hammond organ recording tips

hi guys

i'm trying to accomplish two more things in my mix.

i'm trying to get the hammond organ to become more discernable and have its own little spot, right now it sounds like its super fat and in your face like every other instrument (and every other mix I seem to do.. haha) when i open mix in waveform view, its nearly at ZERO all the way through.. yet when i open others (like the cc.mp3 it actually has dynamics.. yet mine doesn't sound any louder than theirs... ahh the major plight of the home engineer with untrained ears! )


if you take a listen to the organ in this clip http://www.closeriget.com/cc.mp3

and then the organ in my clip, http://www.closeriget.com/hidden-clips.mp3

you can get an idea.

i'm also trying to get the guitars to become more lifelike, more like they were actually mic'ed.. i'm not sure what they are lacking because they have the tone and sound i want, its just they are too, how can i say.... "IN YOUR FACE" it seems that everything i mix, is always too IN YOUR FACE. i'm trying to remedy my ways. the clip i posted is similar to mine.. two hard panned guitars, bass, drums, etc.. but they also have a 3rd center guitar and they still get seperation.

as for my mix i'm using amplitube for the guitar and i lined in a telecaster through an avalon m5.

i posted a post similar to this one in the home recording forum and they provided a bunch of help until we got to this point so they recommended i post here. im sorry if this is the wrong place. if it is, say the world and i'll delete the post.

thank you.

(i also played all the instruments and wrote the music to this track so if we could just bypass critiquing of the song itself and stick to the recording/mixing, that'd be fantastic.)

hg.

 

So much of what you are looking for only comes with expierence... I am d loading your mix now and I will take a listen but I can say without hearing it sometimes getting different pieces to define well while "sitting" right in the mix is a combination of how they were recorded initally and arranigment. If you have a lot of instruments all playing in the same register they stack up on each other. Then you will not hear them individually. Instead they will combine to make a different sound or you will be able to hear one or the other depending on which one is loudest.

As for the in your face thing, this is common with direct sounds... Dry and loud = "in your face". If you want to make them sound more distant add some room reverb and pull the track back in the mix. The longer the reverb the more distant it will sound.

 

Also, distant sonds have less highs due to air absorption, so genlty rolling off the highs on the guitars might help.

 

you are absolutely right. i know what i want, i just have to keep practicing and keep reading books, tutorials.. whatever i can get my hands on, until i can get it the way that i want.

like you said it comes with experience.

thanks.

hg

 

the problem i have with reverb is that when i add it... it never changes the source sound really.. it only adds an effect AFTER the fact when the sound is done. so if i have a vocal, the vocal doesn't really change but theres this effect sound during the vocal stops.. know what i mean?

what do you guys do to actually affect the vocal? i tried more send, less fader and it just drowns it then.. and putting it in the insert chain.. haha thats the effect i want at times (like me really far away in the room) but i know thats not the way you're supposed to use reverb.

 

if it sounds the way you want, why cant you use it that way?

 

NOTE: I changed the title of this topic from "referred from home recording forum" to a much better one: hammond organ recording tips.

Titles are the main way searches are done and how search engine define topics.
referred from home recording forum has nothing to do with Hammond Organs or the audio clips linked here.

If I went to google and typed in referred from home recording forum this topic would most likely never rank results on hammond organs. Now it should.

sorry to barge in... just tweaking and passing on things that help us all.

Cheers!

 

Thanks Chris...

 

I think a major concept has been left out here.

Orchestration, It does not matter what eq, reverb or whatever gear you want to play with.

You have a range from lowest tones on the piano for example to the highest. A mistake a lot of folks make is putting too much wieght in one of these octaves.

In other words, lets say the guitar is playing voicings centered somwhat around middle C.

Now comes the Damn organ also around midlle C.

And more and more stuff around middle C.

Why because that;s where are fingers land.

You have to think range....man

You got from low low bass up to piccilo flute range.

TRy that !!! give each instrument a differnet range.

Also don't always use thick chords..

Often a two note voice will cut thru a lot better.

:?

 

i'm going to pick up Mix magazines the mixing engineer's handbook. have you guys ever read it? is it any good?

 

Roger makes a very good point. Most of the time, when were having trouble "hearing" a part before it goes down, the producer and musicians will try different parts (arrangement). Sometimes as Roger pointed out it's the case of trying a another chord inversion. Less is more.