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R/E/P => R/E/P Archives => j. hall => Topic started by: j.hall on July 16, 2007, 04:01:20 PM

Title: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 16, 2007, 04:01:20 PM
chat it up here.

this track will not be easy in many ways.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: WallyWest on July 16, 2007, 04:22:51 PM
I'm having a problem with the right OH. I'm getting "the file is corrupt" message in winrar.

If its working for everyone else, what program are you guys using to extract the files and ill give that a blast.

..your not kidding like J.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: craig boychuk on July 16, 2007, 04:24:13 PM
Could be you downloaded before it was finished uploading...I did the same thing this morning. It seems to be all there now.


Also, I take it there is no obligatory sign-up for this one? Cool.

-craig
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: dconstruction on July 16, 2007, 04:26:09 PM
I might try the download again: I'm using WinRAR and it worked fine.

Total download: 284,161,213 bytes

L
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 16, 2007, 04:26:28 PM
there is never a sign-up.

i'm on a mac, and all files UnRAR'd just fine.

not that you want to, but download the RAR again and try it.

if we have a global problem will deal with it.

my mix is done.  took me a long time.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: CHANCE on July 16, 2007, 04:38:06 PM
I'm stuck in Chicago and hope I'm not too busy when I get back so I will have time to get in on the fun (at the correct sample rate this time LOL)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: WallyWest on July 16, 2007, 04:45:13 PM
Cheers dudes. I'll give it another go.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: WallyWest on July 16, 2007, 05:14:50 PM
That did the trick.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on July 16, 2007, 08:28:50 PM
so, i'm going with a burt bacharach kinda thing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 16, 2007, 08:37:15 PM
http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5323/macullykt7.jpg
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 16, 2007, 09:14:00 PM
I've been really trying to stay out of the pre mix discussion, since I gave J the tracks, but man, the home alone kid had me dying. That more or less personifies this band perfectly.

And to think, I actually picked the most conservative song these guys had....
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 16, 2007, 09:54:40 PM
M Carter wrote on Mon, 16 July 2007 20:14

...but man, the home alone kid had me dying.



Man, I almost wet myself when I saw that. I'm still crackin' up!

THAT WAS SO FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just wanted to listen to the tracks real quick and I could not stop. What a blast. Never mixed ANYTHING like this before.

I went for a Fred Durst joined the White Stripes and they all ate the brown acid.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 16, 2007, 10:56:27 PM
hopefully this one injects some much needed humor into IMP  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on July 16, 2007, 11:46:27 PM
I don't think J will get any more requests for something heavy again. My 3 1/2 y/o daughter was with me when I took a quick listen. She didn't like it at all.... "Turn it off daddy".
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Iain Graham on July 16, 2007, 11:58:13 PM
I hope my shit arrives soon, I'd like to get in on this one.

Damned international shipping times.  Mad


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 17, 2007, 01:26:52 AM
So let's see a show of hands, how many have downloaded / started?

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: dgbt on July 17, 2007, 01:51:59 AM
downloading...waiting... still waitng...
I think it will finish sunday night.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: southboundloco on July 17, 2007, 06:55:25 AM
this is song is quite challenging to mix... i like it...hehe...almost done  Very Happy
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 17, 2007, 07:42:56 AM
Got started last night...  Definitely a challenge... not my usual cuppa tea, but that's kinda the point of imp.  My three year old critic hasn't heard it yet... I'd bet he'll have the same reaction as your daughter, Greg.

Burt Bacharach... yah, lounge music... definitely what I'm thinking too.   Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on July 17, 2007, 08:27:37 AM
I've actually recorded a few EPs for some hardcore punk, cookie monster vocal type bands. Can't stand the vocals. I had one band where the singer's vocal chords were bleeding and he wanted to sing, because he didn't want to stuff me around!! I told him to come back when the doctor said he was ok.

The funny thing is that when I did the first band, a friend of mine got really angry and told me I shouldn't do it, as I wasn't into heavy music. I did the other recordings, all on the strength of the first recording. A guy in the last band I did, a few years ago, asked if it was true that I wasn't into hardcore? He thought I must have been some sort of hardcore fanatic, as nobody else recorded it as well as me!! Fortunately I haven't been asked to do any for a while now.....

I had another singer ask me to make his voice sound like broken glass, so that nobody would be able to stand listening to it.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 17, 2007, 08:34:42 AM
Truth be told, this record was actually the most fun I've had in the studio in my entire life.  It was all done when I was a GA at SOS like 3 years ago on 'Lets Sneak In And Make an EP' time.  I think the whole six song EP clocked in at 8 hours of total work (2 hours tracking the band , 2 hours maybe on vocals, and 4 hours of mixing the day before releasing).  It's fun for me to revisit it after so long.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 17, 2007, 10:20:20 AM
Iain Graham wrote on Mon, 16 July 2007 22:58

I hope my shit arrives soon,




That's kind of what I was thinking when I put up the faders on this one.  Surprised
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 17, 2007, 02:06:02 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

you guys kill me.

my mix is done, it ROOOOOOCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSS

i don't kiss and tell, so ya'll just have to wait.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Iain Graham on July 17, 2007, 02:32:03 PM
I've done a lot of stoopid things in my life, but shipping shit across the world aint one of them.

I meant shit like my mBox and my monitors........then I can find out how much shit I need to mix the track.  Twisted Evil

Fuck it, even some different clothes to the 7 days worth I packed 6 weeks ago...... Laughing  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 17, 2007, 03:41:31 PM
J -

Nice, seems like you enjoyed this one.  Can't wait to hear it.  I'l probably dig into mine tomorrow night.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Fibes on July 17, 2007, 04:41:39 PM
I've got 4 albums going right now.

My working drives are working...


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 17, 2007, 10:48:01 PM
I am so glued to this and everyone around here hates me for it. Nice choice for IMP.

JT
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Brian Lloyd on July 17, 2007, 11:04:37 PM
it wouldnt be so bad if i could understand a word they were saying. Eq'ing the vox is totally out the window. i need to sleep on this for a few days to even get a path to start on. Also! are there no guitars? at all?


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 17, 2007, 11:12:26 PM
it's funny for me to have a week to mix something we originally mixed in 15 minutes.  it's actually really hard not to over think it.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 17, 2007, 11:37:13 PM
That's funny because that's about how long I spent on it at first. Then... over thinking AND over producing wouldn't leave me alone. I LOVE IT! I can't wait to hear all of this.

I've been trying to bite my tongue... but I had no use for (what I call) the second vocal. I say it like this because I don't want it to be another "girl is the lead part" sort of thing!

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 17, 2007, 11:43:49 PM
we literally did the whole thing right before it was released at the bands first show.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 18, 2007, 12:53:39 AM
Alright... it's rockin good now.   Twisted Evil  Working fast.. only spent couple hours total so far.

Now I just need to tune the vocals....

Heh...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: homerecordingodyssey on July 18, 2007, 07:20:56 AM
M Carter wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 15:26

So let's see a show of hands, how many have downloaded / started?



Started Finished

mmmmmmmmm it is interesting ???

I had to get it over and done with to avoid brain exploding

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: southboundloco on July 18, 2007, 09:03:07 AM
Brian Lloyd wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 22:04

it wouldnt be so bad if i could understand a word they were saying. Eq'ing the vox is totally out the window. i need to sleep on this for a few days to even get a path to start on. Also! are there no guitars? at all?





i think the guitar player got mauled and ripped to bits by a raging animal who woke up listening to this song  Laughing haha ...anyhoo how many members are there in this band? 2?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 09:03:50 AM
Brian Lloyd wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 22:04

 Also! are there no guitars? at all?





nope. no guitars.  i never missed them on these tunes.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 09:14:23 AM
homerecordingodyssey wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 06:20


mmmmmmmmm it is interesting ???




Not my cup of tea, (more like a steaming glass of motor oil with shards of metal around the rim for garnish) but it was tons of funz!  Shocked
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: spoon on July 18, 2007, 10:30:04 AM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 17 July 2007 13:06

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
you guys kill me.
my mix is done, it ROOOOOOCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSS
i don't kiss and tell, so ya'll just have to wait.


J I am curious.  I know you don't kiss and tell, but could at least tell me if you used samples?  You HAD to have, no?

I had lots of time for IMP13 and was excited for that.  I got in there last night and it dawned on me that 1)  This genre usually demands a certain production ethic and 2)  I did not have the energy to give the amount of time required for me to transform this song into said genre (drum replacement mostly).

I was almost going to mix it (my style) and turn it in....but it would be so raw, I dont think it would have worked at all.


I am REALLY looking forward to hearing others submissions on this one.

Regards,
David
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on July 18, 2007, 11:22:35 AM
Quote:

I was almost going to mix it (my style) and turn it in....but it would be so raw, I dont think it would have worked at all.
mix it your style! a band like this might come to you one day for YOUR take on their music, not just the "expected" treatment
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 11:38:00 AM
I couldn't imagine trying to polish something like this up with samples and editing and what have you.  I guess it all kind of depends on your familiarity/comfort level with punk rockish type stuff.  I don't want to say too much about the original approach until after the submissions come out, but I'd definitely say that there's a certain amount of humor to be recognized in the song, if that helps anyone.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 12:30:55 PM
"You're gonna wake up the girls... I'd rather be comatose!"

If that's really what he's saying... then anyone with kids can truly understand that line.

Razz
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 12:34:52 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 10:38

I don't want to say too much about the original approach until after the submissions come out...



Matt, you're about to blow your wad man! You can't wait to talk about it!  Very Happy

J. can't wait to show off his rockin mix... me too!

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 12:34:54 PM
I think it's "If I'm gonna wake up a ghost, then I'd rather be comatose".  If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure the song is about a drug addict. But.... with a sense... of humor.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 12:36:31 PM
LOL! I was WAY off. I'm going to continue enjoying my misread lyric though.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 12:59:49 PM
@J-Texas

The song titles on this record were great.  I think the best was "Destructotronotron 3,000,001 vs. Long Island"
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Red Tape on July 18, 2007, 01:14:30 PM
I'm alternating between thinking this is fun and mild despair.
It's cool!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 01:35:07 PM
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 11:34

M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 10:38

I don't want to say too much about the original approach until after the submissions come out...



Matt, you're about to blow your wad man! You can't wait to talk about it!  Very Happy

J. can't wait to show off his rockin mix... me too!

I'll show you mine if you show me yours!  Laughing



mildly ..... disturbed....

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: spoon on July 18, 2007, 01:59:33 PM
scottoliphant wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 10:22

Quote:

I was almost going to mix it (my style) and turn it in....but it would be so raw, I dont think it would have worked at all.
mix it your style! a band like this might come to you one day for YOUR take on their music, not just the "expected" treatment



I will have another listen tonight and see how it feels to me.  
I am fortunate enough to pick the (few) people I record with, but I understand your point (and one of the goals of IMP).

M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 10:38

I couldn't imagine trying to polish something like this up with samples and editing and what have you.  I guess it all kind of depends on your familiarity/comfort level with punk rockish type stuff.  I don't want to say too much about the original approach until after the submissions come out, but I'd definitely say that there's a certain amount of humor to be recognized in the song, if that helps anyone.


I thought I would be down for some punk-ish rock-ish, but I had trouble getting a line on this one (though this felt more speed-ish metal-ish to me).

Yeah, keeping the approach close to the chest would be fair since you are on the inside of this one. Smile


Cheers,
David
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 18, 2007, 05:58:34 PM
spoon wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 09:30


J I am curious.  I know you don't kiss and tell, but could at least tell me if you used samples?  You HAD to have, no?




sorry, only a few days left to find out.  my mix is SLAMMIN, that's all you'll get to know.

i did a stems mix of the rhythm section for you guys, but i left the vocal...cool?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Quote:


M Carter wrote:
I couldn't imagine trying to polish something like this up with samples and editing and what have you. I guess it all kind of depends on your familiarity/comfort level with punk rockish type stuff.



well, not to dig into the topic before we listen to mixes.  there is a HUGE divide between sloppy playing and punk rock.  don't preach to me about punk rock, i grew up riding a skate board listening to minor threat, rights of spring, agent oragne, the descendents.....blah blah blah

this is not "punk rock".  the song has tons of vibe and reminds me A LOT of the white stripes.

and nothing irritates me more then a sloppy band trying to pass it off as comedy.

it's cool to "just have fun"  but don't tell me i "don't get the joke" when you can't even come close to dropping a down beat together

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 18, 2007, 06:03:16 PM
Quote:

Now I just need to tune the vocals....


lols
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 07:52:58 PM
I don't think anyone preached, J., and I certainly never questioned your punk rock badge of honor.  No need to jump down my ethernet hub.

When we originally did this stuff, the band set a very strict 'no edits, no samples' rule.  They both knew damn well they couldn't play drums like a pro, and didn't want to pretend like they could.  I can understand that. They played a few packed shows around Brooklyn, sold off the couple of hundred CD's they pressed on their own, and then went on to pursue other, much less sloppily played ventures.  If nothing else, it was a reaction to over produced, over edited, sample heavy music, and as far as the band was concerned hit the nail on the head. (and it was an excuse to infiltrate a bunch of bed stuy hipster Pratt Institute girls)

That said, I can also understand where you're coming from.  However, I'm sure it's tough without any details of the band, its members, the initial intent of the project to understand where I'm coming from.  

But if it's not punk rock, what do you call it then?  

For those of you tuning the vox - i think it's in D Locrian.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: briefcasemanx on July 18, 2007, 08:55:34 PM
The vocals are awesome, especially Ryans. He sounds like a skinny white Old Dirty Bastard in a few spots.

It sounds like Death From Above 1979 meets Blood Brothers meets The White Stripes, but way shittier than all those bands in an impossibly cool way.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on July 18, 2007, 09:56:57 PM
It makes me think of a slightly more demented Tom Waits...... and I like Tom Waits. I'm really enjoying this one. I didn't think I would.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 10:01:35 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 11:34

I think it's "If I'm gonna wake up a ghost, then I'd rather be comatose".  If I remember correctly, I'm pretty sure the song is about a drug addict. But.... with a sense... of humor.



I was really giving it the benefit of the doubt. My original thought was that it said: "man you gotta wake up the girls, I'd rather see camel toes."


j.hall wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 16:58

...i grew up riding a skate board listening to minor threat, rights of spring, agent oragne, the descendents.....blah blah blah



What about Black Flag, a-hole? LOL  Twisted Evil

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 18, 2007, 10:11:18 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 18:52

They both knew damn well they couldn't play drums like a pro, and didn't want to pretend like they could.



Maybe that's the reason I never heard tom 1, 2, or 3!

M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 18:52

If nothing else, it was a reaction to over produced, over edited, sample heavy music,



Well don't let 'em hear mine!

M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 18:52

For those of you tuning the vox - i think it's in D Locrian.



You kiddin'? Those vocals are priceless. The only questionable thing that was grating my eardrum like some fresh Parmesan was the "sing-y" little vocal in the bridge part. WAY off. Yet very scrumptious.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 10:18:17 PM
J-Texas -

I wouldn't have been surprised if that ended up in there. I chose this song in particular because it was the only one that actually had lyrics.

Ryan is real psyched to hear the mixes when they're done.  I'm pretty intrigued too.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 18, 2007, 10:24:37 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 18:52

For those of you tuning the vox - i think it's in D Locrian.



Lol.  Alright, I'll get right on it...  mine's gonna be the vlado boy band remix, so it's very important that it's all in tune.

J, I completely agree... to bring the rawk, you gotta hit the downbeat.  So I find a little editing of this one is in order.

But enough enough details about our treatments until the great unveiling.

Greg: The critics are mixed in this house... the three year old indeed hates it, but the 10 month old loves it.  

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 18, 2007, 10:28:04 PM
My cat surprisingly digs it too.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 18, 2007, 11:26:06 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 18:52

I don't think anyone preached, J., and I certainly never questioned your punk rock badge of honor.  No need to jump down my ethernet hub.



i climbed on a soap box, it wasn't personal, though it certainly seemed that way.

i worked with a really popular local band years ago that whenever anyone would criticise the band to the guitar player, he would ALWAYS say, "you just don't get the joke".  i finally asked him if he really thought people were supposed to "get it".  you're either tenacious D, or you're not.

honestly, i dig this "band".  i like how it's presented.  i just think with a couple nips and tucks it could go from something people blow off as amatuer to something people can't ignore.

did i edit my mix to flawless perfection.....hell no.  did i lock in the groove when needed while letting the tune be what it is.....hell yes.

sorry matt, didn't mean to gag your hub while attempting to swing a large d.....never mind, thanks for the tune!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 19, 2007, 12:42:24 AM
J -

I can see how my statements could've been taken as soap boxy too.  I wasn't referring to slight edits, and I can see when it'd be called for in this tune.  Everytime I hear of sample replacement, thoughts race through my brain of awful sounding fallout boy drums where every single snare hit sounds just like the one before it.  I'm pretty sample non-savvy unless it's in the hip hop context.  

It might be because I've never had a good sample replacer, don't want to buy one, and refuse to steal one....

And I still can't bring myself to hit the scissor button in nuendo on this one..... that, I'll chalk up to personal attachment.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 19, 2007, 09:58:06 AM
i decided to give this one a try (my first)! all the talk of 'noise' and 'metal' got my attention  Cool

i won't be using drum samples, but i will be calling upon its distant cousin: overblown room mics, heh heh..
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on July 19, 2007, 10:13:03 AM
Does anyone have some bandnames for me that do this style good?

I tried to make it sound good but from there on I have no clue where this should go productionwise. Normally the track tells me where it wants to go but this one is alien to me  Confused
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 19, 2007, 10:21:09 AM
ATOR wrote on Thu, 19 July 2007 09:13

Does anyone have some bandnames for me that do this style good?

I tried to make it sound good but from there on I have no clue where this should go productionwise. Normally the track tells me where it wants to go but this one is alien to me  Confused


Alien is good... go for it. You have two instruments and somebody screaming like their johnson is being pulled by a midget. I say again... go for it man! Dive right in. What feels right to you?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on July 19, 2007, 10:25:28 AM
This is my first IMP.  I am having a lot of fun with this one.  I just love mixing, period.  I have been laughing my ass off at Ryan's Vox at the very beginning when he is working his way to a scream.  Awesome!  Can't wait to hear what everyone else has done.

As far as pitch shifting goes, I am doing some of that too......but I am not pitch correcting anything.  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: briefcasemanx on July 19, 2007, 01:22:06 PM
in his newer projects does Ryan do cool vocal stuff like on the line "believe me I know exactly what it means to need"? If so I'm very interested in hearing it.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 19, 2007, 01:34:06 PM
briefcasemanx wrote on Thu, 19 July 2007 12:22

in his newer projects does Ryan do cool vocal stuff like on the line "believe me I know exactly what it means to need"? If so I'm very interested in hearing it.


If he doesn't, you can always listen to a Korn record.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 19, 2007, 01:46:10 PM
Most of the newer stuff has a wilco-ish alt country type feel, actually.  WAYYYYY different.

Mack's other stuff kind of reminds me of the Pogues.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Buzz on July 19, 2007, 01:48:18 PM
MAn thats some wacko stuff , I;m going over the top like they did !!!!

It's cool and catchy in a screaming cow being prod'ed kind of way LMFAO !! with a large glove of course.

LAter
Buzz

PS: it will be UGLY for sure !!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 19, 2007, 09:40:12 PM
"You're gonna scratch that itch!"
"Scratch it!"

Makes me laugh every time

I also kinda hope Vlad sneaks in a mix this time; imagine the possibilities!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 19, 2007, 11:33:38 PM
Careful Collapse wrote on Thu, 19 July 2007 20:40

"You're gonna scratch that itch!"
"Scratch it!"

Makes me laugh every time

I also kinda hope Vlad sneaks in a mix this time; imagine the possibilities!


I'm thinkin' this whole heroin thing!

By the way... I LOV$ the Macaulay Culkin thing!

http://www.thompsoncreative.com/public/03-06-06_macaulay_culkin.jpg

LOOK! I'M ALL GROWN UP!

This place is pretty dull without Vlad!

Matt - Are you Vlad? Your English is getting better!  Rolling Eyes
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 19, 2007, 11:57:56 PM
no, I am certainly NOT Vlad.

although, I'm sure his eurohaus remix would be a hoot!

I still haven't had a free second to do mine (I have the mixes we did years ago, but I kind of want to do it again, just for fun).  Probably tomorrow or the next day.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 20, 2007, 12:12:57 AM
John AND Chris Spencer meet ....


...Robert Smith
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: CHANCE on July 20, 2007, 10:48:11 AM
Bummer,, I am buried in work. Maybe I can join in on IMP #14
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: audio~geek on July 20, 2007, 12:47:25 PM
I just finished my mix, well my first attempt. Still sounds ...uhh... difficult.
Kind of hard to mix when the wife is like "can you mix something good for a change?" also "sounds like they gave two homeless guys a mic"  Rolling Eyes
I had fun anyway.
What was the name of the band and the song?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 20, 2007, 01:50:26 PM
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 20, 2007, 01:59:43 PM
i thought you were joking until i looked up the site in Myspace and there it was. i don't recommend doing that if you work in an office, by the way.

(and i did NOT cheat!)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 20, 2007, 02:03:33 PM
I might actually take the name post out til monday, since it might contaminate the jury.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: rankus on July 20, 2007, 02:04:04 PM
CHANCE wrote on Fri, 20 July 2007 07:48

Bummer,, I am buried in work. Maybe I can join in on IMP #14


Yep, me too.  (not complaining about the work though!)

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 21, 2007, 05:20:22 PM
I'M STOKED... CAN'T WAIT TO GET IT ON!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: dgbt on July 21, 2007, 09:24:19 PM
Uh...beat detective anyone?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on July 21, 2007, 11:24:00 PM
if i can get the time to finish, it's gonna get mixed warts and all. I don't have beat detective or the like, but not sweating that too much. I think i should be able to make a good mix independent of what i think of the playing. that aside, this seems to capture more a moment, like maybe a polaroid of these guys that day. not really meant to be the end all be all of performance, and it's fun in it's own way. if i saw them live, and bought the disk that was all autotuned and beat detected to death, i think i'd be a little disappointed.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on July 22, 2007, 01:58:05 AM
"...strict 'no edits, no samples' rule."

i'm glad i didn't read this thread until i finished the mix

no samples. but a few edits of the 2-track (let's just say that i managed to cut it down to <3 min...)

fun record!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 22, 2007, 02:42:36 AM
I just loaded the thing up for the first time and did my mix in one sitting...

Well HOLY SHIT J, what were you thinking?

*falling about laughing*

Comparisons? How about Led Zeppelin incredibly drunk and on Quaaludes? Falling off the stage, Jimmy Page can't even play a note but he got hold of a mic only it's a harp mic...

Oh MAN. Most fun IMP ever. Believe it or not, I liked it a whole bunch. But I'm gonna be really surprised if anyone got much mileage out of FIXING anything, because what would be left? This is literally nothing but SLOBBERING 'TUDE. It's quite awesome. J's right though that this is not punk. This is what punk was AGAINST. I hope I've done it justice Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 22, 2007, 09:22:36 AM
I always forget - is it midnight TONIGHT ? or midnight tomorrow?

As far as this being punk or not punk, I don't think it really makes a difference.  Wu tang and Ice Cube were my punk rock when I was a kid.  What used to be punk isn't punk anymore.



Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 22, 2007, 04:53:10 PM
the submission thread will go up inthe morning.  it will be locked at midnight (my time) tomorrow night (monday)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 22, 2007, 08:47:19 PM
j.hall wrote on Sun, 22 July 2007 16:53

the submission thread will go up inthe morning.  it will be locked at midnight (my time) tomorrow night (monday)


A further clarification... J is in US/Central time.

http://nist.time.gov/timezone.cgi?Central/d/-6

When the clock on that page strikes midnight... er, something about a pumpkin.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: southboundloco on July 22, 2007, 10:44:55 PM
hey what time is that in new zealand???? Embarassed
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 23, 2007, 10:18:26 AM
southboundloco wrote on Sun, 22 July 2007 22:44

hey what time is that in new zealand???? Embarassed


5 PM.

Take your time, add seven hours, and subtract a day... maybe two days, the date line is tricky.. Smile

Or just use this handy calculator.
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_US-MO.aspx?y= 2007&mo=7&d=24&h=0&mn=0
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 23, 2007, 11:31:11 AM
so, how much did you all edit this thing?

i'm normally a pretty hands-off guy, but i shifted some downbeats and replaced a few snare hits*. i also made a faux cymbal choke in the break.

did a bit of vocal editing too but that was aesthetic, not fixing.


*a drummer pet peeve i have: if you are going to do the two-sticks-on-the-snare hit thing, you have to have one stick slightly delayed or you just get this really weird 'pop' sound with no natural decay. sorry, had to replace those hits..
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 23, 2007, 11:32:40 AM
chrisj wrote on Sun, 22 July 2007 02:42

This is what punk was AGAINST.


Hmmm. Curious statement. Could you clarify? Just interested why you say this. I thought punk was against prog rock Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 23, 2007, 11:41:15 AM
osumosan wrote on Mon, 23 July 2007 11:32

chrisj wrote on Sun, 22 July 2007 02:42

This is what punk was AGAINST.


