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Tony Carpenter 11 March 2015

Good evening all,

This is the first mix of The Minstrel and Marie. First full recording in the new studio. The 12 string acoustic was recorded with a pair of mics into the Focusrite octopre mk2 dynamic, vocals into PreSonus RC-500. All comments welcome including, give up, you're wasting your time, sell all your gear now :D.

Cheers,

Tony

Removed sound due to newer versions.

Comments

DonnyThompson Sat, 03/14/2015 - 05:26

Makzimia, post: 426280, member: 48344 wrote: I was having all that funky routing with the [[url=http://[/URL]="http://www.dbxpro.c…"]dbx[/]="http://www.dbxpro.c…"]dbx[/] inline on incoming recordings.

It's great when we can nail down the source(s) of issues.. It's how we all learn, really - Chris has often referred to it as "Problem-Based Learning".

It's one thing to discuss problem possibilities, those things that need to be taken into account and considered, to discuss the "what-if's" and the "maybes".... but nothing ever seems to "hit and stick" quite as effectively as finding the source of a problem - either on your own, or with the help of someone else - and then hearing obvious positive results after correcting it. ;)

FWIW

d.

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 11:39

eternalsound, post: 426271, member: 48927 wrote: Ok, here's this file anyway. It's not the same mix as yours.

right on Chuck. We'll have to continue this in a topic of its own.

" Analog vs Digital summing and mastering"
Analog
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…
Right now I'm hearing digital being warming than analog? :D
Digital - TheMinstrelMarie2
[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Attached files Tony6-ProL-10db.mp3 (6.9 MB) 

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 12:15

Ya, not fair. That isn't remotely close. TheMinstrelMarie3 version is colder, better in phase but thinner. I did that version too ( NOTE: to be clear what this thread and audio examples are about was not originally to show my stuff, it was to help Tony with the phasing and where I would be heading in terms of tones...). Problem Based Learning
To keep our discussion going, Chuck... I'll post the version of TheMinstrelMarie3, I did as well. We'll have two versions to kick around. Make it more fun for the popcorn crowd. In the mean time, you need TheMinstrelMarie2.

Tony Carpenter Sat, 03/14/2015 - 12:23

I didn't realize Chris hadn't posted one of ver 3, my apologies :). I'll put a copy of 2 in for you Chuck :).

I am thinking if my logic is correct, I may end up completely re-recording again :). The guitar is what I played everything else off, and, if I can't fix it, well... new track.

To ask for some advice here again, if I am recording with 2 mics, should I record to a stereo input or like I did with 2 mono tracks?.

Each mic was placed on it's side about 2 feet from each other head to head, one at around the 12 fret, other just behind the center of the sound hole on my 12 string acoustic.

Won't be until Monday now, if I am not bed ridden... have the dreaded lurgy now.

Cheers,

Tony

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 16:57

DonnyThompson, post: 426303, member: 46114 wrote: It won't let me listen to the first file, Chris.. when I click on "play" the whole player disappears. The second one right below it plays fine, though.

Just letting you know. ;)

Same with me. I can play mine but not Chucks. The player works best at 192bitrate.
If you click the link instead of the player, you can ask your browser to play it through windows media player.

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:26

imho, in these two examples,
" Analog vs Digital summing and mastering"
analog doesn't have the size and clarity of the digital version.

I6 months ago i would have argued hybrid is bigger and fatter than digital summing and mastering until I was blue in the face.
The question in this example. If you could get the sound I just got for under $5000, mixed through TV monitors, what would you pick to mix and master with?

I'm not intentionally trying to be an ass here, I'm simply putting a lot of analog vs digital to rest. If you think you need to spend your kids college education to make music, I'm saying no. A DAW is all you need.

I spend no more than 10 mins on each of these. Granted, if I had the stems, I think we would all be blown away. We could adjust the levels and tones of each stem, even replace. ITB gets it done at a fraction of the cost of what I've invested in analog gear.
Listen for yourself.

lets do more of these.

