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Recorded with all musicians and instruments in the same room and live scratch vox track.

Looking for constructive criticism, any suggestions would be appreciated!

[MEDIA=soundcloud]trastikis/natural-fact-rough-mix-1[/media]

Thanks,

Tom Rastikis

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Trastikis Wed, 12/05/2012 - 20:23

audiokid, post: 397441 wrote: right on. i love this style.

Guitar is too loud. Its eating up most of the space in your mix. I think she would cook more if you turned it down. Vox is a bit muddy but try toning the guitar a bit first. Use some HPF on it as well.

Nice performance!

Thank you for the input, I appreciate you taking the time to listen,

Tom

RemyRAD Wed, 12/05/2012 - 23:50

Now that's real music! I loved it. But here's where you could use some small changes. Yup, that guitar is just killing me. Not only too loud but too electronic not as nice and natural as it should sound. I love the vocalist. Sounds like you stuck her on a ribbon microphone? I love that vintage class you gave her vocals sound. Doesn't need any more top end. I like that vintage ribbon mud. It's classic. What she really needs is some heavier tube style Opto like, compression. Crunch her down good.

I like the drums but you could go for a little more snap on the snare. That would make it spring more to life. You might even want to try and tighten that bass drum up a bit. Make it punch just a little more. I mean this piece bops and you need to give that mix a good bopping.

Keep it coming
Mx. Remy Ann David

Trastikis Thu, 12/06/2012 - 06:48

RemyRAD, post: 397458 wrote: Now that's real music! I loved it. But here's where you could use some small changes. Yup, that guitar is just killing me. Not only too loud but too electronic not as nice and natural as it should sound. I love the vocalist. Sounds like you stuck her on a ribbon microphone? I love that vintage class you gave her vocals sound. Doesn't need any more top end. I like that vintage ribbon mud. It's classic. What she really needs is some heavier tube style Opto like, compression. Crunch her down good.

I like the drums but you could go for a little more snap on the snare. That would make it spring more to life. You might even want to try and tighten that bass drum up a bit. Make it punch just a little more. I mean this piece bops and you need to give that mix a good bopping.

Keep it coming
Mx. Remy Ann David

Hi Remy,

Thanks for taking a listen, I really appreciate the help! The band is super fun and even more fun when I get to sit in with them.

Most of this mix is from four room mics we set up. I do have overheads, kick, snare, and gtr available.

So far all I have done is put a high pass filter on all the tracks, Massey tape head plug-in on 2-bus, and the vox track has Massey tapehead and echo plex plug in.

The guitar is a 335 going straight into an old silvertone amp. Most of the guitar sound is coming from 3 room mics and bleed thru the vocal mic. The direct mic is barely up. The guitar sound is brittle to me as well.

The vox mic was an Audix OM-6 with a thick wind screen on it, I learned that from reading some of your posts. Thanks for that tip!

I'm curious to hear what the vox track will sound like with alot of compression. When the vox is not singing there will be alot of room bleed coming thru that mic?

Looking forward to getting into this mix a little deeper with some of your suggestions. I'm lucky enough to have 2 gigs this weekend so I won't be able to touch it until Sunday.

Thanks again, it's great to have access to folks with such knowledge and experience!

Tom Rastikis

Harry Thu, 12/06/2012 - 07:22

Fantastic music! guitarist sounds like Brian Setzer (damn he's great!)

As they all said, the guitar does seem too loud, however as you say it's mostly in the room mics, I would wonder how detrimental to the overall sound it would be if you kind of notched some of the guitar frequencies out of the rooms and were able to put the direct signal up a bit? sounds tricky..

everything the other people said!

took-the-red-pill Thu, 12/06/2012 - 08:50

From one novice to another, take my comments as such, but here they are:

-Still can't wipe the shit eating grin from my face, which is EXACTLY what music should do.

-Where does that git player change clothes? As far as I know, there are no phone booths any more...

-4 room mics and it sounds like this? Holy Hanna, that's some pretty sweet sounding room! What is the space?

-a $200 OM6! Proof that if you have great people playing their asses off, it sounds great, period.

-others will know better than me, but could you silence her vocal when she's not singing, then expand the track when she is, and then put a *teeny* bit of compression or limiting on the top end of her voice? Dunno. Maybe that would just negate the expansion and give you what you have now. Thoughts from the pros?

