Ever made a mix that sounded so good you thought it didnt need to be mastered?

[illacov]

I use primarily as we speak

Cubase VST 5.1

Cool Edit

T racks

M-Audio Revolution 2496 soundcard

various synthesizers


My big plug ins that ive been using right now

are free vst plugins

Klauberhausen Classic series plug ins

Digital Fish Phones Fishy thingy plug ins like Blockfish and

Digital Fish Phones Dominion

These plug ins give my mixes such a perfect sound that i dont even have to master them once i mixdown a 2 track master.

Ive tried throwing my mixes into T racks but it doesnt seem to give me good results and believe me im not trying to master or record hot.

Im following the old school principle of mixdown which believes that punch comes from having instruments at considerably lower volumes but with fuller harmonic response so that only things that are meant to have percussive or punchy character are "punchY"

but in t racks im getting pumping if i use a limiter and it annoys the hell out of me because t racks has a nice sound but one day i said forget this crap and just played the mixdown as a master and i didnt even truly eq it because the original file had some great frequency response already

let me tell you

Ive compared my mixes right now to commercial cds and ive actually gotten results that dont have me doing that stupidness where you have to a/b your material compared to the big boys material but you have to adjust your volume according because at lower volumes the commercial cd is fuller sounding whereas you just dont hear your mix at a lower volume

but one thing that still leaves me curious is to find out what would happen if i were to record my mixdowns to analogue tape.

Other than that ive noticed that in all actuality i have given up on computerized warmth.....i think digital recording actually has its own sound much like analogue tape and its an acquired taste for some however, that doesnt mean its unpopular with most listeners.

I just think that until i get my hands on a tape machine im never gonna get that true warmth and by the way

I personally feel that the true meaning of warmth is what id like to refer to from now on as
"audio varnish"

what we hear on older material like frankie sinatra and led zeppelin is limited frequency response. But the right combination of these limited frequencies gives things that warm sound.

Me personally i do like it for some music and when its done well its incredible however i have yet to hear anything like this done strictly in the digital realm without people "cheating" because the majority of people that are commercially using protools and other daws bounce to tape and then back to protools

So besides sequencing pro tools is really just a backup in my opinion
the tape is the heart of it all

i definately feel that the high cost associated with certain tape based recording solutions and im talking analogue tape not dat tape has to do with the sound you get

i mean literally with that kind of sound that you get one doesnt need too many plug ins to play with.

Even with orchestral music that audio varnish sounds great!
It may not be the clearest crystal clear audio technically speaking however i dont think that most people would actually care about the true frequency response of their recordings if they could simply go and replicate the sound of a frank sinatra recording.

They would be too busy re recording everything they ever did to care.

If i had the chance to record at Electric Lady Land with some of Jimis mixing desks and his pre amps meow meow is all i gotta say

Until that happens however

Im relegated to digital

and id reccommend you get your hands on those plugins
by the way the other reason i reccommend them is because the cpu usage on the classic plug ins as well as the digifishphones is between 1 to 4 percent of your cpu per plug in

on a AMD Athlon XP 2000 (1.67 ghz)

most of you guys run p4 2.0 and up
but im running a duron 1.2 and am about to get the xp 2000 and here i was about to spend 500 dollars on a uad 1 because i personally think waves plug ins sound like absolute GARBAGE

that chip only costs 54 dollars oem

thats one hell of a up grade especially considering that i like to track everything im not big on summing my channels to disk

so

btw ill post a mp3 up here really soon so you can see what they make your stuff sound like

ill even do with and without

Peace

 

[chessrock]

Okay.

 

[Teacher]

right on!

 

[mallcore pop]

Cool!

 

[kylen]

Sounds good to me ! Share the excitement - post a link !
kylen

p.s. as long as you're detailing things out what instruments were recorded and what outboard gear was used (like a mic/preamp).

 

[Outlaws]

people "cheating"

................and Metallica sucks because of ______ reasons and Brittney Spears can't really sing in real life and major lable bands suck because the have money and blaaaa bla blaaaaa bla fucking blaaaaaa.

 

[groucho]

Well, I'm torn.

On one hand I appreciate the verve and enthusiasm of illacov's verbiage, and feel that he makes some valid points.

On the other hand he sounds like a big bag of wind.

Perhaps there's no right answer here...

Chris (who's sure that mp3 will be appearing any day now...)

 

[kylen]

Me personally i do like it for some music and when its done well its incredible however i have yet to hear anything like this done strictly in the digital realm without people "cheating" because the majority of people that are commercially using protools and other daws bounce to tape and then back to protools

...I just took that to mean that when illacov records direct to digital it is not the same lush sound that comes from the 'analog' world. Unless the signal chain is described more it looks like there is no analog outboard processing during recording or mixdown or mastering (which wasn't done).

