im gonna give you some criticsims because I like this song and I think it could be real cool.

something isn't right. either your low end or stereo image is totally gone, or a mix of the two.

guitars dont sound right. maybe too much sustain for this type of song? Then at the end, they are way too mushy and bright. Hurt my ears just a bit.

I would take that chorus effect off the vocal and work on timing, your vox are off in a few spots. how close were you to the mic. im guessing you were right on it. back up. yeah, that effect is making you vocal sound thin and far away, you want big and up front for such an intimate song man.

try this song as a reference as you are mixing, especially the image on the guitars, and how big it sounds.

Philip, Josh gave you a good song there to use as a reference. It's similar to being up your alley.

What I'm hearing in your recording is something of a mishmash? You're right, your snare drum sucks. It likely sucks because it sounds relatively out of phase to the entire drum set. So it's been highly canceled through phase cancellation filtering. Not good. Are you playing with phase buttons? Or phase inversion in your software on snare drum? Because if you're not? You might have an improperly wired microphone cable? Because that's what it sounds like to me.

The rest of the drum set has no life to it. It's smashing and crashing in the background but it's in the background. It's not prominent. It doesn't carry the rhythm of the song because it's really not there. I really don't know if you've actually recorded it this poorly? Or whether you're just having too much fun with software and plug-ins? Drums should sound good if not great, without having to screw with them too much. But when you want to screw with them a lot? There are certain things that should be done to them.

For instance, I don't always use EQ, compression/limiting, downward expansion and gating on drums. But most of the time, I do. The reason for this method, is to obtain a drums sound, as contemporary sounding as I can make it. Like a drum machine would sound. But I don't use a drum machine. However, with a drum machine, each one of those drumbeats, are individual samples. There is no acoustic interaction between closely spaced microphones one finds on an entire drum set. To get that drum machines sound from an actual drum set, I'll of course, use some EQ on most every drum. I'll frequently use some high pass filtering on the overheads. Maybe a slight rise on the high-end to bring out a little more zing on the cymbals and a bit more snap to the drums, from the overheads. But I don't usually compress, limit or gate the overheads. Unless the song calls for it? It depends on the genre. But then, I will add some compression to the bass drum, to the snare drum and most of the time, even on the tom-toms. What these gates then do, is to turn off the microphone on whatever drum is patched into. The gate only opens momentarily, when that drum is struck. Once it is struck, the gate immediately snaps that microphone off until the next whack on that drum. This goes for the bass drum, snare drum and the tom-toms. This will tighten up the entire kit. It will improve the articulation of each drum. It eliminates phase cancellation, when the microphone closest to the one that is turned on, isn't also turned on. And that's a setting that's controlled by the threshold adjustment of the gate.

Now the gate does something else that some folks have expressed a concern over. Particularly, the hardware types. A gate, while it can be very quick to open, does in fact, truncate a bit of the initial transient of that drum. But that's okay. You don't need that transient from that drum, from its microphone. You get the transient from the overheads. With the gate on the drum, you then get the beef! The substance. And higher articulation.

The next thing I do is to invert the phase of the bass drum. But only the bass drum. Why only the bass drum? Because that's the only drum that we are putting a microphone on to the backside of the skin. Meaning that that microphone on the bass drum that is in phase on your console is actually out of phase to the rest of the drum kit. Inverting the phase of the bass drum will radically change from the phase cancellation. But in this instance, this phase cancellation is actually canceling out, what needs to be canceled out. What isn't canceled out if ya don't do it. Which you then get a pretty big fat, flabby bass drum. And nobody wants to hear a flabby bass drum on a rock 'n roll cut. Maybe for jazz? But your song isn't jazz. It's rock 'n roll.