Hmmm. Curious statement. Could you clarify? Just interested why you say this. I thought punk was against prog rock Smile


It was... but punk was also a reaction against self-indulgent heavy metal wankery.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 23, 2007, 11:52:50 AM
Quote:

This is what punk was AGAINST.


i can't really agree. this stuff has more in common with the inspired amateurism of the new york dolls, ramones, sex pistols than modern Green Day mall punk stuff.

i don't really care what genre it is though.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 23, 2007, 11:57:17 AM
pg666 wrote on Mon, 23 July 2007 11:52


i don't really care what genre it is though.


Yup... honestly it's all blurred together now.

Bottom line is, this track rocks, and it was fun to work with.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Ryan Alfred on July 23, 2007, 11:57:42 AM
The official lyrics:


Oooh
OooOOh
OOooOOH
Oh
OOhh
oh
OOOoOOh

YEeeEEEEEEeeEEEEAAaaAAH

You gonna scratch that itch
Until you twitch and bleed ?
Believe me, I know exactly what it means to need

I said you're gonna wake up a ghost
She said I'd rather be comatose

You gonna scratch that itch
Until you twitch and bleed ?
Believe me, I know exactly what it means to need
Yeah, uh huh

I said you're gonna wake up a ghost
She said I'd rather be comatose
And if it's down you're gonna go
Well it's the only way I know

She's feelin so low
I won't let you go, I won't let you go
She's feelin so low
I won't let you go, I won't let you go
YEHAhaHAhAHah UH UH UH
Oh OhH OH
She's feelin so low
I won't let you go, I won't let you go
I won't let you go, I won't let you go
I won't let you go, I won't let you go
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Baddo on July 23, 2007, 01:19:09 PM
garret wrote on Mon, 23 July 2007 10:57

...Bottom line is, this track rocks, and it was fun to work with.





Yep, I second that.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 23, 2007, 02:38:33 PM
I'm glad everyone had fun with this, I didn't know what kind of reaction to expect to this stuff.  I haven't dug into the mixes yet, but I will probably tonight or tomorrow .  

I was torn between using the original 20 minute mix we did a few years ago and using the mix I did finished this morning, and decided that I liked the new vocal mix better...

I also (with J.'s permission) invited Ryan to come comment on the mixes too, this ought to be fun.

And for anyone curious, the bands name is S H I T C O P T E R.  Don't open their myspace at work.

Matt
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 23, 2007, 08:52:32 PM
i did some critiques over dinner. i'm not gonna have any spare time for the next week so i figured now is the time. sorry if it reads like gibberish; it was a write-as-you-go type thing..
...............

jhall: solid modern rock drum sound w/ tasteful reverb, nice! not really diggin' the stereo-to-mono bass stuff though (and the stereo parts are too 'woofy' for me). why no Mack vocals, even if only for the chorus parts? drum edits in the bridge sound awkward.

ATOR: i like the fuzz idea on the bass amp, but it's a little zingy. yikes! what's up with that snare? 808?? the distorted vocals are cool though. interesting effect in the bass break; it certainly fits this more 'industrial' interpretation.

garret: bass is too loud/drums are too quiet, and the bass stereo reverb is totally clashing with the dry drums. i could stand a little more vocals. i think the vocal panning could be more aggressive; middle or nearly all the way to the sides i say.

macbraddy: bass amp tone sounds great, the DI doesn't. the drums sound askew; too much overhead/room sound? odd compression too. certain snare hits are disappearing on me... and it came back for the bridge. hmmm, this one def. needs a bit more work.

J-Texas: bass sounds like its covered in mud in the intro/verses, but the distorted parts are pretty cool. snare sound is an improvement over the original but could be thicker. i like the vocals a lot. bass drum is a little conservative compared to everything else. nice roto-stereo bass at the end; how 70s! heh. this one is pretty strong overall, nice.

southboundloco: cool snare sound, it should be louder though.. and i really wish (along with the bass) it was centered. bass phaser is interesting but i'm not sure i'd do it for the whole tune. kick tone is a bit 'death metal' for this tune. i like the vocal delays in the break.

baddo: hehe, nice backward vocal intro! weird, unfitting McCartney-esque bass tone though, 'til it kicks in. snare sounds really thin/even more 'paper bag than the original. the break needed something to spice it up a bit. hmmm, not much else to say.

osumosan: bass is a little over the top, but i like the idea. drums sound huge! neat little Sepultura-like accents. cool vocal effect, but maybe a bit too drowned out. i like the long sustaining delays. i would have done a bit more drum editing during the bridge because the huge sample tones are clashing with each other on the sloppy hits. i like this one though; ambitious!

M_carter: i like the vocals, but they're way too loud. drums need some more treble/'air'. good bass sound, though i'd prefer it more centered (i'm starting to see a trend here. i think it's time to re-examine some Phil Spector recordings folks!). i wish Mack wasn't as buried in the mix. what's up with the lack of snare in the end? cool outro vocal effects! (ps.. i did go to the myspace page after all and liked that mix a bit more.)

Careful collapse: "i still got the goods man", hehe, nice inclusion! this mix sounds kinda sounds like mine so far, heh. weird bass in the versus; it keeps moving in and out. hehe, nice suprise vocal pauses! what's up with the bass mutes/weirdness? whoa, totally changes gears at the end... i would have used this sound for most of the song quite frankly.

scottoliphant: now that's some vocal distortion! quiet intro was a little dull. nice, reverby drum sound though! this mix is pretty rockin and actually making good use of the stereo bass! this one pretty much sounds finished, although i personally would have cleaned up some of the crucial downbeats. besides the limp intro, very good!!

I-Combs: the bass is a bit too Boss 'Metal Zone' for me. kinda weird drum mix... do i hear a cowbell sample?? nice vocal effects. mix is oddly scooped of midrange overall. too much cymbal pumping towards the end.

ChrisJ: too much canned verb on bass/vocals.. doesn't fit the mostly dry drum sound. odd sounding snare.  bass sounds weird when he goes up to the higher strings.

TomC: pretty good bass sound, drums sound dry and strange; are there no close mics in the mix? vocal effect is a little bizarre and that Mack scream comes out of nowhere (and never comes back..?). bass is overwhelming everything in the rockin' bridge.

Andrew Brierley: hehe, the vocal effect is a riot! i would have done something to the DI signal to make it sound less... DI signal.  drums could use some bottom (snare and bass drum). whoa, what just happened? oh, it's coming back... strange edit/fade-in.

Greg_Dixon: stereo bass needs a little more low end on the left side; it's lopsided as is. vocals maybe a tad loud in parts; needs compressed more. decent, if not extraordinary drum sound. the climax of the song (bridge) is anti-climatic.

maxim: whoa, somethings not right here... you need to check this out. glitches near the end.

Audio~geek: good snare/kick sounds.. not so great cymbals. bass is kinda weird too. i kinda like the vocals, it sounds like someone is being tortured in a bathroom, heh. good ideas here, it just needs balanced better (and the cymbal flutter/distortion needs fixin')
............

all for now..
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 23, 2007, 11:13:22 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 18 July 2007 22:28

My cat surprisingly digs it too.  


same with my two cats who are taking a nap digging it.

My first thought (shit, download error, no guitars?) still nags me a bit. Seems like the download got cut off on the snare channel - at which point I thought this was a deliberate inclusion in this "round of challenge," so I download a second time.

"Damn, really no guitars on this one."

Once I was done, it doesn't bother me anymore.

A little sloppy playing, especially the drums...but it's all good!

This was fun!

juergen
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 23, 2007, 11:40:46 PM
Crap, it seems it's not uploading...argh. Yousendit not working either...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: briefcasemanx on July 24, 2007, 12:54:11 AM
I uploaded mine and it wouldn't work, then uploaded again without spaces in the filename and it still wouldn't work.

J-Texas wrote on Thu, 19 July 2007 13:34

briefcasemanx wrote on Thu, 19 July 2007 12:22

in his newer projects does Ryan do cool vocal stuff like on the line "believe me I know exactly what it means to need"? If so I'm very interested in hearing it.


If he doesn't, you can always listen to a Korn record.


Hay thanx for the help! Now I am satisfied with my life!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: homerecordingodyssey on July 24, 2007, 02:37:05 AM
pg666 wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 10:52


Andrew Brierley: hehe, the vocal effect is a riot! i would have done something to the DI signal to make it sound less... DI signal.  drums could use some bottom (snare and bass drum). whoa, what just happened? oh, it's coming back... strange edit/fade-in.




I did the Strange edit fade in because I wanted it to sound like it was coming from far off in the distance so I faded from huge amounts of reverb back to some and from low volume to high at the same time.

No real purpose for it, just thought I would play with things I would never do in a "normal" track.

I have not listened to all the others yet, anyone else do anything strange for no real reason?

With this track I don't know that anything done to it can be considered strange considering the original material. Smile

Andrew
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on July 24, 2007, 04:52:39 AM
PG666

ATOR: i like the fuzz idea on the bass amp, but it's a little zingy. yikes! what's up with that snare? 808?? the distorted vocals are cool though. interesting effect in the bass break; it certainly fits this more 'industrial' interpretation.


I fully agree. I fell in the 'need more zing' trap while in reality it was just my ears getting numb and tired. The snare kept coming out like this, it was either this big 707 80ties discosnare or a wet newspaper. I'm always struggling to get great snares with the attack, body, crack and ambience I like. I did add some snap form a sample but what you hear is 90% original.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on July 24, 2007, 05:57:10 AM
brian wrote:

"whoa, somethings not right here... "

that's the point of this track innit?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 24, 2007, 09:51:38 AM
I couldn't even imagine where guitars would play into something like this.  

The challenge for me on this one was to go back and have ample time to mix something that we originally did in a half an hour the day before releasing it (the original mix sessions are lost).   It's kind of like chasing your tail, since you have a version of the song already stuck in your head, and all this time to overthink the situation.  

I haven't had time to listen to all the mixes still, things have been pretty busy at work. I agree with PG666's comment about the drums on mine, they are pretty dark.  I like the level of the vocals after the first verse, but I think my bass could be louder through the whole mix.  My problem with IMP's is just never knowing when to stop, so I'll get something to a point that I like, and I keep dicking with it till I lose my place.

The ones I have heard turned out pretty interesting.  I'll try to dig into them soon.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 24, 2007, 10:10:09 AM
maxim wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 10:57

brian wrote:

"whoa, somethings not right here... "

that's the point of this track innit?


it was skipping all over the place at the end. maybe my download messed up somehow... dunno.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 24, 2007, 11:21:58 AM
M Carter wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 09:51

I couldn't even imagine where guitars would play into something like this.  


Hehe, there's prob a lot of diff opinions on who could put what where, but for the first few listens, I wished a guitar would just play along the same riffs as the bass, doubling it...

But then I sorta totally got used to just the bass being there.

Oh yeah, and that last part that repeats "i won't let you go" a few times, where the bass plays fifth's - what a sense of resolve hearing more than one note - that part alone makes it worth waiting for it (there's other reasons to keep listening to the tune, but this is a big one for me).

The song really grows on you.

Juergen
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 24, 2007, 01:20:09 PM
Totally on the fifths! I almost harmonized the bass for the rest of the song, but as you point out, it's great for the dynamics.

Lovin' CJWall's mix. Is that a low tech or a high tech effect on the head and tail? Classic. It could use a couple drum edits (I should talk). The break's snare could be tweaked when the 16ths come in.

And thanks for the comments PG666. I'm going to dig in myself after this couple a days (work, ya know).
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: spoon on July 24, 2007, 01:45:08 PM
osumosan wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 12:20

Totally on the fifths! I almost harmonized the bass for the rest of the song, but as you point out, it's great for the dynamics.

Lovin' CJWall's mix. Is that a low tech or a high tech effect on the head and tail? Classic. It could use a couple drum edits (I should talk). The break's snare could be tweaked when the 16ths come in.

And thanks for the comments PG666. I'm going to dig in myself after this couple a days (work, ya know).



Your mix was my personal favorite.
To me, this was a difficult piece, so I am particularly impressed when someone's mix made it work.
 
Your mix did that for me.  I think there were some others that had more aggressive bass FX that I would have liked on yours, but now I am being picky arent I.

Cheers,
David
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: cjwallgor on July 24, 2007, 09:05:53 PM
osumosan wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 12:20

Totally on the fifths! I almost harmonized the bass for the rest of the song, but as you point out, it's great for the dynamics.

Lovin' CJWall's mix. Is that a low tech or a high tech effect on the head and tail? Classic. It could use a couple drum edits (I should talk). The break's snare could be tweaked when the 16ths come in.

And thanks for the comments PG666. I'm going to dig in myself after this couple a days (work, ya know).


Thanks dude!  It's a plugin called Tapestop that can be a bitch to use, but when it works, it's great.  It being free doesn't hurt either..

I agree on the edits and the strange snare sound in the break.  Oh well, two hours into a mix only gets you so far, haha.

Wish I would have had time for a little more automation w/the vocals, all I had was rough leveling between the two.  Oh well, thanks bro!

Charlie
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 24, 2007, 09:19:52 PM
finished my reviews while taking a break from packing (ugh..)
...........................

CJWall: holy shit, that's some bong-rattling bass! snare sounds thin in comparison. some of the overall pumping is fatiguing; did you give this a bit of the 'Vlado the impaler'? not much else to say other than this one rocks quite hard! love the bass; Billy Anderson would be proud!

Fantomas: not sure i dig the delay between the bass signals; there's nothing cementing it in the mix. drums sound pretty strange and paper-y; not sure i would have gone the mono route for this type of rock. vocals sound like a rough mix. kinda neat buildup with the flanger and then it gets thin again in the rockin' part. neat flange on the outro vocal... the rest of the vocals could use some pizzazz like that.

briefcasemanx: the snare sample sounds good and blends in well, but the kick is a little loud and doesn't really fit the rest of the kit. something about the bass is rubbing me the wrong way EQ wise. hey, someone else did the left/right vocal thing, nice! it seems natural with the call and response vocals. distortion sounds stylish on the "melodic" vocal; a little Strokes/Killers-y. i would have done a bit of editing on the drums considering the precise samples you picked, but this is pretty well done!

Juergen: pretty no frills mix so far, except with delay on the DI.. which works ok in some parts but not in others. neat vocal reverb in the break, gives it a nice big climax. good vocal delays in the bridge; though the slick atmosphere it introduces seems a bit at odds with the raw sound of the instruments. it sounds like the music took a back seat to the vocals priority-wise.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 24, 2007, 09:55:11 PM
osumosan

Man oh man!

No offense to ANYONE here... but that was the only mix that I stayed interested in the whole time. Start to finish. That was definitely the coolest treatment in my mind's ear.

Now the bitter beer face. Maybe I was holding on thinking that somewhere in there I might hear the vocals. I was struggling the whole time man. Such a waste, because they were the highlight of the mix to me. That snare was really throwing me off too. I see where you were going with that, but I think you could have used some more time. Little ghost pickups would be at least at a different volume and a little more on time. (The drumming was already off enough) I've never heard a snare overtake the kick. LOL. The delay stuff was excellent. Tweak those things and IMHO... as Jermaine Jackson said... it will tickle my fancy, it will excite my soul.

JT

ps - I'll get to the rest of you guys later  Twisted Evil
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 24, 2007, 10:46:42 PM
Should we have a reviews thread? I'm going to start my usual critical mayhem...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Ryan Alfred on July 25, 2007, 12:07:09 AM
This is Ryan, the bassist and, uhm, singer, on the IMP13 track. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to all the mixes, but so far the one that I think gets the point across the best is Osumosan. Seriously over the top, just like the performance needs. Everything's crazy, distorted as hell like it would be live with our 8 speaker system, and the vocals get lost, just like they do when a shitty PA is competing with a band that's not paying attention. Not sure why you took the sweet minor second dissonance out of the last break down, but that's besides the point.

I think a track like this is an interesting study in what makes something sound "right" in recorded music these. As an artist, I am constantly conflicted with the choice to auto-tune vocals (in other projects, obviously), correct slightly off percussion, and the like. Similarly, as someone with a really extensive background in audio editing, sequencing, and synthesis (again, obviously more so in other projects), it strikes me that making records these days has gone beyond simply recording what a given band of musicians sounds like, and can be though of as a way of perfectly manifesting an idea.

With the advent of technology, including everything from recording with a click track all the way to autotuning a lead vocal, we can push and pull and fiddle with audio until it's perfect, and we can do it in ways that are only subtly noticable to the pros themselves. This sets an impossibly high standard for any band that wants their records to measure up as "professional".

I personally view this in the same light as I do a lot of other parts of our culture that are geared towards outward perfection through artificial means, like breast implants and face lifts. It's a shifting of emphasis from what something is onto what we think it ought to be. It seems to me that the essence of a thing is lost when it's identity is "corrected". Fake breasts look great under a shirt, but they feel SO weird.

It's a taste call, though. Some guys like Maxim, and some bands are going for perfect, the aesthetic idea of that perfection being more important and more intrinsic to the nature of their art than capturing a performance. I've done a lot of dance music in my day, and one of my idols is BT, the king of obsessive time correcting.

The idea of this band was to flip off the norm, in the spirit, though not the classic sound, of punk rock. The norm we were raging against wasn't anything political, rather, it was against the fact that nowadays even so-called hardcore bands time correct and auto-tune and edit their music to perfection, while still trying to pass off the "Fuck you, we don't care about your standards" attitude. Our response was to really not care, to make music so we could have fun and scream our heads off and not have any of the pressures of our other "serious" bands. We barely wrote lyrics, we rarely rehearsed, and we recorded just like we played: one shot, whatever comes out. With this in mind, it seems a strange and inappropriate thing to attempt to clean it up and bring it up to modern standards because feeling trapped by these modern standards is why we made this band in the first place.

Do the edits in some of these mixes make us sound like a better band than we are, like a Wonderbra ? Absolutely. Would anybody listening know the difference ? Never. Would the edits make it more listenable for a wider audience ? Probably. Do these questions miss the point of the artist's purpose ? Depends. For me, for this project, definately.

It's classic. Butch Vig made Nirvana a record they hated, and Steve Albini made them one they liked. Knowing that, I still like "Nevermind" better. But is it up to me, Vig, or even the millions that probably agree with me to decide that ?

Thanks for indulging my thoughts. I look forward to listening to all of them.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on July 25, 2007, 12:19:57 AM
maybe, this belongs in the "philosophy" thread, but the END point of the artwork is the audience

as a songwriter, i'm happiest with my songs BEFORE they are written, whilst they are still an emotion

everything that follows that impulse, imo, is clunky and inelegant in comparison

i don't care that kurt had issues with "nevermind', i also prefer it to "in utero", but someone else might not...

that's where it gets tricky, 'coz there's no standardised "audient", so all you can do is put your "audient" hat on and push on

that's what i tried to do with this track

i tried to imagine what i would like to hear if i WERE a fan of this outfit

by no means do i have the skills or the attention span to pull it off, but this is what the imp's are for, innit?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 25, 2007, 12:32:33 AM
Isn't this all a bunch of contradiction?

You say you like the "over the top" thing, but that took "over the top" mixing. I'll bet that's not how it really would sound live (even on a sh&tty PA).

It would probably sound like it did... a garage recording. I didn't mean that to be a stab. You guys might have been doing this as an F.U. type of thing, making it sloppy and in your face. But how was anyone mixing this project supposed to know that?

We mixed it as we thought it should sound. And frankly, I thought it should sound better than it did, so I did it that way. Moving some parts, masking sounds, controlling the vocals.

I agree with most of what you are saying about music these days. Read some of the other arguments that I've made. It would be totally to your liking man. Putting out a jokingly shitty track and berating people for wanting to change it, or help it out (not knowing that it's a joke) is crazy.

THIS IS WHERE THE PRODUCER PART COMES IN.

I guess I didn't speak up about this before, J. I would have said during tracking: "man let's do this one more time... I know you've got it in you." or "great track, let me just punch that intro and it will be great."

You think you would get angry at an outside party... a potential audience... your first audience, letting you know that something was off? This is where the ratio gets askew and what Major Mike said about caring.

Yes, I could collect $200 after passing "go", but would either of us be satisfied? Probably not.

I've heard some really good mixes of the original tracks, but they are not my favorites. I did what I thought was right.

DO I SOUND LIKE VLAD?

OH NOOOOOOOOO! (insert the McCaully Caulkin picture here)

Once again... must be the wine talking.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 01:26:42 AM
URGH.  

I had a bunch of reviews written and then I hit the wrong button on damn firefox.  I'm just going to go through some highlights then.

First, mine. This was a really hard mix for me because our first time through this project was such a thoughtless project.  We found a delay that sounded like screetching children, threw the bass through 4 or 5 amp sims and it all just kind of gelled. The first time I tried to go for the scissors in Nuendo, I was told "absolutely not, that's SO not what this is about".  This time, I was stuck on trying 'do what I had done, but make it better' and don't feel that I got what I wanted.

I agree with Ryan as far as osumosan nailing it.  The drums in this mix make me want to walk down my block punching out car windows.  The vocals are a bit extreme, but I'm alright with it because everything else is so balls.

Audiogeek is my number 2 fave on this mix.  If the bass matched the vocals, it'd be damn near on the mark.  

Juergen's mix feels close to where I wanted mine to go.  

My philosophy towards record making is pretty aligned with Ryan's (although I think In Utero is far superior to Nevermind).  We both have a background in 90's hardcore and those early Wu Tang records are some of my all time favorite records, with the flammy snares, the off beat gun cocks for upbeats, and samples that don't quite loop right. It's ok that shitcopter misses downbeats, because the music slaps you in the face so hard that it doesn't matter.  Listening to music like this for that kind of tightness is like listening to Kenny G because you like the vocals.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 01:39:18 AM
J_Texas -

It's a funny thing, the 'mixing without any prior knowledge'.  I do realize that in some people's worlds, that's how things are.  But I'm also aware that most engineers that work like that are hired for THEIR sound.  

On the contrary, there are a whole lot of engineers that are with projects from start to finish.  Most of our clients are like that.  
 
That's what makes IMP tough AND interesting, the lack of direction.  It's also what drives the discussion.

And live, shitcopter was pretty fucking off the wall.  8 speaker cabs and guitar/bass amps with a bunch of pedals and a sick blues guitarist playing drums like animal from the muppets.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 25, 2007, 01:39:46 AM
Wow, I'm glad a bunch of you like my mix. Maybe contradiction is what it's about. As a client, what you think something should sound like and what it really would sound like given a certain set of circumstances are almost always different. The mixer's audience is the artist and the end listeners simultaneously. I've had years of trying to interpret my singers "intent" and Ryan's language reminds me of him.

I definitely had a leg up here because this kind of stuff is where I come from, so I was not confused about the intent. Not to say that everyone else was confused, but people were thrown off and were mislabling the track. I'm new-ish here, so let's see how I drown in the Burt Bacharach context.

I edited and fixed some things and I thought I could have gone further but I only did it to not call attention to certain clams insted of thinking of it as polishing. As an aside, some freaky stuff happened during the mix where the voices and the bass were creating a totally electronic sounding ghost part.

Anyway, I wanted the drums to kill so I pushed the compression hard which is not at all what it would sound like literally through a PA, but if you were in front of the PA, your ears would totally compress the sound.  At the same time, doing that to the overheads could make the cymbals wash and phase too much, so I kept those more (but far from completely) clean. I liked Jason Thompson's mix where the bass kicked in during the responses to the vocals and I'd want to ride that some. Like kicking in a boost pedal.

I also stuck the vocals together which maybe helped the live feel a bit, but I lost the minor second that way. Also, I thought everything had to be as one unified thrashing, which is probably why the delays are pushed back too far.

Thanks for the feedback. Can't wait for IMP14.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 25, 2007, 02:42:26 AM
The IMP 13 Horrible Trainwreck Critique Thread

Okay, so this tune is a mess! Not only that, I don't think it's much of anything if you cleaned it up and made it precise. So for this one, it's a bit like the ol' "A&R ten second trash bin crit" in which if it doesn't grab you in ten seconds it's trash-binned- except it's over a longer period, and the ONLY concern is, does this make the tune somehow cool?

No logic about it, no attempt to justify- it's gonna be a sloppy trainwreck of a crit that hopefully will describe what the tracks seem like, and whether they RAWWWK. This will depend entirely on how things are conveyed because there's practically no tune or performances there to work with.

With that understood, we start with...

Briefcaseman- feels like it's trying to be serious. You get the sense that someone in here is 'steady' or 'solid', and lines pop out like they were intended to be that way. Something is lost Razz

iCombs- ratty much? Very Happy Oh my God, this is awful. Giving this full range is just fatal. Pretty hi-hats like glitter on a corpse. Sorry man, you need to work with nice music, not this Very Happy I think you'll find this track worked better if you forgot about fidelity and just made things scream in the midrange.

Jason Thompson- yeah, MIDRANGE, exactly what I was talking about! It still feels a little like it's trying for 'fi' but this makes me want to bang my head and make The Horns a lot. It's got that explosive quality and the roar I need to hear from this track in order to dig it. My GOD this is a fucking mess. It's a train-wreck and I'm loving it. This man understands this sort of noise Very Happy in fact, this is what I was wanting to do and didn't. YEAH.

TomC- Pretty much the same thing but not as much. It's rawer, dryer, and that makes it less gloriously horrible. I'm also noticing that understanding the words isn't making me like the vocals more- I'm getting a very good picture of the performance but it's not lifting me, I'm sort of scrutinizing it, like it's pinned onto the song, in the manner of some kind of strange bug Smile Yeah, I definitely don't like the vocal being too separate here.

