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Author Topic: IMP18 discussion  (Read 15179 times)

dconstruction

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #15 on: June 12, 2008, 05:07:21 PM »

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
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Huds

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #16 on: June 12, 2008, 05:54:19 PM »

Definitely an interesting project... in listening to most of the submissions, quite a few went down the same road.  Personally, I mixed the drums as more of a background as opposed to "driving" the tune.  Don't know what made me run the beatbox stuff thru an amp sim, but it sounds like dcon went the same route (or is it re-amped?).

Huds
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fiasco ( P.M.DuMont )

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #17 on: June 12, 2008, 06:51:28 PM »

Thanks for the IMP. Great idea.

I've uploaded a mix. First time I've done so... please be gentle with me.
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Philip

osumosan

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #18 on: June 12, 2008, 09:09:43 PM »

The edits I did were on the main acoustic guitar and shaker to get it not to drag or seems like jerky triplets. In fact a did a premix of the acoustics and normalized it so I could see the peaks. I would have liked to have had time to edit the first Beatbox to the point of usability and the claves. I started editing before I noticed the click track, so I did not use any grid. I thought that it should retain a bit of sloppiness although I'll bet a spot on performance would have sounded great.
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Strummer

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #19 on: June 12, 2008, 09:24:30 PM »

I had to slide the electric guitar around a bit, other than that I could live with the timing issues.

I almost played with the timing of the shaker but thought better of it.

In the first 10 minutes I committed to the harmony edits, something I'll never live down or someone will love it as much as I.

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Chris Ilett

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #20 on: June 12, 2008, 10:02:59 PM »

I'm going to give these a listen tomorrow (Friday). I doubt you can have the acoustic and vocal 'too loud' Greg, it's all down to interpretation of what should lead the song with this one imo.

For me, I thought "If I get the drums right, I'll get the mix right" because everything else seemed pretty obvious and easy (standing up to be knocked down with that statement).

Shame about a conversation with a friend of mine earlier, where I concluded that I didn't get the drums right.

Look forward to hearing some of these. Gave J's a quick skip through - like the sampled guitar line.

(You cut that and copied it to infinity, right? I didn't just miss it...?).

rankus

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #21 on: June 12, 2008, 10:21:46 PM »

dconstruction wrote on Thu, 12 June 2008 14:07

 some of the really dry and close mixes make me uncomfortable.



Then your really gonna hate my mix lol


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j.hall

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #22 on: June 13, 2008, 12:15:25 AM »

Chris Ilett wrote on Thu, 12 June 2008 21:02



Look forward to hearing some of these. Gave J's a quick skip through - like the sampled guitar line.

(You cut that and copied it to infinity, right? I didn't just miss it...?).




i didn't make a single edit, nor use a single sample.
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SingSing

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #23 on: June 13, 2008, 05:50:02 AM »

FYI

ATOR just informed me (thank you very much) that my submission link isn't working and I quickly found that I missed /files in the URL. My submission is listed in the IMP directory, so you can get it from there (imp18_singsing.mp3).

Cheers,

Stefan
SingSing
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M Carter

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #24 on: June 13, 2008, 07:27:03 AM »

I'm gonna try and get through these this weekend.

I did some edits on mine, far more than usual.  Tightened up the two drum sets so there were less clams bet ween them.  Took a bunch of what felt unnecessary out of the 'piano bridge', and tripled up on the background vox to make the bridge a little more dynamic.

On a quick listen, it sounds like a lot of people (myself included) had issues dealing with the bass.  While it's not omnipresent in any of them, it's practically non-existent in a few.

Thoughts?

Matt
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Chris Ilett

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #25 on: June 13, 2008, 10:04:01 AM »

M Carter wrote on Fri, 13 June 2008 06:27

I'm gonna try and get through these this weekend.

I did some edits on mine, far more than usual.  Tightened up the two drum sets so there were less clams bet ween them.  Took a bunch of what felt unnecessary out of the 'piano bridge', and tripled up on the background vox to make the bridge a little more dynamic.

On a quick listen, it sounds like a lot of people (myself included) had issues dealing with the bass.  While it's not omnipresent in any of them, it's practically non-existent in a few.

Thoughts?

Matt


YUP!

Gregs sounds pretty good here though.

j.hall

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #26 on: June 13, 2008, 10:36:58 AM »

SingSing wrote on Fri, 13 June 2008 04:50

FYI

ATOR just informed me (thank you very much) that my submission link isn't working and I quickly found that I missed /files in the URL. My submission is listed in the IMP directory, so you can get it from there (imp18_singsing.mp3).

Cheers,

Stefan
SingSing


fixed!  your link works now.

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fiasco ( P.M.DuMont )

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #27 on: June 13, 2008, 11:01:06 AM »

Chris Ilett wrote on Fri, 13 June 2008 10:04

M Carter wrote on Fri, 13 June 2008 06:27

I'm gonna try and get through these this weekend.

I did some edits on mine, far more than usual.  Tightened up the two drum sets so there were less clams bet ween them.  Took a bunch of what felt unnecessary out of the 'piano bridge', and tripled up on the background vox to make the bridge a little more dynamic.

On a quick listen, it sounds like a lot of people (myself included) had issues dealing with the bass.  While it's not omnipresent in any of them, it's practically non-existent in a few.

Thoughts?

Matt


YUP!

Gregs sounds pretty good here though.


That was my initial thought too.
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Philip

fiasco ( P.M.DuMont )

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #28 on: June 13, 2008, 11:03:51 AM »

Of the fist five I've listened to, it seems that I have left my mix relatively quiet in comparison.

Hmmm...
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Philip

osumosan

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Re: IMP18 discussion
« Reply #29 on: June 13, 2008, 11:31:35 AM »

The bass had a lot of resonant frequencies. For me, I didn't think fishing for all of them with EQ would be a good idea. I would have liked to have had time to ride all the booms -- but I smoothed it out with chorus (and light compression of course). My first mix I thought I had the right amount of bass until I brought it to my second set of speakers and it just overpowered everything, so maybe people had the same difficulty I had between enough and too much bass.
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