Theoretical Mixing Question

[CFox]

He didn't just call you a pedophile, he called anybody who doesn't agree with his own word a pedophile.

I don't do the cave anymore than I do truck stop adult book stores. It's bad enough that the board puts up with Internet sociopaths and outright antagonists in the cave, but the casual attitude by the board towards them outside of the cave is something I'll never quite understand. They only cost money to Audiofanzine to give them free reign here and serves no one any benefit.

G.

I think I have more helpful to Newbies than you have in your entire history ? Do a search on me.

I didnt call anyone anything. I didnt even do it "in effect". That's your anger blinding your ability to see clearly.

 

[mshilarious]

He didn't just call you a pedophile, he called anybody who doesn't agree with his own word a pedophile.

I don't do the cave anymore than I do truck stop adult book stores. It's bad enough that the board puts up with Internet sociopaths and outright antagonists in the cave, but the casual attitude by the board towards them outside of the cave is something I'll never quite understand. They only cost money to Audiofanzine to give them free reign here and serves no one any benefit.

G.

I trust you've taken the survey then?

 

[D_Vincent]

I dont think he was calling anyone a pedophile...he was using it as an analogy...perhaps not the best analogy to use however it was an analogy nonetheless.

Get back on topic guys...threads about mixing...Its not about who's right or wrong.

Sorry to butt in however sometimes members have to police themselves.

Just let it go and get back to recording.

 

[moresound]

I dont think he was calling anyone a pedophile...he was using it as an analogy...perhaps not the best analogy to use however it was an analogy nonetheless.

Get back on topic guys...threads about mixing...Its not about who's right or wrong.

Sorry to butt in however sometimes members have to police themselves.

Just let it go and get back to recording.

Great idea ... I think I'll record something today that is happy yet angry.

 

[Farview]

I've got news for all of you. Every youtube link posted in this thread was a tedious, hateful bit of misery. These people have true talent...



Only voice and drums. None of this hiding behind an instrument, playing the piano with your foot, attempting to be creative and original, nonsense.

 

[CFox]

Its how I imagine the kids from Glee would do Metal....or is it them ?

 

[mshilarious]

The irony is that metal is by far the style of rock music most open to atonality. Well, punk too, but that's more accidental out-of-tuneness than purposeful dissonance

And Ornette Coleman "hiding behind his instrument"? Yikes.

 

[moresound]

I've got news for all of you. Every youtube link posted in this thread was a tedious, hateful bit of misery. These people have true talent...



Only voice and drums. None of this hiding behind an instrument, playing the piano with your foot, attempting to be creative and original, nonsense.

First time viewing that one. Pretty good. I was just waiting for a big finish but was disappointed by a wimpy fade out.

 

[Farview]

First time viewing that one. Pretty good. I was just waiting for a big finish but was disappointed by a wimpy fade out.

When you are going that strong for that long, there is no place else to go.


I really hope no one missed the sarcasm, it was getting far too serious up in here.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

So, what in effect are you saying with your assertion that you guarantee that George Martin and Glyn Johns wouldn't use realistic amp sims or multi velocity layered drum samples triggered by the latest multi velocity V-drums ?

Are you saying you can tell the difference between recorded mixed and mastered tracks that use that amp sims and V-drums and recorded mixed and mastered tracks that use real amps and real drums ? Can you provide instances pls ?

I think the mistake people make in assessing amp sims is that they compare the sound coming out of their monitors to the earth moving sound coming out of their own real amp cranked to 11 in their own space with its own colourization.

I think the mistake people make assessing Addictive Drums and Superior Drummer 2 is they dont understand how they are operate. They use dry, unprocessed samples recorded at many velocities ( 12 gig in the case of S2) . They then offer a mixing section where eq, compression,microphone bleed, other fx and a sound stage using convolution reverb can be applied - essentially giving anything from a garage to stage, to a highly processed, polished studio sound. Played through a decent set of V-drums and I challenge you and them to tell the difference.

I know this thread has gone pretty far afield, but since you specifically asked about this post in The Cave, let me reply. First, yes, I DID miss this the first time around - I started back at Page 3, saw how much of a tangent the thread had gone on, and didn't bother to pick up where I last posted. Sorry.

