First Song on New Setup

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Nate74

Nate74

HR4FREBR
As some of you know, I've recently moved away from my old Tascam 38/Mackie 1604 setup. I now have a 24*8 board (Mackie) and an HD24XR. I'm gonna hold onto the 38 for use on some projects, but I wanted to try my hand at using the just the new gear on a song.

I've also recently gotten Fruity Loops so the drums are also new to me...

Other stuff used:
DMP3 Preamp on Vocals and Bass
Lexicon LXP 1 Reverb
RNC Compressor

I'm looking for comments on the mix, more than the performance. I'm certainly not a singer but wanted to have a song with "all" the parts to begin familiarizing myself with my new gear, and a new room that I'm working in.

This was the second mix I tried, the vox seem hot to me but what do you all think about it?

 
Hi there,
Take this all with a grain of salt. Im listening on computer speakers.
On a first pass the guitars sounds kinda harsh and brittle. I'm not sure if its eq or the mackie board, i expect the latter, but it sounds like you hpf everything below 500hz. The guitars need some more lowmid meat. Pan the rhythm guitars hard right and left...maybe even double track the parts then pan hard right and left.
The drum levels need to come down by about 4-5 db.
The lead vox is a little too hot for my tastes. I'd lower it a bit. Also there's a little too much verb. Increase the predelay, shorten the decay to about 2 seconds.
The bass levels could come up some, although Im listening on computer monitors so it might be sitting better than I hear.
Overall, these are average nitpicks:) Good performance of the instrumentation and keep truckin away!
 
Scriabin,
Thanks for the quick response! I follow just about everything you said except:

"I'm not sure if its eq or the mackie board, i expect the latter" &
"but it sounds like you hpf everything below 500hz"

What does "hpf" mean?

Also, I've read countless threads on Mackie boards and the various oppinions on them. Can a board, or it's preamps really change the sound of a recording that much where some EQ can't fix it?

One more question, and this may be a stretch, but... if you had to guess from this mix what might be "wrong" with my current mixing room, what would you guess?

Thanks again!
 
Hello again,
HPF stands for high pass filter. In eq terms it is the means by which you roll off frequencies below the hertz cyles you desire. Ie. roll off all frequencies below 80hz for electric guitars because they really dont contribute anything below that level. They eat space reserved for the kick and bass guitar.

On terms of preamps...God, yes...preamps are the 3rd most critical piece of gear you own. Just behind monitors and mics. If you check out my song in this forum. You'll see I used a cheap 35 dollar mic to make a pretty good mix. The key was using my ears, working many hours on proper mic placement and an outstanding preamp (great river mp2nv) Never, I repeat, NEVER, eq later in the mix what you can fix at the mic/preamp stage. Believing you can fix something later is the number one contributer to crap mixes.

Your mixing space if its not designed for recording and playback will have problems with attentuate the bass freqs. from your monitors. Your ears compensate for the extra "perceived" bass and you will push the bass levels harder to hear them. You'd need bass traps to compensate for the standing freqs...something like realtraps.com
 
Scriabin, does using the DMP3 in front of the Mackie's pre's help, or did I spend the money for nothing?

On the topic of HPF, I'm gonna wager that may be a result of your computer speakers. On the living room stereo (where else do you test mixes right :rolleyes: ?) it almost seemed that the kick was a bit boomy.

As for my mixing space... this room also functions as my wife's office, and sometimes the storage space for my mountain bike... probably a few challenges there too.

Thanks again for the input. I'm going to find the mix you mention as well.
 
Using the DMP3 absolutely helps. Most importantly, realize that the gear you have are just tools. Just like in hardware, different saws vary in quality but they all cut. Some cut better than others. Ive heard excellent recordings made from a mackie but it takes alot more work than if you use high end stuff.
Explore mixing in different rooms if you can, Ive been known to set up my system in my family room of all places for the large open space and 22 foot vaulted ceiling;)
 
It's all so much different from the days of the Tascam 38. "Record everything in the red, and be happy with whatever you got." Now it's like I feel like since the gear cost so much, I actually have to pay attention and work on it ya know?

It's really like another instrument. A friend who also records (better than myself) always says "look it took you 17 years to get to where you are on bass today, why do you think that after 6 months you'll have recording/mixing down?"

On the Mackie topic (and this may be the engineer in me) but if they add a brittle sound, shouldn't that be identifiable at a certain frequency? Like, if it adds a +3dB at 6.5kHz, couldn't you just cut that range? Or if the "hollier than thou" Soundcraft Ghost adds a "warmth" couldn't that be just a +2dB at 800Hz??? I've always sort of wondered about that?

Thanks again. I'm about to post a new version on this thread as well. Bumped some lows, hopefully added some teeth to the guitar, etc.
 