-another thing you might try is to put a gobo around the vocal mic so there is less bleed from the band. And maybe some heavy duty wide band absorption on the walls behind her(I assume the mic is already pointed away from the band)

-if there's really that much bleed from the guitar into the room and you want to emphasize the room mics, then you no longer have control, and the guitarist simply needs to turn his amp down, or gobo between his amp and the room mics-though then I suppose just the low end gets through, and that's worse, no?. Also it seems to me that it would help to EQ out some of that low end growl right at the amp if possible. Best to do it at the source if you can, but that may require an EQ between the guitar and the amp.

My two red pills.

Great fun. MORE! MORE! MORE!

Trastikis Thu, 12/06/2012 - 12:07

Harry, post: 397480 wrote: Fantastic music! guitarist sounds like Brian Setzer (damn he's great!)

As they all said, the guitar does seem too loud, however as you say it's mostly in the room mics, I would wonder how detrimental to the overall sound it would be if you kind of notched some of the guitar frequencies out of the rooms and were able to put the direct signal up a bit? sounds tricky..

everything the other people said!

Thanks for the suggestion, I love hearing what everyone has to say! The direct gtr track is kinda harsh sounding, I will try and massage it a bit as well as the room mics. Thanks again. Tom

Kapt.Krunch Thu, 12/06/2012 - 19:42

Killer guitar player!

What are you using to record? How many tracks available? Mixer? Interface?

Here's why I ask:

I do have overheads, kick, snare, and gtr available.

Maybe use those to get more snare/kick, and maybe run a direct or mic'ed bass guitar to their own tracks? Obviously, those folks are good enough to run through it all again.

If just down to stereo, maybe premix them all a bit better, with a couple room mics wedged in?

Just curious. That tune deserves to be balanced out and crispy-clear and punchy!

Kapt.Krunch

Trastikis Thu, 12/06/2012 - 20:32

Thanks for the reply. You are so right about good musicians, they are so much easier to record.

The space is my basement turned to home studio, my wife is so understanding! I'm a lucky man.

I thought about editing the vox track and muting it when there were no vox, this is an option I might try.

i did use one of those prim acoustic vox guards on the vox mic.

I will post another mix after I do some Eqing and compression, thanks again for listening and giving me some great suggestions.

Oh, the vocalist is the guitar player, who happens to be a guy.

Trastikis Thu, 12/06/2012 - 20:44

Thanks for the response.

I used a digi003+, langevin, adl600, ua 4-710,focusrite isa, and Demeter preamps. I used the recorder man drum recording technique with sm81s, shure 52a on kick, 57 on snare. Oktavia, akg, and studio project for room mics, and a 57 on the gtr.

i appreciate your suggestions and will keep them in mind when I start mixing.

Its always so much easier to record good musicians. Thanks again for the listen.

RemyRAD Thu, 12/06/2012 - 21:03

Rather than Muting her vocal track when she's not singing, just insert a downward expander a.k.a. noise gate and let it do it automatically. No reason to waste your time doing it by hand. That's why you have software my friend and not an analog control room anymore. It's just setting the threshold where the expansion/gating start to happen that's slightly tricky. But when you dial in the right threshold level, it's like magic after that. Something I never live without. Something I always do. I mean who needs room noise anyhow? No one needs it. No one wants it. Same for the drums. Great on electric guitar also you know, turns off the buzzing when you're not playing.

So without downward extension and noise gating, people are really missing the boat. These things go back to the dawn of modern recording They are every bit as important as microphones, preamps, compressor/limiters, EQ yet they receive such little attention?

I mean you can even eliminate certain nasty acoustics with fast gating and fast downward expansion. It's a powerful tool. And can almost be used like electronic sound treatment of your recording space

I'll take mine on the rocks or neat.
Mx. Remy Ann David

anonymous Fri, 12/07/2012 - 20:03

Guitarist was also a bit too loud in the room, you can hear the snare buzzing. You'll get fewer spill problems with the amp turned down some, or relocated.

Could try getting the whole band with one or two high quality mics, getting the balance by moving the band around and making things louder/quieter, and then add close mics to firm stuff up & tweak the balance in the mix.

Put the vocalist through a PA with a bit of cut/distortion...

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