Well, like I said, my original assertion was too strong. I think a fairer one is that, especially since the guys whose names you mention are really pretty old-school in their production ethos, that given the choice I'd be very surprised if they chose amp modelers and drum sequencers over live amps and drums. Glyn Johns in particular is well known around these parts for the drum micing technique that bears his name, that yields excellent results (given a well tuned kit) in even average-to-mediocre spaces. I can't speak for the man, obviously, but as long as he had a good drummer and at least an OK room to track in I do think he'd prefer to go with live drums.

As for as amp modeling... I'd say that while modeling keeps getting better (the Fractal AxeFX in particular is supposed to be excellent - a buddy just grabbed one to use as a FX processor with his Mesa Roadster and I'm looking forward to spending some time playing with it, more on that later) and that it's possible that at one point this will change, in the past I'd say that I've been able to tell with statistically significant frequency when an amp is modeled vs real. The biggest issue in a recording, I think, is speaker emulation, and while impulses are getting much closer they're not 100% there yet.

I think the best example I can giv e you is a pair of Porcupine Tree albums - "In Absentia" and "Deadwing." They were released only a couple years apart, and mixed and produced by Steven Wilson, PT's singer/songwriter and by the time he did these albums already pretty mature behind a mixing board - he got a lot of attention for his work with Opeth, outside of his own band.

I was already a big fan thanks to In Absentia when Deadwing was released, so I grabbed it the day it came out. The material was awesome, the production was just as good as I'd expected of Steven Wilson, but the one thing that kind of surprised me was that the guitar tones just seemed a little lifeless compared to In Absentia. Everything just sounded too... Idunno, the cleans sounded a little rubbery, the distortion was a little indistinct in the midrange and papery in the high end, and it just didn't seem to hit you the same way. It wasn't until that weekend when I got to check out the bonus material on the disc, including some "in the studio" videos. Sure enough, Wilson was running a Pod into a Marshall 4x12 for most of his guitar tones. He wanted to prove the point that modelers could be just as good as real amps. I don't think he succeeded (and he was back to his Bad Cat rig by Fear of a Blank Planet), but what I DO think he showed is a good engineer with a good ear can definitely get serviceable results out of modelers. However, I also think he showed they're not 100% there yet.

Live in the room, no question - Amp sims aren't there yet. There's also that intangible "feel" aspect - my buddy who just picked up the AxeFX plans on using it for recording (and as he screws with it he's getting more and more believable results), but he tried to exactly replicate the front end of his Recto Roadster with a couple of the Roadster models, and every time he did, he'd flip back over and run through the amp preamp and just realize the modeler couldn't quite compare. The question of course is how much this matters - in a recording situation, does it matter how an amp sounds and feels in the room, vs on tape? For some guys, not at all, for some it does - if the "feel" of a particular amp is part of what you like about it and inspires you as a player, then switching from the amp to the modeler will impact your playing somewhat, and that could be an issue.

I've never gotten the opportunity to try a drum sequencer hooked up to a V-drum kit, but I will say that I recently picked up EZDrummer, and that I'm rather impressed. For the album I'm working on I'll still be replacing my EZDrummer scratch tracks with live drums, but it's a pretty damned cool tool.

That said, again, you trade some flexibility. If you have access to a particularly awesome sounding kit, then you lose that by going with samples. Likewise, you trade a lot of flexibility in the ability to tune or treat a kit to get it to work for the sound you're after - you have a number of stock drumkits to work with and that's that. You also lose the ability to work the room - if I recall right, the "When The Levee Breaks" drum part was recorded at the bottom of a stairwell. sure, you can try to replicate that with plugins, but it's tough to beat a good natural 'verb for realism. And finally, there's a lot of stuff you can do with a drum kit that more likely than not won't be sampled - hate to mention Porcupine Tree again simply in case they're a band you've never heard of or hate, but their drummer (who's a monster) does a lot of fills on their quieter stuff where he's drumming on the side of the shell, sort of like a side-stick technique on a snare. If there's a way to do that in EZDrummer, I haven't found it.

So again, while I grant you the possibility that the guys you name would work with modelers or drum samples if it happened to fit the sound they were after (for example, amp modelers slay for industrial/electronic metal and that downtuned "djent" sound guys like Meshuggah are after precicely because the attack is NOT 100% natural) or due to constraints beyond their control, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that especially the old-school names you mentioned would prefer to use live instruments over digital. Not 100% of the time, not "no way in hell," but just that it would not be their first choice for the vast majority of situations, and given the OP's question it's not the route I'd advocate.

