pre's n things
Ah yes,
the Voxbox...
It's definitely one of my weapons of choice. For a while, it was the only weapon. Although I have a few other options now, the voxbox is still in daily operation - great for things (like a classic vocal sound) that I want to get warm, fat, round, full and beautiful - the compressor before the mic pre is genius - allows you to keep the signal in the sweet spot of the pre. Good for vox, bass - just about any melodic instrument - the de-esser is pretty genius too...
Last year I once again traded my savings for Manley gear - this time
a 16X2 (8 mic/8line) - and once again, I love every penny of it. The point is, I really dig the pre's in the mixer, so I am using those a lot these days. Extremely natural - like I don't "hear" the pre at all - just the mic. (Not to mention the sweet tube 2 buss has done for my mixes, but that's another rant).
My other secret weapon mic pres are my two Telefunken V672A solid state versions of the tube classics boxed and racked by Steven Marquette of Marquette Audio Labs. They're great - really gutsy and thick but with really smooth highs. After using primarily tube pres for a long time, I am really getting into the tightness of good solid state pres - and finally having a variety of flavors to choose from.
Re: DIF - I think the main difference in how we approached that record was that we were consciously trying to make a "record". I think we tried to do things more "properly" and follow the "recording process". When we were working on mftma, most of the time we were goofing around with ideas, and really making music for ourselves, not really thinking about what "everybody's gonna think". There was no everybody then, just us - we did what we felt and used whatever gear we had.
When making DIF, we already knew people would be listening, so I think I simply tried too hard to make it "kick-ass" - mftma was a couple guys hanging out having fun and dorking around with gear in a garage. DIF was a "major label album project" made by "artists and production professionals" in "recording studios". So yeah, technique varied here and there, but to me the major difference was the mindset and the approach. Innocence lost - yeah, an old story, but an important lesson. What I hear in mftma is not gear, but how much fun we were having making music - what I hear in DIF is trying to "make sure it sounds cool". What differences do you guys hear?
What did I learn? Good records are what happen when you're busy having fun recording music.
I will attempt to curb the abuse of the "quotes".
and finally-
I've got nothing against Berkelee per se, I just wonder how much real life application a degree in recording arts really has. If you're a shredder, and wanna have the fastest four octave harmonic minor riffs in town, it's probably a good place to study music - you also learn many other interesting things in school, and there are often many cute girls. The art of recording is the art of using your own two ears, understanding what they're telling you, and trusting them. That's an understanding that comes through experience - it doesn't just happen once you've learned enough facts.
From books you can learn that due to diaphragm size, polar pattern, proximity effect, and distance from sound source, a certain mic will accentuate perceived amplitude of the source frequencies below 300 hertz.
From experience you can learn, "that mic sounds like shit on my acoustic, but it sounds good on the bass cab."
cheers.
