My first mix to make it to TV!!

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Lowfreq

Well-known member
Joined
May 28, 2005
Messages
575
Location
Christchurch, New Zealand
Well this is a first for me....... A band I tracked and mixed, got some airplay on our music channel here in NZ, and I got to see it this evening. The band let me know it'd be on tonight.

And it didn't suck ;D........................... In fact, I was pleasantly suprised

I teach guitar to earn a buck or two, and I'm not a pro engineer at all, so it's quite daunting knowing something you mixed is gonna be alongside all the big budget stuff. I've always just done demos.

I've been through the home studio thing so many times, when you think your mix sounds great until you compare it to something done by the big boys, leaving you to hang your head in shame :'( ..... too many times I tell you, too many.....I should really upgrade from my Alesis monitors sometime..............sometimes it hard to tell your head from your arse with these

I was getting quite nervous just watching........ getting more nervous as each video played............
"Is my mix gonna sound like poo?"....... "Will it have that small closed up sound, compared to everything else?".... 

One more big rock production came on before my mix. Same style, same kind of band.......... "Oh crap, this sounds really good.....why couldn't they have something far removed, like something acoustic indie or something".........
it's like that feeling you get when you have to sing next, and the person before you has just torn it up with an amazing voice and performance............... I aways prefer it when whoever sings first is.......well.........um........ 'below average' ::)

Then came my mix.................. and blow me down if it didn't sound as big and juicy as what I'd just heard already!!
No 'little' sound....... no 'home studio' sound.............I was stunned.............

I guess all those DIY toys that I've added over time, have really made a difference......a BIG difference.
I'm sure my mixing skills have improved a little bit too, but nowhere near as much as my gear collection. I'm not practicing the craft of mixing enough to say it's because I'm the bomb digity. I may have just fluked this mix  :-\

Actually, whoever did the mastering should take some credit..........It's the first project I've had done by a proper Mastering studio.
I had to talk the band into sending it off to be done properly, as the singer was dead keen on doing it himself with T-Racks or something, listening through his home stereo...... Oh man, that was a lot of talking & energy spent on convincing them........I shoulda charged extra just for that.. ha ha

Anyway, after working on a difficult mix this afternoon, and feeling like tearing my hair out, this was just what I needed to make me not want to give up..........

In fact, I wanna build some more toys now............Things can only start to sound better......right?

"Honey, can I play with the credit card now? please.........." :p









 
Way to go , the broadcast chain can really mess stuff up
you'd think with all the digital there'd be less need for
heavy handed limiting , but sometimes it cures ills as well
mashing everything together , but good show
 
Hey Low Freq..

Nice stuff....

Where did you track the drums?

What about the other instruments, voice???

Can you let me know some of your signal chains????

J
 
Drums were tracked in a large concrete storage building. We damped down a lot of the area near the drums to dry things up, but left the rest untreated as it sounded kinda cool & lively in there. Some of the really loud guitar amps were tracked in there too, but pretty much everything else was recorded in my spare room/studio at home.

I kept a record of the setup on my computer, just in case I really liked a particular sound. For future reference..... Here goes.......

Drums:
OHs  AT4050----> JLM baby animals-------> Aruora
Kick Beta 52a------>EKADTEK Neve-------> Aruora
Snare top-----> SM57----->EKADTEK Neve----->Aruora
Snare bttm----> AE3300-----> JLM baby animal------.profire 2626
Toms----> E609----> API & JLM baby animal------>Aruora
Floor Tom - MD422----> Quad8------>Aruora
Mono room - CAD trion7000 ribbon---->1272----->1176(mnats rev D)-----> profire 2626
Stereo Room----->Fathead ribbons----->JLM dual 99v------->GSSL----->Mytek strereo96 (all other convertors were clocked from this)

The fatheads being squashed by the GSSL really made the drum sound work.