Once you have phase inverted the bass drum, your bass drum will now feel and sound more like you're getting CPR! Instead of your German Shepherd wagging its tail against your easy chair. Which is what you get when you don't phase invert the bass drum. Any drum with the microphone inside, underneath, on the bottom, such as a bottom snare drum microphone, must be phase inverted. In particular on the snare drum that has both a microphone on the top and on the bottom, it's essential, to invert the phase of the bottom microphone. This gives you a fat sounding snare drum. But if you don't invert that phase on the bottom microphone of the snare drum? Most of it cancels out and you get something akin to what I'm hearing in your recording already. Which I'm sure did not have a bottom microphone on the snare drum. But I could be wrong? You may have merely forgot to invert the phase of the bottom snare drum microphone? And of course with the tom-toms, when those are not being played, those microphones pose nothing more than a big problem. Because those tom-toms are not being played all the time. But those microphones are on all the time. Just causing a smear and more phase cancellation that you don't want.

When using compressors are limiters on those particular drums, I generally don't use fast attack times, no. I want those transient peaks to fly through. With the compressor/limiter then giving you more of the tonality of the drum. Which is then gated after the compression not before. Sometimes you can do a before gate when you don't have any other choice? For instance, one of my limiters is the DBX 166. This particular dynamic range processor, includes a gate feature. But they put their gate before the compressor. While that's not my favorite. I can still live with that when I have to. My recording or mixing at someone else's studio and they don't have a rack of outboard noise gate/downward expanders, like I have. I cannot live without these things. I've been using these things since the late 1970s. I knew about them as early as 1973. But I really had no idea what the heck to do with them when I was 17. I figured it out by 1978. And I've never looked back, since. It's what separates the men from the toys. It's how you do audio CPR LOL. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. Especially when you get guys in the studio that tell you they want their bass drum to sound like they are getting CPR. As they beat their chests with their fist, like they were all King Kong. So that's what you give them. And this is how you do it. I could go into more detail here but this is already getting pretty long. And since you British guys are so good at what you do. I think ya get the idea?

Everybody has their own way of pushing up a mix. Some folks start with the vocal. Others start with the guitars. While others start with the drums and bass. I think we've all done that to some extent. But most of us will push up an entire mix, without any processing, without any EQ, first. That's why in the United Kingdom, audio engineers and mixing engineers were generally referred to as " balance engineers ". Which as you British blokes go I think says it all? You're playing around with too much stuff. Stop it! LOL. The Beatles were engineered with virtually nothing other than a mixer and some microphones. EQ was hardly in their vocabulary. And any presence boost that you wanted, came from an outboard box, big enough to put your lunch in that had to be patched into that particular channel you needed it for. I.e., they had no engineering conveniences whatsoever. That's one of the reasons why that stuff sounds as state accurate as it does. The Neumann U-47's with their VF-14 tubes was pretty much all that they needed. And if you can put your head back into 1967? By Jove, I think you'd have it? And you'll pass the audition LOL. But of course... few of us have original 47's. And all the rest that are supposed to sound like that? Well... none of them do. They don't even come close. Once you've are the real thing? You'll freak! Not even my original U-67's, that were designed to be the direct replacement for the original 47's, doesn't even come close to those. Even with the original Telefunken EF-86 tubes. Forget about the Chinese and Russian POS, tubes. I stay away from those. They're not good. They're not flattering. They are the coldest sounding tubes I've ever heard. To me, worthless.

Do a mix as if you had nothing to work with, other than volume controls and pan pots. Balance that mix, as carefully as you can. Once you've done that, you can tweak your mix by starting to use some, first, high pass filtering. And only high pass filtering or low-cut. Particularly on the vocal. It's not that you're too close. It's unfortunately exaggerating what we call the " Proximity Effect ". In some cases, it can be beneficial. In others, particularly vocals, they sound like crap and all muddy, without low-cut/high pass filtering. It's a necessity not an option.

It's from there, that I am able to glue everything together. And my engineering, has been described to me by a lot of folks as being extremely organic. Whatever the hell at means? I dislike it in your face. Right up in your face. Nasty in your face! And a bass guitar that locks right with the bass drum. Which generally only needs a little bit of high pass filtering? Maybe a little rise in the mid-band? And a limiter. Not hitting the limiter hard.

