bandname : skordatura (a term from classical music i think)
3 members + guest saxophone player
age : around 22
they all study at a conservatorium (like a Pro music school, so they can read notes, amazing !!!)
well i'm very exited about the entire demo cd,
normally i would have gone out tonight with my friends, but, hehe,
i stayed home, laid down on my bed and listened to the music, and fell asleep, never had that with the death metal i recorded lately !
and thanks for the great info,
now maybe you guys are interested in my entire setup,
here it is:
my room is like 4 meters on 4 meters with a celing of probably 3 meters high,
i got an extreme simple drumbooth that i put around the drums in a U-form, the front is open so the kick & the entire kit can breath in the rest of the room, the drummer is always in a corner since i dont have enough space,
and i got a tiny basstrap in the opposite corder, the kick points right at it.
the keyboardplayer was in the same room, bassist too but his amp was in the bedroom nextdoors (we had to take the amp out of the room during the last song since my brother came back from a Lan party and he was totally drunk and stoned !!!!)
Mixer = soundcraft M8
the drumkit was a yamaha,
the snare was from a pearl drumkit,
cymbals were mostly sabian.
it wasnt a real jazz kick since it was like a 22" i think.
the drummer used sticks, no brushes (thank god cause i didnt have any extra condensers)
on the kick i first tried an AKG D12, an original one,
but we totally didnt like the sound of it, not in the kick not out the kick,
i replaced it with a sennheiser e602 and yes, thats it,
a more modern sound, i'm used to this and like the attack, its cleaner than my D12 for sure. i didn't use any eq on the kick, and i put a symetrix 501 (black version with iron toggle switch
) on the insert,
treshold at around -6db , the first song was recorded with a real fast attack but in the other three songs i used a slower attack to keep more of the bottom end. i used pretty fast release times, the limiter was set at around -3db, during the harder parts i noticed that there was like 6db or maybe 9db of compression, but during soft parts it didnt touch the treshold much.
i also put a little piece of heavy sound isolation material on the kick, to isolate the mic a bit more from the rest of the kit since i didn't know that i'd use gates during the mixdown or not... worked out ok i think.
on the snare i got my beyer 201, at first it was pointed on the skin, like most people do but then i had a dirty lowmid sound, i just had to point it down,
the first two songs i recorded i (think) i had the mic looking at the "chassis" of the snare, the side, and on the last two songs i aimed it at the ring,
and yes, still a little too much ringing, but i noticed that the snare has more definition and cuts a bit better trough the mix,
like i said the eq is just a little cut at around 300hz,
compressor on the insert is
a symetrix 501 (gray model with plastic switch),
i hardly used compression on the snare, the wavefile in cubase goes up and down, it sure has dynamics, i'm not used to see that !!
tom1 had a muddy ugly ringing sound in the room, couldn't change much about it with changing mic positions, i tried to convice the drummer to retune it a little but he didnt want to, ok then...
i used a little cut at around 300hz and it helped, i also put a lowcut on it (100hz on the soundcraft),
the mic is a gray sennheiser md421, vintage full of dents,
as a compressor i first used a DOD r825, think its from the 80s (with a dbx160x chip in it, but its not really comparable, does have a similar sound but....u know)
its a compressor without treshold, and i find it not totally hissfree, the ratio jumps from 0 to 15 to 35 real quick so its more like a limiter i think,
but it was a bit too noisy so i replaced it with my good old dbx163x and it was better. (see,
no controls can sound better than six buttons in a row!!)
for the floor, i also used a sennheiser md421, a black one, full of dents and years old, i did use the DODr825 on it (but a different one),
i hardly let it compress the signal, and didn't use a lowcut.
both of these toms were send to AUX 3, since i had to combine both toms on one track cause i didnt have enough inputs on my soundcard, and sadly i dont have busses on the M8. it worked great, i tried this with my previous mixer, an old studiomaster but it sounded like crap, someone told me that its typical that old mixers have noisy auxes, long live the M8, its so clean!
