Would someone give this song a listen?

[robin watson]

16 track ADAT; Mixed on:Mackie 1604; Drums:crappy home-built mic pre rack ($8/channel!); Vocals: Rode NT-1 thru Studio Projects pre; Gtr: Behringer V-AMP; Bass:thru Z-vex SHO (used as a DI) straight into ADAT.

Mixed on those antiquated (but much-loved by Decca during the Napoleonic wars) Tannoy Monitor Golds (12") and valve amps for lotsa woolly bass. So a weird 'Mix' of old and new, you might say.

I'm sure the recently-aquired Soundcraft 6000 and HD24 would have done a better job of things, but above's all we had at the time. Talk about different league, both functionally and sonically!

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/edenroguemusic.htm

 

[boingoman]

Robin- I must say.....

That sounds fucking great. There are a couple things that almost sound like drop-outs, but that has nothing to do with the recording or the mix. Probably my junky windows media player. Thank God the lead vocal needs a couple db boost during the choruses or I'd really be down. I'm envious. I like the snare sound a lot. Nice and airy, but it sounds very natural like a snare drum and it's placed very well in the mix. Just the right amount of sound and presence without overwhelming impact. It's got a nice splatty smear to it. Is that from the preamps? It doesn't sound muffled, but maybe not quite fully open on top. Same with the BG vocals. Great ensemble playing- spaces for the drum and guitar fills, nobody stepping on one another. That board has found a good home.

 

[Thorguitarist]

Very nice, drums didn't sound crappy at all. Better than mine. Was that tubular bells i heard or a xylophone? Well, Very Nice song keep it up!

 

[bbop73]

Nice vocals and drums! Again, what are you using for the drums? It's far from crappy. Arrangement is well constructed and the players let the instruments breathe. Overall, well crafted song and recording. Would love to hear more.

 

[lbanks]

In short, I'd buy it. Good job.

 

[robin watson]

mics and preamp used

Really appreciate people taking out the time to comment. Right B'man, where the chorus kicks in, very slight momentum is lost, isn't it? - and could be down to that drop in dB, albeit slight.

Managed to sort out the Soundcraft's patchbay!!!!! - it's actually a piece of cake; I just wasn't stepping back and looking at it logically. It's great. Sorry, I digress:

The drum mic preamp's circuit is nothing more than a tiny, discrete design, which I pulled off the Net. I breadboarded it and found that by padding it down and tripling the supply voltage, SPL handling got into drum territory. It does curtail the frequency extremes, but not overly so. I think the combination of pure battery power and ridiculously simple signal path contributes to a quite natural-sounding pre. Anyway, at $10 dollars a channel, they're great in my book! Once I knew the circuit was serviceable, I circuit boarded 8 channels and racked it up.

Mics were: K&K kick mic; Sennheiser e604 snare; AKG C1000 overheads; and SM57 toms (cause that was left!).

That 'splatty smear' is likely a result of the preamp working at its limits - might try increasing the rail voltage some more, although I don't think the transistors will appreciate 30v + on them!

The 'xylophone' you hear comes from some patch on Phil's Kurzweil keyboard.

Thorguitarist, I couldn't get beyond the band member names on your website. Why 'Watcher of the Skies' btw?

 

[krimson]

Sounds cool man! Very late 70's sound to it. Good job!

 

[nickjc]

I second all that. Great sound. Amazing vocals. I feel the way I do after listening to Jeff Buckley live at Sin-e : un-worthy.

nice git-work too

 

[paddyponchero]

The drum mic preamp's circuit is nothing more than a tiny, discrete design, which I pulled off the Net. I breadboarded it and found that by padding it down and tripling the supply voltage, SPL handling got into drum territory. It does curtail the frequency extremes, but not overly so. I think the combination of pure battery power and ridiculously simple signal path contributes to a quite natural-sounding pre. Anyway, at $10 dollars a channel, they're great in my book! Once I knew the circuit was serviceable, I circuit boarded 8 channels and racked it up.

Can you tell us some more about the preamp, what ciruit are you using and did you make any changes.

I have a couple I made with op-amps configured as an instumentation amplifier but I'm not too happy with them. The CMRR is pretty good but I was going to go with transformers.

I have a bunch of transistors here that will do 40V and low noise fets so I was going to start a discrete circuit.