So, a few answers to a few questions from this and the IMP18 Begins thread:
"Out of interest: what was the acoustic guitar played and how did you mic it? I'm curious..."
The guitar played is a small, cracked, plywood, beater Mexican nylon string I got for free. I decided to do mid-side because I decided to mid-side. That's really it. I like it in this context, as it lends a subtle spaciousness. I often mic this guitar with an RE-20, too. Just not this time.
"I thought they could of had a more appropriate/same drum sound if they had used just 1 mic."
Probably so. The drums were done very quickly (*everything* was done quickly). There was no part written and the drummer had never played the song. We flipped the kick up to resemble a big floor tom, put a tambourine on the real floor tom and I mic'd the underneath (reso head) of the kick with an RE-20, on top about two feet away with a Lawson L47FET, and then put an AEA R84 a few feet back, pointed perpendicular to the kit. I went back to the control room, listened for a little while, decided it was fine and kept moving.
I did not intend the drums to be in mid-side, though the labeling might have led you to believe that.
"with the exception of hiding a noisy edit or two (comp'ed tracks?)"
My response ("I have no idea what you mean") to this was tongue in cheek. But now that it's mentioned specifically that it was the bridge acoustic at the end, I'll explain: those parts are looped (obviously). I thought I'd give you guys the option of getting one of the loops un-crossfaded for use in editing. Purely a courtesy - that I see many people took as a literal part of the song.
"Noise"
There's noise on the tracks. Number one reason? My power supply was feeding about 96v to the phantom. Luckily all the mics survived, and I've had the supply serviced, but it sure did get noisy sometimes. Also, as you can imagine, the vocal was sung pretty softly (L47FET again, into an OSA MP1-L3).
"Half the time I spend on this was on editing. "
While ATOR's mix is (expectedly) a pretty far reach for the band, he's not wrong in that this mix is an exercise in editing.
I've got a very small studio, and cater to off-kilter bands like these. And often, if they are off-kilter, they are also likely not the most organized, rehearsed or prepared for recording. I think that's fine. I'm more of a producer than an engineer anyway - or at least I expend my energy more in the former direction than the later. This band, on this song, had no parts other than the acoustic and vocal. Everything else is a strong and sometimes explicit (i.e., I played it) suggestion from me. Which is good, because that's what I like doing. So, as an exercise, I undid all my arrangement edits before putting these tracks together for the IMP. I used the outro drums in the beginning, got rid of the horribly played electric guitar in the verses (which, shockingly, some of you have really highlighted; man, I hate that part). I delayed the entrance of the bass, shuffled the bridge guitars around and completely chopped up the beatbox performances (some of his triplets and 'ksshhh!' cymbals were distracting) - all sorts of edits which you guys didn't get. I wanted to see how many of you heard what I heard.
In a few moments, I'll post my mix, which is exactly where we left it after that day of tracking. I probably should have tried to revisit it for a "real" mix, but, eh, I didn't. Mine is a VERY wet mix. This is done on purpose, as a contrast to many of the other songs on the album, which you guys obviously have no context for. Perhaps I'm too used to the 'verb, but some of the really dry and close mixes make me uncomfortable.
Wow. I type a lot.
L