Heeeellllppppp

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jonny deep

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Can someone give me a detailed, step by step guide to mixing cowbell? What sort of lava lamp would I need?

:D
 
Traditionalists like me insist on a purple lava lamp for cowbell--but I'm sure some young whipper snapper will be along soon to advocate some other revisionist colour...or even a mixture.
 
Mine is more of an orange color and I've come to love the warm sound it imparts. A word of warning however, do NOT hit the cowbell hard with any color of Lava Lamp as bad things could happen. You've been warned. YMMV.
 
Track Rat said:
Mine is more of an orange color and I've come to love the warm sound it imparts. A word of warning however, do NOT hit the cowbell hard with any color of Lava Lamp as bad things could happen. You've been warned. YMMV.
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Reminds me of the time I was doing FOH for a live musical and the director thought it would be cool to put plasma balls either side of the FOH mix position as part of the "set".

It was amazing to see the effect the plasma balls had on the Yamaha mixer--including motorised faders jerking up and down all by themselves. All was good as soon as they were switched off though.

...probably nothing like the effect of a cowbell on a lava lamp though.
 
These guys are just messin with ya...blue lava lamps are the only ones that bring out the right texture and tone of a cowbell.
:)
 
I simply use a VST Lava Lamp modeler, so it's easy to recall presets for any given cowbell genre. Sure it's not as warm as an analog lava lamp, but it's doesn't eat up much processing power so I can get away with many instances of it.... different colors for rhythm and lead cowbell, for example.
 
"Right texture and tone" and "cowbell" are two terms that should never appear in the same sentence.

....and I grew up with "The Tremeloes" doing "Here Comes My Baby" or "Strawberry Alarmclock" doing "Incense and Peppermints" with heavy cowbell!
 
Bobbsy said:
Traditionalists like me insist on a purple lava lamp for cowbell--but I'm sure some young whipper snapper will be along soon to advocate some other revisionist colour...or even a mixture.
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I can vouch for the purple lava lamp as well....it just gives me that warmth that is hard to find, yet constantly longed for.
 
I would go for a green one with a neon yellow wax (that was my old one), but it's all about personal preference.
If you want a more mellow tone, the one I described above worked very well for that.
If you want a more harsh tone from the cowbell I would recommend a lava lamp with more conflicting colours, like neon green and purple.
As the other guy mentioned, a VST plug-in would work well if you don't want to have 30 lava lamps to warm up each time you want a different tone or texture from the cowbell.
What DAW are you using? Some come with a few good Lava Lamp presets, but I would recommend getting a separate one from Waves or something of the same tier.
The really good ones are modeled using designer lava lamps or ones with made with rare materials.

Good luck, and let us know what you decide to go with. :D
 
Mine is all psychedelic as if my Crayola crayon box threw up in it! Hence my diversity in cow bell mixing technique and a full pallet of cowbell tones. ;)
 
moresound said:
Mine is all psychedelic as if my Crayola crayon box threw up in it! Hence my diversity in cow bell mixing technique and a full pallet of cowbell tones. ;)
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Personally, I think the sound would get very muddy, but I would like to hear a sound file of some of your mixing using that.
I'm a bit skeptical, I think the lava lamp should have only up to 2-3 colors for a purer sound in mixing with them.
VST plugins are great, you can adjust the speed of the wax from the top to the bottom and vica versa, you can make some pretty interesting mixes of cowbell doing that.
Also, some plugins offer a tuned lava lamp if you don't want to sit there and figure it out yourself.
 
Thanks for all the advice, guys. Eventually, I just went with turning the fader down until it sounded about right. Guess I can only dream of the perfect mix until I can afford a decent lava lamp.
 
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