R/E/P Community

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: A question for Steve Albini...  (Read 14694 times)

JAHNNY

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 4
A question for Steve Albini...
« on: December 04, 2007, 10:00:18 AM »

Dear Steve
I 'm a guy from Calabria, south Italy. Excuse my English… I really appreciate the works you have done in all your career, as a producer and as a musician. I am a musician too: I play in a band called A.T.S.H. and we strongly believe in the D.Y.Y. ethic. So, when we have to record our songs, I like to experiment in our little home studio. I read your interview for Sound on Sound and I found very interesting when you said that one of the most important thing in a recording session is the balance between the instruments. I also read something about panning on books and on the web but I’d like to know what kind of technique you use when you place instruments in the stereo field. I’ve tried to analyze with stereo-analyzer plug in some Shellac songs and I saw that, for example, the bass guitar is not pan at the centre of the axis. It seemed to me like panning at 30% to the left and 30% to the right. So the bass drum… Maybe what I saw on the plug in is referred even to the ambience of the entire drum? Sometimes I tried to open the stereo width with a Waves plug in called S1 Stereo imager but the draw on the analyzer is not “open” like the records of the band I like. I’m so confused but, for the moment, I don’t have enough money to attend a sound engineer school and I tried to learn something by read several books and forum like these.
Anyway, this is the balance I do for my songs:
Bass drum 0
Snare drum 0
Send of the snare with some reverb 100% left – 100% right
Tom 1 - 100% left
Tom 2 - 0
Floor tom 100% right
Overhead L 70% left
Overhead R 70% right
Bass guitar 0
Guitars 80% left
Send guitars with a little bit of delay -80% right
Voice 0
Where am I wrong? 
I don’t want to know your secrets  Laughing  but some suggestions from one of the greatest engineer.
Thanks a lot for your patience


Logged

Nick Sevilla

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 853
Re: A question for Steve Albini...
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2008, 06:07:57 AM »

JAHNNY wrote on Tue, 04 December 2007 07:00

Dear Steve 0
Where am I wrong? 



There is no right or wrong. Only if it sounds right, do you know you're there.

And if you don't know you're there... then walk away from it for a day or two.

The song should move anyone listening. If not, then you need to look at the following:

Is the Song any Good?

If it is, is the arrangement (instruments) distracting from the song? Any instrument that does not support the Song and it's Message, and Feeling, should be eliminated.

If the Song and the Instruments are Good, then maybe the mix can be better.

Are you able to hear all the elements in the mix as you hear them in your head?

Cheers

PS I'm not Steve Albini.
Logged
-------------------------------------------------
It is quite possible, captain, that they find us grotesque and ugly and many people fear beings different from themselves.

www.nicksevilla.com
Pages: [1]   Go Up
 

Site Hosted By Ashdown Technologies, Inc.

Page created in 0.046 seconds with 19 queries.