I agree with that assesment my self and added some outboard gear in my own little world, it makes a big difference to me. I don't like the cold, hard, flat sound you get recording directly into a digital sound card. It's a lot different than the sound you get recording deirectly into a tape deck.

For me the sound of a close mic'd, multitracked, mixed in a DAW song sounds flat so I re-amp stuff that needs it thru outboard gear or record tracks using the outboard gear.

That's where I would disagree with one of illacovs' comments about getting used to digital recordings - certain digital recordings like what I've mentioned above have some aspect that sounds bad to me and need some outboard help. I won't be able to get used to that !

But without hearing what the celebration is about I can only guess. It sounds good to illacov so that's what counts !

kylen

 

[illacov]

Bag of wind?

why the personal comments on me as a person?

How could anybody call me a bag of wind in a forum where people argue over which cheap chinese mic is superior to the other guys cheap taiwanese mic?

BACK TO REALITY ...

focus on what i was getting at in the first place

have you ever mixed down a recording and said to yourself
this already has a mastered sound or so to speak sounds great so why should i really mess any more with it?

My signal chain is as follows

I have an analogue behringer rack mixer an 8 channel one or something like that with phantom power pretty good s/n ratio i dont really get alot of noise in my recordings..

for right now ive been using the pres on the behringer i used to have an art tube mp however i got rid of it...NOISE NOISE NOISE
directly patched in or routed in that damn pre amp used to add noise to anything you put through it

I record straight thru the mixer into the revolution card and there you go im in the matrix

In terms of being overblown its very difficult to say anything on a post board without over explaining yourself because im not big on inferring things to people who dont know exactly what im thinking or trying to say...so i cover all my bases that way people can get a better understanding of what im saying

to some mastering is the actual process of mixing down the songs to two track...however in my mind

mastering is the process thats done to the two track

if we were to take all my wavs of my songs and slap em into pro tools or logic and run whatever outboard gear a mastering house may have so that things sound better than what i can achieve at home to begin with...to me thats remixing it

..why?

look at the word

re- mix

as in re-mix-down

then when they get done with re mixing it they still master it

realistically speaking
re mixing a song is way more expensive than simply send a two track wav to someone to master

however thats a little off topic but anyways

im out of town right now
and all i have on me is the finished products i dont have the befores with me
if you want the finished product ones suit yourself ill put up some wma snippets im on a dial up where im at so i cant put these really high qual ones up ...or you guys can wait till saturday where i can pretty much give you what i really want to post

your choice

Let me know
Illacov
the big bag of wind
Peace

 

[chessrock]

I don't really think anyone's calling you a bag of wind, per se.


I just think it's something in the way you structure your posts. They just somehow appear baggish . . . but in a windy sort of way.

Seriously, though, I think you kind of tend to float around on several different topics at the same time in an attempt to say all the things you want to say . . . when in reality, they could have just been broken up in to 2 or 3 different threads.

I'm still having trouble figuring out what the actual topic of your post is. Try typing like one or two paragraphs, tops, and give us a summary of the main point you are trying to drive home. If there's more than one thing you're trying to get across, then try starting two (or more) different threads next time. Thread one: "UAD rules," Thread two: "ART sucks," Thread three: "My sister gives good ____ " and/or thread four: "My solution to world hunger," thread five: "My mixes rule," and so on and so forth.

Just trying to be helpful.

 

[illacov]

just to add on really quick

who said anything about britney spears?

I think its great theres an interchange between the music and porn industry..

damn dude you actually think brit can sing?

whoa
how many debbie records do you own?

YES man

cheating

if we record strictly to digital and people marvel at how good our stuff sounds

wouldnt you be kind of confused if you found out yeah we recorded everything to our computer then we ran it back out to tape and then back to the computer.....hmmmm.........

it makes you wonder other than back up purposes or whatever sequencing editing...shouldnt they just be recording to tape???

think about it

pro tools doesnt give any sound of its own to music its software that simply tracks and triggers sound files and since the commercial houses have adc's that are very high sound quality the recordings that are made in digital sound like they arent recordings they sound like the actual untouched audio so that when they send it to tape

its just like they had recorded it to tape in the first place

so in reality

they dont really give a damn about the digital...

they still havent given up on tape

theres nothing wrong with that

just stop fronting like your audio only resides in pro tools or cubase or nuendo cuz you quick to reach for a reel once we're done messin with pro tools

in other terms

strictly digital means that the digital realm is the primary and sole medium that is used to make recordings

right now im strictly digital
i use analogue channels to get into my computer via my sound card which acts as my ADC...but that audio does not come back out..point blank .. matter of fact

everytime i hear analogue (when its done correctly) it just floors me because i know that nomatter what bombfactory or universal audio plug in i get

i dont have that sound at my fingertips

prime example
Nora Jones...Dont Know Why you didnt come...(NO PROTOOLS) Good old fashioned tape man

yes 10s of thousands of dollars of equipment was used to make that recording in regards to mikes (U67) and whatever pre's that they used...but you know what i think we're fooling ourselves here
I mean yes unless it starts out analogue medium then messing with it in analogue from digi isnt gonna be the same but all i know is i need to do that just to know that i tried that avenue out

