ok so my band is entering "the studio"

T

thereversenoise

New member
This is gonna be our debut EP. My drummer and myself are mixing, producing, and engineering it with our equipment (this includes the computer fatty speakers, pre amps, mics, all that swag). It's being mastered by Shaun Lopez. Ok so a few questions. I'm using Adobe Audition 1.0 (was Cool edit before adobe bought them out) and the main recording techniques i know for sure are

Guitars: Pan hard left and hard right. playing to drums and click.

Bass: Do direct in and mic the cab with a kick drum mic. Compress in the program

Vocals: Use filter and a big Rhode mic, compress. Also reverb and layering. Use distortion for screams. Quick question: any techniques in layering main vocs and chorses?

Drums: mic up the whole friggin thing! including bottom and top snare with sm57. pan the 2 over heads sort of hard right and hard left. Quick question: any techniques in making the bass drum sound full? Another Quick question: Is it wise for the drummer to play to the click AND guitar in his headphones?

Other than that, it's the mixing, which im sure we can do correctly. But, before we send it off to master, i heard you have to make sure nothing peaks? if so, what volume should everything be at?
 
thereversenoise said:
Other than that, it's the mixing, which im sure we can do correctly.
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You sure? If it's your first time mixing anything, don't count on it - there's a lot you have to learn about the process before you start producing acceptable mixes....

Mixing Article --> Mixing 101
 
Hmm I think with most of those comments you should qualify with 'maybe' or 'if you like'. There's no hard and fast rules (except that you should try to keep all 'bass' frequencies centered).

How you mic the kit is up to you and your gear list. It may be better to use a few good mics than a bunch of crappy 'drum kit' mics. Many people have excellent results with a good pair of OHs and a snare and a bass mic.

Give the drummer what he needs in his phones. I would often use a scratch track with rough vox/guitar to guide him but then build up my final guitar tracks onto the drums once they're locked down.

Try to get the sounds you want with mic positioning first and EQ very much last. For help on this, read Blue Bear Sounds Mixing 101 article (do a google for it).
 
I don't know what your genre is, but if I were to play to a click while recording it would a take all the emotion out of the music. Bridge chorus and verse could all have variations of 5-10 bpm. I'll pratice to a click to work on my timing, but not to record or perform (yes, of course there are excetions to this). I like to mic the drums with 4 mics, 2 OH kick and snare. I like the air this adds to the sound VS close mic'd toms, but that's a taste thing. We DI guit and bass and put a crooner in the booth all just for a scratch and if it's nailed we can keep it, but we're really just going for a good drum track.

As far as levels, some of the "Big Dogs" may have to chime in, but you're gonna want to have your signals as close to 0db as you can get. With analog you can go right up to 0 and maybe push it a bit, with digital be more careful, maybe stay -1 to -3 db. A little analog distortion adds warmth, ANY digital distortion is just plain ugly.
 
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Ok guys heres the deal. I have done a lot of mixing, I think i am decent at it. www.purevolume.com/reversenoise has the practice tracks i did to prepare for going into a studio with good equipment. i did these with one audio technica mic. also, the drums are half ass, 2 overheads, bass drum, and one snare. go to those and tell me what you think of the questions i asked and then tell me what i have to do....... on Nerve the bass is direct in and i forgot to compress. the rest are all micd. the green army has Reason's drum machine tho
 
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thereversenoise said:
Ok guys heres the deal. I have done a lot of mixing, I think i am decent at it.
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Uhhh.... I'd have to disagree.......

Compare the sound quality of those clips to a commercial recording.... you're not even in the ballpark!
 
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well yeah of course! you're forgetting i told you that the quality was crappy because of the crappy audio technica i used in my BEDROOM. the levels on most of them are bad because i didnt use the correct equipment (other than the program).
 
oh, on those recording by the way.... the vocals are half ass because i didnt feel like layering the verses, so i put chorus on the verses and some choruses. the only line that has layers is the chorus of the green army..
 
You said you think you're decent at mixing... those clips indicate otherwise, so what is making you think you're "decent at mixing"????????
 
I think 1 look at this picture will show that you messed up bad. Hey Blue Bear, how the hell do you think they got that so lop sided. Limit the shit outa 1 side and not the other??? Severe DC offset. What the hell/???
 
That's not DC offset - That's nasty phase and panning issues.

That's no moon... It's a space station.

That's just plain roasted!

The levels in the mix sound pretty decent though...
 
Massive Master said:
That's not DC offset - That's nasty phase and panning issues.
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How would phase/panning issues cause that, John?

I've seen it before (but not to that degree) on clips that sound perfectly fine (unlike the ones by thereversenoise here!)
 
Ok reversenoise, I guess you're going to have to come here to learn ... these are pros talking here and I don't need to download your clips to know your mixes are going to be shite compared to theirs. Be a humble newbie ... drop your pride at what you've done thus far and you (like me) will begin to benefit from the wealth of knowledge and experience available here .......... just trying to help you man, I came here an angry newbie and I'm still a newbie - the rest went with a bunch of crappy threads where I argued about my musical ability and learned nothing!!;)
 
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