then overheads are Oktava mk012 , matched pair,
last year i recorded like 7 demo cds and i always used XY,
but i learned that my room doesn't sound good and then its better to kinda close mic your cymbals, its true ! this time i have so much more definition on my cymbals, i used some sort of AB technique, one mic over "snare-hihat-crash" and one over "ride-splash-floor" ,
it was kinda difficult to get a real good stereo image, i didnt try to make it too wide, i find that the mics were pretty close to the center of the drums.
i used a lowcut and a 3db cut on the lows (60hz) , and a little cut around 300hz, no insert on these two channels.
hihat is an AKG 414, cardioid, 150hz lowcut, little cut around 400, and apparantly i turned the bass (60hz) all the way to the left, dont know why, already had alowcut...
the bassplayer played on a yamaha bass, a peavy amp, but i forgot the model, i put a sennheiser md411 in front of the huge woofer, on the edge during the first two songs, and during the last two more to the center.
i didn't have any preamps left on my M8 so i used
my symetrix 528 channel strip with an OK result but not impressive, i connected the output of this 528 to my patchbay and split the signal to my soundcard and to a "stereo" channel of my mixer, for the headphone mix of course.
first i put the amp in the hall, in front of the (closed) door of my bedroom
but there was too much bleed, so i checked if my brother was home and NO, so i put the amp in his room, BETTER ! and he doesn't have a bad sound in there, maybe i should let him have an accident so i can have his room too... mhhh yeah
oh, and in the last two songs there's no sax so i had a channel free,
i used a DI for the bass, trough a dbx160x, but that sound isnt that flattering,
i'm going to mix it a bit with the microphone signal to see if it can add some extra attack..
now, the biggest fun for me was the sax, i never recorded that,
never heard or saw one ever !! hahaha,
they all wanted to play together so i had to put that guy somewhere far away from the drums, i read a book about Joe Meek and he also recorded in his appartment and i know he recorded sax in his bathroom, i loved to read those anecdotes, and i heard several cds with his recordings, some sound just sick and there was some sax in bathroom with lots of spring verb on it, crazy, i don't have a spring verb but i'll see what my plugins can do.
we first tested the room of my brother to see if the sound was ok,
then the toilet , then the shower, then the bathroom,
the shower was loud, and the bathroom had a bigger "garage" sound.
now, i didnt really know what mic to use, and i didn't have any condensers left so i used the SM57 of course, a mic that i never use, only for live or when i run out of my gems
first i used it as a roommic, but that was too noisy, i needed too much input gain, in the end it aimed it at...the center or middle of the instrument,
not at the "bell" or at the mouthpiece,
i knew that u'd hear breathing noises and clicking of the "keys" , but i thought... mhhhh, i know sax from drum'n'bass and porno movies, it all sounds so fake there, maybe some real human noises make it.... ANALOG
. i didnt use a lowcut, just a little cut at around 400-500 hz (u cant see the frequency on the M8, i think that sucks, i know i gotto use my ears but i still like to know exactly what im touching....of course its a tiny little mixer...)
. i put a dbx163x on the insert, didnt use much of compression
then there was a keyboard and no more analog inputs !
thats why i love my tc electronic triple c multiband compressor,
hehe, big name for just a simple compressor i think but sounds clean & ok.
it has a spdif digital out that goes to the digi in of my motu828.
he played on a big keyboard with midi out, connected to a sound module,
but i forgot the name, it did sound nice though, i heard alot of total crap keyboards and this one had the nicest sounds, i'm gonna email them and ask what it was again.
i used some compression on the mids, cause i found that it did have some dirty sounds there...
had the treshold at around -9 db,
treshold of the highs -2 (but never touched the treshold)
treshold of the lows at -3 (and hardly ever touched the treshold).
nice thing about the Triple C is that u can use the analog and digital outputs at the same time, so the analog ones went to another free stereo channel of the mixer, for the headphone mix.