Another sound I find rather disgusting, is frequently found today in most software compressor/limiters has a feature called " look ahead ". Yuck! Barf! Screw that! That's designed for entry-level, beginner, incompetent, non-engineer, engineers. It's for people that want to stop overload peaks from happening. Well that's not the limiters job. That's your job. So when I'm using software dynamics processors, I always turn off or reduce look ahead to zero. Why? Because I need those peaks to fly through. It gives the drums dynamics when you are compressing and limiting all of them. And you just have to record that and mix that at the proper levels so as not to be clipping everything in software. And 24-bit will make no difference with that then will 16-bit. 24-bit does not prevent overload clipping. It gives you more downward, software dynamic range that goes beyond the capabilities of the physical audio circuitry itself. Which confuses a lot of people, rightly so. No audio equipment, regardless of cost, can do much better than 100-110 DB of full dynamic range. Whereas 24-bit provides for 140 db of dynamic range that the electronics going in and coming out, cannot do. It is technically and through physics, impossible to attain a dynamic range of audio equipment much beyond 100-110 db, that only the finest equipment can deliver. Take another 15 or 20 db off of that figure, for what most affordable equipment can deliver. Which means maybe 80 or 90? So 24-bit gives people a false sense of security. And it's for folks that don't know what they're doing when they're adding too much software processing. It's a slop factor fixer. I don't use it. 16-bit offers 96 db of dynamic range. The problem with the 16-bit recordings is when you are doing all that software processing. But that problem is not really a problem and does not really arise, for the hybrid folks. Those are the engineers that are using a lot of analog equipment with their digital recorders/computers. And because of how crappy and brittle and crispy and wispy and fizzy that digital is. You've already seen and read about it, how many people are going back to old analog consoles. And that's the reason. Who the hell needs 140 db of dynamic range? Our analog recorders, only offered up about 65 db! So how the hell did anybody make great recordings that way? They knew what they were doing that's how. You're now learning how. I'm a 1970s engineer! I use 1970s equipment almost exclusively. With the exception of my digital effects processors and digital reverbs. I'm all analog. Except for my recorder.

Of course, due to budgetary constraints and equipment availability, many folks are forced to do everything within software. But you can still accomplish virtually everything I have described here, using outboard hardware, instead with software. I use my software almost identically to the way I use my hardware when I am doing everything within the computer, ITB. And that's where sometimes I might use 24-bit? But it's only because my digital hard disk multitrack recorder, simply defaults to 24-bit. I can change that to 16 but I generally don't. And as I don't really find that 24-bit does anything extra for me? I don't need it. I don't require it.

Part of the problem with becoming a good engineer is to not really care about what the specifications are indicated for the piece of equipment you are purchasing/I am purchasing. If it says it is a piece of professional audio equipment? I know it's a piece of professional audio equipment. There is nothing else I need to know. But there is. What I need to know is not what it can do. But what it can't do. That's more important to me than anything else. That gives me the freedom to even use, entry-level, low end, Chinese, bargain equipment and still get a great sound. Because I know what it can't deliver for me. By knowing that, I can judge, quite correctly, what my workaround has to be, to make a Barringer, Mackie, TEAC mixer sound like an API or Neve. And how do you make it sound like that? Well... it's all about headroom. Prosumer equipment, generally does not offer up the headroom, of the high-priced stuff. So how do you get that extra headroom sound that only the top quality equipment offers? It's simple. You cheat. How do you cheat the equipment?

I cheat by changing the gain staging structure. I don't follow what the mixer manufacturer tells you to do to set your gain trim. No. I'll run it lower than normal. But then you don't get the proper output level to the recorder. So to make up that output level lack, you then turn up the output drivers. So I'm not now overloading the microphone preamp nor the summing network. This cheat does offer up one disadvantage. And that is noise. Electronic noise. Thermal noise. But that noise can be more easily dealt with and or masked, by the other tracks. And with rock 'n roll, noise really did never be a problem. Everything is tight miked. Average required microphone preamp gain for that? Usually not much more than 20-30 db, anyhow. So you're not going to get a marked and appreciable amount of extra noise that should make much of any difference. This method is not necessarily all that applicable to fine arts, symphonic and operatic recordings. My 4 major music award nominations are evenly split between those two different genres. Rock 'n Roll and Opera. Most audio engineers I know can only do one or the other. Most can't do both. And that even includes tightly as deemed world-famous engineers like George Massenburg whom I've personally known since I was 15. We talk from time to time still, after all these years. And we don't talk about records or recording techniques. We talk about old times.

