Post Your Analog Recordings Here...

  • Thread starter Thread starter jedblue
  • Start date Start date
Thanks for sharing the tune. I liked the concept and the distortion.
 
hey there jpmorris

thanks, i finished redoing the vocals plus a few harmonies for letters.

im using a real mellotron, i have two m400s and a mkII ;)

also, if you want a copy of the tracks, pm your email to me

everytime i try to make my tracks downloadable from soundclick it fails to do so. :/

thanks for listening!
 
Last edited:
Hello All~

Here is an analog track i cut on my Tascam 388 a few days ago. I hope you guy's enjoy it as its my take on Lennons' "I'm Only Sleeping". The Beatles will forever be an inspiration to me and continue to be one of my favorite bands :) God i haven't touched my computer in month's since getting this machine and I can't tell you how happy i am about that ;)

Cheers
St. Christopher

link:http://soundcloud.com/st-christopher/01-im-only-sleepin

http://soundcloud.com/st-christopher/01-im-only-sleepin

PS: let me know if the link isn't working. Thanks!
 
sounds great.
the 388 is a nice fit for that style of music.
hard to cover beatle tunes because they come with so much baggage, but you managed to personalize it.
what was your mixing process?
 
Thanks!

I had a blast putting it down. The mixing process was really just riding faders and twisting some knobs as I went down to 2trk. Bouncing tracks down and knowing where parts are in and out too. I had some outboard comps I dialed in while tracking parts as well. Also used a couple guitar verb pedals for the effx. The 2trk then went to a UBK Fatso for the final track. I would have liked to be mixing through the Fatso rather than post but it worked out ok. I'm gonna start on a few more soon and I'll keep posting along. For some tighter sounding recordings check out my band THE BEASTS OF EDEN på Myspace Music. Just finished tracking our new record with my good friend and bandmate. Take care!
 
So you mixed down to an analog 2 track then?
And if I understand you right, you used the fatso how?
By running the mix off the two track through the fatso and into an ad converter?
and the other tunes you linked were also done on the 388?
Thanks
 
Hello again,

So what I did was mix down on the 388 console into pro tools to create a 2trk I could take to my buddies where I then ran it through his fatso rather than just a plug in. The other tracks from my bands link were all done on a digi003 and 002 with lynx converters and a good amount of outboard gear like: API, vintech, distressor, dbx 160vu and stuff. My bands stuff was truly a labor of love as we went into great lengths dialing stuff in and doing our best to get it sounding right going in and saving us time in the mix phase. We did a lot of stuff for that at my old studio in BK (www.tincanlab.com, site still up) now closed :( and an empty house upstate where we did drums. All mixing we did at my boys apt where we enhanced some things and also started running our tracks back through the vintechs as a whole which proved to get a sound we liked. My bandmate and I have been recording together now for a while and combined have some great gear between us. That being said the gear won't make it sound great it just helps dial it in a bit. It's all in the players and performance :) We are now both working hard on licensing which has been a great source of side income (SongLoft llc). Hope that cleared some things up. Let me know if you liked the Beasts stuff and I'll shoot you the new record. Cheers, C Bop
 
Hey there, Loved your track, i just had one question.

how did you record your drums? what outboard gear were you running? thanks!



Here is an analog track i cut on my Tascam 388 a few days ago. I hope you guy's enjoy it as its my take on Lennons' "I'm Only Sleeping". The Beatles will forever be an inspiration to me and continue to be one of my favorite bands :) God i haven't touched my computer in month's since getting this machine and I can't tell you how happy i am about that ;)

Cheers
St. Christopher

link:01 I'm Only Sleepin by St Christopher on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

01 I'm Only Sleepin by St Christopher on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

PS: let me know if the link isn't working. Thanks![/QUOTE]
 
Hello,

Thanks man!!! As funny as it may sound, I used an sm58 a few feet in front of the kit and slightly to the left pointed under the Cymbols. I just moved the mic around for a few minutes till I found the spot ;) I used my vintech 273 going into an LA2A on limiter mode and walla!! Surprisingly I've used this a few times with different chains and it always comes out pretty good. Glad you enjoyed the track and more to come soon!! Get one of these machines if u can. Totally worth it! Cheers, C Bop
 
j.harv said:
I really like this.
What did you record this on?
Also like the effect on the guitar.Sounds kind of like a decimator.???
Click to expand...

