No sweat about the notification thing, I will always reply but sometimes it can take me a day or 2 anyway. Luckily I managed to finish this construction job today so I am able to talk tonight but almost thought for a second that I would be leaving another one of my (Will reply tomorrow) posts. Probably will stay up late tonight anyways and I'm not doing much. Can't really start wailing out on the guitar because that will annoy my neighbour haha. (although she reckons she's never heard me......)
Clip Gain in Logic is amazing, I believe that wasn't always a feature in Logic and old fasioned way was to use a gain plugin, I can see that being a major pain in the ass though. No visual feedback or anything. First thing I do when I download some multitracks is to highlight all clips and turn clip gain down -12db's. They are all really hot for some reason (Probably normalised upon bounce or something). This gives me usually around -6dbs peak on master buss after initial balance, it comes down again slightly again normally once I start compressing individual tracks. But this is not always the case, sometimes I clip on very dense tracks, but quite rare that happens. I'd normally always use clip gain to manually raise loudness on certain phrases in my guitar parts as well if I am that far out, but rarely use clip gain to gain DOWN a sudden peak, for some reason I normally set up a high ratio compressor, or limiter to catch it. I honestly don't know why I never thought of addressing that issue with Clip gain.... During editing phase, the marquee tool and clip gain is my best friend. I do this on tom tracks also, just snip tom drum hits with marquee tool and turn the bleed down like 20db's, not to kill it but reduce severely. I only started doing this after watching a Mark Needham tutorial and he doesnt like to cut all bleed out using a gate, so I adopted this approach, but see plenty other pro mixers using gates, so at the end of the day. does it really matter?
So with my unexpected day off tomorrow, it's time to play with my new Ribbon. I noticed though unfortunately my audio interface is not quite gutsy enough to give me decent levels on the mic (another thing to irritate me with buying the wrong interface) Think I am hitting peaks of around -25dbfs, and this is where I am at a nice distance from the mic, 1ft+ away, maybe closer to 2ft/. I can get my preferred -10 -12dbfs peaks when playing closer to the mic but proximity effect is just a little out of control. So I have to overcome this somehow. It's going to come down to 3 options
1:sell apogee duetII and 18i20 interface and upgrade
2:buy mic pre-amp or cloudlifter or something (I don't know nothing about these)
3:Hope my art tube MP can supply me with clean useable gain (will experiment)
4
ossibly levels of -25, or -20peaks (I will split the difference and go for more proximity but just cut in mixing) is hopefully enough that by the time I clip gain up (hehe) I do not bring up too much hiss/noise. Again, need to play.
Definitely looking forward to double mikin especially with the SDC condensor up real high to the ceiling above me. I may be surprised. I kind of wished I had 2 of those ribbons though. I may just go ahead and order another one soon. Heard they excel at room mics for drums aswel so I think it will be a worthwhile investment.
I am worried about handling the mic, I heard never to record closer than 6inches on a louder source, or to tap the mic, or even put it down without some sort of cover as the magnet inside could attrack metal particles and stuff it up? Are they really that delicate? if that's the case I am definitely keeping my daughter away from ANY ribbon mic....
Honestly though, the issue I had before was that the high end of my guitar (especially high e string) was so piercingly painful and I actually started playing bass strings much louder and high e very softly and it really affected my performance. Now I can really dig into that high E string and the tone actually sounds pleasing with lots of character. I knew if wasn't my playing because I can clearly hear on pro recordings where people do the same, twang the high e, or dig in and really pick it HARD, yet the recording sounds amazing for it. If only I knew that the ribbon mic would have been the answer. Was so close to just getting rid of all my acoustics and just saving up for a much more expensive acoustic, and then there is the hassle of choosing one, testing it out etc. Was getting really fed up with it actually. My acoustic guitar is honestly a cheap piece of crap £30 new, at least one of them is. but the ribbon makes it sound REALLY good/expensive/lush. It's amazing, and mindblowing all at the same time. Tomorrow I really want to find out for myself if I can make my condenser sound very close to the ribbon with some careful processing for peace of mind that it was truly impossible for me to match that quality by mixing alone during the past couple of years. I'm not one for experimenting like this but I've had a rough time battling with harsh acoustic for a long time and need to understand more about it.
