems to be more forgiving of the imperfections in my rims because they were made by hand, without a precision jig of any kind. BTW, I couldn't see clearly, but what do you use to damp the bass drum heads to give that nice tight sound while still having some good punch in the attack? It looks like a towel held onto the lower part of the resonant head with a bungee cord strung around the whole drum?
Cheers,
Otto
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Those pics weren't taken at the time of the recording but re-read the section on how I mic'ed the drums...its in there. Heavy feather pillow inside the drum, folded towel laid against the bottom surface of the resonant head outside the drum, thick weatherstrip foam gesketing around the perimeter of the interior side of the batter head. The thing that looks like a bungee cord is just the mic cable connected to the D112 that is miunted inside the kick. I did eq a narrow band mild cut in the LF range and a small wide-band boost in the HF range on the D112 to enahnce attack but there was plenty there to begin with.
Hve any pics of your custom wood-hoop stave shell drums? I gotta see that...
Hve any pics of your custom wood-hoop stave shell drums? I gotta see that...
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
A good $35 preamp...
24-track live studio session last week.
On location so I wasn't hauling any of my analog recorders around...so it was a digital rig. Had to borrow one of an acquaintance's Presonus Digimax 96K units because I was 3 mic preamps short.
I sounded just as brittle and grainy on vocals (which is what I was using one of the preamps for) as the band's last demo EP. I was using the Oktava MK-219 that I got from cjacek and on which evm1024 repaired the tranny winding.
I was thoroughly unhappy with the sound. That was on night #1 (we were tracking over 2 nights...its the only way we could get all our schedules to line up).
Night #2 comes and I grabbed my Tascam MX-80 to see if that was better. It was $35 a couple years ago. It has a couple issues, but mostly works.
It...sounded...so much better. Smooth and so much better sonic balance. I betcha it has something to do with a better impedance match, but it really helped out, plus it was nice having the line amp in the MX-80 as well...didn't have to push the preamp hard to get a good level to the DAW.
The $35 preamp wins.
24-track live studio session last week.
On location so I wasn't hauling any of my analog recorders around...so it was a digital rig. Had to borrow one of an acquaintance's Presonus Digimax 96K units because I was 3 mic preamps short.
I sounded just as brittle and grainy on vocals (which is what I was using one of the preamps for) as the band's last demo EP. I was using the Oktava MK-219 that I got from cjacek and on which evm1024 repaired the tranny winding.
I was thoroughly unhappy with the sound. That was on night #1 (we were tracking over 2 nights...its the only way we could get all our schedules to line up).
Night #2 comes and I grabbed my Tascam MX-80 to see if that was better. It was $35 a couple years ago. It has a couple issues, but mostly works.
It...sounded...so much better. Smooth and so much better sonic balance. I betcha it has something to do with a better impedance match, but it really helped out, plus it was nice having the line amp in the MX-80 as well...didn't have to push the preamp hard to get a good level to the DAW.
The $35 preamp wins.
famous beagle
Well-known member
Hey Cory,
Great job on this recording. It sounds very full and pleasant. And great job on the drumming as well! The kick sounds really good.
The only thing that sticks out to me is the vocal. It sounds as though it's autotuned a bit too much. Was that used, or is that just the way her voice sounds? There are certain parts where it sounds a bit robotic --- especially the little "yeah" melody at the end of the chorus (or verse maybe).
Great job on this recording. It sounds very full and pleasant. And great job on the drumming as well!
The kick sounds really good.The only thing that sticks out to me is the vocal. It sounds as though it's autotuned a bit too much. Was that used, or is that just the way her voice sounds? There are certain parts where it sounds a bit robotic --- especially the little "yeah" melody at the end of the chorus (or verse maybe).
Hve any pics of your custom wood-hoop stave shell drums? I gotta see that...
This is an older photo. They look a bit tidier now (and sound more to my liking) because I have better, internal damping built into each of the toms and the bass drum. Time to do a new photo. Still, you can see that the shells are made of beveled, flat pieces.
Cheers,
Otto
D
dintymoore
Guest
Otto - the drums look cool and I've thought about making drums like that.