IMP13 FINAL 1 320kbps- I'm not critting you because it said to use 192K and you're the only dude who insisted on using 320K, which didn't actually help your mix. Laters Very Happy

Andrew Brierly- Whee, got the bombastic thing going on! This one's CREEPY which is kinda neat. Reminding me of the Cramps, that kind of alarming presence on disturbing people. The drop-out and slow build is an interesting move which seems just as good as the way it's originally done, and I don't often feel that about big arrangement changes. I think this is good, I like, though it's a bit too scarey for me to listen to for pleasure Very Happy

Baddo- "Alll aboooard!" Wait, this isn't 'Crazy Train'! Well spotted, though! This feels immediately plausible- some kind of huge monstrous over-the-top rock mayhem akin to the worst of the Stooges. Interestingly, I like this better- in the sense that it doesn't creep me out in spite of the backwards foolishness. Must be the way the vocals are handled, they seem friendlier. Something's wrong in that slow build, the raw tracks felt more driving somehow. Timing in the drums seems just different somehow. Mostly I like it but there are times when I don't.

carefulcollapse- I recognize somebody else who didn't fix drums! Some of those falling-down-stairs moments are very familiar to me... By the same token there are places where I thought the original drums had this wonderful amateur bashingness and here it is retained completely. Also, it's interesting how natural and organic the voices sound. I'd be interested in the vocal chain on this mix. In general this doesn't impress me in a big way but it's LIKEABLE in a big way, particularly the way it clings to the human outbursts and madness of the artists Smile

ChrisJ- sux Very Happy LOL I R INVENTING PLUGZ. True that the drums are awful dry. I do like a lot of the sounds. Very pointy, impacty version without going all treble-fry. Voted most likely to blow your MIDRANGE horns while killing you with loud Very Happy

Greg Dixon- Dry as a Saltine cracker. Boy, I can sure hear everything, but why doesn't it feel more roaring and distorted? This is totally a punk band when they went into a studio and it had THREE ADATS DUDE. Everything crisply delineated. I like all the sounds, they just refuse to form a stew for me. In fact it's very cool how reasonable troublesome instruments like the drums sound here, there's just that dryness. I'm going to guess Greg doesn't add a lot of fake digital distortion to things and is mixing ITB? This is one case in which that's a hard path to take. Oh, and correct me if I guessed totally wrong so I can straighten myself out Smile

juergen- Hey, this sounds kinda big! I'm thinking things are being fixed. The drums sound like the real thing but it still fits. The vocals are swimming around in a big hall but that's OK. This is an interesting one, very listenable, for better or for worse there's virtually none of that 'let's fuck around and play really loud' quality, it sounds like a professional show. That's decidedly a double-edged sword with this band but you carried it off Smile

pg666- Weird, it's like the mix isn't really sure what's the important track, so everything sort of politely takes turns and nothing gets too out of hand. Which is kind of a 'yikes' with this band. Actually some things like the bass are stepping out with a bit of personality- but it's bugging me. This mix sounds like almost everything it was seen as a problem and hated. As a result it feels really inhibited and stifled. I guess if I'm reading that right, the lesson is to not mix stuff that you hate too much Smile

Scott Oliphant- Wow! Holy SHIT! Okay, dude, you LOVED this too much. It's cracking me up- holy shit, who knew this stuff could be that much more obnoxious and violent? MASSIVE PROPS for just the sheer audacity of it. There's a problem in that it kind of hurts- it's not making me want to keep listening, I kind of want to turn it off, but OMG does this ever convey the  manaical intensity of the tune. This is AWESOME even if it's about 50% too much. I particularly like the way it hangs together and doesn't leave any parts left out or bland. FULL SCALE ASSAULT. RESPECT SIR. phew, it stopped, and now I never have to listen to it again Very Happy

ATOR- Ow, kinda ratty. What a nutty snare! Sure fills up space. There's a fine line between this and really painful and unpleasant to listen to... definitely in the 'mixer is a third band member' school, it's harshly sculpted so you can't ignore the presence of the knob-twister. Reminding me strangely of Nine Inch Nails. Hey, flanges! I want this either to come down a notch or go up a notch (but pull all the tracks back a bit while making them more tonally extreme). Props for including the vocal stupidity at the end!

garret- I'm getting the feeling 'pretty straight'. It feels like what was on the tracks, except there's a spring reverb there. This differs from some of the other versions in that the mix isn't getting into the spirit of the thing. It's neither cringing in horror and trying to make the music go away, or cackling and cranking on knobs, so it comes off like they put up some mics and that was it. Don't think this worked, for this music.

maxim- Wow, what's with the bass? There's a sort of crackle, and the drums are fading out. This feels lightweight. If you only have pounding sloppy drums and a bass, and you take out the pounding of the drums and the bass of the bass, WTF? This would have to be a lot more crisply played for this approach to work, and it's not. Sorry Razz

osumosan- LOUD! So this is what the band had in mind? It sure is big! The loudness prevents there from being any more focused impacts like in Scott Oliphant's. i think I 'get' the vocal balance here, and it's an interesting judgement call- the vocals ARE the missing guitars. It's like they're not there to be present as vocalists, they're just rasping screams. That's cool, and it totally works and makes sense, but I just don't find it as appealing as bringing out the vocals as people (OK, bad, SICK people, but people). This is basically the definitive BIG NOISE. A band like this, all the songs would sound like that, you couldn't tell them apart, and their gigs would be empty except for one dude and for him it's the best concert EVAR. ...and maybe that's the point. Doesn't bother me, I get to want different things than the band if it pleases me, and I do. I want more personality and charisma. I've spent enough time in really LOUD PRACTICE SPACES, I know what that sounds and feels like and don't need more at this point. Give me some different angle that makes it more than just THAT SOUND. There's more to life than THAT SOUND. Okay, not much more, but still Wink

audio~geek- Now here's someone who's happy twisting knobs. This one feels like someone was having fun twisting them knobs, there's a bizarre organicness. Like ATOR, you're very aware of the mixer, but audio~geek seems a bit more to be jamming the sound WITH the band rather than in spite of the band. A lot of this is pretty cheesey stuff, but so's the song, it hangs together somehow. I know a band that is just the way this feels, and they're crazy, funny bastards Smile this turned out to be one of the mixes where I liked the people making that horrible racket.

Fantomas- Hard to know what to say (getting kind of tired...). Snare's weird. Things are going up and down in volume. I think what's happening is that this mix is sound oriented, and it's pulled some worthwhile sounds out of its pocket but having done so, they kinda sit there and the other parts aren't helping them. This mix feels confused, like it's trying to go somewhere but it's stuck in the quicksand of the original song, and there's too little that's inspired (in a NORMAL sense) to latch onto. Compare with Scott, or Jason Thompson- in this track, if you couldn't love the very obnoxiousness of it, you were pretty screwed Smile

J Hall- Why am I thinking STRAIGHT? I wouldn't have guessed it but J seems to be one of the guys trying to find the stadium rock heart of the track. Maybe that's not so unexpected. I hear competence in the way things keep switching around to create interest, but it's the same story as Fantomas in an infinitely better-crafted way. I don't like the band that much in this mix. They're not good enough to respect and they're not flipped-out and demented enough to love. The craftsmanship is really good, really really good, but it just isn't making me LIKE these guys. Characteristic- editing out that really stupid obnoxious part with the voice at the end, that went on forever. WHY? I can see that anybody would draw the line SOMEWHERE but man... so few of you saw anything in that, and it was so hilariously, gratituously, UNPRECEDENTEDLY retarded Very Happy

M Carter- Somehow I'm thinking 'eighties', maybe it's the reverb, or the intensity of the vocals. I'm warming to this, because of the amount of character pouring off the vocals. There's little details popping up and they're the right flavor of obnoxious- vocal echoes spiraling upward, silliness like that. This isn't lighting me on fire, but all the same I find it likeable. OMG, and WHY am I totally not surprised that this dude ran with ALL the vocal idiocy at the end, up to the 'GOODBYE!'? M Carter, I love you for that. I didn't even go that far myself Very Happy

CJ Wall- Whoa, this sounds different. Hardcore sounds, slamming. Are you a metal guy? Not a big timing-fixer, that's for sure- the tracks are extremely unquantized. It feels like power music, but without so much of the humor value- it sounds like these guys are very serious, but failing. Making them seem convincingly serious is pretty cool, actually, though it falls into that trap where I'm not finding them that likeable and not cool enough to really respect. Even the vocal stupidity at the end is turned ominous. You MUST be a metal guy Wink

macbraddy- raspy, pounding- I like how this is just off-kilter enough to not force me to take it as Very Serious. It's wonky, stuff's all over the place in stereo, and highlighting the vocals without making them too manly and testosterone-laden. There's a certain plainitive wonkiness in the vox that can be taken away somehow, and here it's sticking around.

I FINISHED! WHEW! Very Happy

I'm going back to listen to: mine, a bit, in the light of all my critting, Jason Thompson's, and some of Scott Oliphant's Smile

(and he did!)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: cjwallgor on July 25, 2007, 07:07:07 AM
chrisj wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 01:42


CJ Wall- Whoa, this sounds different. Hardcore sounds, slamming. Are you a metal guy? Not a big timing-fixer, that's for sure- the tracks are extremely unquantized. It feels like power music, but without so much of the humor value- it sounds like these guys are very serious, but failing. Making them seem convincingly serious is pretty cool, actually, though it falls into that trap where I'm not finding them that likeable and not cool enough to really respect. Even the vocal stupidity at the end is turned ominous. You MUST be a metal guy Wink


LOL.  Awesome call dude, I am indeed a 'metal' guy per se' but I love to write/mix/work with a lot of different genres.  I'm just partial to very modern, slamming sounds Smile

My first IMP has gone fairly smooth!  wooooo, haha.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on July 25, 2007, 07:38:30 AM
Hey guys, mine has been up for a bit but no one has given it a listen/critique yet.  It's named "IMP13_Ryst.mp3".  Smile

I will be posting my reviews later today.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 25, 2007, 10:21:44 AM
Quote:

pg666- Weird, it's like the mix isn't really sure what's the important track, so everything sort of politely takes turns and nothing gets too out of hand. Which is kind of a 'yikes' with this band. Actually some things like the bass are stepping out with a bit of personality- but it's bugging me. This mix sounds like almost everything it was seen as a problem and hated. As a result it feels really inhibited and stifled. I guess if I'm reading that right, the lesson is to not mix stuff that you hate too much


thanks for the critique, but i just wanted to say i did not hate this track at all! it's far closer to both the type of bands i've worked with in the past and the type of music i feel like i 'understand' than past IMPs. i thought most of the stuff was tracked pretty well; i loved the way the bass amp sounded. i liked the spontaneous vocals, and only trimmed out things i thought came off as "in jokes" or just sort of weak.

a problem i'm starting to suspect with this IMP thing is that after listening to the raw tracks 50 times or whatever, people are gonna gravitate towards the mixes with the most surprising effects. i liked a few of those mixes quite a bit (which were done in a musical way), but a lot of the time it came off as gimmicky; while ignoring more basic (albeit 'boring') elements of the mix like instrument balances or vocal clarity.

i'm not trying to dodge criticism or anything; there are elements of my mix i would like to improve.. but i just think we all need to be careful about what we perceive as 'style' or 'vibe'. it could very well already be there.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 11:09:08 AM
pg666  -

I can't really remember what we used on this in the tracking.  I know it was an old gretsch drumset with a 20" kick and a really deep snare drum.  The amp was an ampeg B15 cranked pretty hard.  

I think we spent about a half an hour on setup and an hour tracking the six songs we did.  

If I recall, the rooms were U47's and the overheads were U67's.  

I keep bugging these guys to reunite for another record, but I'm not sure it'll ever happen.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: audio~geek on July 25, 2007, 11:29:28 AM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 00:26


Audiogeek is my number 2 fave on this mix.  If the bass matched the vocals, it'd be damn near on the mark.  


So by this do you mean the vocals were better than bass, or the other way?
wooo! I'm #2! thanks!

chrisj wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 01:42


audio~geek- Now here's someone who's happy twisting knobs. This one feels like someone was having fun twisting them knobs, there's a bizarre organicness. Like ATOR, you're very aware of the mixer, but audio~geek seems a bit more to be jamming the sound WITH the band rather than in spite of the band. A lot of this is pretty cheesey stuff, but so's the song, it hangs together somehow. I know a band that is just the way this feels, and they're crazy, funny bastards Smile this turned out to be one of the mixes where I liked the people making that horrible racket.



Thanks Chris
Which stuff was cheesy?

some details of the mix:
done in PT LE 7.3
I got rid of the 2 toms and room tracks.
I didn't edit the drums or autotune anything.
The bass was 3 tracks, I used a send on the DI to an aux where I used Camelcrusher to make it distorted and compressed. The plugin was copied to the bass amp track and distortion disabled and levels were matched. The distorted tracks were panned about half left and right and DI centered.

The vocals: I wanted to make the screamed parts more aggressive, various distortion plugs didn't do the trick so I tried Soundhack Decimate and that was just right. I put that on an aux with a bandpass filter and gate after. The gate was keyed by the same as the track input because decimate creates noise when left on its own. Each vocal track had this effect, and I used volume automation where I needed it. The decimate settings were 1.73 bits and 1 sample.
I used TLS 2095LA, Flux Bittersweet and Widebug on the mixbus aux and Maxim on the 2 mix.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 25, 2007, 11:34:08 AM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 00:39

J_Texas -

It's a funny thing, the 'mixing without any prior knowledge'.  I do realize that in some people's worlds, that's how things are.  But I'm also aware that most engineers that work like that are hired for THEIR sound.  

On the contrary, there are a whole lot of engineers that are with projects from start to finish.  Most of our clients are like that.  
 
That's what makes IMP tough AND interesting, the lack of direction.  It's also what drives the discussion.

And live, shitcopter was pretty fucking off the wall.  8 speaker cabs and guitar/bass amps with a bunch of pedals and a sick blues guitarist playing drums like animal from the muppets.  


Hey that's cool man. But I don't know Shitcopter. Never seen them either. So going in blind, I had to make it sound as good as possible, because it needed help. I did it the way I thought it sounded good, and just raw did not sound good to me.

Having the guy from the band come on and say ehhhh. You didn't get the joke. That's not going in blind, that's misleading.

Yes. It's true that a client would come to you for YOUR sound. But, they wouldn't have something specific in mind and let you work on it and say "that's not what I was thinking at all... you didn't get it! We all switched instruments and called it band. It was supposed to sound bad."

That wouldn't happen in the real world, and I thought that IMP was a "mock" real world situation. The genre definitely called for some replacement and stuff man.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 12:04:05 PM
J_texas -

I agree with you that in the real world, this band wouldn't hire someone and let them go bugnuts on the edit tool. Then again, I don't really feel like IMP is a "mock real world" situation at all, on many levels.  There are 25 people mixing one song without any prior knowledge of the artist or music.  There's also a week deadline to mix a song.  How often is that the case?  If the clients at Legacy took a week to mix 1 song, the studio industry in New York wouldn't be suffering like it is.  I've always looked at it as a form of comparison and a way to find out "whoa, that aspect of this mix is really cool, how did you do that?"

I disagree that this needed editing or replacement, but who's right?  To use the Wu Tang example, what would you have done if you got "Bring The Ruckus" and noticed that the end of Inspectah Deck's verse goes "so bring it oooooooooooooooo*" with no "N" on the word "on"?  Or what about the flamming snares or the samples that don't loop right?  We probably would take two entirely different approaches.  But at the end of the day, some projects are about what the artist wants and some are about what the audience wants.  Unfortunately, we don't get that information here until after the fact.  Why get bent out of shape over it?  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 25, 2007, 12:35:34 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 11:09

I can't really remember what we used on this in the tracking.  I know it was an old gretsch drumset with a 20" kick and a really deep snare drum.  The amp was an ampeg B15 cranked pretty hard.  

If I recall, the rooms were U47's and the overheads were U67's.  



Wow. Awesome gear. The snare was compressed a bit on the way in it seemed. Do you remember the unit? It has the roundness of a dbx. My guess.

What other projects are these guys in? Worth checking out for sure.

My vocal chain was through a JCM emulation in amplitube. Reverb on .03--the compression blew that up though.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 25, 2007, 12:46:34 PM
Ryst--

Yours seems like a well thought out mix. The bass seems to drop out a bit in mono, there might be a phase issue here. All around needs a bit of air somewhere in 12-16k if not 5K. Needs something to add excitement. The song seems to drag a bit--it might need the other kind of air -- as in reverb or room.

I'd love to hear Dave Sardi mix this one, by the way. And I forgot to mention that my 2 year old boy was rockin' out to this first thing Monday AM.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 12:55:42 PM
Osumosan -

The snare was definitely not compressed.  I think the kick and snare were neve 1073's.  We did this when I was a general assistant at Sound On Sound about 3 years ago.  

What did you use for bus compression?  And how'd you treat the drums?  They sounded squashed to hell, in a really awesome way.

As far as other projects these guy are in right now, Ryan's got 'The Human Problem' (www.myspace.com/thehumanproblem) and Mack has his band "Mack Price and the Prigs" (http://myspace.com/theprigs).




Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Gabriel F on July 25, 2007, 12:56:59 PM
pg666 wrote on Tue, 24 July 2007 20:19


...........................

Fantomas: not sure i dig the delay between the bass signals; there's nothing cementing it in the mix. drums sound pretty strange and paper-y; not sure i would have gone the mono route for this type of rock. vocals sound like a rough mix. kinda neat buildup with the flanger and then it gets thin again in the rockin' part. neat flange on the outro vocal... the rest of the vocals could use some pizzazz like that.



I didnt use delay on the bass, but i didnt nudged the di to match the amp. What is the thing that makes you think the drums are wierd?Drums are not mono the room are hard panned and the overheads
are panned but not too much.And i wa running out of time so vocals are pretty much a rough mix (and i really didnt know what to do with them, i tried some distortion but it was a cliche).
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Gabriel F on July 25, 2007, 01:20:00 PM
chrisj wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 01:42

The IMP 13 Horrible Trainwreck Critique Thread

Fantomas- Hard to know what to say (getting kind of tired...). Snare's weird. Things are going up and down in volume. I think what's happening is that this mix is sound oriented, and it's pulled some worthwhile sounds out of its pocket but having done so, they kinda sit there and the other parts aren't helping them. This mix feels confused, like it's trying to go somewhere but it's stuck in the quicksand of the original song, and there's too little that's inspired (in a NORMAL sense) to latch onto. Compare with Scott, or Jason Thompson- in this track, if you couldn't love the very obnoxiousness of it, you were pretty screwed Smile



Why the snare is weird?. The volume thing you hear is the bass sticking out in some fills? i did that on purpose (is a bit overdone).
And i really love this song, maybe the thing is that english  is not my main language and a pay more attention to sound than to lyrics.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 01:26:52 PM
pg666 wrote on Mon, 23 July 2007 19:52



jhall: solid modern rock drum sound w/ tasteful reverb, nice! not really diggin' the stereo-to-mono bass stuff though (and the stereo parts are too 'woofy' for me). why no Mack vocals, even if only for the chorus parts? drum edits in the bridge sound awkward.



no verb used.  just compressed the room mics a bunch and blended them in.  i knew about the bad edit in the bridge on the snare.  just didn't care at the time.

i cut the other vocal because it did nothing for what i considered the heart of the track.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 25, 2007, 01:33:41 PM
Quote:

no verb used. just compressed the room mics a bunch and blended them in.


ah, i wish i could have pulled off a nice smooth room sound like that. i really wanted to use more of the squashed room sound in my mix, but it just brought up a lot of cymbal trash.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 02:20:41 PM
Yeah, I fought the cymbals pretty hard on this.  I think with the right blend, the cymbal trash could work since there's nothing up in that frequency range, might help take up some space that otherwise would've been used by guitars.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 02:59:54 PM
i'll look at my settings and let you know how i compressed it brian.  i think EQ played a good role in keeping the room "smooth"

stand by....
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 03:07:19 PM
One thing I did that I wish I hadn't done is run an uncompressed mix alongside my pumped up mix, cause in retrospect I like the pumped up mix better on it's own.  

Sometimes those snap decisions don't work out I suppose.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 03:50:05 PM
ah, used my new favorite crushing plug-in.  eventide omnipressor.

check it out.index.php/fa/5774/0/
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 25, 2007, 03:52:37 PM
Anybody else that can go through the whole list (or like me, the whole submissions thread) and crit everything, even if you only listen to ten seconds of each track, it would be good. IMP is better when you can get a number of reactions, they will likely point out your blind spot which happened for me this time- I remembered you could get a neat slow-attack like punch from using a fast gate in parallel to the track, but it didn't occur to me to ask whether that needed to happen THIS time Wink
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 03:54:44 PM
i've listened to clips of a lot of them.  i'm impressed guys.  IMP seems to be really helping you guys.

i was skeptical for a while but the past two have been really solid.

i'll go through them better in a day or two.  right now my right ear hurts so bad i can hardly type.  off to the doctor, hopefully it's just an ear infection!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 25, 2007, 04:02:25 PM
Here's how I did this; I put every song into Winamp and randomized the list, hit play, and minimized Winamp so I can't see the name of the file.  I'm going to review them in the order they play, then I'll save the playlist order and post it after the reviews.  I won't post them upside down though like the answers to a quiz on a cereal box or something.

disclaimer: from here on out I have no idea what I'm talking about, so don't get upset when I say something stupid about your mix

1. The drums sound a bit low in the mix.  The vox sound perhaps a bit too thin, or perhaps that's just the delay (or whatever that effect is) making it seem that way.  Didn't use the second vocal much?  I think it leaves the main vocal too bare that way.  The bass sounds pretty good, although perhaps a little to dark considering the brightness of the vocal.

2.  First thing I notice is how much louder the cymbals are than the snare or kick drum -  In fact it makes the whole mix seem really bright.  Considering how low in the mix the kick and snare are, the bass parts panned from eachother seem inappropriately wide to me.  I also think the non-distorted bass may be a bit too high.  The vocal harmonies are interesting enough, some of them I thought were pretty cool, "But maybe I know exactly what it means to me (or whatever)" cought my ear in particular.  Sometimes it seems to me like the vocal isn't aligned rhythmically with the drums, like some effect you put on it delayed the vox a bit?  The vocals in the second half of the song are too hard to hear.

3.  First thing I notice about this is the lack of lows in the kick drum, but it still seems to be making the drums pump?  A bit too much I think.  Relative to the other instruments, the bass seems a little heavy in the 500hz region to me.  The distorted vocals sound pretty good, they don't really lose too much their intelligibility despite how distorted they really are, although they may be bright.

4.  I like the bass sound in this one already.  The drums sound a bit distant, not volume wise by ambience or reverb wise, and I think in-your-face drums would be better for this song.  Although interestingly the verb on the vox doesn't really shove it back much, while in the mix anyway.  The vocals occasionally dominate the mix which can take away from the pure sonic force of the song.  I'm glad you kept the goofy part in at the end though, I thought that part was great!

5.  Wow, very bright!  I'm not sure what else to say about this really.  The snare drum snap might be a bit too much, and I can hear the drums pumping occasionally which I don't really like.  But my thoughts are pretty much dominated by how bright it is.

6.  The mix is pretty loud.  I like the bass sound, well eq'ed.  Are you using a snare sample? Sad  The vocals may be a bit bright relative to the other instruments, but they're pretty good db wise.  Also, I notice both vox are in, which I like.  Gives it sort of a Beastie Boys vibe.  Did you tune the vocal in the middle part ("I won't let you go-oo-oo")?  Sad if you did.  but still, good balance.

7.  Woah, midrangey.  Sounds like someone played the whole mix through a telephone and mic'ed it with an SM57.  It's distracting enough that I can't really comment on much else because it really is very VERY midrangey.  Way too much I'd say.  Do you have scooped monitors?

8.  Big bottom on the bass guitar and kick.  The drums sound pretty distant compared to the bass, or to the cymbals anyway.  I don't know if I like the verb/roomy or not, but the vox sit well.  Did you tune the "I won't let you go-oo-oo" vox?  Sad if you did.

9.  Sounds like you sucked all the bass out of the bass guitar, although the stereoization of it sounds nice.  Still seems low on power because of the lack of bass, though.  Is that a snare sample?  Sad  if it is.  Vox may be a bit too loud in the mix, but they sound good.

10.  That delay on the bass is a little weird to me, I never thought of this as an echoey song.  Maybe a little too dark considering it's the only guitar in the song.  The vox sound pretty good, in an uncompressed early Tool sort of way.  Although they seem a bit all over the place db wise in the second half "I won't let you gooo" part.  The bass guitar also seems to drop out a bit in the later parts of the song.

11.  The bass sounds weird to me, too much 1k and perhaps bottom end.  It's kind of giving me a headache in fact, like as thought it's uber-compressed.  The drums seem to be pumping in a way that also seems to be playing games with my head.  I have a hard time telling how well the vocals fit because how bouncy everything else seems to be.  The cymbals seem to dominate the song in many parts which makes it too bright in my opinion.

12.  First thing I notice is what appears to be verb on the bass guitar.  Interesting thing to do, but I think it takes away from the in-your-faceness.  The vocals sound too distant as well, probably because of the reverb.  They're also eq'ed very midrangey, perhaps too much relative to the other instruments.  Also, the mix seems to be limited hardcore which I don't particularly like.  