Knowing that you're from the UK, I know you'll get this right. At least eventually. I have that much confidence in you guys. Your discipline and your culture are way different from my haphazard, fly by the seat of my pants, engineering technique. I don't have your kind of discipline. I wish I did?

So try to take everything that I've talked about here as something of a primer. This is just my way of doing things. I don't know how other engineers do what they do? I've even sat in with some of the greats like Bob Clearmountain where we worked together at Media Sound, NYC. Were I was simply a maintenance engineer and he was one of the top music engineers. He was just going freelance, from being just a staff engineer, when I came on board in early 1979. And he hasn't changed much in the way he does his recordings, even today. He's still using his 1978, SSL-4000 E and not the G. What's that tell ya? It tells you that when we each get a piece of equipment that we finally figure out how to get the sound that we have in our heads out of the equipment? We're not hobbyists. We're not audiophiles. We simply use tools, that work the best for our purposes. It's not about running out to get the latest greatest schlocky gizmos. We're not like the lemmings who have Apple iPhone 5's, which are no good anymore because they came out with the iPhone 5 S. That's stupid childlike behavior. It doesn't get ya anywhere except broke.

Here is another little link, to give you something of an example of what I've just explained how to do. This recording was all done on a 1970s console. With 1970s dynamic range processors. And 1980s, low-cost, digital effects processors and cheap digital reverbs. Most of the microphones are cheap dynamic microphones. The vocal microphone in this instance is the AKG 414 B-ULS, in Omni. SHURE, SM-81's overtop the drums. Sennheiser 421's on snare drum and bass drum. 57's on the other drums. DI on the bass guitar. 57 on the guitar amplifier. DI's on the electronic keyboards. All recorded in a two-car garage with the trash cans, the lawnmower, the kids toys, the gardening supplies, no soundproofing, no acoustic control gobbledygook. It's a garage band recording. It's 21 years old. It's my first digital multitrack recording from 1993. It was all 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. This example is taken from the old MP3 archive. It was all done on a single Saturday. From noon until about 5 AM.

The vocalist on this recording, I did something similar to what you tried to get with the phasing/flanging on the vocal. In this particular case, I'm using the Yamaha, SPX-90 II. The preset is called " pitch change C ". What it's doing is picking up the vocal by about one cent in the left channel. And pitching down the vocal by about one cent, in the right channel. It is then also slightly LFO' ed and is on the vocal continuously. But not as prominently as yours. It's gentle, subdued. And any and all acoustics that you might perceive? It's all fake. It's all cheap digital reverbs with very short decays. So sometimes it doesn't come off as reverb but more as a room simulation device. The same way I did it with my EMT plate on very short decays. When I still had my plate. My second one LOL. But that's not on this. I really wanted a Lexicon 224/480 but I couldn't drop the cash on that. Those were still near $15,000, each. Most of mine cost between $400-$1500 each. And no... they don't sound like the 224/480 but they work. And I do EQ the send to those, with a fairly healthy high-frequency boost. Just to try and get that " plate sizzle " out of them. You don't get that just on the plate preset on the reverb. So I accentuate that. I like that sizzle. Other people can't stand it. That's their problem LOL.

I hope this helped? I hope it gave you some insight?

This is it:
[MEDIA=soundcloud]remyrad/earthbelowslide-in
[[url=http://[/URL]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]

this is all without plug-ins or software.

I noticed with the Sound Cloud insert, once it's played, a couple of other selections comes up.