(i'd like to add that the M8 has a spdif out too which is wonderful, u can choose mainLR or aux3+4, this is exactly what u need : 8 direct outs and 2 digital outs, same configuration as most multitrack soundcards)
extra details:
i had to use an extra aux send only for the sax player,
when he blows his instrument he gets lots of pressure on his ears and i think he gets deaf that way or something.., just blow on your thumb and u'll know what i mean. so he needed to hear himself and the keys loud, but the rest didnt want to hear him that hard..
no problem,
aux send to inject-A of my headphone amp (OZ audio hm6 , the best HPamp i ever used), and everyone was happy.
voila,
a tiny mixer with 8 preamps, direct outs and aux sends,
+ an extra channel strip does the job !
the bad was supposed to arrive at 9.00 but there was lots of snow on the road and they came from far so they had a little delay, i just called them to let them know that there was no stress necessary, they dont pay per hour so we can hang out a little longer afterwards if we want....thats HOME RECORDING !!
we started setting everything up, i still had to connect quite some stuff since i did a live PA this weekend and didnt totally reconfigure my studio setup.
at around 12.00 o'clock we had acceptable sounds on all instruments, decent levels and we were recording, took a break at 14.00 to eat,
recorded till 18.30 i think
we were ALL very tired after this session, we were amazed how much energy gets sucked out of your body during a few hours of concentration,
so from now i just dont want to record more than 3 songs per day,
i used to do 5 , sometimes 6 , and worst case was 23 songs on two evenings !
but now i'm so totally happy with my results, its not pro but EXITING !
my first recording of 2006 is a success, it went smooth, it was fun, and i wont have much work on the mixdown
i've been recording since i was a kid, but with the worst equipment u can imagine of course, just for fun, me and my brother were always making music, so i've got YEARS of music on cassettes, minidiscs, cds, dvds, harddiscs, but it all sounds....like hihihi....
3 years ago i deceided that i was getting good enough to start recording OTHER people, cause for 19 years i only recorded myself.
last year i started recording bands for real, for money,
and the past 12 months were a STRUGGLE with sick malfunctioning hardware, selfmade cables, the cheapest of the cheapest everywhere cause U KNOW, u need a shedload of equipment to record and u can't get the good stuff just at once.
so my plan was: i spend every cent i have on equipment, i dont ever go on vacation, dont go out and stuff, i buy cheap gear, use it, record a band, sell the equipment (most of the time with profit....thats business),
then i dont have a band for a few months so i sell everything, i just sold EVERYTHING i had, all my music gear, exept my drumkit and groovebox!
when there is a new band i go buy some more equipment,
so every band i recorded was with totally different equipment,
different mixers, cables, compressors, mics, room treatment and placement, i just kept my soundcard and monitors (and built my self a decent audio pc)
i love this way of working, i've seen SO MUCH of the junk ass cheap low budget machines, and there is so much worthless stuff out there !
i learned that beat-to-death old scratchy hardware from the 70s or 80s is build LIKE A TANK, and it sounded good back then and still sounds good now,
i spent alot of time searching for my sound,
i dislike plugins and i love warm sounds, too bad i dont have a tape recorder,
but i'm saving for a Studer (hehe),
so if u check out my equipment u'll see that allmost everything in my rack and my mic case is vintage, i find that this equipment adds some extra power in the low end, not really warmth, but something,
and new compressors just seem to eat away bottom end, make it plastic, thin, unpleasant,
this was the first recording i ever had where there was NO equipment malfunctioning, amazing ! no broken cables, no compressors that suddenly dont give a signal, no noisegates that CLICK, no exessive hiss, no peaks,
no paniking when i ran out of inputs,
i left a good impression on the band and i think they'll come back
cause this were only three songs (plus a bonus for their website)
i got a few pictures, not much cause i dont like distracting the musicians with a camaera, its bad , certainly the flash !
ok,
this was the story of today,
i'll upload the other songs too,
and i'd like to continue talking about mixing the drums, thats what i'm gonna do first.... but i'll first let you guys read this book
...end of report...
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