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:42

It is duller, but not warmer imho. It is thinner and has less size. I also smashed it which I should adjust the levels close so we aren't hearing the ugly limiting in this volume war.
Also, the digital is brighter because we don't have the stems and the guitar is clearly killing the mix. If we could tone down the guitars, the digital mix would get it done at a fraction of the cost. The guitars are killing this mix.

Tony Carpenter Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:47

:) Chris, no argument, the guitars are currently killing the mix, I explained why. Next session will be to set that right, even if it means redoing all to get a good guitar take. BTW, I did thin things out after being told my sound was too dark, hence the thin sounding vocal too. Brightness of sound seems to be everyones big thing, if it's brighter it's better?. Not so sure... Leigh gave her impression on first listen, I listened a few more times, the version 2 is VERY close, ver 3 not so much distinct taste/listening differences.

I am not the best judge of all things related to this, but, one thing is sure, I do have in my head ( I think?) how the song would sound if I can get my a$$ in the right gear. I appreciate all yours and anyone else advice and help as you well know :).

Thanks,

Tony

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:48

curious, I dropped the level 3db, I'm curious to what your hearing now? Same or did this become more pleasing?

Also, I believe from your mixes Tony, your room is bass heavy, which is why you are mixing thin. You will migrate to a thinner bass.

Here is the same Digital mix but less boosting.

[MEDIA=audio]http://recording.or…

Attached files TheMinstrelMarie3-remix2.mp3 (6.9 MB) 

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:55

btw, no offense taken, we are all discovering things here. I love this audio example direction so much I'm going to push the forum a lot more in this direct more.

I just have to show you how much bass I am adding to your mix . It will show you how much is clearly wrong between your listening acoustics and mine.
I'm not saying you or I am wrong at this point, I simply saying, look at the difference. I don't think I have ever added this much bass to a mix in 35 years.

see the image of the Master Bus EQ.

Attached files

Tony Carpenter Sat, 03/14/2015 - 17:55

audiokid, post: 426321, member: 1 wrote: Also, I believe from your mixes Tony, your room is bass heavy, which is why you are mixing thin

I would agree it's more than yours, but, as you saw from my graph I was close to right, considering, and with EQ I adjust for those couple of 5-6db bumps and valleys. However, to the subject hand, while it is a little more pleasing (again on my 2.1 harmon kardons), it sounds a little more brittle? to us.

Oh, almost forgot, I did in fact peel more bass off some of the sound after being told something earlier in the thread. So, in fact me stuffing up, not the room :D.

You remember our phone conversation, it's not about gear, it's about ears of lots of experience, and you sir out weigh me considerably there (y)

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 18:26

eternalsound, post: 426328, member: 48927 wrote: Analog:
Warmer
Smoother
More professional "expensive" sounding (sound is extracted into front and into your head)
More isolated and suspended in space

Digital:
Sounds like dem kids be playing' wit dem plugins again! :^)

ROTF!

Well it will be fun to hear more opinions. I am so in disagreement and i would be surprised this will turn out in favor of that.. I find all the analog versions to be muddy and less focused.

The search continues...(y)

Tony Carpenter Sat, 03/14/2015 - 18:36

:-/ downloading them, instead of playing them from the browser makes them sound different.. now the difference is yours (Chris) has that reverb. I am going to back out of this as gracefully as I can LOL. I am wanting to fix the recordings then let you each at it again, if you wish to.

Anyway, off to bed!!, dealing with a flu. Chucks is slightly warmer either way. He's managed to tame an ugly thin sound more, just our opinion.

Thanks,

Tony

LarryQualm2 Sat, 03/14/2015 - 18:41

Makzimia, post: 426333, member: 48344 wrote: :-/ downloading them, instead of playing them from the browser makes them sound different.. now the difference is yours (Chris) has that reverb. I am going to back out of this as gracefully as I can LOL. I am wanting to fix the recordings then let you each at it again, if you wish to.