Cheers :)
I recorded it on a Fostex R8 through a Fostex 812 desk. The drums were miked up with an Oktava MK-219 overhead, an SM57 on the snare and another MK-219 in front of the bass drum. I taped beer mats to the toms and snare recorded in the red, added compression and EQ and a short slap-back echo from an Alesis Wedge. The Bass is DI'd through a Behringer MIC200 preamp. The Guitar is also DI'd through a MIC200 with the gain and output level turned right up to completely overload it. That's where the horrible fuzzy sound came from :)
 
James K said:
The Guitar is also DI'd through a MIC200 with the gain and output level turned right up to completely overload it. That's where the horrible fuzzy sound came from :)
Click to expand...

Heh. It made me cringe at first because I've heard similar things from playing samples back in the wrong format. Overall I think you've managed to nail the glam-rock sound pretty well.


moogmymellotron said:
heres another track of mine. Get thy Bearings.

I go for a rather thrashy, live kinda sound. Any criticism is appreciated.
Click to expand...

Very much in the style of early King Crimson, I think. It grew on me while I was listening to it.
Also I'm impressed that you managed to get the brass to sound decent. Using the Mike Pinder samples, I have not really achieved much with them. I've only finally used them on one song and I ended up pushing them to the back of the mix because I didn't really like the result.

What did you record this on?
 
jpmorris said:
Heh. It made me cringe at first because I've heard similar things from playing samples back in the wrong format. Overall I think you've managed to nail the glam-rock sound pretty well.




Very much in the style of early King Crimson, I think. It grew on me while I was listening to it.
Also I'm impressed that you managed to get the brass to sound decent. Using the Mike Pinder samples, I have not really achieved much with them. I've only finally used them on one song and I ended up pushing them to the back of the mix because I didn't really like the result.

What did you record this on?
Click to expand...


Hey thanks! the real deal helps, i have a m400 loaded w brass sounds. Also the mkII has a VERY distinct sound, totally different from the M400 tape sets. Ive have the Pinder samples loaded in an akai, I have a "fake" tron i use on tour as a back up for when my...real guys give out. you wouldnt be able to tell the difference appearance wise, ive found that once you fool the eye, the ear will soon follow. Out of every gig ive used the fake one with..no ones ever noticed.

imgres


http://www.flickr.com/photos/musicmagik/4137600730/sizes/l/

have you heard of the newer Mellotron4000d....quite the step up!!
 
I was inspired to remix this song with the brass at the end further towards the front of the mix. I think the real problem is that it's using the higher end of its range - songs which use the brass well seem to use the lower end.



...that and it's not exactly in tune with the rest of the song :P

moogmymellotron said:
Ive have the Pinder samples loaded in an akai, I have a "fake" tron i use on tour as a back up for when my...real guys give out.
Click to expand...

I was kind of wondering what setup you use to record these songs?

have you heard of the newer Mellotron4000d....quite the step up!!
Click to expand...

No, I hadn't. Now I wish I hadn't, because I really want one... I had been looking at the Memotron, tried to get one on ebay, but even a dinted one went rather higher than I could justify.
What I could really do with is a rack-mount unit. What I have at the moment is an old DOS PC running some home-made sample playback software. Figuring out how the MIDI protocol worked at the byte level was fun, in a masochistic sort of way...
 
jpmorris said:
I was inspired to remix this song with the brass at the end further towards the front of the mix. I think the real problem is that it's using the higher end of its range - songs which use the brass well seem to use the lower end.



...that and it's not exactly in tune with the rest of the song :P



I was kind of wondering what setup you use to record these songs?



No, I hadn't. Now I wish I hadn't, because I really want one... I had been looking at the Memotron, tried to get one on ebay, but even a dinted one went rather higher than I could justify.
What I could really do with is a rack-mount unit. What I have at the moment is an old DOS PC running some home-made sample playback software. Figuring out how the MIDI protocol worked at the byte level was fun, in a masochistic sort of way...
Click to expand...


cool music man, but youd def benefit from a tronnier sample playback. vocals sound alot like a younger roger waters! The mellotron4000d is ridiculous, ive tried it out not so long ago. ALL mellotron chamberlin optigan talentmaker and orchestron sounds on ONE machine, thats over 200 24 bit uncompressed samples for about 1800. Real mellotron keyboard. Its as close to the real thing as possible. Memotrons are horrid. i have one as well and its just no good unfortunately. the M Tron pro software is faaaar superior.

I use real mellotrons though for my songs. I have a few tape sets in my library, not too many but..enough to have my favorite sounds on. IE strings, brass, saxophones, vibraphones, piano. etc.