I am definitely of same opinion about cutting low end out of guitars as opposed to trying to add it all back in. Have a feeling I am going to get used to playing the mic waay further back on ribbon, or cutting a fair amount during mixing because proximity effect on that thing is insane. Figure 8's have worst proximity effect I think, but will probably be really great for me to close mic guitar and use proximity effect to further enhance a high melody line to really warm it up. Will see how that works out when I try within a few days.
I don't think I'm brave enough to track my guitars with reverb on the amp, I will give it a try and see how it goes but normally I record dry. I've tried out lots of whacky things recently with my amp (none successful mind you) Using Logic Pedalboard plugin to re-amp my di signal back through my amp with lots of different pedals combinations in desperate search of that nice lead guitar tone. Have NO idea why I never found anything workable, but I thought it would work the same way as if I was using a real hardware pedal to shape my tone... If I had more money I would just buy real pedals and compare but instead it will be one of those things I have to figure out 1 day when I have time. I was really hoping it would have opened up a whole new world of tones for me to try out but nop.
I glossed straight over the warped presets in space designer.. I must try these out now you mentioned them. This is first thing I'm going to try out in the morning in-fact. I'm glad I asked you.
Honestly I can't hear the figure 8 effect of my ribbon, I didn't need to point the mic into a thick duvet or anything like that. I will still try it out to see if I can hear the difference. I have a thick duvet white blanket permanently hung up (and it actually improves the look of studio funny enough with my purple hue light) Feels cosier, and actually does its job of reflecting high freq's. But anyway, it's not there for that, I pull one across and hang it on a hook if I ever want to record guitar, Lately I have not been using it but it's in a V shape once I pull 1 duvet across and I can sit in there and pretty much record by rejecting all room sound. Difference is not impactful enough for me to use that method all the time though because it becomes a pain to sit so far away from the computer and struggling along with the wireless keyboard/mouse while trying to record takes etc. But it's there anyway just incase. and definitely worth experimenting with more now that I am becoming much more happy with overall of my recordings.
When I say I struggle recording single notes on acoustic guitar, or melody lines it was mainly due to the harshness, When strumming I have the low bass notes disguising the harsh high end and it is not nearly as noticable but when high melody lines are exposed by themselves the sound I was getting was rather disgusting. Just with quick test I did yesterday I was getting useable recordings right away, I used to record as best I could and then have to spend a couple of hours in mixing trying to tame with multiband compressor/saturation/EQ or dynamic eq's and still get results that are not comparable to even just the quick test recordings I did yesterday with the ribbon dry. It's funny you say you use an 1176 style compressor on your acoustics because just very recently I have started doing this and it seems to be the best sounding compressor by far in logic for acoustic guitar, the opto sounds horrible to me on acoustic but amazing on vocals. I noticed that you have to be much more careful on the attack time but go too fast and you get distortion, but on the clean platinum logics compressor you are find to pull the attack straight down to 0ms with no artifacts, or at least I have never heard any distortion....... Actually I use 0ms a lot for that compressor because it makes the attack of acoustic guitar sound much smoother and easier to listen to, but it's only my taste, I'll guarantee if I set a slower attack to let pick attack come through I would end up dulling it back down again with a transient designer. I'm drawn to smooth/warm/lush probably because I have really become over sensitive to the opposite after battling with it all for so long.
Yeah when you automate you lose control of the fader unfortunately. But my workflow kind of allows for that anyway because I will bus down numerous times. so in a quick crude way.
Multiple Kicks/Snares to Kick Bus/snare bus/tom Bus etc. > Drums > ALL DRUMS > PreMaster > Stereo Out
Bass DI/BassAmp/BassDist > Bass > ALL BASS > PreMaster > Stereo Out
Guitar L/R > Guitar > All Guitar > Premaster > Stereo Out
etc.etc.
I do all my automations on individual tracks before they go to any bussing, so I don't care if I lose control of fader because I just use volume control after, this seems like a long way around but you would bus anyway at least so you can compress all your drums as a whole, or EQ all your guitars out of the way of the vocal. And then if I want to bring all guitars up a bit i just nudge up ALL GUITARS, the Premaster bus is so I do not have to enable and disable all my plugins every time I want to check a reference mix. also I make sure this track is in the main track window so i can automate a chorus up a half db, or verse down or whatever. This is the Dave Pensado routing, It works really well for me, and probably only takes me an extra 2minutes per mix. It really narrows down the amount of faders I use, I'll get all the blends right at the start and then never really touch the faders again. I mean some multitracks I get there is almost 10 snare tracks... Current mark needham mix I have yet to finish has 5 drum room mics, 2stereos and a mono (he uses them all so I know to use them with the best blend possible) I would be screwed without the kind of bussing I listed above!
