The finished product this time.....

  • Thread starter Thread starter sonusman
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sonusman

sonusman

Banned
Well, finally finished with the Porterhouse Quintet CD. Mixed, mastered, out of my hair.... :)

This cut sits alright with me.
. 6.59MB 192kbs mp3 file.

A little side note here. I am using Audio Production Studio - Professional for my encoding now. It is amazing the difference between how it encodes mp3's and how XING processors do. I thought the Audio Catalyst stuff was pretty decent sounding untill I tried this encoder. The high end detail is so much better. At 192kbs, I am starting to have a hard time hearing the difference between the mp3 and the 16/44.1 .wav file. It has become very slight.

Anyway, enjoy.

Ed

[This message has been edited by sonusman (edited 03-24-2000).]
 
Come on, Ed- don't hold out on us.
When/Where can I buy this CD?
I didn't like this whole tune. The Godzilla sax sections were well done but simply not my
bag. The bass line there sounded like Black Sabbath. The rest of it rekindled that Chick Corea vibe when he was playing with Airto Moreira, Flora Purim, Stanley Clarke and Joe Farrell. Was that a bongo doing that fast lick? Great stuff.
 
Hey cool...
this is pretty neat, different and more energetic than the other Porterhouse stuff. The mix is flawless of usual. so is that bongos or a tabla? some very nice syncopation going on there.

Hey I got a question Ed what do you use for micing the cymbals/overheads. All my mixes are problematic with crashes peaking and slashing all over the place (of course it gets difficult when the drummer has about 14 cybals all over the place and plays with the blunt end of the stick!)

-jhe
 
I don't know doc. I just provided the mastered CD to the band last night. I believe they are sending it to dupe on monday. Probably 3 weeks after that.

James HE, I didn't record the CD, just mixed and mastered. But, like I have said before, I work with the tracking engineer/producer a lot, and he borrows a bunch of my stuff when he records projects. Of course I borrow his stuff too when I do bigger projects. Anyway, he used AT-4033's going through a TL Audio Classic tube pre amp with a Behringer Composer between the preamp and the deck and limited no more than about 2 db. The low roll off was engaged.

At mix, I usually roll off everything below about 2KHz on the overhead channels. Especially on this project where the drummer was a little heavy on the hi hats, you just don't need lower frequencies offering brash to the mix. Plus, I gate the snare and toms whenever possible to prevent crash cymbal leakage in the mix. He used 57's through ART pre's for the snare and tom's, and one of the things we both do is slam the mic pre input really hard to provide a little tube compression and dirt on the snare and toms. So, the effect is that also the cymbals wind up being a little hot through these mics too. Then when you compond the fact that I like to apply about 4 db of the high slelf EQ to the toms, well, you can see that a gate becomes a neccescity on the toms to keep the cymbbals tamed. Actually, I was a little disappointed in these drums tracks overall. The band only had about a $1000 budget for tracking, so, there was little time for really getting the drum tracks perfect. You may like how they sound, but, I felt that with more time to move the mics they could have sounded like a million bucks. But hey, I am just the mixing engineer on this one baby. My job is to work with what I got and make it work. But there again was another problem. The band only had a budget of $1000 for mixing and mastering. So you can see that with 9 songs, we only had about 5 hours per song to mix. Plus, we had to remix one cut. So, this is just basically your average $2000 demo that the band has decided to release as a CD. I can live with that.

By the way, those were Bongos. The idea I guess was to have the Star Trek Bongo thing going on. I liked it.... :)

I will be posting more cuts here soon. At some point doc, you will have the whole CD via mp3, so, if you are patient, you will have it all.... :) But, if you really want a copy of it, I am sure that I can arrange something. I still have the master list on the computer as the CD's I gave them to send to the pressing plant have yet to pass muster, so have to keep it around untill it does just in case I have to burn another copy.

Ed
 
I like the sax and bass that want to conquer the known world. :)

You've created a mystery in my life - how to get a sound as good as that. I know the general approach - upgrade my gear and get loads of experience - but exactly how to go about that is the question. Like everything else, one step at a time.

I've got a question: how is it that they hired you to mixmaster it, but not record it?

Good work, Sonusman.
 
Easy enough to answer. The guy that tracked and produced it was the guitar player for the Heavy Brothers, which I co-produced with him, engineered, and mixed. He was also the guy that tracked and produced the Sky Blue Mind stuff.

I have done some other minor things with a few artists he works with.

Anyway, he only has the ability to track, and even then, he ends up borrowing a bunch of my gear to do so. But, I get to borrow all his stuff when I mix other clients, so it all works out. Plus, he sends these artists to me, so, I don't mind loaning the gear if I don't need it at the time.

He usually is cheaper than I would be in the tracking stage, so, I guess these clients feel they are getting a deal.... :)

You gotta have the tools dobro, that is all I can say. Then you gotta have the ears.

I live and breath, and eat sound mostly. It is what I really love doing, so, with the years I have spent on it I guess that I just kind of go on intuition about what sounds good and what don't. But I will say this. My learning curve became accelerated when I started Echo Star over 3 years ago. I could not afford to be half assed anymore. I have to strive for a better sound.

Working on projects that I don't have any vested interest in has the advantage of being objective. I think being objective, and understanding all genre's of music is the engineers best friend. So the moral here is, if you want to get better, start recording a mixing other peoples stuff and charge them. But, you gotta make big claims about how you can make them sound like a million bucks for only like $500 :) That will get you thinking about mixing good....LOL

You know, there is stuff I worked on like even just 3 years ago that I have never posted because it sounded so terrible. Really. The clients were happy, and people that hear the stuff even now think it sounds alright. But, I don't care for it. So, it is not like I never put out product that was sort of lousy sounding. But it was those projects that made me better. They were also the projects that made me realize that the gear I own will only sound so good.

It is funny. I am at a point now where I don't really think I can get much better sound with a lot of the gear I have. I think I have maxed it out. This is a shame because I really haven't made enough return on the initial investment to justify another $15-20k to upgrade the stuff I want to. *sigh*

Ed
 
Hmm... lotsa food for thought here. Good post.

As for your present ceiling, I know squat about recording, but I know something about learning - you might surprise yourself with your present gear - you can't see the breakthrough till you've broken through kinda thing.

Or maybe you'll just have to record someone who gets themselves (and you) real famous real quick. That usually sorts out immediate cash flow problems. :)
 
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