In this particular example, this was simply an experimental, rough, concept mix. Bob wanted big fat punchy classic sound. People all wonder what there is to those old transistorized, 1970s Rupert Neve consoles sound like. Well this is pure, all transistorized, 1974, Neve. I have written a description of what I was doing here. I did not gate or compress the drums in this instance.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]remyrad/retromixruf1
[="https://soundcloud.com/remyrad/retromixruf1"]View: https://soundcloud.com/remyrad/retromixruf1[/]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]

The second one that seems to have popped up is a live cut, that is 20 years old. This is outdoors. There was a steady 20 mph wind with 40 mph gusts. So there's lots of high pass filtering on everything. This is all live, fly by the seat of your pants, live for FM, live for MTV. I am taking this secondary side of the splitter transformers. And even though this was live, what you're hearing is essentially a live mix down that wasn't the mix down. It was the mix. The live mix. All of my compressors and limiters are in use. 11 of them. All the drums are Compressed and Gated. 6 digital effects processors are all being used.The wind was blowing so hard, it actually blew over one of the drum overhead microphones. Which I saw on my television monitor and was able to slam the fader down fast enough. The drummer was fabulous. He actually caught the microphone and righted it without missing a beat! And I brought the fader backup. You don't even hear that change. This was also simultaneously printed to the 24 tracks of TA-SCAM DA-88's. But this is from the live, slow speed, VHS hi-fi archive. So this is the TV audio soundtrack only.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]remyrad/bobby-caldwell-what-you-wont
[[url=http://="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]

Please don't hesitate to drop me a PM if you have any further questions. Which I imagine, you might have? I'm not just a studio recording engineer. I specialize in live capture recording and mixing for albums, FM & TV broadcasts, parties. Being a live broadcaster is a lot different in technique, then just being a studio cat. And the compromises that need to be made, most studio guys would find unacceptable. Well that's their problem. It's not my problem. I don't let it be a problem. I know how to work around and with, anything and everything. Good and bad. Cheap and expensive. Old and new. I don't care. If it passes audio? I can use it and make a professional recording regardless of how awful the equipment might be that is put before me, when I don't get a choice of anything. So it all comes down to not the equipment but the technique and the engineering. If you ever use your equipment as an excuse for not being able to present a professional recording? It's not the problem with the equipment. And you don't want to use your equipment as an excuse, ever. It's not professional to do that. I've even made some pretty fabulous recordings on 30-year-old, broken, Peavy PA boards while doing live PA from the same board, mixer, thingy. How I hated that POS. So I still had to make a good recording with it, while doing live PA with it. But I'm not presenting that particular recording here. I only mentioned that because that's what I do. I record and mix music.

I noticed with the Sound Cloud insert, once it's played, a couple of other selections comes up.

In this particular example, this was simply an experimental, rough, concept mix. Bob wanted big fat punchy classic sound. People all wonder what there is to those old transistorized, 1970s Rupert Neve consoles sound like. Well this is pure, all transistorized, 1974, Neve. I have written a description of what I was doing here. I did not gate or compress the drums in this instance.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]remyrad/retromixruf1
[="https://soundcloud.com/remyrad/retromixruf1"]View: https://soundcloud.com/remyrad/retromixruf1[/]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]

The second one that seems to have popped up is a live cut, that is 20 years old. This is outdoors. There was a steady 20 mph wind with 40 mph gusts. So there's lots of high pass filtering on everything. This is all live, fly by the seat of your pants, live for FM, live for MTV. I am taking this secondary side of the splitter transformers. And even though this was live, what you're hearing is essentially a live mix down that wasn't the mix down. It was the mix. The live mix. All of my compressors and limiters are in use. 11 of them. All the drums are Compressed and Gated. 6 digital effects processors are all being used.The wind was blowing so hard, it actually blew over one of the drum overhead microphones. Which I saw on my television monitor and was able to slam the fader down fast enough. The drummer was fabulous. He actually caught the microphone and righted it without missing a beat! And I brought the fader backup. You don't even hear that change. This was also simultaneously printed to the 24 tracks of TA-SCAM DA-88's. But this is from the live, slow speed, VHS hi-fi archive. So this is the TV audio soundtrack only.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]remyrad/bobby-caldwell-what-you-wont
[[url=http://="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]="https://soundcloud…"]View: https://soundcloud…]