OK, I haven't even listened to this yet on the "big stereo."
But here goes:

 
I like the sound of the new version, it sounds more open. This song reminds me of Green Grass and High tides forever by the Outlaws...thats a good thing:)

I hear ya about equipment...I get so much more joy out of plug and play. I've always been more creative when forced to use restraining equipment like a 4 track.
 
Nate74 said:
On the Mackie topic (and this may be the engineer in me) but if they add a brittle sound, shouldn't that be identifiable at a certain frequency? Like, if it adds a +3dB at 6.5kHz, couldn't you just cut that range? Or if the "hollier than thou" Soundcraft Ghost adds a "warmth" couldn't that be just a +2dB at 800Hz??? I've always sort of wondered about that?
.
Click to expand...

Sure you can id certain frequencies and try to compensate. However, its sound will never be fixed with gobs of eq compensation. It lacks the high quality electronics, the lower ratio of noise, and fuller representation of the sonic spectrum that a pro pre offers. You have to determine your personal cost/benefit ratio of your gear. All that matters is that your happy and you enjoy the recordings
 
The thing about EQ is that your changing alot more other things and much less tone or timbre. Its all the harmonics in the middle of frequencies that make the sound. And changing the EQ too much messes with the harmonics too much. I find i get more noise when using large amounts of EQ then a change of tone/timbre.

Think of it like a rubber band stretch around 3 pegs in an equilateral triangle. Each peg represents something different. One is phase, one is voltage, the other is the cycle. The rule to this peg board game is the rubber band is not flexible and the triangle needs to stay equilateral. This does not allow you very many options. If want to effect a certain cycle and make it stronger, then the voltage and phase has to get stronger with it. More voltage can add more distortion to the cycle, and the phase will make it effect other frequencies in the sound by disrupting the phasing in harmonics. Obviously if your trying to change a cycle, you are going to do something to the timing/phase of the cycle.

Thats why in general its better to to cut instead of boost. You are still effecting the phase and the voltage of the sound, but you dont have to worry as much about the voltage distorting the sound in any way. Infact if anything it might focus the cycle a little more.

Now thats why there is such thing as better EQs. Linear EQs maybe can be thought of in this metaphor as having a much more elastik/flexible rubber band
around the pegs. Effecting the cycle alows it to stretch out of the equilateral triangle, but still only to a point. And some EQs dont distort as bad when adding the voltage, or it might distort in a why that is more pleasent. I believe the phase is the hardest thing not to effect, but it is possible.

It might have holes in this analogy, but thats helped me get a good visual perspective on what was going on with EQ.

Now, to your song. The second one is definately better than the first. Much cleaner and rounder.

I still want to kick that high hat. Maybe play around with cutting around 8-10Khz and boosting around 800Hz. Its just really thin and isnt very defined.

Cymbals arnt too bad but they could use a small cut at 8Khz too.

The guitar is alot better in the second one. Not as brittle and not bad of a sound. But it still feels a little left out in the bass frequencies. But i think it would be a better idea to try and get that bass to feel out the frequencies more. The bass sounds holy in general. Get some more 100-200hz in it for some low end definition. Its not very deep either. Maybe needs little more 40-50hz. Definately need that bass to feel out the low end more. If you do that you shouldnt need to make changes to the other instruments being on the bright side.

Alright. Its time for me to sleep. im running off of like 7 hours of sleep from the last 48 hours of being awake, and i can even figure out how to spell stuff or say stuff. Gotta start getting ready for recording and mixing 14-18 hours a day for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully the Christmas weeks will be a little more forgiving on me than im expecting....

*snoore*

danny
 
Would you all suggest that I break the drums out onto more than five tracks. I'm so used to dealing with limited track numbers, that using five (Kick, Snare, HiHat, 2 Overheads) feels like a luxury. I guess though, since their done on Fruity Loops, I could do a stereo set of toms, and a stereo set of overheads or heck individual toms I guess.

Also, since it is Fruity Loops, are their any of the drum sounds that are just wrong. Not poorly eq'd/mixed, but wrong.

I'm also thinking I may re-track the guitars and mic up an amp. Both those guitar parts are with a first gen. POD, so I was thinking the Deluxe Reverb and a LP or maybe my 335 for the rhythm track and a Strat for the lead.

I'm pretty happy that the feedback thus far has been of the "tweak the 8K blah blah blah" type rather than the "not bad, keep trying" type usually reserved for total newbies ;) Which I think I still sort of am.
Anyway, thanks again to everybody. This has really been helpful and informative!
 
Sounds like everything was tracked ok, but the guitar and whole feel of the song is way to tiny. Let me ask you this, what did you mix this on. Do you have moniters or are you using HI-FI.
 
I've got a set of the Yorksville YSM-1 s. Sampson Servo 120 Amp (I think that's the name). I really think my office/mixing room/moutain bike repair area plays tricks on my ears... or I just don't have it in my head yet what I'm going for.
 
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