13.  The bass guitar doesn't seem to have a whole lot of bass in it, and the mix sounds kinda wimpy because of it.  That down tuned vocal would be good as an occasional effect I think you may have overused it.  What on earth just happened at ~2:21?  And after that?

14.  First thing I notice is the attack from the compression, which doesn't sound to good to me.  The mix sounds pretty big stereowise once the song kicks in at 23 seconds.  The drums may be a bit bright relative to the bass guitar.  Overall the mix sounds a bit distant, maybe from a mixture of bad compression and the big center bass guitar.  The vocal sits well volume wise but occasionally sounds too bare.  

15.  I can hear the drums pumping like mad, makes me feel like the aural equivilent to sea-sickness.  Seems to lack bass, both in the bass guitar and in the overall mix.  The pumping messes with the vocals - during the up the vocals seem buried, and during the down they seems fine.  I think the vox are a little too distorted during the uh, chorus.

16.  I like how it starts with just the bass guitar, good idea.  The vocal delay might be a little too loud but it does make the vox seem pretty big.  The cymbals get a bit much after a while, I think they may be too high in the mix, maybe overcompressed a drum mix or overheads or something.  The mix seems a bit distant because of it.

17.  That a snare sample?  Sad if so.  It also seems pretty loud in the mix.  The cymbals also seem extra quiet because of that, although I think they might sound a bit distant regardless.  The vox seem to fit well enough.  I think the bass guitar could have used more midrange since it's the only guitar in the song.  I like the phaser or whatever on the middle drum part, cool idea.  The balance of the song just seems to lack energy though, perhaps because the cymbals sound so quiet or because of the lack of midrangey guitar.

18.  Oh uh, this is mine WHAT A PIECE OF GARBAGE HUH

19.  The drums, or at least the snare, seem to be to the left a bit.  I toyed with the idea but couldn't pull it off; I'm not sure if you did or not, the bass in the center kind of obscures it for me since it seems to be too loud in the mix.  The vox seem a bit low in the mix but again, that may just be because the bass part in the middle seems to dominate the mix.

20.  The panned bass parts make the drums sound small, so it's a bit weird for me.  The snare sound a little too consistent; is it a sample?  If it is Sad, if not, good job.  The bass part sounds a little lacking in midrange to me.  The vocals might be a little low in the mix compared to the bass, but may be fine relative to the drums.  


And the playlist order is

1. IMP-013-TomC (3:41)
2. IMP13 Andrew Brierley (3:33)
3. IMP 13 Jason Thompson (3:34)
4. imp13M Carter (4:21)
5. iCombs - IMP13 (3:41)
6. 82019 briefcasemanx pmc13 mixdown (3:35)
7. IMP13 ChrisJ (3:41)
8. imp13JHall (3:33)
9. IMP13 Greg Dixon (3:36)
10. IMP13 juergen (3:56)
11. IMP13MASTER CJWall (3:37)
12. IMP13-osumosan (3:38)
13. imp13-maxim (2:45)
14. IMP13 Baddo (3:38)
15. IMP13audio~geek (3:41)
16. imp13 scottoliphant (3:43)
17. IMP13Fantomas (3:36)
18. imp13 carefulcollapse (3:52)
19. macbraddy imp13 (3:32)
20. imp13-garret (3:48)

Feel free to let me know how full of shit I am and how bad mine is, or if I missed your submission somehow
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 25, 2007, 04:07:30 PM
aha, a gradual high end roll-off! instinctually, i did it the other way around (low-end roll off) because i wanted my close mics to be clean and cutting. i didn't really consider the cymbal harshness 'til i pulled out some reference cds and realized it was outta control!

it's too bad because i had the rooms slightly delayed and it sounded really neat. bummer.

ps. Careful Collapse.. some of your track labeling is unclear ie. "IMP13-IMP13", etc. my file was listed on the server as "song.mp3", unfortunately..
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on July 25, 2007, 04:13:55 PM
Careful Collapse wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:02


Feel free to let me know how full of shit I am and how bad mine is, or if I missed your submission somehow



You along with everyone else so far has missed mine.  It's there.  I see it but no one has listened apparently.  It's named -  "IMP13_Ryst.mp3"

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 25, 2007, 04:16:10 PM
Ryst, being new to this, i figured out pretty quickly that people don't go to the server list itself, rather the submission thread. i'll try to review yours soon, sorry.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: osumosan on July 25, 2007, 04:26:12 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 12:55

Osumosan -
What did you use for bus compression?  And how'd you treat the drums?  They sounded squashed to hell, in a really awesome way.


My secret weapon is liquid mix. People don't like the sound of it, but I decided that its versatility outweighed it's minor sonic weaknesses (on my budget). Don't hate me but I actually cashed in an API 2500 to get the funds! And the setting on the LM is the API emulation. It makes an awesome crunch on guitars, too.

This is what it looks like. The top row of plugs is the drum bus and I mix through an emulation of the SSL bus comp. Sooooo original.

I use ozone to tighten up the low end and gently catch any overs.index.php/fa/5776/0/
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: briefcasemanx on July 25, 2007, 04:36:12 PM
I'm "some wild bros" #6. I did use a snare sample. Didn't tune the vocals.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 25, 2007, 04:38:09 PM
Quote:

ps. Careful Collapse.. some of your track labeling is unclear ie. "IMP13-IMP13", etc. my file was listed on the server as "song.mp3", unfortunately..


Oh, those are the metadata that came with the mp3s rather than the file names.  I'll fix them.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on July 25, 2007, 04:39:32 PM
ryst wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 22:13

Careful Collapse wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:02


Feel free to let me know how full of shit I am and how bad mine is, or if I missed your submission somehow



You along with everyone else so far has missed mine.  It's there.  I see it but no one has listened apparently.  It's named -  "IMP13_Ryst.mp3"




ryst, only (!) the submissions in the submission thread are reviewed.
If someone missed the deadline (that thread is locked after that)
he's out of luck. No deadline, no review, no Grammy award.

It's all in the rules.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: iCombs on July 25, 2007, 04:48:05 PM
j.hall wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 14:54

i've listened to clips of a lot of them.  i'm impressed guys.  IMP seems to be really helping you guys.


I'd say you have no idea...but you obviously do...perhaps at some point it might be worth it to open a discussion on the learning/teaching aspects of IMP...a combination of j. hall love-fest slash a.a.-styled confessions...or something to that effect.  Lord knows I've learned how to really make a mix more aggressive...to the point where they're TOO aggressive...which is a whole NEW problem for me to fix...but in the end, if I can moderate my "CRUSH IT!!!!" tendencies, I've got a better understanding of what makes mixes aggressive and forward.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 04:50:22 PM
that's all true Tom, however, i like to practice grace as much as possible, because i need it as much as i can get it!!!!!

he uploaded the song on time, just missed the second detail.  i can log into the FTP server and look at the time stamps of all the uploads.

Ryst, now you know the drill, so there are no excuses for IMP14.

start a thread, post your link, i'll merge it into the submissions thread when i see it up there.

you have to start a brand new thread for this to work, replying inside this one with your link won't do it.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on July 25, 2007, 04:53:46 PM
Disclaimer 1: I wrote my comments before reading the whole hread,
so some of my comments might be off in that context.

Disclaimer 2: As always, I listened anonymously to the tracks and
put the names to the tracks afterwards.

IMP13MASTER_CJWall.mp3: Wow, that's HARD and aggressive.
A bit too loud for my taste, but it supports the song, so it's
good.
I'd like to hear more details in the lower end, as loud as it's
now it masks the vocals (which seem to be good).

iCombs_-_IMP13.mp3: Very low-fi, mono-like and id-heavy.
Not my cup of tea, but if it's that what you were after you did
it very well. Snare doesn't fit well, though.

IMP13_juergen.mp3: Some parts are very similar to my mix,
so I like them. Due to the reverb some timing issues with the BG
vocals.

04: Hehehe, that's mine!

IMP_13_Jason Thompson.mp3: Bass a bit dull and the hats
a bit to bright and loud.
The individual instruments sound a be detached from each other.
You have to glue them together better.

imp13-teleric.MP3: Clean (almost to clean) sound. Make
the hats less loud and it'll work.

IMP13_ChrisJ.mp3: I like the vocals and the bass. The
drums sound somehow thin, loud and like they were played in a
different room.

IMP13_Greg_Dixon.mp3: Very clean sound. I like this one
a lot, not much to complain. Maybe the kick could have some more
mids.

IMP13Fantomas.mp3: I like the individual sounds in this
one, but the balance (depth wise) isn't there, the bass is in
your face and everything else happens way bag on stage.

imp13_scottoliphant.mp3: Nice aggressive vocals, but I
don't dig the panned reverb on those.
Nice bass sound, hi hats a bit too dominating.

IMP13-ATOR.mp3: Nice and aggressive, like this one a
lot. Snare fit's IMO not so good, it sounds very artificial,
I'd try a different sample for that.
Interesting effect on the drums in the bridge.

82019_briefcasemanx_pmc13_mixdown.mp3: Nicely balanced,
not much to complain here. Kick could have some more meat,
though.

imp13_carefulcollapse.mp3: Clean mix, a bit held back,
I'd like to feel more pushed during the first half of the song.
I like the second half a lot. The coughing rocks Smile

imp13-garret.mp3: I like the instruments in this one a
lot. The vocals could be louder, they ARE the important part of
the song.

imp13JHall.mp3: I like this one a lot. I like the
panning things with the bass, it makes the less interesting
first half of the song more interesting.
Wished I'd had that idea.

imp13M_Carter.mp3: Not much to complain here. Not exiting
(could have some more dynamics), but not bad either.

IMP13 FINAL 1 southboundloco 320kbps.mp3: 320 kbps isn't
allowed, sorry.

imp13-maxim.mp3: By far the shortest mix of all. Radio
edit...
I like the drum sound, but the vocals are definitely not my cup
of tea. Re-work the vocals and make more musical edits
arrangement wise and I'll like it for sure.

IMP13-osumosan.mp3: Wow, the next loudness monster. But
contrarily to the one 2 comments above it does not work here,
it's loud, but not huge. And the vocals are somehow processed to
dead.

IMP13_Baddo.mp3: El Arab here or what? Very cool intro
idea.
I like this one a lot.

IMP13_Andrew_Brierley.mp3: Drum need more balls, I
mostly hear hats and no kick.
The different instruments aren't glued together well, too, it
sounds somehow un-rhythmic. Can't decide if I like the edit in
the bridge or not.

IMP13audio~geek.mp3: Not my cup of tea. The hi hats are
nerving me and the snare sound isn't good. I'd like to hear this
one with properly mixed drums.

macbraddy_imp13.mp3: Vocals could be a bit more up
front, but in general I like this one. Interesting panning
choices.

pg666imp13.mp3: Strange edit at the beginning. I like
the ideas you've put in. Make the bass a bigger and louder.

Phew, I've made it through all of them.

Thank you all for the time to comment.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on July 25, 2007, 04:58:50 PM
j.hall wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 22:50

that's all true Tom, however, i like to practice grace as much as possible, because i need it as much as i can get it!!!!!


That's cool.

I mainly wanted to emphasize the fact that ONLY the submission
thread is relevant because last IMP 2 people did NOT comment on
my mix because it was on my own server and therefore didn't show
up on the PSW server where they looked for the songs.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on July 25, 2007, 05:01:27 PM
 
Tom C wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:39

ryst wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 22:13

Careful Collapse wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:02


Feel free to let me know how full of shit I am and how bad mine is, or if I missed your submission somehow



You along with everyone else so far has missed mine.  It's there.  I see it but no one has listened apparently.  It's named -  "IMP13_Ryst.mp3"




ryst, only (!) the submissions in the submission thread are reviewed.
If someone missed the deadline (that thread is locked after that)
he's out of luck. No deadline, no review, no Grammy award.

It's all in the rules.




I beat the deadline by a coule of hours.  I uploaded the track to this part of the site:
http://www.prosoundweb.com/imp/

But I missed this part of the rules.  "links must be entered into the "IMPx song submission thread".  DAMNIT!

I really liked my mix too.   Very Happy  
Oh well, I guess no one will get to hear it even though it's up there.  Can I still submit my reviews or am I out completely?

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 05:05:13 PM
One thing I'd like to learn more about is how you guys approach 2-mix compression.  Fast release? Moderate Release?  How many db's do you like to hit the compressor?  etc etc.  2-mix technique is one of my weakest links.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on July 25, 2007, 05:19:25 PM
ryst wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 23:01


I beat the deadline by a coule of hours.  I uploaded the track to this part of the site:
http://www.prosoundweb.com/imp/

But I missed this part of the rules.  "links must be entered into the "IMPx song submission thread".  DAMNIT!

I really liked my mix too.   Very Happy  
Oh well, I guess no one will get to hear it even though it's up there.  Can I still submit my reviews or am I out completely?




Sorry, I didn't know this, the uploads don't have a timestamp.
I'll listen to your mix as soon as I can stand hearing that song
again  Very Happy

And your reviews will be much appreciated of course.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on July 25, 2007, 05:23:30 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 23:05

One thing I'd like to learn more about is how you guys approach 2-mix compression.  Fast release? Moderate Release?  How many db's do you like to hit the compressor?  etc etc.  2-mix technique is one of my weakest links.


In my case, I didn't use a compressor (on the 2 bus) at all.
Just a limiter to get the levels to a point where it sounded right.
About 3 db more or so.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 25, 2007, 05:52:28 PM
The funny part is I'm monitoring over the 8" drivers built into the console and pointed more than 45 degrees off axis  Laughing

If that isn't 'anti-scooped' monitors I don't know WHAT is.

I think the problem is simply that for some kinds of music I HATE everything BUT mids. So my next mix will be Dr. Strangemids, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the hats Very Happy

Oh, and I slapped 'Logical' on the 2-buss and basically just went with it. That's akin to osamusan's Liquid Mix SSL 2-buss, only not Laughing it compresses a bit, it distorts a lot, it colors the sound. I had it so that things were slamming up to the top of the meters a lot of the time but without totally splatting everything.

90% of the vocals and basses AND closemic drums were a plugin I did that's like making eight peaking EQs with very high Q at once, and controlling only their frequency- you double them up if you want an extra hot peak. I thought it worked quite well on some things, but it's totally why there isn't any extreme highs on the vox, and it's also a big reason why the drums sound that way- it might have been a fatal error for me to use it for those, because stuff like the kick sounds like it's in the other room (big bandpasses in the midbass) and the snare kinda died (big upper mid bandpasses to try and create whack, but it created wack Very Happy )
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 06:22:08 PM
I did most of this with UA plugs.  

All of the vox were squashed with an all-buttons 1176 and an LA2A on "limit" mode.

On the 2 bus was the 33609 with the release at 100 and probably hitting around 4 or 5 dB.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 25, 2007, 07:12:28 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 11:04

J_texas -
Why get bent out of shape over it?  



Dude I'm a long way from being bent out of shape. Opinionated? Argumentative? For sure!

I agree with most of what you've said.

Bad choice of words on my part, I guess. You've said yourself that it would be "real world" if someone dropped you off some tracks. That is the way J. says that he works. You also have said that someone might do that if they want your "sound" on it (your interpretation).

So, in that respect, I do stand by what I've said. Someone wouldn't drop you off tracks if they had something VERY specific in mind... like make it sound like a polished turd cause that's what we going for. Well, that wouldn't be my sound. You know?

It is all very subjective. I immediately heard things that I liked about other mixes and incorporated that into my re-mix for giggles. I didn't go reverse everything I did just because I found out that it was a gag. That would have changed my whole approach, though, had I known.

This is dead man. We could go all day and night. Peace.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 07:32:09 PM
J_Texas -

Yeah, I think you and I have basically been saying the same exact thing differently, it just didn't come across.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 25, 2007, 08:19:56 PM
J_Texas -

for what it's worth, I do like your mix.  I wish that it was grimey like in the choruses throughout the whole song though.  Maybe a bit more of the room mics to make the samples sound more natural?   The vocals fucking kill though.

How everyone change their mixes given the chance?
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on July 25, 2007, 09:26:09 PM
hey guys, if you're going to put up pix, make sure they're scaled down to size

it's a drag having to scroll (life's too short...)


tom wrote:


"I like the drum sound"

this had been my weak point, and was something i was trying to address in this imp, so i'm glad

after hearing a few comments about the lack of bass, i went back to the mix and realised that somehow the phase was switched on one of the tracks

duh! (no wonder i was trying to dial in the low end...)


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on July 25, 2007, 09:40:18 PM
last 2 reviews...

Ryst: interesting 'bass' sound (it sounds more like a guitar!), but lacks 'balls'. drum samples sounds like Ministry or something, but it kinda works. vocals aren't blending in with the instruments very well; strange effect on them. good edit on the break (sorta like mine!). whoa, trigger is acting wacky on the drum roll (i'll take sloppy playing over bad triggering anyday).

Brian L: hehehe, that vocal effect just doesn't work at all and you probably know it! strange pumping going on with the bass (and the DI tone isn't too hot). not much else to say other than that vocal effect is ridiculous (but it did made me smile).

Quote:

How everyone change their mixes given the chance?


i would do most of the same stuff, but make it less subtle. some of my best ideas barely came through: 'glam rock' slapback on vocals and bass break [let's face it, this song was sassy!], delayed room mics, multi-layered screamy parts by cutting/pasting screams from other verses. i could have milked the long Dubby delays a little more too; some of the off-the-cuff vocal noises reminded me of Bad Brains.

well, there's always next time.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 10:05:10 PM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 16:05

One thing I'd like to learn more about is how you guys approach 2-mix compression.  Fast release? Moderate Release?  How many db's do you like to hit the compressor?  etc etc.  2-mix technique is one of my weakest links.



i use a real SSL 384.  not a plug-in.  my attack is on the slowest (30ms) 95% of the time.  the other 5% it's on the second to slowest (10ms).  the release 95% of the time is on the fastest (.1s) the other 5% it's on auto release.  my ratio is typically 4:1 but 2:1 and 10:1 are different and i use them when i want to.

i get anywhere from less then a dB to 4dB of gain reduction.  it's all about what i want the track to do.

the KEY to 2 buss compression (this is monumental) is to patch it in before you even push the first fader up.

i usually start mixing around 2 - 4 dB and as the mix grows i just adjust the threshold to keep things in the ball park i want.  any more, i don't touch the threshold knob as my working levels are pretty set and i know how i'm going to the hit the 384.

hope that helps.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 25, 2007, 10:13:08 PM
iCombs wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 15:48



I'd say you have no idea...but you obviously do...perhaps at some point it might be worth it to open a discussion on the learning/teaching aspects of IMP...a combination of j. hall love-fest slash a.a.-styled confessions...or something to that effect.  Lord knows I've learned how to really make a mix more aggressive...to the point where they're TOO aggressive...which is a whole NEW problem for me to fix...but in the end, if I can moderate my "CRUSH IT!!!!" tendencies, I've got a better understanding of what makes mixes aggressive and forward.



this IMP for you marked a big change.  your mix doesn't have that over powering sub (30 - 50Hz) thing i've heard in the past.  in fact, this mix is a bit thin.  it needs to be a bit rounder, but it's good to see you gravitate away from the sub thing.

the other thing i noticed is the control.  you have much more control of the elements then i've previously heard.

you're also working the mids more (maybe you didn't but it feels that way)  the mids are a VERY difficult area to work, but they are SOOOOO crucial.  that 200 - 800 range is monumental to a killer mix.

most guys either dogmatically cut in that range, or just avoid it all together.  at some point, if you want your mixes to really stand out, you'll have to start working in that area.

to my ears, that range in a mix is where a large part of a mixers thumb-print comes out.

listen to some rich costey (muse, mars volta, audio slave, fiona apple, mew)
his 200 -350 range is always real thick.  his bottom end is great, but his low mids are so focused it's sick.

skidd mills is perhaps the best i've heard in that low mid range.  (saliva, sister hazel)  his mixes are so think the low mids they should be muddy, but they aren't.

dave mcnair (posts here as mcsnare) is lethal in the 400 - 800 range.  buttery smooth mids, sculpted like the master he his.  check out the icarus line record he just mixed.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: iCombs on July 25, 2007, 10:34:42 PM
j.hall wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:13

iCombs wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 15:48



I'd say you have no idea...but you obviously do...perhaps at some point it might be worth it to open a discussion on the learning/teaching aspects of IMP...a combination of j. hall love-fest slash a.a.-styled confessions...or something to that effect.  Lord knows I've learned how to really make a mix more aggressive...to the point where they're TOO aggressive...which is a whole NEW problem for me to fix...but in the end, if I can moderate my "CRUSH IT!!!!" tendencies, I've got a better understanding of what makes mixes aggressive and forward.



this IMP for you marked a big change.  your mix doesn't have that over powering sub (30 - 50Hz) thing i've heard in the past.  in fact, this mix is a bit thin.  it needs to be a bit rounder, but it's good to see you gravitate away from the sub thing.

the other thing i noticed is the control.  you have much more control of the elements then i've previously heard.

you're also working the mids more (maybe you didn't but it feels that way)  the mids are a VERY difficult area to work, but they are SOOOOO crucial.  that 200 - 800 range is monumental to a killer mix.

most guys either dogmatically cut in that range, or just avoid it all together.  at some point, if you want your mixes to really stand out, you'll have to start working in that area.

to my ears, that range in a mix is where a large part of a mixers thumb-print comes out.

listen to some rich costey (muse, mars volta, audio slave, fiona apple, mew)
his 200 -350 range is always real thick.  his bottom end is great, but his low mids are so focused it's sick.

skidd mills is perhaps the best i've heard in that low mid range.  (saliva, sister hazel)  his mixes are so think the low mids they should be muddy, but they aren't.

dave mcnair (posts here as mcsnare) is lethal in the 400 - 800 range.  buttery smooth mids, sculpted like the master he his.  check out the icarus line record he just mixed.


It was really weird...I actually did 80% of this mix in headphones (Sony...the 500DJ's or whatever), and then about 15 minutes on my Tannoys and another 15-20 on my Dynaudios.  

Couple different things on this one besides that...for starters, I'm trying out the waves SSL stuff and those EQ's are pretty radically different from what I'm used to, having not worked on SSL but once (well before I knew what I was doing)...obviously the different monitoring did SOMETHING...but the big thing was the arrangement for me...this song didn't ask to have a really big ass end...the drums were slappy and kinda poopy...but the room mics and the overheads crushed up SO NICELY that I just figured I'd make the drums chewy and crunchy and gross.  Obviously others made that bass sound bigger on the bottom, but for me I heard it and actually immediately thought "MUSE WITH A DEATH METAL PEDAL!!!"  So I ran with a somewhat more...Lemmyesque bass sound...is that a word that we can agree on?  Lemmyesque? At any rate...everything felt like it wanted to sit in that range more...so that's where I worked.

Call me a blasphemer...but I was playing around and checking out the CLA presets in the SSL Channel and it's interesting to see how he tends to EQ differently...I've been playing with a couple of the things I saw in those presets...for example, one of the CLA Kick (can't remember which...the brighter one...) has a drastic cut at 800hz, which is an octave higher than I'm used to cutting, with a WAY narrower band than I'm used to using...but it leaves those low mids that make the kick pop in the low mids in tact...I mean...I probably shoulda figured this out on my own, but it took looking at it and being able to hear it on material I was familiar with to get how it worked in context.  Cool little learning experience.

I'll definitely have to check out some of the stuff you mentioned.  The more I can refine my technique and learn to use and abuse both my tools and the song...the better I'll get at all this.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 25, 2007, 11:03:01 PM
Careful Collapse wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 16:02

10.  That delay on the bass is a little weird to me, I never thought of this as an echoey song.  Maybe a little too dark considering it's the only guitar in the song.  The vox sound pretty good, in an uncompressed early Tool sort of way.  Although they seem a bit all over the place db wise in the second half "I won't let you gooo" part.  The bass guitar also seems to drop out a bit in the later parts of the song.


I guess my subconscious (which was still waiting for the guitar player to show up) was very readily processing what my mind wanted to be a cross between bass and guitar.

As far as the "all over the place db wise in the second half" is concerned, enter 'The day after'-schock-syndrome. I did this really late at night right before turning it in. There are parts, though, where it seems to stick out way too much.

I was gonna edit some parts, but...uh, for budgetary reasons, time was somewhat of a constraint. And the band felt pretty happy, but maybe I was just hallucinating at that point.

I appreciate everyone's comments so far!

Juergen
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Brian Lloyd on July 25, 2007, 11:18:50 PM
pg666 wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 21:40


Brian L: hehehe, that vocal effect just doesn't work at all and you probably know it! strange pumping going on with the bass (and the DI tone isn't too hot). not much else to say other than that vocal effect is ridiculous (but it did made me smile).



-If you mean the vocal that is 95% wet verb...yeah it was just WAY over the top cause i didnt want to cut it as a whole but it didnt fit in like a normal vocal. there is only so much you can do with a track like this OTHER than making it as far out there as possible.

-As far as the bass pumping...maybe...i dont have my monitors out here on the road with me so im stuck with a set of cans.