Please don't hesitate to drop me a PM if you have any further questions. Which I imagine, you might have? I'm not just a studio recording engineer. I specialize in live capture recording and mixing for albums, FM & TV broadcasts, parties. Being a live broadcaster is a lot different in technique, then just being a studio cat. And the compromises that need to be made, most studio guys would find unacceptable. Well that's their problem. It's not my problem. I don't let it be a problem. I know how to work around and with, anything and everything. Good and bad. Cheap and expensive. Old and new. I don't care. If it passes audio? I can use it and make a professional recording regardless of how awful the equipment might be that is put before me, when I don't get a choice of anything. So it all comes down to not the equipment but the technique and the engineering. If you ever use your equipment as an excuse for not being able to present a professional recording? It's not the problem with the equipment. And you don't want to use your equipment as an excuse, ever. It's not professional to do that. I've even made some pretty fabulous recordings on 30-year-old, broken, Peavy PA boards while doing live PA from the same board, mixer, thingy. How I hated that POS. So I still had to make a good recording with it, while doing live PA with it. But I'm not presenting that particular recording here. I only mentioned that because that's what I do. I record and mix music.

Since I was talking about recording technique over equipment selection, this might also be modestly educational?

This is a little demo I threw together. It spans from 1978 until just a few years ago. Consoles used for everything from TEAC boards and TEAC 3340, Op-Amp Labs custom console I built, API, Neve, Sphere Eclipse C, Ampex MM-1200-16, MM 1200-24, DA-88's, ALESIS HD-24, MCI JH-110-8, Yamaha PM-1000 PA board. A mixed bag of tutti-frutti stuff. However you will hear consistency in engineering technique.

The funny commercials, were for the first custom studio that I designed and built up from scratch, completely. Never really knowing what I was doing because I had never attempted such an endeavor. I wrote the commercials and had my friends and colleagues performed them. Which required copious amounts of beer, pizza and marijuana.

The first music under the first commercial never went with that commercial. That was a jingle track that I produce, recorded and mixed for a multimillion dollar advertising agency, I was working for him when I was only 22, on crap equipment. It was produced with some of Miami's hottest studio musicians and about one third of the Miami Symphony Orchestra. It was all done on an eight track. There is 24-30 channels running on that eight track. All bounced by hand and flown in. No synchronizers were used. I only had eight microphones total. And only five headphones. I had to work out my own specialized recording techniques to pull those off. And I had to fight the console tooth and nail, throughout the entire jingle sessions. I just hated that Yamaha PM-1000 ugh. But it worked. However, having to fight it, continuously, definitely tested my mettle. I won!

So this incredibly long diatribe, this book, I've written, between 2:30 AM and 6 AM, is all about technique and not about equipment.

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All righty! I'm on a roll. I'd really prefer a bagel but... since I was talking about making recordings on total crap equipment.... here's one for ya.

This is not something I am necessarily proud of LOL. It's just something I did for my friend that I hadn't seen for over 30 years.

I didn't go there to mix the PA. It just turned out that way. So this is just six, SM-58's, a Mackie 1604 that was 10+ years old. And nothing else. Though I did do a little bit of simple mastering to this direct stereo/PA mix, recording. This was not intended to be a recording. It was in a bar.

The high pass filter was engaged on every input. Vocal EQ was basically turning down the low frequency equalizer, almost all the way down. Not much EQ was used on anything else. She was also on a wireless RF SHURE microphone. Since the guitarist wasn't singing on this one, you're listening to only five microphones. No direct inputs. No nothing else. So this is what it is and that's all that it is.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]user3139903/dentstarrband-steppin-on-wolves
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Well looky here. Another one popped up. And it's now 7 AM Eastern time. Damn I love my insomnia! Who needs sleep when you have Recording.org?