Once i start getting my checks back from sales ...im gonna look into a tape machine at least a high quality two track with some kind of sync ability perhaps...so that i can see for myself...
No i dont mean a tape deck i mean a reel to reel... oh man i used to work around one cuz the owner was so stuck on computers at one point when i was interning at a studio in Upstate New York...thing was friggin huge but now i should have known better i should have spent more time with it....

anyways
Peace

 

[groucho]

'zzzzzzzz.......Hrmph!!!...' (head snaps up)'

Oh sorry, I drifted off there.

I remember something about "bag of wind"....


I don't know what I was thinking saying that.



Groundless and wrong.



Baseless and base.



I should be ashamed.

Chris

 

[chessrock]

So now we're on to the "digital versus analog" debate.


How many topics does that make, now?

Let's see how many different topics we can cram in to one thread. I have one: My feet hurt. Should I get new shoes, or should I go for the Dr. Sholl's stuff? What are your feelings on Dr. Sholls? What are your feelings on Doctors in general, while we're at it? And speaking of generals and doctors, do you like to watch General Hospital? Did you know that Colin Powell used to be a General? Do you think he should run for president? Who are you voting for?

 

[illacov]

As much as this irritates me

I have to laugh with because i feel ive failed you guys
plain and simple...
mastering (ie limiting a 2 track mixdown etc) is it necessary?
if we dont have access to the $10,000 limiters that a mastering house is gonna use??

MOST IMPORTANTLY PAY ATTENTION!!

Have you ever made a mix that sounded good by itself like it didnt need any more tweaking ie mastering...mastering eqing, mastering compression ...limiting

have you?

this is not a braggers post im asking just simply have you ever felt that way???

can you please stop looking for something to nitpick and make some constructive comments?

oh yeah i use the rode nt1a mic to record vocals

also i have

Akai s2000 sampler
Roland JV1010
Alesis Nanosynth
midi controller

 

[chessrock]

Re: As much as this irritates me

Have you ever made a mix that sounded good by itself like it didnt need any more tweaking ie mastering...mastering eqing, mastering compression ...limiting

I've done stuff where I'd listen to it here, on my monitors, and think that. Then I'd take it to my car, or course, and think it had too much bass . . . then pop it in to my girlfriend's stereo and think it sounds kinda' harsh . . . etc. etc. etc.

It's mostly a translation, thing. Sometimes I get lucky, though, and it translates without even trying. So in conclusion, I'd have to say "yea," I get lucky sometimes.

 

[Garry Sharp]

Where's Bruce?

Alan Parsons said (in Behind the Glass) "I like it when the mastering engineer listens to my mix and says 'I don't need to do anything to that'"

Can't imagine that applies to many people though.

 

[Outlaws]

Re: Bag of wind?

Where to start...................

Oh, I know.....

analogue behringer rack mixer an 8 channel one or something like that

Well its good to know that you know what you are using

wouldnt you be kind of confused if you found out yeah we recorded everything to our computer then we ran it back out to tape and then back to the computer.....hmmmm.........

No I wouldn't. You ever looked at the price of tape? It gets expensive. Especially when you do multiple takes of things. [insert typical: artist isn't really a musician comment]

Nothing wrong with running it to tape and back to the computer. I do.

And to quote a famous world explorer on his journey through the rugged regions of Criticsland,

blaaaa bla blaaaaa bla fucking blaaaaaa

 

[distortedrumble]

ya know...my grand pappy once said

when a dog gets horny and tries to hump a cat....he aint thinking that hes trying to hump a cat...hes just thinking this is kinda fun. ...if you try to kick him off the cat then he gets pissed...so its best to accept it and let'm be.

so i guess we should just accept it and let illacov be

yes I've made mixes that sound so good i thought they didnt need to be mastered...I'm sure everyone has at one point in time. but thats cool. dont master them if you dont feel like it. of course when i used better equipment and rerecorded it i could tell a great difference and when that was mastered i couldnt believe it was me playing guitar...but thats just me


there nuff said

 

[sjoko2]

no would be my answer

If you make the statement "my mixes sound so good they don't need mastering", the only thing you actually do is make the following statement:
"I think I'm brilliant 'coz I don't know any better"
Not meaning to talk down to you, but there are good reasons people, including every top engineer, send their mixes to be mastered. This includes everything done on the highest quality gear available.

 

[Garry Sharp]

rumble - yeah, with you there. It's like when you have a crappy hifi and you think records sound good until you get older and can afford a better one. And then you realise why the better ones cost more.

And then you apply that thinking to your music.....