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on July 26, 2007, 10:01:01 AM
pg666 wrote on Thu, 26 July 2007 02:40



Ryst: interesting 'bass' sound (it sounds more like a guitar!), but lacks 'balls'. drum samples sounds like Ministry or something, but it kinda works. vocals aren't blending in with the instruments very well; strange effect on them. good edit on the break (sorta like mine!). whoa, trigger is acting wacky on the drum roll (i'll take sloppy playing over bad triggering anyday).




I copied the direct track and ran it thru Guitar Rig.  I didn't want to change too much of the original sound of the bass, just enhance it by adding a "guitarist".  But i see what you are saying.  Since there is no guitar orignally, I should have made it more balsy since it's the only stringed instrument in the track.

Drum samples sound like Ministry?  Hmm.  Don't agree there.  Those are straight up rock samples.  But that's why i love doing this.  To hear others perspectives is really cool and interesting.

Again with vocals I tried to enhance them by having a pitched copy mixed in with them a little.  That might make them sound wierd to you.  I didn't find them to sound that way at all. They only came in on certain parts. And I ran the vocals through a split harm (just a little) and a plate.

The drum roll did give me some issues.  For some reason my trigger plugin wasn't recognizing each hit + it wasn't triggering the lower velocity samples for some reason.  So I blended the real snare back in that part hoping to make it sound a little more "natural".  Obviously it didn't work!

Thanks again for the review  Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on July 26, 2007, 12:53:38 PM
IMP13_Ryst.mp3 - I like the distorted bass sound, but the clean bass sound is kinda ugly, maybe a little loud.  Don't like the snare sample, think it takes away from the natural nuttiness of the song.  The reverb sounds good, perhaps a little dark, but I'd argue any substantial reverb is inappropriate for this type of song.  The vox sound good, however.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 26, 2007, 12:58:26 PM
j.hall - Nice bottom and great L/R separation. The snare is the only thing bothers me about this. Kind of cardboard boxy. I love how everything sits neatly together.  

ATOR - That's a lot of fake fuzz man. Sounds like a NIN demo with that snare. That's crazy sounding. I like you didn't overkill on the 2nd vocal. Like the phasing thing in the bridge. OH really harsh. Someone coughing up a hairball at the end?  Very Happy Nice subtle editing on the kick and snare.

garret - It's really hard to go from ATOR's mix to this. give me a second. I don't like the reverb on the bass man. I never do though so, I'm biased. The soft panning on the vocals just makes that crappy 2nd vocal stand out even more. I understand that you went natural with this and utilized all the pieces, but IMO only... the sounds are not strong enough on their own to do that. Going that approach, though, I have to say that you did tame everything pretty well. A lot more even than the bare tracks. (or is it bear tracks? grrr)

pg666 - I expected that the bass would kick it up a notch when everything hit. It's really lost... and when there's only 2 instruments... well... THIS IS A DISCLAIMER RIGHT NOW: I'm not responsible for the voicing of my opinion for anyone who didn't fix that damn drum intro. Phew... I'm glad I got that off my chest. From now on, I will simply say "drum intro". The compressed snare had too long of a release or not enough attack or probably both. The first hit (after the snare takes a rest) will seem to be there and then it's getting choked (listen at the outro). I like the kick.

macbraddy - I like the idea of using the DI bass up the middle and getting the dirty stuff on the side... but why not both sides? Because the drums are on the other side? Hey I can't say anything I did it on the last one!  Smile Weird compression happening all over the place. I like the crack on the snare. WAIT. Where in the hell did it go? Did you replace and not set the sensitivity right? It disappears.

Jason Thompson - Horrible L/R separation. Where's the beef? This sounds like a training bra... when I wanted DD. The vocals shred. I like the dirty bass parts jumping in for effect. Descent, glad you did a recall on yourself.

southboundloco - phasing. I'm spinning. Good deep bass. I felt like I was downloading a virus. Needs a different snare sample to hold up to the sounds here. OH are cool to me. They don't beat my ears up like mine do. I like this. IMO only. Lose the phasing effect on the bass (except maybe on the bridge). Vocals may be just a hair too loud, still sound good. I get more of the original intent with that vocal though. You can almost hear the "goofing off" sound in his voice at the end. Cool.

Baddo - I like this a lot. Don't like how the bass POPs out like that though. Good drums. Nice low end (a personal preference of mine... but something I struggle with). Light bass phasing in the bridge too? Did you look at my paper? Good mix.

osunmosan - Still my favorite for strength. Verb is a little overboard and the vocal could definitely come up. Love the delay stuff (except in the bridge where you cut it off too early... I know it was getting off time, but a more linear fade would have been more suited I think). Chaotic and beautiful man. That's what this needed to pulled off as "for real".

M Carter - Cool bass. Great vocals. The drums don't hold up to these two sounds. Kind of like Animal from the Muppets beating on cardboard boxes. Drum intro. When everything is clean it really bothers me man. I like the little pixie flying away at the bridge... that was cool. I personally added a drums in those missed hits at the end. Another thing about not getting the joke. Those mistakes really stand out. I know, I know. Let's not get started again.

Careful Collapse - part II later.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on July 26, 2007, 04:49:08 PM
J-Texas wrote on Thu, 26 July 2007 11:58



M Carter - Cool bass. Great vocals. The drums don't hold up to these two sounds. Kind of like Animal from the Muppets beating on cardboard boxes. Drum intro. When everything is clean it really bothers me man. I like the little pixie flying away at the bridge... that was cool. I personally added a drums in those missed hits at the end. Another thing about not getting the joke. Those mistakes really stand out. I know, I know. Let's not get started again.





I totally feel the same way on the drum sounds.  The tracked kick drum sound in general bothers me cause it's really tough to get anything out of it other than click.  That's what I get for putting the mic right on the beater...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on July 26, 2007, 10:59:07 PM
Thanks for the feedback guys... i'm not sure I'm going to have time to post reviews this time around, but I'll try.

Some disconnected comments back regarding my mix:

-- indeed I went for a natural vibe... I heard enough energy in the music and the performance (especially the vox - both of em) to make the track work.  I didn't think it needed any heavy-handed mix treatments, like hardcore fizz/distortion, delays, etc., just a good straight rock mix.  I sort of heard it like old, good metal... sabbath or something.  Simu-live... the two basses panned to the sides of the stage, and the drummist whacking away in the middle.    I tried hard panning the vox, but they seemed too disconnected that way.  I also tried the vox up the middle, but then I lost the image of the live band.

-- I don't usually put verb on bass, well, pretty much ever... but I tried the heavy spring verb on a whim and loved it.  The wet spring brings in so much presence, which is otherwise missing from the dark bass.  If I was referencing anything with the spring verb on bass, it was probably Pixies... I hear a lot of spring on Kim Deal's bass on the early records, and I think it's a huge part of the sound...

-- I worked particularly hard on this one to get the lift right... J or Fibes, if you're listening, please comment on that for me.  Your comments in the last IMP hit home, and I realized you were right, that my mixes had gotten getting too flat as my skills at taming instruments had grown.  I think this mix is better...

-- Editing: I only did a few things, that I thought were worth doing... I fixed the first cut & drop in, where the drummist seemed to miss the cue and keep hitting the kick... and I fixed up a big downbeat he missed as well later in the track.  Otherwise I don't think I touched much... maybe a snare here or there.   With the vox, I faded out some of the screaming notes that I thought were held too long... and did a ton of automation work to even out the levels... but I think the vox tracks are complete in my mix, except for the gratuitious laughing stuff at the end which I cut.  Oh, and I loved the studio chatter at the beginning of one of the vox tracks, so I moved that around and goosed it.

-- Drum replacement: I triggered a beefy snare sample, and mixed that about 40% in with the original.

-G
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Baddo on July 27, 2007, 12:17:08 PM
J-Texas wrote on Thu, 26 July 2007 11:58

...Baddo - I like this a lot. Don't like how the bass POPs out like that though. Good drums. Nice low end (a personal preference of mine... but something I struggle with). Light bass phasing in the bridge too? Did you look at my paper? Good mix...



Yep, I used a flanger in there.

I did listen to your mix, and I liked it a lot. I'll post my reviews in a couple of days.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 27, 2007, 05:52:49 PM
careful collapse - Drum intro.  Twisted Evil  I like the panning/delay L/R on the backup vox. I like the punch on the snare but where's the crack? Round kick. I like the bass guitar. You really utilized what was there. Nice mix of kick v bass to me (I like the sound of punchy... even though I may not do it).

scottoliphant - I like the light intro. Too much of the room mics? Verb? The vocals scorch. It hit me hard at first, but I like it. In your face! The kick doesn't hold up at all to me. It's the weakest link. OH may be a little harsh it's too much to have the vox and OH that bright.

iCombs - Where's the midrange man? The vocals are a bit too far back for me. I'm struggling. I LOVE the background vocal treatment. They both have a "lead" quality to them. Very cool. OH are pumping man, it's sort of distracting to me.

Tom C - I need more freq on the kick. I hear it sort of thumping, but it's not there. Vocals are WAY too far out in front for this mix. Bass sounds awesome to me. I think if the drums were eq tweaked a tad and they were up overall it would really work for me.

Andrew - homerecordingoddity!!!  Laughing Man those are some scary vox. Satan is in 'da house and he's hot tonight! Bass is huge man! I like that it's big, but a little out of control (if it's possible to be a little). Man I thought the song was over. Satan is back for an encore... and it's a lullaby. I'm just glad it's daylight right now.

Greg Dixon - Nice separation. That's probably the best that anyone could ask for with that snare. Lead vox up too much and background way too far back for me. I think it could use a 2 bus beating and it would be way cool. Nice use of delay in the bridge.

maxim - Cool delay. Satan has re-entered the building. Somebody get the marshmallows... this dude is on fire. There are so many things going on here I couldn't figure out what was bothering me. It's the drums. What the hell is going on here? Did you mean for those edits to sound like that? I'm now speechless. I'll come back to it later I guess.

Audio-Geek - I just got this file "snail mail" for Paraguay. That kick is pumping man. It's hurting my ears dude. I like the snare. Vocals kick! Adjust the compressor dude. Otherwise, it sound very cool. Really though, I have to stop it now... it really hurts.

briefcasemanx - I likey the bassy. DRUM INTRO. AHHHHH! LOL. I like this mix. MAYBE a different kick sample or some eq? Other that I like it. Kind of like my women... trashy but beautiful.  Shocked

fantomas - I just erased yours, so this is quick and to the point. Vocals are buried. Nice separation, but the left side needed something extra. Too lopsided for me on the balance. Kickin snare... it fits the song. The kick is doing some weird stuff man, like somebody is bumping a mic.

cjwallgor - Immediately interesting dude. MAN! Deflated. The kick doesn't hold up at all to that fat bass. Adjust the compressor. The OH are making it crazy. Take those out of the bus or something. I love the vox man. This needed the over the top compression and distortion for me too. Even if these guys are trying to make fun of it, at least it sounds like what they are making fun of!

Brian Lloyd - Whoa dude. Sounds like someone is taking a painful dump in the bathroom down the hall from studio B. Let's tone down the reverb and level on the vocals and turn up the whole mix. You've got something to work with here man, but it ain't the vocals. Tweak it.

ryst - Nice bass. I'll you guys that kept the cool string stuff in the bass guitar. It really does have some character. Snare is way too loud. I don't hear the OH at all. There's already nothing to the instrumentation. Even if it's someone giving the cymbals a beating, it's something. I like the vocals. Should probably adjust the sensitivity on the snare a bit. if you can't get it right... put it on another track with a different setting for that part.

This one was great. GREAT JOB TO EVERYONE that put in a submission.

Jason
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 27, 2007, 05:58:36 PM
pg666 wrote on Mon, 23 July 2007 19:52

J-Texas: bass sounds like its covered in mud in the intro/verses, but the distorted parts are pretty cool. snare sound is an improvement over the original but could be thicker. i like the vocals a lot. bass drum is a little conservative compared to everything else. nice roto-stereo bass at the end; how 70s! heh. this one is pretty strong overall, nice.


Yes. tried to make the bass sound drastically different than the heavy parts. I tried to accomplish the sound of a guitar playing the same chords. I wanted it to be distinguishable so that it sounded like a bass and a guitar out of the same part. I realized this about the bass drum as well. My school of thought is that it's better to add a little bass in mastering than try to take it away. I think you lose too much. The best thing would be to mix correctly the first time, but I never want to go too overboard with bass. I love the sound of it when it's done right. I need to push myself as a mixer in the deep end. Thank you for the comments.

chrisj wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 01:42

The IMP 13 Horrible Trainwreck Critique Thread
Jason Thompson- yeah, MIDRANGE, exactly what I was talking about! It still feels a little like it's trying for 'fi' but this makes me want to bang my head and make The Horns a lot. It's got that explosive quality and the roar I need to hear from this track in order to dig it. My GOD this is a fucking mess. It's a train-wreck and I'm loving it. This man understands this sort of noise Very Happy in fact, this is what I was wanting to do and didn't. YEAH.


I'm glad you like a good headache too! I wanted this thing to hurt you. That's where the midrange was coming from. I wanted it to sound as nasty as I thought these guys were going with it. Thank you very much.

Careful Collapse wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007

3.  First thing I notice about this is the lack of lows in the kick drum, but it still seems to be making the drums pump?  A bit too much I think.  Relative to the other instruments, the bass seems a little heavy in the 500hz region to me.  The distorted vocals sound pretty good, they don't really lose too much their intelligibility despite how distorted they really are, although they may be bright.


Like I said up there... I need to work on this the most. I sing too, so I pretty much know how I want vocals to sound. These needed to be off the wall for me, but i still wanted them to work. Thanks man... spot on.

Tom C wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 15:53

IMP_13_Jason Thompson.mp3: Bass a bit dull and the hats
a bit to bright and loud.
The individual instruments sound a be detached from each other.
You have to glue them together better.


The marrying of the instruments was already difficult in this one... there weren't any!  Smile Couple that with the fact that the only drive in this track was the rhythm... bass and kick. The frequencies that I need to work on most. It's no wonder why you think that things should have been seated together better. I was thinking so much about making the dirty bass sound like a guitar over the real bass that maybe I didn't spend enough time between the "guitar"bass and the OH's. I was intentionally going for a midrange brain bleeder too. I appreciate the thoughts.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: audio~geek on July 28, 2007, 12:33:26 AM
J-Texas wrote on Fri, 27 July 2007 16:52


Audio-Geek - I just got this file "snail mail" for Paraguay. That kick is pumping man. It's hurting my ears dude. I like the snare. Vocals kick! Adjust the compressor dude. Otherwise, it sound very cool. Really though, I have to stop it now... it really hurts.


I knew the drums and whole mix was pumping, but I liked that about it. I really should have used less compression, better than the first attempt that had too much compression and too much reverb.
Didn't do much to the vocals, compression, eq, decimate, reverb, you know the usual. Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on July 28, 2007, 07:47:29 AM
Ha! Thanks guys. IMP once again proving that one man's meat is another man's poison.......

chrisj wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 16:42



Greg Dixon- Dry as a Saltine cracker. Boy, I can sure hear everything, but why doesn't it feel more roaring and distorted? This is totally a punk band when they went into a studio and it had THREE ADATS DUDE. Everything crisply delineated. I like all the sounds, they just refuse to form a stew for me. In fact it's very cool how reasonable troublesome instruments like the drums sound here, there's just that dryness. I'm going to guess Greg doesn't add a lot of fake digital distortion to things and is mixing ITB? This is one case in which that's a hard path to take. Oh, and correct me if I guessed totally wrong so I can straighten myself out Smile




Nothing to correct, you got it right. I don't do a lot of mixing where I haven't tracked it first and like to get it right on the way in. I ran the DI'd bass through Ampfarm to get that fitting in, but everything else is clean. I felt it was pretty over the top already and didn't feel the need to exaggerate it. Obviously I'm one of the few who didn't push it further.

Careful Collapse wrote on Thu, 26 July 2007 06:02



9. IMP13 Greg Dixon
Sounds like you sucked all the bass out of the bass guitar, although the stereoization of it sounds nice.  Still seems low on power because of the lack of bass, though.  Is that a snare sample?  Sad  if it is.  Vox may be a bit too loud in the mix, but they sound good.


No samples, just some eq and a touch of compression.

Tom C wrote on Thu, 26 July 2007 06:53



IMP13_Greg_Dixon.mp3: Very clean sound. I like this one
a lot, not much to complain. Maybe the kick could have some more
mids.




Fair enough. I did pull out a lot of mids!!


J-Texas wrote on Sat, 28 July 2007 07:52



Greg Dixon - Nice separation. That's probably the best that anyone could ask for with that snare. Lead vox up too much and background way too far back for me. I think it could use a 2 bus beating and it would be way cool. Nice use of delay in the bridge.






Thanks, I was quite happy with the delay. It might be my favourite part of the mix. Yes, the vocals a bit loud, but that's easy to fix.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 29, 2007, 11:54:22 PM
J-Texas wrote on Fri, 27 July 2007 17:58

I'm glad you like a good headache too! I wanted this thing to hurt you. That's where the midrange was coming from. I wanted it to sound as nasty as I thought these guys were going with it. Thank you very much.


You're welcome, I loved what you did. I'm just sad you seem to have missed my entry in your crits, seeing as you were trying to do the same thing I did but better Very Happy

Maybe it was SO AWFUL that you politely didn't say anything?  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 30, 2007, 12:12:16 AM
chrisj wrote on Sun, 29 July 2007 22:54

You're welcome, I loved what you did. I'm just sad you seem to have missed my entry in your crits, seeing as you were trying to do the same thing I did but better Very Happy

Maybe it was SO AWFUL that you politely didn't say anything?  Laughing


NO WAY DUDE. My absolute bad!!!

The baby just went down or I'd do it RIGHT NOW.

I can't believe that. If I missed anyone else, please speak up.

I take that kind of stuff seriously man. I'm just putting on the second coat now Mr. McFly.  Surprised

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on July 30, 2007, 10:34:50 AM
i need to get to my reviews.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 30, 2007, 12:29:51 PM
chris j - There's something odd going on in that midrange. It sounds like someobdy yelling at me on the phone. I love the reverb, yet it's kind of out of place because the meat and potatoes aren't on the plate. If they were, that verb would sound like a rich gravy poured all over the dish. Sorry. I'm hungry. I don't know man, I'm getting all vegetables, I need a ribeye to go with that please.

SORRY SO LATE.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 30, 2007, 06:03:03 PM
's cool. So it bugs you on the vocals more than on the bass or kik/snare? Those are all the same potentially dangerous thing being used Smile

I would never have gone so far with it on a normal vocal, but I was trying to get an effect on all that screaming that kept the attitude but helped intelligibility some.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 30, 2007, 06:59:40 PM
chrisj wrote on Mon, 30 July 2007 17:03

's cool. So it bugs you on the vocals more than on the bass or kik/snare? Those are all the same potentially dangerous thing being used Smile

I would never have gone so far with it on a normal vocal, but I was trying to get an effect on all that screaming that kept the attitude but helped intelligibility some.




Really, I'm just sensitive to vocals. Honestly the first thing to hint at something wrong, for me, was the initial snare hit. Some folks did an "off" sounding bass for the intro, so I thought it was intentional. So... yes, it was overall but the vocals I commented on to help make my point.

To get back to the whole "dinner" analogy, the first snare hit was like someone flicking a pea and hitting you in the eye.  Razz  

LET ME ADD THIS THOUGHT.

The thing that made it potentially dangerous is that there was a lot of emphasis of midrange freqs with total disregard to the mid-low end. It could have been an over the top enhancement, instead, (to me of course) it was just distracting.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on July 31, 2007, 10:01:49 AM
Ok, here are my notes. Don't take it personally.

Andrew Bierley
I don't like the DI left and the amp right it gets the mix out of balance. I 'd like more kick and snare. I like the weird devil voice.

Audio Geek
There is too much compression going on it's almost as if you've gated the OHs with a kick/snare sidechain. The vocals get burried sometimes and are hard to understand with the effect in the chorus.

Baddo
Nice reversed intro vox. Yeah, big bass and drums. good vocals. I like this version.

Brian L
Nice space intro vox fx. Ooh, they stay in space, that's too bad. I can't hear what he's saying and it doesn't connect to me at all. Drums could use more power.

Briefcaseman
Sounds a bit harsh. Packs good power. I'd like the lead vox louder than the bg vox. The bg vox is overall too loud. Otherwise great mix.

Carefulcollapse
Kick and snare could use more hi end to jump out of the mix more. Haha, instead of muting the cough you've featured it and made it bigger with delay, nice touch. I think the difference in power between the beginning and the end is too big, I'd start with at least 80% now it starts at 50%. You gotta come in with a bang, not save it for the last part.

Chris J
Drums have no meat and power at all. I don't like the verb on the bass and the vox, it's too spacey.

CJWall
I like the basssound, it would be nice if you could duplicate the basstrack and make that another layer with more bite. There's too much compression which makes the drums very uneven.

Fantomas
I'd cut off the count-in.  Drums lack power. Bass is too loud. I miss some ambience to make it a whole.

Garret
Bass is too loud. Drums could use more presence. I like the basssound, just kick up the drums and vox to match it.

Greg Dixon
Drums are good, you should edit the timing mistakes. Good balance

ICombs
A lot of compression but there's no power at all. As if you've run the mix through a fuzz.

Jason Thompson
Very big and dirty sound, yeah I like it. Good call to mute the fuzzed bassamp in the verse call and response riff, maybe you could do this too in the chorus or at least turn it down a bit in the 'call' part. A little less delay on the vox in the 2nd part would make it more direct.

JHall
There’s some deep bass rumble that could use tightening. I like the stereo/mono-ing of the bass it gives a more call-response feel. Vox are good, drums too, snare could use more highs to jump out more.

Juergen
Bass delay is very long it just makes a mess in the background. Drums are good, vox too. Good balance. I’m not sure about the vox delay in the bridge and later, it’s too spacey for this kind of track.

M Carter
Drums lack definition and power, if you could get them just as in your face as the vox it would be great. The track feels empty, most other tracks had the bass stereo to fill the void. So you like the outtro including the sudden cutoff, it only holds my attention for the first 6 secs with the modulated delay.

MacBraddy
Bass is good, you’ve got a beefy bass sound. I miss the wallofguitars part of the bass. The drums are wimpy and I don’t like the stereopanning, it’s nauseating. Vox are good. Balance needs some work.

Maxim
The mix is very small and lacks power. The balance is good though apart from some lomid heavy vox fx. The edits are very ugly and break the flow of the song.

Osumosan
Wow it’s big, the bass intro that is because when the rest fall in everything falls down under heavy compression. If you compress this hard you should go easy on the reverb. It has become a lifeless big blurp of sound.

Ryst
This is a very polite mix but doesn’t work for this kind of music. Balance and sounds are good but could use more juice and less ambience. The timing imperfections get very obvious when your mix is clean like this, you should edit them.

ScottOliphant
Ouch, I thought this was gonna be a soft mix when the bass intro started so I turned up the volume Smile Turn up the intro! The vox reminds me of the movie Alien esp the screams, absolutely horrorlike. Good bass, the drums feel far away with this much ambience. First price for most scary mix.

Southboundloco
Kick is too HM for this kind of music. Snare is way to far in the back. Vox are good. I like the bass closer. The parts don’t make a whole.

Teleric
Very clean mix. Balance needs work. Vox too low, OHs too loud. I’d like a more direct sound.

TomC
Nice beefy bass. Drums esp kick could use more power and presence. The fx on the vox is distracting, it would be cool if it was lower in level.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 31, 2007, 02:46:14 PM
J-Texas wrote on Mon, 30 July 2007 18:59

To get back to the whole "dinner" analogy, the first snare hit was like someone flicking a pea and hitting you in the eye.  Razz  


That cracks me up. Reminds me of that feeling you get, when it jsut starts to rain, and the first really big drops are starting to fall, and you wanna go outside to get something quickly, and a hugeass drop hits ya right smack in the face, like a mini slap?

Btw, you didn't review mine! Not that I necessarily need it, but since you offered... Razz

Which reminds me...gotta do my reviews still...

juergen
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 31, 2007, 05:30:24 PM
Juergen wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 13:46

Btw, you didn't review mine! Not that I necessarily need it, but since you offered... Razz

juergen


THIS SUXXXXXXXX! I like to pride myself in my attention to detail!

I love this one.

A little more eq to tie the kick drum and bass together. I like the sounds though. Thank you for editing the drum intro  Smile  The delay is killer on the backup. It makes it a lot more interesting. (it doesn't work for me in the bridge though. You didn't use it much on the second half of the bridge. That, to me, would have worked better all the way through the bridge because it's different than the verses... you know?) I did my OH's hot too, but the thing that I paid attention to was not letting the vox get run over by the cymbals. a couple of db down on the OH's and a little lift on the vox (maybe 10k and up)? Very cool overall man.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 31, 2007, 07:41:25 PM
J-Texas wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 17:30


THIS SUXXXXXXXX! I like to pride myself in my attention to detail!

I love this one.

A little more eq to tie the kick drum and bass together. I like the sounds though. Thank you for editing the drum intro  Smile  The delay is killer on the backup. It makes it a lot more interesting. (it doesn't work for me in the bridge though. You didn't use it much on the second half of the bridge. That, to me, would have worked better all the way through the bridge because it's different than the verses... you know?) I did my OH's hot too, but the thing that I paid attention to was not letting the vox get run over by the cymbals. a couple of db down on the OH's and a little lift on the vox (maybe 10k and up)? Very cool overall man.




Cool thanks, man!

I hope we're talking about the same bounce, because I didn't edit the intro. Smile Unless you meant that sarcastically!

Which is cool too.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 31, 2007, 08:16:15 PM
Juergen wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 18:41

... I didn't edit the intro. Smile Unless you meant that sarcastically!

Which is cool too.


Being facetious. That was my biggest hangup with the whole song man... that rushed kick thing before the "kick-in".

Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter.
Bing. Bang. Oops. Snare.... JAM!!!

It begged to be fixed.

Was that a snare sample? I like the punch, I like to the snap. No crack. Fill in the middle.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Juergen on July 31, 2007, 08:53:02 PM
J-Texas wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 20:16

Juergen wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 18:41

... I didn't edit the intro. Smile Unless you meant that sarcastically!

Which is cool too.


Being facetious. That was my biggest hangup with the whole song man... that rushed kick thing before the "kick-in".

Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter. Quarter.
Bing. Bang. Oops. Snare.... JAM!!!

It begged to be fixed.

Was that a snare sample? I like the punch, I like to the snap. No crack. Fill in the middle.


Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm usually quick to fix such things, and this time around i thought i'd ignore every urge to edit and set my Beggar's Receptacle Android Basket to 0, and just got sounds.

As far as snare goes, it's just eq and comp (i think just those two, but would have to check) - no samples. I also did parallel compress the whole drumbuss.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on July 31, 2007, 09:10:48 PM
I'd love to hear more about how people got good drum sounds. To me it was very frustrating because the drummer wasn't hitting with velocity, so I put loads of point on and EQed the fuck out of everything. Since just putting faders up wouldn't have worked for me either, I'm interested in what does work. J Texas' drums worked. How? Very Happy
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Gabriel F on July 31, 2007, 09:37:20 PM
Here are my reviews, if i missed someone please let me know.
And feel free to comment what you feel.

Briefcasemanx: i like the vocals and the drums are pretty powerful. i like this mix my only complain is the bass lacks a little low end in comparison withh the kick drum and i dont like the bass in the center.

Icombs: too much distortion, too much midrange. i dont like the mono bass. pretty agressive mix. i like the vocal treatment it gives the sound a sick texture that i like, but like i said the mix is pretty agressive and needs more lows.

Andrew Bierley: too much hi end on the cymbals. you could comprees more the undistorted bass because  the level vluctuates a little. i dont really like the vocal treatment in the bridge but is not bad.  snare and kick should be louder way louder to match that agressive cymbal sound.

Baddo. sick intro, i dont like it but it fits the song well. kick drum sounds a little bit plastic and the snare could be a litle louder or ballsy. i like the bass.

Carefulcollapse: i like the texture of the bass distortion but i dont like it in the center. kick drum a little boxy. the vocals are making me crazy. nice mix. its pretty powerful and sick.

ChrisJ: lacks low end, its all midrange, the snare sounds plastic and phasey. i dont like the vocal reverb its too nice for this song.

Greg Dixon: snare lacks a little sustain. nothing to complain nice balanced mix. i like the delay at the end but it could be softer.

Juergen: delay on the bass? did you used to hide the timing problems or for what other reason
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 31, 2007, 10:32:07 PM
Drumagog.
Yamaha 22" in bass sample with a 421 and D112.
Jeff Kahan's piccolo snare sample off a Bob Clearmountain CD. It had an SM57 and a 421 on it.
Nice and heavy Waves RCL until I got sustain with a transient snap.
Didn't really do much to the OH (a little air) a little limiting bus.  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on July 31, 2007, 10:45:10 PM
ATOR wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 09:01

Jason Thompson
Very big and dirty sound, yeah I like it. Good call to mute the fuzzed bassamp in the verse call and response riff, maybe you could do this too in the chorus or at least turn it down a bit in the 'call' part. A little less delay on the vox in the 2nd part would make it more direct.


Ator - I'm glad you like that man. I was going for that "call and response" thing. I thought someone could easily pull that off live with a killer stomp box. That's what I was pushing for since there was no guitar.

fantomas wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 20:37


Jason Thompson: i like the delays but the could be a little bit darker and use less feedback. i like the bass distorion a lot. kick could be more ballsy. nice vocal saturation.


Fantomas - I did a recall on myself and added some more low end to the bass. I think I was missing a layer of freqs in the bass range! Like Tom C said... "I needed to glue it together". There was definitely something missing there. Although when I did, I messed up the snare sound!  Laughing


Guys, the delay was menat to be a really quick repeat and long feedback. Although, at the last minute I decided to go with all out compression, because it really brought out the breathing and subtleties of the vocal performance. I put it in the chain after the delay for more effect. May have been a bad call. I just need to move the plug.

Thank you both very much for the input. I really appreciate it.

Smile  
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on August 02, 2007, 09:49:33 AM
fantomas wrote on Wed, 01 August 2007 02:37



Ryst: i dont like the bass distortion, your are trying to make it a guitar. the drums are great, i like the vocals, they could be a little bit softer.
watch out those badly triggered snare samples they distract from an otherwise really good mix. i dont like those laughs at the end, maybe way softer.




I wasn't trying to make the bass into a guitar.  I was trying to "add" a guitar to the mix.  Big difference.  I atcually had 3 tracks.  Bass Amp, Bass DI, and then a copied track of the Bass Di running thru Guitar Rig.

And yes, the sample triggering at the end is definitely screwy.  I should have done something else or something more creative.

I need to get to my reviews too!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on August 02, 2007, 09:52:29 AM
J-Texas wrote on Fri, 27 July 2007 22:52


ryst - Nice bass. I'll you guys that kept the cool string stuff in the bass guitar. It really does have some character. Snare is way too loud. I don't hear the OH at all. There's already nothing to the instrumentation. Even if it's someone giving the cymbals a beating, it's something. I like the vocals. Should probably adjust the sensitivity on the snare a bit. if you can't get it right... put it on another track with a different setting for that part.



Jason




Snare too loud?  I didn't think the snare was too loud at all.   I see your point about the OH.  I didn't want to add much too them but i should have given them more character for sure.  Thx for the feedback!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Brian Lloyd on August 02, 2007, 03:05:49 PM
fantomas wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 21:37


Brian L: vocals to wet.nice bass sound. drums are pumping in a unpleasing way. nice balanced mix but that reverb is too much.
.



-the verb was intentional. since THAT vocal was pretty un-useable...i decided to soak the hell out of it and just throw it WAY out there. dont understand the drums though...


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 02, 2007, 09:06:03 PM
ryst wrote on Thu, 02 August 2007 08:52

Snare too loud?  I didn't think the snare was too loud at all.


You're right, everything else is just too low.  Rolling Eyes
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on August 05, 2007, 12:34:58 AM
Alright, I got out from under the pile of work and was finally able to review mixes.  If I missed you, please let me know.

A couple general notes:

-- I'll agree with someone (can't remember who, maybe J-Texas) and say that the drums in the first cut have to be edited.  If you didn't edit them, it's hard for me to get past that... it just sounds amateurish to me.  It's one thing if you're delivering a live punk band mix, but very few of us did that... so if you're going to edit some things, you should do your best to clean up the drummist's flubs in the intro...

-- This tune can rock hard, if you treat it right... listen to about 2:15 through 3:30 of the following mixes, and consider the movement of your head:

baddo, jhall, briefcasemanx, garret, juergen, ryst

You should notice a significant vertical movement of your head, some call it “head banging.”  For the weaker mixes, you will find your head stays in one place.   Many many imp13 mixes failed to get my head banging in that critical transition... the payoff back into the riff at 3:10 just kills, unless you clamp everything down so much it's a yawner.

So on to the reviews.. first, mixes I don’t like so much:

Brian L: muddy and moody… vox sound is truly satanic… the drum mistakes in that first cut bug me.. gotta do something there… it sounds amateurish, and doesn’t have to with just a few snips.    Tonal balance on this one is odd… dark flappy bass, clean drums and the unbelievably saturated vox.

Audio geek: something is oddly band limited. It might be the DI bass…reamp that please.   Right now stuff sounds cheap and fizzy. Vox are really over the top with the hardcore distortion.  Loads of pumping on the 2bus...  sounds like you hit everything pretty hard.  I didn't think the tracks were that far off... just clean em up, get the balance right, and the track works.

fantomas: rather dark.. but this is a pretty good mix.  Bring the vox up a ton, and give the drums some beef.  The snare gets out of hand at times... is that replaced?  whatever it is, drop it in a mix a bit... especially around 3:00.

freakozoids (maxim): I like the swirly tone at the start, but the bass needs more beef… drums in the cut need to be fixed.   DI bass sound is wussy.  A lot of the sounds in this sound band limited, over-compressed, and wussy.

Scott oliphant: I like how this starts, very pixies-esque... but I'd like the level of the intro brought up just a bit more so the kick in isn't so dominating.  I think the treatment here is over the top… too hardcore…

macbraddy: didn't edit the drums in the intro blah... mix needs more drums and vox, less bass… too much flappiness in the bass end for my ears.

icombs: ouch my ears… wow that's strange... Smile tinny hardcore fury.. the frequency balance is extremely scooped... there's like nothing at all from 200 k to 1k, and nothing below 80hz.

Andrew brierley.  drum intro… some strange ingredients here… pitch bent vocals, etc?  frequency balance isn't too shabby, except the hats which are fatiguing... vocal timing seems off (later than the original tracks).

Imp13 final1 320kbps: pretty good mix, but the kick and the cymbals are too loud… the mix is very scooped… high end is very fatiguing… which I guess is sort of the point of a hardcore/punk/metal tune, but sort of is not.   Meat!  Meat where's the meat!

osumosan: everything’s just mashed together… too much verb, lots of stuff mixed up the middle… not enough definition to rawk properly… trying for hardcore fury, and I can respect that... but it sounds more like a great hardcore band in the back room of a bar when you're in the front room buying booze, than a great record.   Major props for one thing: at 1:23 or so, you kick in some monkey noises (vox delays I think) that really hit the spot.

m carter: at the start, it seems like this one will be very dark… recovers somewhat when vox kicks in, but overall it’s still a bit dark… something in the bass treatment I guess.   otherwise this is a pretty good mix.  I like that you kept some of the hacking stuff at the end... I did too. Smile

chrisj: puny basses and overly hardcore vox… I swear I hear spring reverb on the bass... groovy, why didn't i think of that. Smile   something very cheap sounding about the drums... they sound like a casio keyboard's drum machine now... beef, we need some beef.

cjwall: boomy at the bottom… some clever ideas in the mix, but the tonal balance is way off.

ator: the triggered techno snare is really out of place... honestly, it's just awful. Smile  it’s a shame too, because this is a great mix in every other way.

Mixes I like more:

Jason thompson:  in its own way, this one works.... the bass is huge and dark, but never takes over focus from the vox... the drums are okay, maybe a little weak, but they do the job.    Tonal balance is dark... but the mix works anyway...

baddo: starts very led zeppelin... I'd have liked you to edit the drums in that first cut... but your mix rocks enough that I can ignore it... good balanced mix with loads of dynamics.

careful collapse:  very good mix... open & bright but plenty of fullness on the bottom.  I think the kick is too high, but then again I don't care for the modern giant kick sound I'm hearing a lot of lately...

jhall:  Dark... yay you and me both.  What the heck else can you do with a band with two basses... it's gonna be dark, it ain't two glockenspiels.    overpumped, but it gets away with it somehow (you always do).   This rocks... it's one of the few mixes I can say that about.. the three minutes you spend with it are not static – it builds you up, takes you down, kicks you in the teeth when you're dozing off, etc.  So many mixes in this imp are just dead fishes... this one isn't.

garret: that’s mine… sounds a bit band limited compared to some other mixes… but I still like it.  Vox could be a touch higher, and the bass is too touch dominant… more drums please.  brings the rawk.

Pg666: kick is way too loud, and the “drum intro” needs to be fixed… otherwise this is a good mix… rocks pretty hard.

tomc:  didn't fix the drum intro… the mix sounds clamped-down… it’s missing dynamics somehow.  I like the vox treatment… adds vibe without being too unpleasant to listen to…  the snare is a bit canned... I assume that's been replaced.. try blending it with the original snare, dropping the sample down so it's slightly quieter than the original snare.

briefcasemanx: starts out strong, and never lets up.   there, that's power... that's “the beef” i've complained is missing in a lot of other mixes here...  I think I hear you automating the 2bus mix level to enhance the lift & power... I did the same, and I think it really pays off...

juergen: very good mix... sounds good, rawks hard, and delivers the good.  the hats are a bit hot, but otherwise everything sounds great to my ears.   The little bit of mix trickery you did just adds vibe, but never distracts... good job.

ryst: snare is too loud.. drop it maybe 2db... it's dominating the mix.   Otherwise this is a great mix... sounds good and delivers some genuine rawk power.  Some weird things happening in the drum roll (2:17 or so)... trigger problems?

Greg dixon: the basses seem to have been turned into guitars… where’d the low end go?  Otherwise this is a very good mix… I always like your mixes.. you have good ears and clearly know what you're doing.  Just put some low end back in the basses and you'd be set.  I found a subsonic synth worked wonders to fill in the bottom – better than eq for these basses...

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on August 05, 2007, 12:48:38 AM
M Carter wrote on Wed, 25 July 2007 17:05

One thing I'd like to learn more about is how you guys approach 2-mix compression.  Fast release? Moderate Release?  How many db's do you like to hit the compressor?  etc etc.  2-mix technique is one of my weakest links.


My 2bus was a combination of some fairly aggressive automation on the input level, and wavearts trackplug set to:

ratio 1.2:1
attack 90ms
release 275ms
rms mode
lookahead 5ms
thresh adjusted to get 1-3db gain reduction. (compressing most of the time)

The input automation is pretty significant... at the peak toward the end of the track, it's pushing up 3.3db, which keeps the compresser working even though the mix is starting to thin out...

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on August 05, 2007, 01:21:12 AM
chrisj wrote on Tue, 31 July 2007 21:10

I'd love to hear more about how people got good drum sounds.


Here's what my drums sound like on their own:
http://www.worksongs.net/2007/work/imp13-garret-drums.mp3

Some notes:

- I thought the snare was just too weak on its own, so I added in a sample from michael kingston's ruff rider kit.  (Those are free, so go get em if you don't have anything else to use...).  

http://www.michaelkingston.fi/kingstondrums/

- I used a free drum trigger plugin (windows vst) called boxsounds replacer.   It's a bit fiddly, but works surprisingly well... you just have to be very careful to tweak the velocity tracking feature so it doesn't sound robotic, and line up the replaced drums by ear or eye so you don't flam...

-- I didn't use the tom tracks or the hi hat, and I only used a little bit of the room track.

Individual tracks:

-- Snare original: no eq.  compression... ratio:  4.5:1, attack 2msec, release 50msec, rms mode, thresh set for 8db gain reduction max.

-- Snare replaced: no eq.  same compression settings as snare original.  send to ambience reverb, preset: pady-drums-gated, dry at -6db, wet at 0db.  

-- the triggered snare couldn't track the drum roll properly, so I made sure to cut it there and bring up the original track.

-- Kick: eq... shelf +10db at 140hz.  compression... ratio: 2.5:1, attack 3msec, release 46msec, peak mode, thresh adjusted for max 6 db gain reduction.   gated gently.

-- Overheads... panned to the center. no eq, no compression.

-- room... rolled off the low end with a -4db shelf at 300 hz.

-- The levels for those five tracks are pretty similar... the overheads are actually the hottest thing, then the kick and the snare tracks... (combined they're probably hottest, but individualy, no).  The room is the quietest... it's down 10db from where the other tracks are.

-- I bussed all drums together... that bus got some eq (presence boost at 2khz, and a -5db high end shelf at 5khz to tame the hats), a couple db of fast compression, and a little bit of saturation from voxengo tape bus.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on August 05, 2007, 03:51:24 AM
garret

ator: the triggered techno snare is really out of place... honestly, it's just awful. Smile it’s a shame too, because this is a great mix in every other way.


I've been hearing this a lot and you're absolutely right. Actually 90% of what you hear is the original snare. I tried to give the recorded snare body, snap and impact but it kept coming out like a 707 snare.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 05, 2007, 11:26:51 AM
ATOR -

I see what you were trying to do with it. Check out Vision Of Disorder's "Imprint" ( I believe Dave Sardy did it), the drums a mixed with a similar idea in mind.  There difference here though is that there isn't any loud guitars to make up for the lack of cymbal definition.  

Not to get back on the 'to edit or not to edit' discussion, since I don't think anyone's ever going to see eye to eye with me on that, but I was listening to some old Black Flag the other day, and I swear the hi hat intro was practically at a different tempo than the guitar riff... do you think they would've corrected that if it was done today?  Another similarly iconic rock band that could BARELY hit a note together - Black Sabbath.  Bill Ward is technically one of the worst rock drummers evar, but that didn't seem to matter to them or their throngs of fans.  Whether or not this track was intended as a joke, and remember there's a difference between something having a sense of humor and something being a joke, is a moot point.  

That said, I don't think that any of the editing that was done made anybody's mix any better than it would've been and I think if you had mixed it and played for a cross section of people, very few of them would've brought up the playing.

The reason I gave this one to J. in the first place was because a) it's pretty much technically screwed by the tracking b) it's pretty much technically screwed by the playing and c) it was unlike ANYTHING IMP has done before, and I figured all those things would lead to some interesting, yet sometimes tense discussion.  Glad to see I was right.  

Good times, everyone.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 05, 2007, 11:36:50 AM
Quote:

and the ?drum intro? needs to be fixed?


someone else mentioned this too, is it referring to those loud hi-hat rolls before it kicks in? otherwise, i honestly don't hear what needs editing*. if the timing was imperfect, it wasn't bad enough for me to notice..

*i did mute the snare track to reduce hat bleed and replaced the first snare hit with something cleaner.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 05, 2007, 11:58:15 AM
i didn't have much time to spend on this imp, so just grabbed my initial take of the song and went with it. it's over the top admittedly, but so is the song. wanted it to feel like a punch in the face. i didn't use any samples, just delayed the room mics a bit (used mroe of the room mics than close mics), bussed all the drums together, and ran through 1176. added some eq to the snare. didn't use the hihat track. i'm hoping still to have time to review these, and apologize for being one of the slackers this time around. thanks to those that got to it


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 05, 2007, 12:06:53 PM
Scott -

I scrapped the hi hat as well (which is pretty normal for me), although I think I used it in the original.  

It'd be interesting (for me at least) to hear what would've come out of this now that the artist has spoken his mind about the original ideas for the track, but alas, it's now August!

Matt
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on August 05, 2007, 12:23:44 PM
pg666 wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 11:36

Quote:

and the ?drum intro? needs to be fixed?


someone else mentioned this too, is it referring to those loud hi-hat rolls before it kicks in? otherwise, i honestly don't hear what needs editing*. if the timing was imperfect, it wasn't bad enough for me to notice..

*i did mute the snare track to reduce hat bleed and replaced the first snare hit with something cleaner.


Wherever I said "fix the drum intro" I meant the sloppy missed cut at 0:23 or so.  The drummist missed the cue, and keeps playing his kick and stuff through the cut... I think J's editing there is very good.... check his mix for an example of how he cleaned it up.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on August 05, 2007, 05:39:33 PM
garret wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 00:34

chrisj: puny basses and overly hardcore vox?


I love 'overly hardcore'. That's a band name if ever I heard one Very Happy
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 05, 2007, 08:06:21 PM
M Carter wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 10:26

I think if you had mixed it and played for a cross section of people, very few of them would've brought up the playing.


Yeah the people on the I have no clue what instruments are which, I just like the song end of the spectrum. Get real dude. Anyone on the musician side of that "cross section" noticed it in a heartbeat.

Oops... this new can said peaches, not worms.  Rolling Eyes
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 05, 2007, 10:00:41 PM
And of course... musicians know "good" music better than anyone... right?  That explains why Steve Vai records sell so well these days.

I suppose it depends on who your audience is.  I hardly think the audience for this band comprises classical composers, session players, or jazz heads.  Dirty Williamsburg/Bushwick hipster kids?  More likely.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 05, 2007, 10:32:08 PM
why is the playing even an issue? this is the the mixing imp not the producing imp right? if J posted tracks of himself banging on his fridge with a spatula, we'd mix it, and critique it. seems simple to me
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 05, 2007, 10:45:57 PM
That's kind of my point.  Who's job is it to edit/sound replace/arrange a tune?  I always figure it's pretty safe to assume the band is giving me what they want by the time it reaches mixing.  

That may be the case depending on what version of "The Real World" you live in.  I know of some guys who would be fired if the editing was done in the mix session that was costing over 2 grand a day, mix fee not included.  Then I know there are guys who's idea of mixing is to rerecord/reamp/edit/replace whatever they need to to get where they think the song should go.  Both ideologies work depending on who you are.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 05, 2007, 11:08:36 PM
M Carter wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 21:00

And of course... musicians know "good" music better than anyone... right?  That explains why Steve Vai records sell so well these days.

I suppose it depends on who your audience is.  I hardly think the audience for this band comprises classical composers, session players, or jazz heads.  Dirty Williamsburg/Bushwick hipster kids?  More likely.




No man. I'm saying any jerk-off that can play Ironman knows that the drum intro was off, as was the bridge and some missed kicks in the outro. So, yes... some of those hipster kids were saying ooh! Did you hear that? Some others were saying hear what? Stop Bogarting and pass it man.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 05, 2007, 11:19:58 PM
M Carter wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 10:26


... I don't think that any of the editing that was done made anybody's mix any better than it would've been...


I COMPLETELY DISAGREE!

You know why? Because I was mixing from a potential audience standpoint. It was sloppy. A little nip, and little tuck and guess what? It didn't hit me like a ton of bricks. It sounded cleaner to me. I wasn't there in the session to say hey, that was a great take can we punch in on that intro? I've said all of this before. I didn't know that the performance wasn't an issue until later. I just did what I thought the band would dig if they wanted the best possible outcome. If anybody doesn't want the best that I can do, I suggest he doesn't go with me. Or tell me up front it's supposed to sound like shit. This thing being rehashed about the performance is from your perspective Matt, because you're close to it. You knew the in's and out's. If I was going to make it a viable mix... then the friggin' thing needed to be cleaned up man.


Furthermore! Why practice? Get new strings and heads. Use new tape or get things mastered? Why not clean something up if your going to try and make it right. If your gonna turn up the Jim Beam, and scream on the mic, then turn it into a situation where you're asking professionals and wannabe mixers to make the best possible mix they can churn out and get some great feedback... then you got it. THAT'S IMP to me my man.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on August 06, 2007, 12:38:55 AM
OK. I have a question for the people who reviewed my mix, in light of all the criticism of people not editing the drums.

I think J-Texas is the only one who mentioned not liking that I hadn't done any editing. Some just plain didn't like my mix. Others were ok with my mix, while being critical of others who didn't edit either.

My question is why the others didn't mention it? Was it not as noticeable as in some of the other mixes? I'm definitely not having a go at anyones critiques, I'm just curious.

I've always thought that one of the jobs of the mix engineer, is to find the place where the instruments fit together comfortably, rather than work out where to move them to. In the past, most of us didn't have a way to easily edit timing or pitch issues. We had to find creative ways to hide the problems, like delays and/or chorus/detuning on vocals that weren't quite in tune. Bringing up another part of the mix to mask a problem spot, is another trick used.

Anyway, I'm wondering if this might explain why most people didn't have a problem with the lack of editing?

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 01:09:54 AM
Greg Dixon wrote on Sun, 05 August 2007 23:38


Anyway, I'm wondering if this might explain why most people didn't have a problem with the lack of editing?



This is probably why people didn't have a problem with the lack of editing. This whole thread was chock full of BS before the mixes were even submitted. You don't think mixer's interpretations were skewed by all of this?

M Carter

I think the whole six song EP clocked in at 8 hours of total work (2 hours tracking the band , 2 hours maybe on vocals, and 4 hours of mixing the day before releasing).



M Carter

it's funny for me to have a week to mix something we originally mixed in 15 minutes. it's actually really hard not to over think it.



M Carter

we literally did the whole thing right before it was released at the bands first show.



M Carter

I couldn't imagine trying to polish something like this up with samples and editing and what have you.



M Carter

When we originally did this stuff, the band set a very strict 'no edits, no samples' rule. They both knew damn well they couldn't play drums like a pro, and didn't want to pretend like they could. ... it was a reaction to over produced, over edited, sample heavy music...



M Carter

...I'm sure it's tough without any details of the band, its members, the initial intent of the project to understand where I'm coming from.



M Carter

I can see how my statements could've been taken as soap boxy too. I wasn't referring to slight edits, and I can see when it'd be called for in this tune.


Before engineers couldn't replace sounds and edit as freely because the technology wasn't there! Likewise any jackass wasn't able to make a quality recording. Welcome to the digital age fellas!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on August 06, 2007, 04:19:36 AM
J-Texas wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 15:09


Before engineers couldn't replace sounds and edit as freely because the technology wasn't there! Likewise any jackass wasn't able to make a quality recording. Welcome to the digital age fellas!


I'm quite happily working in the digital age. I just don't believe digital is making better recordings. As always, it's how you use it.

I went through a few years of using Beat Detective, Pitch Doctor etc. The recordings were definitely quality and technically better, but none of them excited me as much as ones I'd done before PT.

With digital recording technology being accessible to the masses, it's never been easier to make a good quality recording. However I feel it keeps getting harder to make a great one.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 06, 2007, 09:09:46 AM
J-texas
So, yes... some of those hipster kids were saying ooh! Did you hear that? Some others were saying hear what? Stop Bogarting and pass it man.


Well, no actually most of them were getting hit by flying didlos,  attacked by ninjas, or getting hugged by Johnny Dimetap.  I still don't see your point.  

What are you so defensive about?  No one here ever said that your style of mixing was wrong or that your mix was bad, but you've been spending so much of your energy in this discussion trying to prove that you're right and that those who have opposing views are wrong. All the quoted one liners, all of the euphemisms, it's all a little non-constructive.  

Greg Dixon
With digital recording technology being accessible to the masses, it's never been easier to make a good quality recording. However I feel it keeps getting harder to make a great one.


Greg, I completely agree.  With all of these new tools that have come about over the past 8 years or so, it's become so easy to take the focus off of capturing a moment and focus more on 'making it right'.   I feel like a lot of times people can miss the forest for the trees, to be cliched about it.

J-Texas
Before engineers couldn't replace sounds and edit as freely because the technology wasn't there! Likewise any jackass wasn't able to make a quality recording. Welcome to the digital age fellas!


My point is, and always has been in this discussion, that the ability to edit doesn't necessarily make someone any better of a mixer.  But that's my personal feeling, you are free to agree or disagree.  It wasn't on accident that any mix comments I made excluded how I felt about the editing.  

That said, you're right, I'm right.  Deal with it and move on.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 06, 2007, 09:26:48 AM
J-Texas wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 00:09


Before engineers couldn't replace sounds and edit as freely because the technology wasn't there!


some might argue (and i happen to be one of them) that this isn't necessarily a good thing, considering the abuse of these tools that seems to be rampant.

Greg Dixon wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 03:19



With digital recording technology being accessible to the masses, it's never been easier to make a good quality recording. However I feel it keeps getting harder to make a great one.


this is brilliant.

To tie this back to IMP: I have a feeling that the "client" here may have taken his project somewhere else had the drums/bass been replaced and edited. granted, this is for fun, not a real job, but i still try to approach these like real projects. at what point do we stop striving to help the artist realize their vision.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 10:49:58 AM
Greg Dixon wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 03:19

I'm quite happily working in the digital age. I just don't believe digital is making better recordings. As always, it's how you use it.


Exactly. So why can't I use it to scrub a couple of kick hits? My argument was that it didn't happen before because the technology wasn't there. In my mind I NEEDED to fix an otherwise cool recording. That's why I edited the intro. Now, I have a problem with anyone who didn't do it, because I thought it was lazy. If you paid a lot of attention, then even the guys that went organic with it could have fix the problem. It's a personal preference and one that I was very adamant about. It changed the whole performance for me. Two little beats set the tone for the whole song. I fixed it and then it rocked. I wasn't thinking about the drum performance for the rest of the song.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 11:04:08 AM
scottoliphant wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 08:26

 at what point do we stop striving to help the artist realize their vision.


From a musician who has played sloppily on records and have wished that it were different for years. If I can help someone realize that hey, it's no big deal... let's fix this one spot in the mix. Then you can make sure you don't do it again. Instead of saying... man that bothers me. I would never do that now. I wish I would have fixed it then. For the most part, FOR THE MOST PART. The vision is that someone will pop in their favorite band and then throw in "band x's" record and it not sound like an amateur recording.

The digital thing also goes like this: I can buy a cheap sound card and a Mackie record you and we can tweak it all day with replacement and cool bells and whistles and oh let's move this and reverse this, check out this plug it sounds awesome! SO WHO NEEDS TO PRACTICE? WHO NEEDS TO GET NEW STRINGS OR HEADS? Don't bother, I'm going to replace all that anyway. Man you're gonna sound awesome.

Do I subscribe to that? Hell no. Has it made recordings better... well, no. Is it a total bastardization of songwriting, arranging, performance, tech, engineering as an art. YES.

Matt, don't try to stifle me from being passionate. I'm not trying to be right. Just understood and that's not important to anyone but me. I don't always explain myself very well, but I try. And I always weigh carefully the thoughts of others. If I understand a point to be more appropriate than my own, then I have been known to adopt said point.

Peace.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 06, 2007, 11:21:16 AM
Quote:

 That's why I edited the intro. Now, I have a problem with anyone who didn't do it, because I thought it was lazy.


i still don't hear anything major enough that it MUST be edited. the beat was a little rushed (during a build up, which is to be expected to an extent), but it was nothing worth freaking out about (this coming from someone who did do a bit of tightening up).

saying anyone who didn't fix that part is 'lazy' while (and since you've gone out on a limb a bit, i will too.. nothing personal) substituting a quality tube overdrive bass sound for a Guitar Center-esque DI/stomp-box tone is kind of missing the big picture (especially since it's the dominant melodic instrument).

but luckily, this is just an excersize that we all get to learn from and i know it's helped me have a better perspective on how to handle something like this in the future.

p.s. i really don't wanna turn this into a slag-fest, besides, i already know what sucks about my mix! i dropped the ball on the bass tone myself..

Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 06, 2007, 11:43:07 AM
Quote:

Wherever I said "fix the drum intro" I meant the sloppy missed cut at 0:23 or so. The drummist missed the cue, and keeps playing his kick and stuff through the cut... I think J's editing there is very good.... check his mix for an example of how he cleaned it up


ok, i finally hear what a few of you are talking about. i didn't interpret it as "the drummer kept going on the kick drum by accident" at all. it sounded like a cock-rock fill, which i thought was completely intended. the hits speed up a bit, but it didn't bother me enough to fix, i guess.

with J.s edit (and i'm just using his as an example because it's the only one i distinctly remember).. the intro builds and builds and.. a wimpy crash pause before it explodes. edits like this, to me, sounded weaker than the slightly flubbed/rushed original.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 08:46:54 PM
Yes dude! You get it. All I did was move the last kick and snare hits in time (in the intro). It set the whole tone for the tune man!

And don't be passive-aggressive and try and put your side of it out there without wanting a rebuttal. You can't give a "slug-bug" and tell me I can't hit you back because you have your thumb up!  Surprised

PS. I HAVE THE RIGHT TO SAY WHATEVER I WANT TO. IMHO. IT WAS LAZY TO NOT FIX A BLATANT FUCK UP.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 08:49:02 PM
pg666 wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 10:21

substituting a quality tube overdrive bass sound for a Guitar Center-esque DI/stomp-box tone is kind of missing the big picture (especially since it's the dominant melodic instrument).


Next time bro, for you of course, I'll re-amp it with a high pass through my Boogie. Didn't want to spend that much time on it though.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 06, 2007, 09:05:53 PM
J-Texas wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 19:46

Yes dude! You get it. All I did was move the last kick and snare hits in time (in the intro). It set the whole tone for the tune man!



i believe brian was referring to J. as in J. Hall, which is the same J. that garret referenced him to.

simmer down........

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 10:10:39 PM
pg666 wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 10:43


ok, i finally hear what a few of you are talking about.


Simmer Down? I think you need to read this again. He said I see what a few of you are talking about.

As far as your edit man, this was said:

Quote:

a wimpy crash pause before it explodes. edits like this, to me, sounded weaker than the slightly flubbed/rushed original.


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 10:13:29 PM
Am I the new Vlad man? If this is a place where we can have a difference of opinion and express that and argue about it, then I'm in the right place.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 06, 2007, 11:31:46 PM
Quote:

i believe brian was referring to J. as in J. Hall, which is the same J. that garret referenced him to.


yep, you're right. i guess i should have specified more clearly.

Quote:

Am I the new Vlad man? If this is a place where we can have a difference of opinion and express that and argue about it, then I'm in the right place.


nah, but the editing talk is wearing a little thin, imo. all of the editing (or lack of) i heard from the mixes was deliberate; it was pretty clear from the get-go that each mixer would have to decide how much he wanted to chop this up (or not). you don't have to agree with everyone's approach, but no one here (in my mind) was lazy or ignorant about it..
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 06, 2007, 11:42:12 PM
Man don't feed my mouth.

"Ignorance" never came from it.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Greg Dixon on August 07, 2007, 01:26:21 AM
J-Texas wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 12:13

Am I the new Vlad man? If this is a place where we can have a difference of opinion and express that and argue about it, then I'm in the right place.


Nah, you're not Vlad. Even if we don't all agree with you, we can understand what you're saying and why you're saying it.

Differences of opinion are part of what makes IMP interesting. You are sounding like a broken record on the topic of editing though and seem to be unwilling to except any opinion that is different to yours.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 11:03:43 AM
Greg Dixon wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 00:26

J-Texas wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 12:13

Am I the new Vlad man? If this is a place where we can have a difference of opinion and express that and argue about it, then I'm in the right place.


Nah, you're not Vlad. Even if we don't all agree with you, we can understand what you're saying and why you're saying it.

Differences of opinion are part of what makes IMP interesting. You are sounding like a broken record on the topic of editing though and seem to be unwilling to except any opinion that is different to yours.


Dude, you're kidding right?

Go back and read. MANY people have brought up the issue of editing this thing. I do believe you'll also see that M Carter is the biggest proponent of the non-editing business and also the instigator of most of the argument (from me at least). This broken record thing pisses me off. Come back with an argument, not "I'm not playing with you anymore... you're mean."

Come on guys. I thought we were tossing around ideas. If you give me a rebuttal that I don't agree with, then sure... I will let you know that I STILL do not agree. Maybe out of the back and forth, somewhere along the way, someone (including myself) can look at things a little differently. I just haven't heard that yet. And as long as you will play along, I'll beat the fucking horse until I have an epiphany or I just agree to disagree. I don't appreciate (as annoying as it may be) someone stifling  my learning process. Maybe I'm not the only one here. There are a lot of people who lurk.      
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 07, 2007, 11:17:22 AM
I'm confused, do you want someone to try and convince you to not edit? maybe i should just stay outta this. it seems everyone on both sides have made their points and i didn't get the impression anyone was trying to convert the other. some people choose to, some people don't. some people like it, some don't. what else is there to talk about, it's like the analog / digital debate. we could go round and round for days, and we have.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: iCombs on August 07, 2007, 11:29:52 AM
I've been a bit absentee on this one...I've been up to my ears working on my band's album and finishing the death metal band from hell's EP.  Plus mixing a History Channel series. So I'n up to my furry white ass in work, atm.  

J-Tex...I don't mean to be the nelly naysayer...but it doesn't look like that edit is as important to the song as you're making it out to be.  In all honesty...I've yet to notice it either way.  I think this might be the big point to take away from this is that no one thing makes or breaks a mix.  If a song hangs on one drum edit, then it's probably not gonna be a great song, even if you nail that edit.  

In a lot of ways, this WHOLE SONG is about that.  Is it sloppy?  Yep!  Does that add to or detract from the attitude and the vibe?  I'd say wholeheartedly that it adds to it.  If it were all perfect and nailed down to a click and actually had all the notes played extactly spot on...it wouldn't have the sense of recklessness or abandon that it has...which is SO crucial to the song, especially considering the lyrical content.  This isn't one of those songs where you could, say, do a cover version for acoustic guitar and string quartet...the style, the delivery, and the performance are ALL critical to the song.  Honestly, I was legitimately suprised at the differences between mixes, for the simple fact that I heard the song and all I thought was "RECKLESS!  NOISE!  DIRT!!! SMASH!!!"  That's a big part of the reason why I left both vocal takes in, why I didn't edit the drums, why I didn't place any samples...I wanted something pretty ugly sounding...something that sounds somehow as reckless as the performance.  Obviously, not everyone saw it my way.  Do I agree with the decisions made by those who chose to mix cleaner and edit and stuff?  Not really...but that's how I looked at it.  I wanted the attitude to be as singular as I could make it.  I only really panned the overheads and I used the tom mics as another set of room mics which mere panned LCR...other than that, it's like a Scratch Perry mix...mono.  

Anyways, I know I'm now ranting a little...so I'll settle down...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 11:31:55 AM
scottoliphant wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 10:17

I'm confused, do you want someone to try and convince you to not edit? maybe i should just stay outta this. it seems everyone on both sides have made their points and i didn't get the impression anyone was trying to convert the other. some people choose to, some people don't. some people like it, some don't. what else is there to talk about, it's like the analog / digital debate. we could go round and round for days, and we have.



Something sensible that I can agree with.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 11:38:34 AM
iCombs wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 10:29


J-Tex...I don't mean to be the nelly naysayer...but it doesn't look like that edit is as important to the song as you're making it out to be.


10-4 Ian. Everyone needs to know that I always said (even in my critiques) that it was that way for me!

I can say that I think it needed to be a certain way. One doesn't have to agree. I never tried to persuade anyone to the dark side of the mix. And if I thought someone was lazy for not fixing that one little thing. Well, that's my opinion, they're like assholes and everyone has one. I guess I showed mine off.  Very Happy
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 11:45:19 AM
J-Texas wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 21:10

pg666 wrote on Mon, 06 August 2007 10:43


ok, i finally hear what a few of you are talking about.


Simmer Down? I think you need to read this again. He said I see what a few of you are talking about.

As far as your edit man, this was said:

Quote:

a wimpy crash pause before it explodes. edits like this, to me, sounded weaker than the slightly flubbed/rushed original.





oh man, you'll be hard pressed to find a more laid back guy then me.

in another thread my memory of past conversations failed me, i got called out on it, and i apologized........

fact of the matter is, i couldn't care any less what any one thinks of my IMP mixes.  they aren't for hire, and i mix them as i mix everything else i do.  with my instincts, skill set, and unapologetically.

the difference with IMP and my work-for-hire is that there is no recall process or client interaction.

therefore, brian hating an edit i made, and not "feeling" my stereo to mono bass movement is chalked up to opinion.  

and since we're tangled up in a mess between garret and brian, it should be known that these are two guys i know personally.  i've met garret in person and hung out with him.  brian and i have spoke on the phone a handful of times and traded emails.  i probably have a slightly different perspective on their opinions based on my relationship with each.

brian likes to let all the pieces fall where they may.  he isn't into over hyping things nor "hollywood" production.  he's much more focused on the impact of the art at hand.  it should also be mentioned that i have yet to meet a better drummer (who can play guitar amazingly well).  brian can eat the mars volta guy for breakfast, and yes, with a click track.  so when he comments on a sloppy drummer being cool, i generally take note.  i might not agree, but the understand rhythmic development.

garret is quite possibly the most eccentric musical mind i've encountered.  he gravitates toward a dave fridmann style of production without the 5,000 track counts.  garret is always looking for an arrangement to do something to him.  he wants movement without jarring sensation.  his personal music has a strange ability to draw you into a very foreign place, and for some reason, you feel good there.

these two guys should be very well known in the indie rock community for the very different things they do.  yet, they have day jobs and pursue music as a passion and a hobby.  i have a deep respect for both of these guys

now, no one (especially garret and brian) are attacking you.  i think they are trying to get you into a discussion to better understand your opinion.

so when i say "simmer down".  i mean it.  just relax......you aren't vlad, you aren't even remotely close to getting banned.......

and i can't see anyone on here trying to "get you"

now, i have a down day.  after i get my foot out of my mouth in that other thread, i'll start reviewing mixes.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 07, 2007, 12:08:18 PM
Quote:

therefore, brian hating an edit i made, and not "feeling" my stereo to mono bass movement is chalked up to opinion.


for the record, i didn't really hate either thing. that particular edit was pretty seamless and certainly covered up the drummer's sloppiness. it's just with things of that nature, if they don't make the song more exciting to me, i wouldn't personally bother with it. it's something i really like to take into consideration when fixing stuff of this nature.. is it actually better, or just different?

since your mix actually did enhance the built-in vibe of this song in other areas, i didn't really get too hung up on the editing choices (other than point it out in my spur-of-the-moment critique). i think that's the important distinction here and why i sort of butt-in on all the editing talk of the last page or so; fixing these minute mechanical details is ok until it becomes an obsession onto itself.. then the more important elements of the music become secondary.

thanks for the compliments, by the way!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 12:46:14 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 10:45

i think they are trying to get you into a discussion to better understand your opinion.


My opinion is that save a few bands, most want to enhance what it is about them that makes them unique. I would also like to think that these bands want to sound as "pro" as possible (even if they are not). My approach to this IMP was to make this seemingly "rough" band sound as kick ass as possible. I usually don't subscribe to taking out vocal performances, using sampled sounds, shifting beats, etc. Everything that I actually did on this project. Because I thought these guys were going in a certain direction (the direction they actually were going away from... oops). I tried to make it sound as pleasing as possible. Frankly, I rock out to my mix going down the highway. I like the song. I wouldn't enjoy listening to it if I hadn't done those things. I would like to go back and strip it down and see if it blows my skirt up. Until then, I guess I won't know if I was mixing as an audience member or as an artist.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 07, 2007, 12:57:06 PM
Ian -

I dig the idea of using the tom mics as rooms.  There might be some really cool shit in there that you can't get from the room mics.  I'll have to play with that a bit.  I ended up scrapping the hat and tom mic.  

One thing I noticed is that most people went with a really close mic'd drum sound, with very little room.  I'd have loved to hear a mix where someone really just went for a big room sound on the drums.  I was trying to, but I'm pretty certain I missed the mark as to what I was going for.  

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: iCombs on August 07, 2007, 01:42:50 PM
It can get messy...but on tracks where there are no toms it's cool because it's basically a set of distant snare mics/whole kit mics with the extra resonance of the toms beefing up the low end.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it don't...but this time around, it was a cool sound, IMO.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 01:49:37 PM
I just did what I said I would do. Threw it up and mixed it raw.

The editing didn't make a shit to me.  Rolling Eyes (when mixed as the raw sounds). It still worked very well in the original rock your ass-trying to sound mass-pleasing as hell mix.

I still like the original mix I did though. I stand by it. It rocks my groove thang.

If anyone is interested in how I interpreted the balance of the raw sounds... it's here: http://www.thompsoncreative.com/public/Raw.mp3
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 02:04:25 PM
pg666 wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 11:08

fixing these minute mechanical details is ok until it becomes an obsession onto itself.. then the more important elements of the music become secondary.




editing is just a tool i use to tighten the groove of a song.  editing to flawless perfection runs far to rampant in today's major label type productions.

art doesn't exist in the absolute grid (at least in my world it doesn't)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 07, 2007, 02:04:32 PM
J-Texas -

That "Balance" mix is actually one of my favorites so far.  With a few small tweaks, I'd be sold.  That shit's got some energy.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 03:17:02 PM
pasting from word always seems to do weird things, but here it is.

IMP 13 reviews:  overall, I?m noticing a lot of people gun shy in the low end area.  Thoughts on this?  The tracks?  The style of music?

ATOR

I really dig what you did with the bass sounds.  The overheads are AWESOME.  The white noise snare drum distracts me from listening to the song.  the broadband sonics are great.  Really balanced, and round.  I like the simple vocal approach to.  nice flanger in the bridge.  

garret

a rock band in physical space.  The verb is nice.  Feels like an empty club.  Only problem is that the vocal isn?t in the same space.  You made this sound like a 4-track with vocal over dubs.  I have a feeling that was intentional.  And I?m not saying it?s a bad thing, just an observation.

pg666

filtered bass.  Perhaps too much, but really I just think it?s a  touch quiet.  You worked the drums over really well without using samples.  Cymbals are a bit crispy, but you already know that.  The hard panned vocals would work really well if you panned the bass a bit, IMO.  It feels really mono, with stereo vocals.  That kick drum is impressive for what you had to work with.

macbraddy

?I still got the goods man???HAHAHA awesome!  Bass is SLAMMIN, where are the drums?  Overheads are there, I just want the kick and snare to punch me in the face while the bass kicks me in the ribs.  Vocals feel a bit back too.  Overall EQ is solid.  Your stereo field is really good too.  Not too wide, but not overly mono.  Is the snare panned hard left?

J-Texas

that hi hat is BANGIN? in the intro.  Man that?s some serious balls on the bass.  Not sure the drums are in the same place.  One thing I try to do with a mix is keep core elements in the same physical space.  If you blow out the bass, you probably want the drums to be some where in that picture.  The back and forth bass tone is good development.

southboundloco

WHOA!!  Something phasey in that bass tone.  Check your mix in mono, might be revealing.  Tons of 2 buss comp?  feels overly squeezed.  Man those overheads are so bright I might lose a filling or two.  Vocal chain is solid.  Try to work your mids a bit.  Bottom is huge, top end is searing, mids are light.

baddo

NICE!  Snare feels thin, but this is nit picking.  Nice mix man.  
What is your  room like?  Curious cause the sonics feel really controlled.

osumosan

sorta like garret?s mix putting the band in a physical space.  This feels live.  You have everything where it needs to be, and it really sounds like you did a two track live recording.  Well done!

M Carter

I don?t think your drums match that super round bass tone.  It makes the drums feel like an after thought for something like this.  Hell, maybe they were??.i think your vocal chain could be a bit more aggressive.  Tighter compression or something.  Thanks for the track BTW!!!!

careful collapse

where?s the beef?  The kick goes down to maybe 100, nothing below that. Also feels really mono.  These intentional decisions?

scottoliphant

really upper mid heavy.  There is some good aggression here.  Your mixing skills are improving.  The slap delay on the vocal is nice.  Not too much, but enough to make a point.  IIRC your mixes are typically thin.  Is this a monitoring issue, or do you not like low end?

iCombs

I think I reviewed your already.  This is the best IMP entry I?ve heard from you yet.  Simply from a control stand point.  I think the bass distortion is a bit much and the buss compression is clamping down too hard.  But as mentioned before, the low end is MUCH more in control then usual.  Not a bad song to go to extremes but I think you went too far.

ChrisJ

another really mid-rangey mix.  You like you some mids?.  If you opened up the frequencies this would have been a killer mix.  I still feel like you are too focused on details and losing the big picture while you mix.  On the next IMP, I want you to only use a ?normal? compressor and EQ.  let?s break it back down to some basics and build from there.  The vibe is cool.  The songs feels like it?s about to catch on fire.  We just need more then 300 ? 3k.

Tom C

sounds like you are using a really small room verb on the bass.  I like that.  Gives it some depth, but not too much.  Drums are really bright.  i would expect more pounding drums out of you.  I?m not looking at the submission thread, but I think you did this really fast.
Vocal feels a bit too filtered, but the placement in the mix is great.

homerecordingodyssey

man those overheads are slicing my ears like razors.  That pitchy thing with the vocal is too much.  It can work if you pull it back some.  Man that?s freaking me out.  I gotta bail before my wife finds me in the fetal position back in the studio closet.

Greg Dixon

good mix greg.  I?d like to hear more bottom, but everything fits.  I can?t say much else.

maxim

is that a bandpassed delay on the bass?  Is that conan singing with the lead vox?  That?s freaking me out.

Audio~Geek

WOW,  this has some balls.  COMPRESSION!!!!  Though I dig it.  Bass is really thin compared to the drums.  Vocal distortion is almost white noise.  With a few tweaks this mix could ROCK.  

Juergen

bass is a bit too far back in that club.  Nice low mids!!!  Oh, is that delay on the bass?  I think if you worked your effects a bit you could have a cool vibe here.

briefcasemanx

that kick samples is good, but a bit too noticeable as a sample.  Then again, I?ve heard this song A LOT in the last hour, so take that into consideration.  The snare samples is awesome.  My notes from here are just nit picking.  Good job!

fantomas

the bass is very stereo, but the drums feel really mono.  This is necessarily bad, but it?s making the mix feel out of balance in this case.  The vocal level seems to come and go.  Is that intentional?  Or do you need to just compress them more?

cjwallgor

man I love this!  I usually try to visualize mixes that I?m ?reviewing?.  See what it makes me think of.  As in a place, time, situation.  This mix makes me feel like I?m in a horror movie hearing the band through a wall.  But not in a bad EQ way.  It?s haunting sounding, but really pissed off.  This might be my favorite mix.  The drums are all blown out sounding, and the bass is all low mid and a touch hollow.  I really like this vibe for the song!

Brian Lloyd

bass is dark.  And it matters because that?s all we?ve got in this tune.  The verb on the drums needs to have a low pass filter on it.  It?s sizzly which makes it sound too digital.  The vocals are where?  At the bottom of a silo??what did you chose this?  I?m curious.

ryst

big kick drum, thin bass.  The samples sound really drum machine to me.  If your trigger allows you to add dynamics in you should do that.  In a big thick guitar rock song you can get away with a kick being the same every time.  In something like this you need variations in your samples to create something believable.  Vocals are pretty solid.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 07, 2007, 03:32:48 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17

scottoliphant

really upper mid heavy. There is some good aggression here. Your mixing skills are improving. The slap delay on the vocal is nice. Not too much, but enough to make a point. IIRC your mixes are typically thin. Is this a monitoring issue, or do you not like low end?



thanks man. I'm a bit timid to really crank high or lows that aren't that present fin the original material. I hear it and it doesn't sound right to me. i worked with the kick that was there, if i recall correctly it was a bit on the thin side. I think i boosted the bass on the b guitars a bit. and, i'm sure it's partly a monitoring issue. When i work on records "for real", it's at a proper place, imp takes place in my home office with my crappy acoustic treatments =) Thing i've been trying to accomplish more than anything with these, is to get that cohesiveness thing going. I actually enjoy tracking more than mixing (although less so these days as i get more comfortable), and for a few years, i could never get my mixes to sound "finished".
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: garret on August 07, 2007, 03:48:46 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 15:17


garret

a rock band in physical space.  The verb is nice.  Feels like an empty club.  Only problem is that the vocal isn?t in the same space.  You made this sound like a 4-track with vocal over dubs.  I have a feeling that was intentional.  And I?m not saying it?s a bad thing, just an observation.



Interesting feedback... thanks for finding the time.  I'm glad you liked the verb... i'm assuming you mean the spring on the bass.

A 4-track feel was not intentional, but I can see how it sounds that way... I do like me some sm57/tascam porta studio indie rawk now and again, on a warped 7" if possible.

Regarding the vocals sounding like they're in a different space... this is something I've never gotten the hang of.   Say I have a fairly strong plate verb on vox, something mashy on snare, and a general room verb on a few other things.   Would you feed a bit of the vocal into the room verb as well as the plate?  Dunno why i haven't tried that... stacking verbs. Hmm.  I guess I'm always afraid to push the vocal behind the other tracks in space, so I end up with a dry vocal on top of everything else.

In my mix, are the vocals too dry, or are you hearing a different ambient space that clashes?

-G
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 05:02:43 PM
garret, i typically only use one verb.  so everything going to it, exist in that "space"

i will use very short reverb times to create "ambience" for random things.  (500ms - 750ms)

but if i'm working a particular space that brings a visual to mind, i'll make sure the vocal is also in that space.

now, i might not put as much on the lead vocal to keep it up front.  just enough to make it believable.  try that and see if you dig it.

Scott.  do you hear that "finished", "cohessiveness" in my work?

i ask because if you do, maybe i can help.  if you don't, then try to explain what exactly that sound is.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: scottoliphant on August 07, 2007, 05:13:42 PM
yes J, even if I don't particularly personally like all of the things you do, your mixes always sound finished. you can tell this is your gig =). The closest I've come in the imp world is the last imp. unfortunately i didn't have much time this go around, but thought i've gotten better at making it vibe as a whole. Feedback from a couple of folks this go round mentioned mine being the scariest mix or the most aggressive mix, hah, at least that came through.

edit: i also only ever use 1 verb =)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Tom C on August 07, 2007, 05:22:34 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 21:17


Tom C

sounds like you are using a really small room verb on the bass.  I like that.  Gives it some depth, but not too much.  Drums are really bright.  i would expect more pounding drums out of you.  I?m not looking at the submission thread, but I think you did this really fast.
Vocal feels a bit too filtered, but the placement in the mix is great.



Good observation, my mix was done in about 90 minutes (I normally
need 3-6 hours average), so there wasn't much time to try things out.
As others mentioned as well, the drums could have some more energy,
I fully agree. Probably I mixed this one loud and didn't check it
at lower levels.
For me it was an interesting experience to be forced to make
quick decisions because normally I often get lost in details
and lose the big picture.

Thanks for your time to comment.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 05:30:48 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17

J-Texas

that hi hat is BANGIN? in the intro.  Man that?s some serious balls on the bass.  Not sure the drums are in the same place.  One thing I try to do with a mix is keep core elements in the same physical space.  If you blow out the bass, you probably want the drums to be some where in that picture.  The back and forth bass tone is good development.


I know the drums aren't in the same place. I think the OH and vocals are in the same place. But it's just a layer. Then the fuzzy bass, then the kick, then the deep bass. That's what TOM C said about the glue. There should have been some mustard and mayo on that sammy. The kick, to me, was a big part of the missing freqs.

Thank you very much for the kind remarks. Especially after I got my panties in a wad. I've already written: "I ain't be doin' that shit up in here any mo'" on the chalkboard about a hundred times.

On second thought. Bullshit. I'm gonna tell you what I think.  Twisted Evil
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 05:33:19 PM
Matt. Thanks for the feedback on the raw mix. I had to test my perspective. When in the "raw" things didn't bother me as much. That was ONLY: Eq + compression. In that form, it takes on a whole new life. Even after that test though, I like the consumer-grade polish (and then throw dirt all over it) mix.

Very Happy
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 05:40:05 PM
granted this is an extremely difficult thing to discuss on the internet, i'll give it a shot.

based on what i've heard of your work, you need to start breaking down the EQ barrier you have.

it is not uncommon for me to have a "thin" kick drum bossted with a shelf at 100Hz +12dB or more.

part of the "finished" sound is simply to not stop until it's, well, finished.

the 2 biggest things i can think of would be:

1.  KNOW your monitoring (acoustics, speakers, amp...)

2.  define what "finished" sounds like to you, and listen to TONS of records (you have not worked on) that have that sound.

don't let "rules" hold you back.

i see lots of guys fall short by thinking they can't boost more then 6dB on an EQ band, or the kick drum sounds good in solo, or just with the rhythm section, but it gets lost in with the guitars...."but it sounds good already...."

that's the stuff that stops forward progress.

if the kick isn't loud enough, or needs more "attack" when the guitars are in.....fix it no matter what it takes.

another thing i was taught was "find your vibe and dig into it.  learn what your "sound" is and make it even better.  don't try to copy some one else's thing until you have your own down."

that frustrated me at first, but once i "heard" my work, i understood it's value.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 05:45:31 PM
J-Texas wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 16:30


Thank you very much for the kind remarks. Especially after I got my panties in a wad. I've already written: "I ain't be doin' that shit up in here any mo'" on the chalkboard about a hundred times.




not sure how "kind" they were......but hopefully helpful.

no need for huffing chalk dust......just a hi-five and let's move on.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 07, 2007, 05:45:56 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17


IMP 13 reviews:  overall, I?m noticing a lot of people gun shy in the low end area.  Thoughts on this?  The tracks?  The style of music?



We are doing MAJOR renovations in the control room. So I too have done these last two IMPs in my home office. I have some nice traps that I made all over the place and they help a lot. Not to mention, I'm using my NS10-M's. I've always loved them and I know what they do. Or don't do. Putting together the bottom is always scary water for me... why?


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 05:54:03 PM
because low end can go horribly wrong horribly fast.
you can get mixes that are pounding in your room, but thin outside, and vice versa......

i spent a few years very affraid of bottom end after working in a room with terrible acoustics.

the best thing to do is get some headphones you trust.  listen to TONS of records that you think sound awesome.  learn them well.

once you feel that you can trust your nearfields and room then make the switch.

i know guys that dial their low end in only on headphones and will finish mixes on their nearfields.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on August 07, 2007, 05:54:14 PM
Quote:


careful collapse

where?s the beef?  The kick goes down to maybe 100, nothing below that. Also feels really mono.  These intentional decisions?


Heh my kick EQ is a low end shelf, +14db at 160.  So I'm sorta confused by this since there's huge sub boosts on the kick as well as your typical 80-100hz
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 05:57:59 PM
there is NO bottom in the original kick.

or something happened to your mp3, or i'm just CRAZY.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Careful Collapse on August 07, 2007, 06:25:30 PM
Well my woofers are tiny so I'll take your word for it :\
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: pg666 on August 07, 2007, 06:57:43 PM
good, accurate headphones are great for referencing the low end on kick drums. i noticed a few years ago that my favorite rock kick drum tones sound pretty damn clean when i listen to them on my Beyers. so now when i mix, i usually bump the 80-100hz zone and compress 'til they get rumbly in the cans, then back off slowly.

also, make sure the rumble isn't coming from the 200-400 region. that crud will reduce attack and make it sound pillow-y.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on August 07, 2007, 08:08:37 PM
j wrote:

"is that a bandpassed delay on the bass? '

there is a modulation chain on the bass, but the "bandpassedness" is from an accidental phase inversion on one of the bass tracks, i think

"Is that conan singing with the lead vox?"

yes

"That?s freaking me out."

good...
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 07, 2007, 10:47:33 PM
pg666 wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 17:57



also, make sure the rumble isn't coming from the 200-400 region. that crud will reduce attack and make it sound pillow-y.


although don't be quick to cut this range either.

it holds a lot of impact.  100 - 250 is power.  give or take some Hz.

just be careful in the mids.  you really want all that stuff there.....not too much, not too little.

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Baddo on August 08, 2007, 03:45:42 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17


...baddo

NICE!  Snare feels thin, but this is nit picking.  Nice mix man.  
What is your  room like?  Curious cause the sonics feel really controlled.


Hey, thanks for the compliments. That snare came back and haunted me haha.

My room is far from being perfect, but I know it very well.

PS: I'll do my reviews very very soon, I promise.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 08, 2007, 05:09:07 PM
"knowing is half the battle" - G.I. Joe
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 08, 2007, 05:53:11 PM
Baddo wrote on Wed, 08 August 2007 14:45

j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17


...baddo

NICE!  Snare feels thin, but this is nit picking.  Nice mix man.  
What is your  room like?  Curious cause the sonics feel really controlled.


Hey, thanks for the compliments. That snare came back and haunted me haha.

My room is far from being perfect, but I know it very well.

PS: I'll do my reviews very very soon, I promise.


Man, that was one of my favorites in the critique that I did. I wish that I had that kind of meat in the low end. That didn't come out right. I still love the mix man!


Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: NelsonL on August 08, 2007, 05:57:05 PM
j.hall wrote on Wed, 08 August 2007 14:09

"knowing is half the battle" - G.I. Joe


"No, knowing is all the battle."

Mr. C. my 4th grade teacher in response.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on August 10, 2007, 07:05:02 AM
Thanks everybody for your comments.

Yesterday I tweaked my mix a little:
- This time I used samples for the snare. I originally tried to make the most of the given snare without using samples but that obviously didn't work out.

- I also rolled of some of the aggressive highs of the OH's and reduced the level of the duplicated, distorted, octave up basslayers a little.


Hey Matt, was the snare as dead as it sounded?


There were a few mixes where I commented that I'd like to hear the drums edited. My take on do/do not edit drums is what kind of mix you want to make.

The more you mix this track as a clean rock track the more I feel you should edit timing mistakes. If you mix to express the chaos and mess of the track I couldn't care less about fucked up timing. If you would go all Trevor Horn on this track I'd expect the timing of these tracks to be heavily edited. For me the style of the mix also dictates the amount of editing.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 10, 2007, 08:04:55 AM
ATOR -

The kit was an old gretsch kit, and the snare was a reallllly deep snare drum.  It was pretty dead sounding.  I also blame a lot of it on mic placement, since at the time I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing.  The sessions was literally an in/out kind of situation, so the general feeling was 'is it recording? yeah? ok, lets do this'.  Extremely fun way to make a record, but doesn't yield the greatest sounds when you're fairly new to this kind of thing.

You really should (if you haven't) check out some of the V.O.D. stuff Dave Sardy did, it seemed like that was where you were trying to take the drums when I heard yours.  

Matt
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 10, 2007, 09:12:43 AM
ATOR wrote on Fri, 10 August 2007 06:05

The more you mix this track as a clean rock track the more I feel you should edit timing mistakes. If you mix to express the chaos and mess of the track I couldn't care less about fucked up timing. If you would go all Trevor Horn on this track I'd expect the timing of these tracks to be heavily edited. For me the style of the mix also dictates the amount of editing.


Why couldn't I have just said it that way?  Confused

"cause I'm an asshole-e-o-e-o-e-oooooo, he's an asshole-e-o-e-o-e-oooooo"
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 10, 2007, 01:22:42 PM
One of these days in the near future I'll have to get to my reviews of the mixes...

In the meantime these storms in the city are fucking up our mojo here at the studio. Damn these old new york buildings.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ATOR on August 10, 2007, 05:54:21 PM
M Carter wrote on Fri, 10 August 2007 14:04

ATOR -

The kit was an old gretsch kit, and the snare was a reallllly deep snare drum.  It was pretty dead sounding.  I also blame a lot of it on mic placement, since at the time I didn't really pay attention to what I was doing.  The sessions was literally an in/out kind of situation, so the general feeling was 'is it recording? yeah? ok, lets do this'.  Extremely fun way to make a record, but doesn't yield the greatest sounds when you're fairly new to this kind of thing.

You really should (if you haven't) check out some of the V.O.D. stuff Dave Sardy did, it seemed like that was where you were trying to take the drums when I heard yours.  

Matt


Thanks for the info Matt.

Looking back what got me frustrated in getting the snare to sound like I wanted was that I was trying to make the low snaredrum sound like a higher tuned snare using eq and compression. Maybe I should have pitched the snaretrack, never tried it but it might work.

I listened to some online VOD Imprint snippets and I hear what you mean, I'll check out some more.

Just checked out your signature studio, not quite what I expected after hearing these tracks  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: cjwallgor on August 10, 2007, 07:58:23 PM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 14:17

cjwallgor

man I love this!  I usually try to visualize mixes that I?m ?reviewing?.  See what it makes me think of.  As in a place, time, situation.  This mix makes me feel like I?m in a horror movie hearing the band through a wall.  But not in a bad EQ way.  It?s haunting sounding, but really pissed off.  This might be my favorite mix.  The drums are all blown out sounding, and the bass is all low mid and a touch hollow.  I really like this vibe for the song!


Thanks man!  This is the sound I had in my head for this song (give or take, haha, one can only do so much in two hours!)

I wanted to take the over-the-top not care attitude a step further and make everything kind of ugly and slamming.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 10, 2007, 09:28:21 PM
it works really well.  well done!!!!

i still love the vibe you got.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on August 11, 2007, 12:41:33 AM
j.hall wrote on Tue, 07 August 2007 15:17

ChrisJ

another really mid-rangey mix.  You like you some mids?.  If you opened up the frequencies this would have been a killer mix.  I still feel like you are too focused on details and losing the big picture while you mix.  On the next IMP, I want you to only use a ?normal? compressor and EQ.  let?s break it back down to some basics and build from there.  The vibe is cool.  The songs feels like it?s about to catch on fire.  We just need more then 300 ? 3k.


Sweet, glad I'm getting some of what I want within the context of my midranginess Wink

Can you remind me about the normal (logic??) compressor and (logic channel?) EQ? Do I get a verb? Do I get to use stuff like my 2-buss treatment or are we talkin' stock Logic plugs and nothing I sell? Also it's hard to know what to think about the middieness, I can hardly get even less extended monitoring. The 8" fullrange off-axis monitoring is just not making me put in super highs when I think they sound shitty. Maybe instead of having to use Logic stock plugs and so on, can I use my accustomed everything but we'll do a track that does NOT want to sound like Led Zeppelin II?

I might surprise you if you threw an IMP that was a Steely Dan vibe at me- or Eagles. This stuff we're getting is all rocked out. I can't stand extreme highs and lows on heavy rock stuff. Bass too low is bloated and sluggish, and treble too high is irritating and distracts from the guts of the song. Maybe I'll do a mix encased in a large blob of treacle, or wearing earplugs Smile

Seriously- tell me more and/or remind me about special instructions and/or pick something that's RIGHT to have lows and highs. I've done mixes before that sounded wrong on the 8": this time I worked mainly on it. You said the vibe was cool and it sounded like it was on fire. I'll sacrifice ANYTHING to achieve that effect on music that ought to have it. The question is whether it's that necessary- and what I do if there's music that clearly wants to be super widerange. It'd have to be very different music Smile

One thing about it, what I did is pretty Myspace-friendly Wink with that, all your highs are KILLED with extreme prejudice anyway. I just cut out a step  Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 11, 2007, 03:58:09 PM
i just want you to try a mix or two without all the crazy plugs you have.  just bring it down to a simple EQ and compressor.  verb is fine, i just want to hear you simplify your approach and get an idea of what that does.

also, i don'trecommend changing your monitoring all the time.  stick with what you think sounds best and just learn it cold!

i'll look around for some thing "smoother" for IMP14
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: maxim on August 11, 2007, 09:27:38 PM
chris, it's true enough that when i listen to your mixes i HEAR a lot of your plugins

that shouldn't be the point of the mix

perhaps it's because you're excited to try them out, and they DO sound interesting, but i feel the song is getting lost behind the effects (not that i have a handle on it myself)
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: chrisj on August 12, 2007, 04:57:57 PM
That's fine- it would be a natural problem for me to be having. What comes to mind is- what if I use just say the Logic channel EQ or whatever, and it still sounds the way it's been sounding? If there's a target I 'should' be going for instead of what I keep aiming at, in particular if it's one where you 'shouldn't' hear any processing, what sort of music is that, how do I wrap my head around trying to hear that way?

I've got an okay handle on getting things to sound the way I hear them in my head, for an amateur, but I'm having a lot of trouble finding other ways I want things to sound. Maybe I'm just not listening to enough, or the same kinds of, music as other people are?

Or maybe it's just like what Slipperman called 'biggenation' in which you control everything to the Nth degree, and then go back and loosen it all up until the overcontrolledness is gone? The overcontrolledness helps you focus the exact direction you're going but then you soften it so it's just being NUDGED in that direction?

I'm interested in what the working mixologists do, as far as 'forcing stuff to go exactly the way you hear it, or being more gentle'. Seems I'm getting the hang of J's concept of using extremely forceful handling if you want it, and losing my fear of that, but then I turn around and it's getting a vibe but is too gratitious Smile
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 12, 2007, 05:20:54 PM
chrisj wrote on Sun, 12 August 2007 15:57

That's fine- it would be a natural problem for me to be having. What comes to mind is- what if I use just say the Logic channel EQ or whatever, and it still sounds the way it's been sounding?



let's just slow down and wait to hear what it DOES sound like when you mix in a more "simple" way.

one step at a time!
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 13, 2007, 01:16:40 AM
I'd be interested to know how many people did recalls for themselves, and what changes they made if so.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: audio~geek on August 14, 2007, 12:14:35 AM
M Carter wrote on Mon, 13 August 2007 00:16

I'd be interested to know how many people did recalls for themselves, and what changes they made if so.

I'm going to do one this week.
more automation mostly, and easing up on the compression of course.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: M Carter on August 14, 2007, 09:24:17 PM
chrisj wrote on Sun, 12 August 2007 15:57


I'm interested in what the working mixologists do, as far as 'forcing stuff to go exactly the way you hear it, or being more gentle'. Seems I'm getting the hang of J's concept of using extremely forceful handling if you want it, and losing my fear of that, but then I turn around and it's getting a vibe but is too gratitious Smile



there are definitely multiple schools of thought, as this thread/exercise has proven from the start.  Something that I heard once that rubbed off was "Over the years, I've realized that the more I mix, the less I do.  It seems kind of disrespectful to the sounds when you start getting in there and changing all types of shit to make it what YOU want", but that IS a rather old school approach, and the opposing view has it's arguments as well.    

Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on August 14, 2007, 09:41:53 PM
M Carter wrote on Mon, 13 August 2007 06:16

I'd be interested to know how many people did recalls for themselves, and what changes they made if so.


After multiple comments on my snare, I decided it was too loud.  Laughing  Laughing  Laughing

And I fattened up the bass a bit and added a litle sheen to the OH's.
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: J-Texas on August 14, 2007, 09:52:27 PM
ryst wrote on Tue, 14 August 2007 20:41

After multiple comments on my snare, I decided it was too loud.  Laughing  Laughing  Laughing


Are you SURE that everything else just wasn't too low?  Surprised
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 14, 2007, 11:17:05 PM
M Carter wrote on Tue, 14 August 2007 20:24

chrisj wrote on Sun, 12 August 2007 15:57


I'm interested in what the working mixologists do, as far as 'forcing stuff to go exactly the way you hear it, or being more gentle'. Seems I'm getting the hang of J's concept of using extremely forceful handling if you want it, and losing my fear of that, but then I turn around and it's getting a vibe but is too gratitious Smile



there are definitely multiple schools of thought, as this thread/exercise has proven from the start.  Something that I heard once that rubbed off was "Over the years, I've realized that the more I mix, the less I do.  It seems kind of disrespectful to the sounds when you start getting in there and changing all types of shit to make it what YOU want", but that IS a rather old school approach, and the opposing view has it's arguments as well.    





i wouldn't call myself "forcefull"  i find myself working with mediocre to plain bad sounds an average amount (more then i'd like)  in this regard, i think it's fair to be "heavy handed" when combined with the client asking for something the tracks simply aren't.

what i'm trying to teach and stress with IMP is something i believe in.  sonic  vibe.  i like the mix itself to have a vibe.  the hard part is to marry a vibe to a song.  you want these things to work together.

it's a hard thing talk about.

anyway, try not to think of me as a "forceful" mixer.  that makes me feel too much like a dictator.  perhaps i am, i'm just not ready to deal with that......HA
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on August 15, 2007, 12:31:42 AM
J-Texas wrote on Wed, 15 August 2007 02:52

ryst wrote on Tue, 14 August 2007 20:41

After multiple comments on my snare, I decided it was too loud.  Laughing  Laughing  Laughing


Are you SURE that everything else just wasn't too low?  Surprised


Yeah, I tried that.  Didn't sound the same.  You were right the first time.  Not the second time.   Laughing
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: ryst on August 15, 2007, 12:34:06 AM
j.hall wrote on Wed, 15 August 2007 04:17



anyway, try not to think of me as a "forceful" mixer.  that makes me feel too much like a dictator.  perhaps i am, i'm just not ready to deal with that......HA


Castro was a forum moderator before taking over Cuba......
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: j.hall on August 15, 2007, 06:43:44 PM
OOOFFF......that will leave a mark
Title: Re: imp13 discussion
Post by: Baddo on August 27, 2007, 06:38:52 PM
BriefcaseMan

I like the drums' ambience; but dislike the bass tone and vox distortion. Sometimes the voice jumps at you and is a little strident.

ICombs

woooooh fuzzbox!
Strange compressed drum sounds, a little weird for my taste; I like the voice tone game (whispery vs. distorted)
I'd like the mix to have more impact, and I think it sound a little scooped.

Jason Thompson

WOW, very hard hitting once the riff enters; I like how the voice sounds, like he is on steroids, a little uneasy which is both cool and good.
A little fatiguing after a while.

TomC

Intro sounds cool, I don't like the drums' sound (just my taste) although it's cool how it sounds like a rehearsal space.
I got a little bored in the bridge.
I don't think the mix sells the song but it's pretty cool anyway.

SouthboundLoco

A little trebly for my taste, I love the oomph on the kick though.
Not really sure about the bass tone.
What i like the most is the snare, and it shines on the bridge.

Andrew Brierley

Huge bass tone! The intro didn't resolve like I had anticipated, I'd have liked it to really explode.
Was that a harmonizer on the voice? cool toy...
again, I'm not sure if this mix sells the song, but it's pretty interesting from a purely sonic point of view.
That bridge will haunt me at night Wink

BrianL

The intro sounds good but it didn't explode as much as I'd like. reverb on the lead vocal tends to wear.
I didn't really get this one. to me it sounds like someone in his basement watching TV and singing.

Careful Collapse

I like how the 1st nhaaa of the 2nd voice flies quickly from left to right.
Not really into the drum sounds.
The echo on the coughing in the bridge made me laugh, that was good.
I like the additional bass track at the end.

ChrisJ

Weird in an interesting way; drums sound like mouth-drums (is that how they are called?)
Not much else to say, I listen to it entirely but it didn't do much for me.

--btw: Logical rocks!

Greg Dixon

Hey! Nice bass tone. really nice. It loses weight once the drums enter (why?)
The bridge is cool, it grabbed my attention again.

Juergen

Cool delay on the bass.
Somehow I feel like the bass is here presented as the primary instrument, I don't agree but if that was your intention then I think you pulled it off.
I like the drum sound.

Ryst

Nice burning bass tone. I like the drums. Interesting play on the snare for the bridge.

Scottoliphant

Very nice, transistor radio intro, heavy drum presentation and atomic whiplash when the riff starts!
Over the top!
Not much else to say, except that it's very strong.

ATOR

Techno snare??? Haha. That I wasn't expecting.
Overall sounds a little dirty. I liked the phaser on the bridge.

Garret

The drums sound a little distant on contrast with the majority of the other mixes. I like how the voices sound, but I think I'd like it more if it had more impact.

Maxim

What's that strange low voice? A ring modulator?
The drums are a little soft for my taste.
Strange edits at the end, I'm not sure I get what you were after here.

Osumosan

Mayhem! I think this one carries the idea of the performance. Things are a little drenched in reverb but it sounds cool.

Audio-Geek

The bass sounds boxy, that's a different take than what's been done so far and it works, not for added size but to better define the bass line.
I like this mix, it has balls and compression is overdone just like the performance, nice.

Fantomas

I like the bass idea, and the vocal sound though it may be a little dry. I find the snare to be a little high level-wise.
Cool ending.

JHall

Good drum ambience, that;s refreshing in contrast with the dryness of the other mixes.
The best balance I've heard, and nice vocal intelligibility.

MCarter

Good intro, I'm not psyched about the vocal verb but I do like it's tonal attitude.
Drums are a little low and the cymbals sound thin, but I like it anyway.

CJWall

Ha! I like the SFX at the beginning. This mix sounds great, although the bass line might have used  a couple dB more. (that's my take).
Not really into the kick drum sound.

Macbraddy

Wow, really thick bass tone. Drums sound cool and clean in the verses but explode on the chorus, I like that.
Not much to say about this one.

Song.mp3

I like what you did with the vocals.
Not thrilled about the drums or bass, I like the snare but as a whole they don't groove.
The breakdown sounds great, nice build up.
I would have like the bass to chew some more bottom.

And that would be it.
See you later.