I usually amp the mellotron through a tube amp, blast it...and mic it about 6 feet away. Compress and reverb it a bit. usually cut some high end since most of the sounds can be quite shrill.


how did you record your tune?
 
moogmymellotron said:
cool music man, but youd def benefit from a tronnier sample playback. vocals sound alot like a younger roger waters! The mellotron4000d is ridiculous, ive tried it out not so long ago. ALL mellotron chamberlin optigan talentmaker and orchestron sounds on ONE machine, thats over 200 24 bit uncompressed samples for about 1800. Real mellotron keyboard. Its as close to the real thing as possible. Memotrons are horrid. i have one as well and its just no good unfortunately. the M Tron pro software is faaaar superior.
Click to expand...

M-tron is a bit of a dead loss for my setup, no windows to run it on, and I'd rather not have to mess around with cleaning out its hutch and keeping it updated. That's really why I went for a DOS-based approach - you can just switch it on and off as needed because it doesn't keep the filesystem open. But it is not without its problems either.
Frankly, the EQ of the source samples leaves something to be desired. It does a good job on the choir, though.

I use real mellotrons though for my songs. I have a few tape sets in my library, not too many but..enough to have my favorite sounds on. IE strings, brass, saxophones, vibraphones, piano. etc.

I usually amp the mellotron through a tube amp, blast it...and mic it about 6 feet away. Compress and reverb it a bit. usually cut some high end since most of the sounds can be quite shrill.
how did you record your tune?
Click to expand...

Let's see. First the song was planned out and composed in SONAR. And no, SONAR 1.0 does not like running VST or DXI plugins, I tried that for the electric pianos in 2005 and it was a total disaster, which involved me recording the piano part with the tape machine running slow because it insisted on playing back at the wrong sample rate and therefore pitch. But only when it was chasing timecode.

Because SONAR and timecodes get on like mice and poison, I convert the project to MIDI and load it into Rosegarden, which actually works but is less comfortable for composing. I stripe track 8 on a TSR-8 with the timecode and overdub the instrumental tracks one by one. Sadly they are all sequenced because I am an incapable keyboard player.

I record the vocals last of all, typically though a Watkins copicat and a TLA FAT-1 compressor, though on the 'Three Little Pigs' album I played around with distortion and chorusing a lot more. If you go back a page or two in this thread you should find 'Anathema' which uses a Rotosphere Leslie simulator on the final chorus.

For the mellotron sounds, I will either use the DOS PC thing I built, or if tuning is more critical than authenticity I will sometimes use a Roland MVS-1, typically for the flutes. It doesn't do the choir that well and the strings, while sounding fuller are obviously sampled from just two notes and if you listen to it enough you'll hear the looping.

Until about September, I had a problem where the tron playback was too quiet and you could hear the PC bus coming through. When 'Three Little Pigs' was taped, I fixed this by cutting the top end a lot. Since then I modified the mixing engine to be less conservative and doubled the output level which solved that problem and gives me a lot more flexibility with the EQ. IIRC Anathema was done after that fix (unless I did it later and rerecorded the Tron lines for the final master?)

It is interesting to point out that my mellotron box has a couple of quirks - it reloads the sample set from a compactflash card when you change patch, which takes about 15 seconds, so the real thing is quicker at changing banks.
Also, it can only hold one sound set at one time, so like the real thing if you want to use two sounds in the same song, you have to overdub them.

EDIT:
And yes, Sonar is now on something like 10.0, but since Window 7 dropped support for my MIDI gear, I have taken to running Sonar entirely in linux now and I'm a little reluctant to upgrade it since it will almost certainly break.

EDIT EDIT:
For more complex arrangements I will lock two TSR-8s together. For the curious the equipment is here:
http://dougtheeagle.com/equip.htm
 
Last edited:
It is interesting to point out that my mellotron box has a couple of quirks - it reloads the sample set from a compactflash card when you change patch, which takes about 15 seconds, so the real thing is quicker at changing banks.
Also, it can only hold one sound set at one time, so like the real thing if you want to use two sounds in the same song, you have to overdub them.

hmm, thats not entirely true for the 4000D. 100 samples come "stock" w the unit that require no load times. you can select a bank of three sounds and blend them all seamlessly and on the go without dealing w load issues when its powered down.

the memotron on the other hand has some pretty bad load times. loads from a cd or compactflash card and it wont save previous banks either. so you always have to 'set it up'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top