Bass
D.I coming from ashdown amp----->JLM dual 99v----->GSSL------>Mytek strereo96
Royer mod mic(with Rode K2 capsule)------>JLM dual 99v------>GSSL------>Mytek strereo96

Guitars (the band dragged in quitea few amps, from triple recs to some boutique stuff)
SM57------>JLM baby animal------>Mytek strereo96
Royer mod mic(with Rode K2 capsule)---- JLM baby animal------->Mytek strereo96

Lead Vox
Royer mod mic (with Dale M7 & cinemag CM-2461)----->JLM dual 99v----->1176(mnats revJ)---->Mytek strereo96

Backing vox
Royer mod mic (with Rode K2 capsule)----->JLM dual 99v----->1176(mnats revJ)---->Mytek strereo96

Mixing was done in Pro Tools M-powered, using as few plugs as possible. The music didn't need a lot of sculpting.
I pretty much just used the built in EQ, and for comps I used Massey CT4 and digi Smack. Verb was TL Space(I think thats the name of it)

The kick drum had a sample blended in behind the original, for a little extra oomph & consistency.

I think thats about it.
 
Nice....

You got some pretty decent gear.... :D Mostly DIY....  ;D

I like the drum sound. Sounds lively. For me the sound of the drums and the guitars really nail this track....

I'm really impressed with the sound you got, without going to a "proper" commercial studio... I mean that sound of the concrete storage building really enhances the feel of the song/band.

You must be very proud and you should be...

Hope to hear some more of your stuff soon.

J

 
If you don't mind me asking, how did you treat the snare plug wise?  EQ, etc too..

Guitars?

I have the worst time getting guitars to sound like that.  I keep making them too in-your-face and peaky somehow.

Dude's voice is annoying though.
 
Svart said:
If you don't mind me asking, how did you treat the snare plug wise?  EQ, etc too.
I gave the snare a 4dB boost around the 150Hz area, and a little sparkle up at 6k, and that was it really.
Then into the massey CT4 slow attack, fast release taking off around 6dB on the peaks.

The close mics don't really sound anything special on their own, but as soon as we added in those room mics, the drums came alive.
No reverbs needed. That room combined with the fatheads was all it needed.

The snare itself was pretty cool too. It was just the stock standard yamaha steel snare that comes with their "stage custom" series.
So cheap as chips, but it sounded great.

Svart said:
I hardly touched the guitars. A bit of HPF around 80Hz on the lower chunky guitars, and for the higher guitars around 120Hz.
Also LPF on all guitars around 8k to get rid of any fizz. i probably could have gone lower, but this seemed to work.
I had the sm57 pointed directly at the cone, and the Royer mod next to it, with the usual making sure the capsules were in phase.
We had all the cabinets on chairs, to get rid of any unecessary rumbling.

When it came to mix time, I found that all I had to do was move either fader to make it thicker or more cutting.
Good for me, as I still struggle with EQing things

Svart said:
Dude's voice is annoying though.
Ha ha, totally........ and let's just say his personality matched his voice.......kinda hard guy to work with.........but we survived......

Actually my wife would often get the urge to shopping or go to the supermarket, when we tracked his vocals.............
No-one else I worked with has ever made her leave the house............. :eek:

 
Lowfreq said:
When it came to mix time, I found that all I had to do was move either fader to make it thicker or more cutting.
Good for me, as I still struggle with EQing things
If you're open to suggestions, this is a philosophy you should consider developing. It is far better to use room acoustics coupled with the choice and placement of the microphone rather that to resort to EQ. Also compressors can really change the spectral content of a sound and can be used as EQs. The fact that you didn't EQ much demonstrates your ability to track properly... drum sound... guitar sound...

I'm always impressed with engineers that don't use to much EQ as it's a skill I am developing myself...

J
 
Sounds really good!
Nice and full drums!! guitars are perfect too!!
Nice collection of DIY btw ...

One thing kept me wondering whats EKADTEK??
 
Great work, Stephen!

Not my cup of tea musically, but sounds very well recorded.  8)

I am a student of rock drum sounds, and those are sweet indeed. The room is so much a part of a good drum sound, and you accentuated it to excellent effect.
 
I know you probably can't do it for us but I've always been intrigued with hearing the different parts by themselves.  Any possible way to post different parts of the mix like drum stems or guitars, etc?
 
Svart said:
Any possible way to post different parts of the mix like drum stems or guitars, etc?
I would if I still had the files. The band have all the files on a hardrive somewhere. I only have a 250g 2nd drive, so I'm always running out of space, and giving the files to the band to look after. I should just get a big drive for storage tho.

skipwave said:
That Massey CT4 is a mighty fine plug, isn't it? I can get it to behave pretty similar to my G1176.
Yeah, I really like it, I use it on lot's of stuff. Great for Vocals :D and the price was good too.
 
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