 

[mshilarious]

I think you have to look at what they actually did. Clearly the Beatles had no trouble booking a quartet or even an orchestra when they wanted, but then they used a mellotron too.

So the question is would they have used a modeler? Sure, but probably to exploit its possibilities, not to pretend it was something else. 12G of samples is an awful lot of work that could have been applied to something original and creative, but that's not the target market is it?

Besides, they should have just used farview's samples

 

[bouldersoundguy]

What kind of really bad things are you referring to ?

Have a listen to those postings and tell me what is "good" about them, please.

If you have a master forger who can knock off a perfect Rembrandt do you expect him or her to automatically be a master composer ?

It leads to governments dictating what art is "good" and what art is "bad" for a start. It only gets worse from there.

I don't need to listen to any of that stuff. If someone likes it there is something good about it, my personal preferences notwithstanding.

Is there a difference between a good copy and a convincing forgery besides the motives of the maker? What's wrong with appreciating a good copy or photographic reproduction of the Mona Lisa? Is that "bad art" because the viewer is not seeing the real thing in person? Does having glass over the Mona Lisa make it not worth seeing in person? Does artificial light make it essentially fake and worthless? What about a work attributed to a master and appreciated as such for centuries only to be re-attributed to a lesser-known artist? Was the pleasure all the viewers got over that time false?

If there is some sort of objective good in art then there will be a definition that can be applied to determine what is "in" and what is "out". Can you define good art without providing specific examples or being self-referential?

You've already said you know it when you see it. That is clearly a subjective opinion, even if you are mistaking it for an objective fact.

 

[flatfinger]

Now it's time to turn ya'll on to some real talent...........................

 

[moresound]

When you are going that strong for that long, there is no place else to go.


I really hope no one missed the sarcasm, it was getting far too serious up in here.

I wicked kind of liked it. I'm not a big metal fan. In fact there is no real genre of music that I like at all, sense the break up of the Beatles,D), But in every classification of music every so often a act pops out that is different, original and very good at what they do.
That band was sort of a Heavy metal rap band - to me.

 

[Farview]

I wicked kind of liked it. I'm not a big metal fan. In fact there is no real genre of music that I like at all, sense the break up of the Beatles,D), But in every classification of music every so often a act pops out that is different, original and very good at what they do.
That band was sort of a Heavy metal rap band - to me.

It's a cover of an old manowar tune. They also do metallica, iron maiden, and a bunch of others.

Nothing since the Beatles broke up? What about all the stuff that is so obviously derivative of the Beatles? Which version of the Beatles were you into? (I wanna hold your hand, ...yellow submarine, ...yesterday....)

I'm not sure where you're getting rap, it's more of a metal doo-wop thing since they are singing all the instrument parts. Generally rap is not sung, it's spoken.

 

[moresound]

It's a cover of an old manowar tune. They also do metallica, iron maiden, and a bunch of others.

Nothing since the Beatles broke up? What about all the stuff that is so obviously derivative of the Beatles? Which version of the Beatles were you into? (I wanna hold your hand, ...yellow submarine, ...yesterday....)

I'm not sure where you're getting rap, it's more of a metal doo-wop thing since they are singing all the instrument parts. Generally rap is not sung, it's spoken.

Really liked the White and Sgt. P

Yeah I guess your right with the doo-wop. It was just in their presentation of their work in that video that reminded me of a rap show. I would now have to agree with you on the doo-wop.

 

[grimtraveller]

Clearly the Beatles had no trouble booking a quartet or even an orchestra when they wanted, but then they used a mellotron too.

Interesting you bring that up. I was thinking just the other day that many artists credit the Beatles with introducing them to the mellotron and/or popularizing it. But the instrument only appears on three of their songs !

Nothing since the Beatles broke up? What about all the stuff that is so obviously derivative of the Beatles?

Though a massive generalization on my part, I suspect the people that dug them for the most part are possibly the least tolerant of consciously Beatle derivative stuff.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

What is this "Beatles" that everybody is talking about? Did I miss something?

G.

 

[mshilarious]

Interesting you bring that up. I was thinking just the other day that many artists credit the Beatles with introducing them to the mellotron and/or popularizing it. But the instrument only appears on three of their songs !

Nah, it was Moody Blues that OD'ed on Mellotron . . . good stuff too!