Thanks,

Tony

Chris keeps sneaking in apples and oranges. ;^)

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 18:57

To continue on.

When a mix is stellar, perfect and you give that to a mastering engineer who uses analog gear, the mix always suffers and becomes smaller and smeared.
I would bet, most mastering engineers who are mastering HD mixes, are more ITB for a very good reason. Once you hear this, you also start looking at hybrid mixing more carefully. Just because we have an array of analog gear, or transformer in a summing box or console doesn't mean we should run the entire mix through it for everyone. Thus, why I personally choose a summing system that is transparent, and add trannies on the buses.

Analog mastering may serve a purpose, which , it can smear and distract us from noticing bad converters and spikes, but if we are working with excellent already, that would immediately become a negative, thus why we hear some saying they use this or that for particular songs but not always.

If you are able to get stems of brittle mixes, you can use analog processing to soften those bad stems while preserving the other stems we want kept true and fuller.

So, it always goes back to tracking and getting it right from the source. Once the source is good, ITB has the least effect on the imaging and most impact on preserving and expanding the entire size.

as we evolve in this thread, it will become very apparent.
http://www.digido.com/articles-and-demos12/13-bob-katz/27-back-to-analog.html

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 19:02

Makzimia, post: 426333, member: 48344 wrote: :-/ downloading them, instead of playing them from the browser makes them sound different.. now the difference is yours (Chris) has that reverb. I am going to back out of this as gracefully as I can LOL. I am wanting to fix the recordings then let you each at it again, if you wish to.

The browser mp3 sounds exactly the same as the file. There is no difference.

LarryQualm2 Sat, 03/14/2015 - 19:09

"mastering with Analog gear may serve a purpose, which , it can smear and distract us from noticing bad converters and spikes, but if we are working with excellent already, that would immediately become a negative, thus why we hear some saying they use this or that for particular songs but not always. "

Wow, that's speculation. I didn't notice any smearing in the analog but I did notice that "amateur" plugin sound in the digital master. Not calling you an amateur by any means, but digital masters via plugins always have that same "toyish" characteristic.

I'm not using any summing, by the way. You'd probably be very surprised by my setup, and ...that I've been doing all this with headphones.

Oh, aside from speculation .....Me: 1 You 0

-Chuck :^)

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 19:11

eternalsound, post: 426339, member: 48927 wrote: "Analog mastering may serve a purpose, which is, it can smear and distract us from noticing bad converters and spikes, but if we are working with excellent already, that would immediately become a negative, thus why we hear some saying they use this or that for particular songs but not always. "

Wow, that's speculation. I didn't notice any smearing in the analog but I did notice that "amateur" plugin sound in the digital master. Not calling you an amateur by any means, but digital masters via plugins always have that same "toyish" characteristic.

I'm not using any summing, by the way. You'd probably very surprised by my setup, and ...that I've been doing all this with headphones.

Oh, aside from speculation .....Me: 1 You 0

-Chuck :^)

This is an interesting article.
I don't know if you realize it yet Chuck, but the system I am on is the same system this guy and many Grammy Award wining songs have been produced on. The plug-ins and coding in this is not a toy. ;)
You are entitled to have an opinion, and nail me as hard as you want, I'm glad we are working together in this, but to say this one...

eternalsound, post: 426339, member: 48927 wrote: Not calling you an amateur by any means, but digital masters via plugins always have that same "toyish characteristic"

:eek: that blanket statement is a grease burner lol! I can tell we are going to have fun now!!!! :D

http://www.digido.com/articles-and-demos12/13-bob-katz/27-back-to-analog.html

audiokid Sat, 03/14/2015 - 19:26

Contrary to where it may appear we are going in regards to these audio examples, , what I am hoping to do is build Tony up and help him hear what his tracking is sounding like now. Not masking it through buffering and curving out the spikes. If he learns how to improve his tracking and mixing, we will improve everything to a bigger and fatter mix at the end of the day,
which will include very little mastering and a whole lot of better mixing. ;)

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