Boston Beckoning

  • Thread starter Thread starter mjbphotos
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RAMI said:
:cool:

It's all good. You don't have to stand corrected. You can sit now. :D
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Word. I only have so many tricks in my bag of goodies and I don't even know what they are called LOL. You don't need to know a whole lot though when your focus is on the actual sound you're getting at recording time. It's such a pain in the ass trying to get something to sound good that just didn't sound good when you recorded it. Took me FOR EVER to figure that out and I'm still working on it... Damn recording can be so frustrating...
 
FoulPhil said:
trying to get something to sound good that just didn't sound good when you recorded it.
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That's about 90% of the "trick" to getting a good final product. It's as close to a "recording secret" as you can get.
 
FoulPhil said:
I probably do have the terminology wrong. Like I said I'm not big on the technical side lol. Something similar to the pic below.

guitar-hpf.png
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Hey, that's Pro Tools!

Btw., avoid using a 24 dB/oct on any real instruments. It introduces a lot of funny harmonics due to the way it's processed.
Just throwing that out there.
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
Hey, that's Pro Tools!

Btw., avoid using a 24 dB/oct on any real instruments. It introduces a lot of funny harmonics due to the way it's processed.
Just throwing that out there.
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That's just some random pic I found on the internet lol
 
RAMI said:
Not to repeat what everyone else said, but I agree. For what it's worth, I used to use DensityII, not on my master but on my drum buss, and I stopped using it. I'm sure the problem was user lack of comprehension and not Density's fault, but I just couldn't get it to do anything good for me. So, you might want to to try another compressor, you never know. Personally, I don't put a compressor on my master, just a limiter.

As far as the drums, I find in all your songs, you seem to treat drums as an after thought, like they're not that important and just "thrown in there". I realize the type of music you play isn't about BIG drums, but in any style of music, drums matter...a lot. Even if you go back to the 70's and listen to some singer/songwriter stuff, the drums don't dominate, but they're there, and they're present and audible. Off the top of my head, anything from Jim Croce to America singing "Sister Golden Hair", the drums are still very much "there". I'm not comparing your music to that stuff, my point is that, EVEN in that stuff, the drums are very well recorded and present.
I hear your stuff more along the lines of a Springsteen, and Springsteen's drums were really big, reverby and loud. Again, not saying you have to sound like him, it was the 80's after all, but the point is that drums are always important. You can't treat them as an after thought just because your music is more guitar/vocal based.

Just my 2 cents. I hope it helps.
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I just have little experience mixing with real drums, so its always a 'catch up at the end' kind of thing.

Definitely going to kill my use of Density on the master track - someone had posted about that here and it seemed good on some tracks, but it may have actually been hurting them.

FoulPhil said:
I think you should put a EQ "high pass" filter (edited*) on each track. Listen to each individual track and only cut the bass you can't hear or in other words set the high pass filter to where you can't tell if it's on. That will add some clarity. Next put a gentle compressor on the drums to get a boost and some extra attack. You could just send the drums to a bus track and adjust the volume of the send accordingly. You might need to put a gate on the kick, snare, toms etc to cut some of the room. I hear A LOT of room and it can be good sometimes, but I think for this it's making it sound less tight. You might have to do some thing similar with with guitars and vocals as well, although no gate on the other stuff lol. A tiny boost or cut of certain frequencies here and there could dramatically change the over all sound as well. It's really hard to pinpoint the exact problem or solution as heatmiser said, but part of the fun is experimenting. The things I mentioned above are what I do to all my tracks. Keep in mind my knowledge is limited. I basically work more with my ears and my emotions than I do with a technical perspective. :thumbs up:
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Putting a compressor on the drum bus is easy enough, but gating the drum tracks - I wouldn't even know where to start with settings - I definitely hear what you're saying (Bongoboy's room in the mix)
 
Schwarzenyaeger said:
April fools...?
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No way, I use Studio One 2 :D

mjbphotos said:
I just have little experience mixing with real drums, so its always a 'catch up at the end' kind of thing.

Definitely going to kill my use of Density on the master track - someone had posted about that here and it seemed good on some tracks, but it may have actually been hurting them.



Putting a compressor on the drum bus is easy enough, but gating the drum tracks - I wouldn't even know where to start with settings - I definitely hear what you're saying (Bongoboy's room in the mix)
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Using a gate is much more simple than you would think. It only takes a few tries to become an expert gater :p

 
How many tires exactly? Motorcycle has two. Car has four.



Look, Ma, it's pick on Phil day!!! :D
 
Thanks to all the suggestions, I think the Density comp was really f*ing with it.

I added comp to drum bus, and separately to the snare, as well as a gate to the snare,, but not sure that did much, I think it's the sound of the snare itself, rather than after tone of room, but any suggestions on gate settings are welcome
EQed lead vocal and rhythm guitars, tuned the lead guitar :eek:, brought the chorus harmonies down a notch.

 
I think the kick sounds good, snare is not turning me on, over all sounds good. Could still use some more air at the top, but sounds like you are getting it dialed in.
 
DM60 said:
I think the kick sounds good, snare is not turning me on, over all sounds good. Could still use some more air at the top, but sounds like you are getting it dialed in.
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I have to agree about the snare (sorry Bongoboy).
Any other suggestions to help the snare are welcome - I've played with EQ, but it never got to the point I liked.
 
A little more tweaking, a bit more high EQ on some tracks (including sax and BG vocals). On the snare, I played with the gate a little more, and also used ReaPitch to lower the pitch of the snare just a little.

 
Every mix sounds better than the last. The snare is just distant, but I think you can only do so much with what you have to work with. It actually sounds like it's all overheads. I don't really get the sense of a mic'd snare. But the kik and everything else sounds WAY better now.
 
RAMI said:
Every mix sounds better than the last. The snare is just distant, but I think you can only do so much with what you have to work with. It actually sounds like it's all overheads. I don't really get the sense of a mic'd snare. But the kik and everything else sounds WAY better now.
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I know - guess it's possible the overheads are now picking up the snare-room sound that I gated out ... Thanks for listening.
 
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