Okay more minimalist. This little ditty is of my mommy, Marilyn Cotlow, former Metropolitan Opera Star. Her accompanist Bernard Katz, was playing his 8 foot, Mason and Hamlin Concert Grand Piano.

I was only 14 years old. I recorded this on my Sony TC-630, consumer, 1/4 track stereo recorder. Biased by ear for Scotch 206, in 1970.

I had built myself (if you can call it that?) A simple little, passive, 3 input microphone mixer. Not really knowing what I was doing? The microphones are all loaded down together.

On the piano I had my pair of very unmatched, Electro-Voice, 636 Slimair, dynamic, Omni directional microphones. And I had mom on the cheap, unbalanced, included with the tape recorder, Sony, cardioid dynamic microphone. (Kind of like a plastic 58 without the output transformer. So not horrible for a seven dollar microphone) All of which I had plugged in, all unbalanced on 1/4 inch plugs. With the traffic was making quite a racket as Bernie was right on a main street , in downtown Detroit, Michigan.

I'm sitting right at mom's feet. This Sony microphone only had a six-foot cord and I'm with my Sennheiser HD-414's. Making it almost impossible for me with those open air headphones to mix this live. She's holding the microphone by hand. No pop filter was used. No nothing was used. Except for a bit of reverb, from my homemade reverb, made out of a pair of springs from Hammond. The same one ya find in the bottom of your Fender Twin Reverb, guitar amplifiers. I have slightly supplemented that, years ago, when I transferred this with Cool Edit 96 back in, 96. With a little bit of extra Cool Edit reverb slathered on top of my springs. But what else could a 14-year-old afford? I had to use all $20 of my birthday money to buy those reverb springs LOL.

I had to ride her level as best I could. She sang a couple of notes where you can hear the tape being a bit oversaturated. But this was on a consumer recorder that I tweaked by ear. No limiter. I don't even think I knew what an oscillator was back then yet? Even if I did? I certainly didn't have one. But when you've seen your dad, tuneup his violin, without the need of a pitch pipe, a piano or even 440, as a kid, in 10 seconds, I figured, I was also supposed to tweak the recorder by ear? So that's what I did. Until input sounded like/matched output. And I know I got it within 1 db of where it should have been. You can hear it! It's not screwed up sounding LOL. This is the only pop song I ever heard my mother sing. Oh... maybe some Gershwin also?

So talk about working with nothing... and all low end, consumer, everything, consumer junk and a young teenager engineering LOL.

[MEDIA=soundcloud]user3139903/mom-i-dream-too-much-1970
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Wow... I'm terribly sorry... after all that BS about your drum recording LOL... right... it's fake! EZ Drummer! So it should sound great and it doesn't. What the heck? I mean if you're going to get as stoned as I do? You should be able to get a better mix than this LOL? That's why it's called "EZ Drummer" because it's easy to make them sound good!

So you don't need to do anything to the drums that I talked about doing. Use them as they are. Don't tweak them to death. You're playing with too much gobbledygook. Employ the KISS technique and you'll do better. It'll sound better. Way better. Just because you paid for those knobs and dials, software and plug-ins, doesn't mean you should use them. Most of my previous examples in the last couple of posts, I had nothing on them to use. Nothing to use. So I used nothing.

Wow, great feedback Remy. Some reading to do for me, that's for sure. My immediate reaction to all the feedback I've received is that I mix this one again. I usually do the drums first then add the band one by one, then do the vocals. Picked that up from Kenny Gioia. Seems to work for him.
I may well have printed the drums and guitar with FX on for this so will likely do those again too. I couldn't understand the phasey vox but thanks to the feedback, I've a better idea now. Nice tip on the kick too, thanks.

Remy, I loved those recordings, especially the retromix and Bobby Caldwell. Great work.

Josh. Great link, love QOTSA. Did you know Josh Homme hates cymbals? LOL.

Cheers everyone :cool: