Lets have some fun with a bluegrass project i'm recording!

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Svart

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Jun 4, 2004
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http://www.theopiumdenproductions.com/Sinead2.wav

The instruments are?

What mics were used?

What preamps were used?

How was this mixed(ITB? OTB?)?



A hint: there were 3 instruments.

Not all of the parts are final takes, some are scratch tracks.



 
Well in this time of computer technology they can all be virtual instruments and you would not know the difference.


Guitar, mandolin and bass.

All my stuff is packed up so I can only listen on my PC speakers with limited bass response, so the bass sounds like an electric bass but towards the finale it gave away, it is an acoustic bass.

Guitar is finger picked but he/she may well be playing with a plectrum and picking with other three fingers. The mandolin doubles the lead and percussive rhythm.

I don't have sufficient experience in working out on the type of mics and pre-amps used. But the mixing again can be both, depends how you treat it. However, she has a good voice and why is it buried behind the jingling mandolin? Although she sings softly but it sounds like as if she is not comfortable. Tell her to belt out, the songs needs it and she has the voice for it.

 
Well, i'll give it a shot. Why not.

I also only listened on the computer...didn't shoot it to the studio. And, like Sahib, I would have no idea about particular brands of gear, etc. And I'll try to not make artistic judgements. Not my genre anyway.

Ok, let's see....

I hear an air conditioner or something in the background....

The sound is fairly dark. Like ribbon microphone dark, but it could be eq just as well to my ears.

Classical/ nylon string guitar....novel.

I hear some wooly stuff on the vocal. It has stereo separation though. Different in left and right.So it must be something on both channels rather than in the vocal mic chain.

Some kind of side panned delay on mando....

I wanted to say tape... but hmm...nah. My old tape stuff doesn't sound like that even if I burn it. But then again, I don't. I could tell from hiss, but not on my computer since it has a poor quality audio card.

Semms pretty compressed.

Ok I will make one artistic judgement.... great vocalist!! Send her up here.

Les
L M Watts Technology


 
I hear a female vocal. did I win the big prize? ;D

There is a vocal, a bass, a guitar, a mandolin.

what little I know about bluegrass here are my guesses
I am going to say they all played it live. Maybe a vocal over dub but I seriously doubt it. The vocalist is not up on the mic so your picking up some room or adding a room type verb in later.
The bass is an upright but not plucked real hard. The vocals were cut with a condenser mic?  I think there was a ribbon on the upright but I could be wrong. Maybe a bright condenser on the mandolin like say a 414 or something similar of that brightness. Not sure what is on the guitar but I am guessing an SDC?
Did you cut this to your SSL(Sound Scape) system? 
 
wow some really good guesses!

This was my first time doing something like this.  It was lots of fun and the players had fun too.  It went much faster and easier than the normal rock sessions.

First, yes it's the SSL alphalink/mixpander/Reaper setup.

I unfortunately forgot to close the AC vents into the tracking room so yes there is a slight A/C noise on one of the tracks.  Luckly it's on one of the scratch tracks and won't be there on the final cut.

The nylon guitar and the (scratch)vocals were tracked together, the bass next and the mandolin(scratch) last.

The vocals are through a studio projects C1 to a 1272 pre to the Alphalink running a soundscape compressor plugin heavily compressed so that the vocalist could hear herself evenly.  She had a habit of moving toward the mic and then away some until I did this although you can still hear her do it a little bit and this is the stereo type effect you hear

The guitar is an ORTF Gefell M930 setup to 1272s to the alphalink.  I also had an ORTF Studio projects B1s set up.  They were brighter but had a less defined midrange.  If the Mandolin wasn't so highly tuned I might have chosen the B1s for the guitar.  Room mics were spaced pair Oktava MK012 to API312s.

The bass was indeed an upright(first time I've ever recorded one).  It had ORTF M930s as well.  I also tried ORTF Oktava MK219s as well.  They got more of a plucky sound with a little less low end.  Room mics were MK012.  The player had only played an upright for about 3 months before this tracking session.  This is the reason for the light playing.  I also liked the darkness of it since the lack of attack helps keep the other parts in the front of the soundstage.

Mandolin had ORTF M930s to 1272s.  The B1s were a little too sizzly.  

There is no EQ on this and it's a fairly dead room.  This was summed/panned/level adjusted on an Alesis X2.  The guitar went through a PRR vari-mu because the player moved around a little bit and this needed to be evened out(the PRR varimu also adds a lot of high end harmonics which work great on stringed instruments like this.

this was summed and then put through a light compression via a GSSL.

That's it folks!

I'm actually pretty stoked that it worked so well.  I recently found out that they love the mix but they think that they played it too fast.  This means that they want to do it over, more slowly.  

EDIT:

One thing I forgot to mention is that I mic'd everything up from about 24 inches away to get a more full sound from the instruments.  I had to jack up the gain on everything and that is part of the hiss you hear.
 

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