Did you make them, how were they clamped them together when gluing and were the shell pieces glued together all at one time or in stages?
thanx
Otto - the drums look cool and I've thought about making drums like that.
Did you make them, how were they clamped them together when gluing and were the shell pieces glued together all at one time or in stages?
thanx
Yes, I made them. I couldn't afford a real drum set. In 1985, I made them as single head drums (only one rim). I glued the pieces all at once and clamped them with a couple of straps tightened around the circumference, then glued the rim on the edge of the shell (all at the same time, IIRC). I think it was about 1995 when I added the second set of rims and went to two-headed drums.
My Christmas present to myself last December was to buy internal felt mufflers for the tom, floor tom and bass drum along with Remo bass drum muffler pads for both front and rear heads on the bass drum. That has really helped me get the tone I'm after, whether it's a tight sound or a loose, ringing tone.
Cheers,
Otto
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Otto...your drums...they have a commanding visual presence...
Beagle, thanks for the comments. That recording you are talking about is unrelated to the one I am talking about in my last post...different place/time/recording rig/artist. I *may* get a sample up of the recent project at some point but (like the last one) isn't an analog recording and so doesn't really pertain here. Besides its still at the tracking stage (overdubs are next) so it sounds pretty formative at this point.
Regarding your comments though on the vocals on the last project...yes they are pitch corrected. I purposely dialed the processor in so it sounded tranparent to my ears...her voice is a little like that anyway but more than likely your ears are better than mine and you are hearing the processor. Oh well. The performance may have been a little robotic anyway because she has had little experience recording and I was encouraging her to relax and loosen up her performance a bit and I think her 'recording legs' were a little wobbly.
She did really great though all things considered...
Beagle, thanks for the comments. That recording you are talking about is unrelated to the one I am talking about in my last post...different place/time/recording rig/artist. I *may* get a sample up of the recent project at some point but (like the last one) isn't an analog recording and so doesn't really pertain here. Besides its still at the tracking stage (overdubs are next) so it sounds pretty formative at this point.
Regarding your comments though on the vocals on the last project...yes they are pitch corrected. I purposely dialed the processor in so it sounded tranparent to my ears...her voice is a little like that anyway but more than likely your ears are better than mine and you are hearing the processor. Oh well. The performance may have been a little robotic anyway because she has had little experience recording and I was encouraging her to relax and loosen up her performance a bit and I think her 'recording legs' were a little wobbly.
She did really great though all things considered...
famous beagle
Well-known member
Otto...your drums...they have a commanding visual presence...
Beagle, thanks for the comments. That recording you are talking about is unrelated to the one I am talking about in my last post...different place/time/recording rig/artist. I *may* get a sample up of the recent project at some point but (like the last one) isn't an analog recording and so doesn't really pertain here. Besides its still at the tracking stage (overdubs are next) so it sounds pretty formative at this point.
Regarding your comments though on the vocals on the last project...yes they are pitch corrected. I purposely dialed the processor in so it sounded tranparent to my ears...her voice is a little like that anyway but more than likely your ears are better than mine and you are hearing the processor. Oh well. The performance may have been a little robotic anyway because she has had little experience recording and I was encouraging her to relax and loosen up her performance a bit and I think her 'recording legs' were a little wobbly.
She did really great though all things considered...
Oh, oops! Sorry for the mixup! I didn't get in on this thread when it was started, so I didn't bother to read through the whole thing. My bad. Still a great sounding recording though, and yes, the vocalist sounds great. She has a really neat character to her voice --- kind of like the Cranberrys girl-meets-Alanis or something.
sweetbeats
Reel deep thoughts...
Okay, so, quoting myself here...just wanted to bring things full-circle here...
Songs from the EP project I mention in my quoted post above are finally out and are the first four songs in the myspace player on the band's myspace page at www.myspace.com/inpursuitof.
Unfortunately the freebies in the web player are all fairly low bitrate versions, but at least they're up.
"Analog Only" content: the vocals and some of the guitar tracks were all tracked through my "Tascam M-__" circa early 80's prototype 12 x 8 mixer.