Note: I used to use a 2in2out audio interface and when I re-amped I needed to pull the left studio monitor out and use this to re-amp, to be able to listen to reference, and mics together while routing out into guitar amp and back in while maintaining ability to move mics and hear in real time through my headphones using the 3-4 channel instead of 1-2. this kind of routing is the only way I was able to do this. real funky but.... it got me over the hump, of course I have new interface now I just route straight out of mono output5, and ..... it's done. lol So that routing listed above was sooooo helpful for me to do that much quicker because I could obviously route the mix out of -premaster set to 3-4, but my re-amping signal out (stereo out), without this kind of bussing I would have to select multiple channels of busses and set them all to 3-4... fuck that
Ctrl + Z is a lifesaver in logic, it magnifies whatever track you have selected so you can adjust the trim volume in your track window without having to keep opening up your mixer view... (this is a better way to increase/decrease volume once your fader becomes occupied with automations, I prefer to change volume here than on a plugin because I try to keep everything perfect all the way through so I can bypass/enable plugins to A/B compare with no volume changes that may trick my ear, obviously if you use a gain plugin as you say that's fine, but I would never change volume up or down using like... the output of a compressor plugin because I lose that ability to A/B with plugin bypassed accurately) Note: I don't use a dual monitoring system so I have to keep hitting X to bring up my faders.
I used a lot of UAD plugins in studio, they were great! If only I had a chance to use them all again with a little extra knowledge I have, I would have made much more use of them and probably realised their potential. They made a lasting impression on me though, and one day... one day... I may just be able to afford.
So watching that mark needham mix walkthrough the other night. I watched him write a TON of automation in 10 minutes at the end of mixdown without using any kind of midi controller. It is much more simple than I thought, he was just switching between Read/Latch/Write mode and playing the track making simple movements on the fader, That guy mixes 3 songs in a day quite regularly, nuts... but I think he's found the fastest way of doing things now and after watching him work I am convinced a midi controller may actually be a waste of money for now. At least until I get into composing strings. Had a little test run on it the other day and it's a nice way of writing quite complex automations. I can't really do those kinds of automations using clip gain because that's more of a broader thing for me and believe you can not slope the automations, I'm thinking swells or using those ear catching techniques where you let someone hear a part briefly and duck it out of the way and subconsciously you still hear the part (or think you can) I love that kind of stuff.
I really like that part of the mix process now where I can fix all the tracks using compression and the rest of it. making the track sound like you wished it sounded when you recorded. I would much rather get multitracks where I had to compress and thicken/fix everything first before I started mixing than to get a bunch of great recorded tracks that I could start balancing right away, in my opinion it takes away half the fun. Plus I learn nothing then and would ultimately be screwed when it comes to trying to mix my own tracks... as I've just found out. If I had the money I don't think i would bother with a ton of outboard gear either. I have only just recently started up my own rack, lots of empty slots as I only have patchbay and audio interface/power strip. Compressor will go in there someday but I am in no rush. Would probably get something that looks pretty with a lot of lights that has like no practical use..... like a tuner. Just because .... pretty lights
Did you know about that fairly new feature in logic where you can process your tracks on the fly and it will give you your visual representation on the waveform as you go?
Apply plug-in effects to audio regions in Logic Pro X - Apple Support
Extremely nice new feature! I use it more for a learning tool than anything else, it definitely helped me understand compression a little better. And this is where I found out that my waveform had one hell of a spiky ass needle transient even on 0ms by applying processing during the tracks, you don't even have to bounce down you can just look at the preview, or undo if you want. I think this is a great tool if you want to eyeball a waveform so it looks similar to pro recorded track for instance, or to learn what a compressor is doing and if it's messing your waveform up etc. It's something I don't use much anymore but if I do decide to track to a reference and not sure if I got the track thickness, or crest, or transient spike right I would definitely apply processing as best I thought, visualise waveform a bit and tweak, I mean.... how can you possibly go wrong if you do that?
You know what.... There is more I want to say but I'm not really adding anything useful to conversation, instead I am just rambling a bit now. Tired.
Cheers mate,
James