Let's say you want a big, natural, organic, and open sound. What are some of your favorite effects, gear, and techniques for getting a bigger than life sound or appropriately coloring acoustic instruments and vocals? For example, an effect that doesn't sound like an effect, even if it is pretty extreme compared to a dry track. I'm sure a really great sounding room would be a plus.

I played on a friends album that maybe was mastered with some kind of compressor or through a preamp that really warmed, colored and flattered everything. Still, the music all sounded open and nice. The rooms where we were recorded were pretty dry...not hardly a whit ambience.

Honestly, I think that's more technique-driven than equipment-driven. If you've got high-quality tools to work with, you should be able to create the sounds you want to hear by virtue of HOW you use your gear, not what you use.

The situation you described to me sounds like you're friend found a mastering engineer that used his tools to touch it up and create that sense of warmth...but again, it's something that you do to create that.

Also..."warm" is a pretty mebulous term. One man's "warm" is another's "dull." "Open" makes some sense, as it seems to connote a general sense of accuracy with regard to dynamics, but "warm" doesn't give me much.

Really...some examples of what you're talking about would be huge.

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Really...some examples of what you're talking about would be huge.

Some of you may remember me posting this a while back in the Music files section. http://studioforums.com/eve/forums/a/ga/ul/2871010282/Don't_Take_Me_Back.mp3

I remember the engineer used 414's on nearly everything except maybe fiddle. Also, he used an SM7B on my vocal. The raw tracks sounded pretty nice, but not quite the same as the finished product. I'm thinking he squashed my vocal pretty good, and used reverb, maybe some compression and who knows what else to sweeten and blend the rest of the instruments. Nothing sounds naked to me. In other words, there is enough character added in the production that I can hear as much of that as I can the natural tone of the instruments. It's like you are seeing (hearing) everything through rose colored glasses. I would like to know how that was done. It's not always in the best interest of the mix, but In this case I think it is very tasteful and nice.

I dunno man! You can manipulate pretty much any part of what ends up being a pretty long signal chain to do that kind of thing and as usual it's good to get it as right as you can at the source... But I can say Fatso Jr.s can often fatten, flatter'n'color a 2-track.

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Originally posted by wretchasketch:

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Really...some examples of what you're talking about would be huge.

Some of you may remember me posting this a while back in the Music files section. http://studioforums.com/eve/forums/a/ga/ul/2871010282/Don't_Take_Me_Back.mp3

I remember the engineer used 414's on nearly everything except maybe fiddle. Also, he used an SM7B on my vocal. The raw tracks sounded pretty nice, but not quite the same as the finished product. I'm thinking he squashed my vocal pretty good, and used reverb, maybe some compression and who knows what else to sweeten and blend the rest of the instruments. Nothing sounds naked to me. In other words, there is enough character added in the production that I can hear as much of that as I can the natural tone of the instruments. It's like you are seeing (hearing) everything through rose colored glasses. I would like to know how that was done. It's not always in the best interest of the mix, but In this case I think it is very tasteful and nice.

It is indeed tasteful. I'm not hearing tons of compression...at least not in the big crunchy sense...to be honest, I'm hearing fairly straightforward EQ work, perhaps with a focus on the fundamentals and lower harmonics of the sounds...I mean...I'm hearing a goodly amount of thump off the banjo and mandolin tracks, which I know isn't what you are going to hear in tracking...but honestly, more than anything, I'm just hearing a good mix. Sounds like fairly clean sounding gear and a focus on getting the fundamental character of the instruments right. I really like the size factor of the guitars and bass.

I dunno what else to say, but it sounds like the guy who mixed it did a good job with it! Have you tried to get in contact with whoever did this? If they'd be willing to answer some questions, I'm sure you'd learn a lot from that. I certainly can't make any sort of super-specific judgments from this particular armchair, unfortunately...though I think there will be a new Melodyne plug for that coming out Q2 of 2010...

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Have you tried to get in contact with whoever did this?

I appreciate you giving it a listen, Ian.
You are absolutely correct, of course. I just need to go straight to the horse's mouth. I've put that off until I have a little more experience and confidence in what I am doing here.