This one deserves a back-story.

Last March, we started recording with a guy in Dallas (80 miles from where we live). We started with drums, knocked them out in about 3 days of recording at his house plus 1 day of tracking at the Maxim Media SSL room for two songs. We started moving on to guitars and vocals, working on a song-by-song basis. after 3 sessions and completing 2 songs, he took on a project renovating a studio near Memphis. It was supposed to take two weeks. We made no progress for about 6-7 months. After I started recording Autumn Lights, the guys decided that we should at least attempt to record guitar tracks at home. I did some research, found Bruce Miller's amp micing technique, and acquired an old tube pre at no cost. We tracked...we drooled...we proceeded. Now, this is what we have.

Please feel free to ask any questions or point out things you notice.

Thanks, -----SCROLL DOWN FOR MIX B-----

Owen

sweetandsour-web.MP3 (8,906 Kb, 28 downloads) Rough Mix

excellent rough mix! everything sounds to be in its place, at the right volume.

the guitar tones are killer!

one thing i did notice right off the bat, was there is still some 'siblance' and 'sssssss' sounds on the vocals when he sings anything with the 's' word in it.

other than that, a killer mix, and great tones all around. ......impressive.

I will have to sculpt the vocals a little more. Since I got my modded Oktavas, this is the first time I've been able to record anyone else singing. I'm also still adjusting to the monitors which are ok, but not ideal.


Electric Guitar Chain:
GUITAR CAB-->Sennheiser e835-->Concertone Tube Pre-->Firepod-->Nuendo 3

GUITAR CAB-->Sennheiser e835-->Firepod-->Nuendo 3 (phase reversed)

We used this setup on both the MESA Single Rectifier w/ 2X12 and the Fender Hot Rod Deville 2X12. The Left channel is Mesa only. Right channel is a mixture of Fender & Mesa.

When all the instruments are going full bore, the drums sound to me like they're getting lost. I feel like for this kind of music you need some big-ass thumping drums, and these sound a little on the tiny side.

As it happens I was listening to a cut off Nirvana's "In Utero" right before I listened to your song, and since the two are actually in the same ballpark, genre and sound-wise, it makes for a decent reference/comparison. The difference in the way Dave Grohl's drums are mixed - loud, up-front, driving the song - is pretty dramatic when played side-by-side.

Also, the sibilence is pretty severe.

That's my take, FWIW. Sounds like you got the material - just might need a little mix work.

Chris

wow! so you used 2 mics on a fender amp, and 2 mics on a Mesa amp? Im assuming you double tracked/recorded, and then panned the Mesa to one side, and recorded another track with the mesa/fender blend to the other side?

sounds killer......

bk: yes

bandini: thanks. that's one note i made when I put it to the car test. the drums got lost when I put the limiter & multicomp on. Also, this mix was done right after tracking vocals for three hours, so it's definitely rough. I'll also be editing some things here and there.

Sibilance. The monitors I use are pretty bright, so it's hard to know when i've got it right.

quote:

the drums got lost when I put the limiter & multicomp on.

I'd be very curious to hear this mix with nothing on the 2 bus - particularly no multiband compressor, if that's what's on there.

I was going to mention it sounded a little overprocessed to me, but I couldn't really be sure that's what I was hearing.

Chris

Changes:
Less sibilance on vocals
tweaked delays
remixed all busses (drums, bass, guitar, etc)
Used only light limiting for consistent volume

Let's call this "Mix B."

-Owen

sweetandsour-web.MP3 (8,906 Kb, 17 downloads) Mix B

Sound huge! Love the chorus everything comes together to create a wall. I am listening on headphones (opened back 990's so quite acurate) and the bass is not as strong as it could be in a track like this, it may be lacking in the 250hz region or could just be the level needs bringing up or it could be my headphones!

anyway sounding good

actually I think it's the top end of the bass that isn't coming through?

Hmm. Well, despite the problems with "Mix A", I think I'd have to prefer it to "Mix B", which has lost a lot of the great guitar sound, and sounds generally sort of muffled. The vocals especially seem to have more of a "blanket" over them, yet there's still a lot of sibilance issues. I think if you're trying to fix the sibilance by eq or a de-esser, you're going to have to just go in there and do the tedious manual method. Whatever you did this time lost too much of the vocal and didn't really fix the problem.

Honestly, I'd have to wonder what your monitoring system/environment is, because I suspect it's not giving you very accurate information.

Sorry to be the "downer" voice, but I'm a little surprised at the other comments so far. This is a killer tune that, IMO, needs a great deal of mix help before it'll be ready to go out the door.

Chris

I agree with Bandini.
I guess guitars, vocs should be a lot lower to open up drums, usually more than you think. Strings need some more air to be heard.

Thanks, guys! I hear everything you're saying. We tracked pianos overnight at the local auditorium. Wait till you hear them.

Oh, the mix environment. It sucks. I'm kinda in an office with wood floors and walls. When it comes down to the actual mixing sessions once we've tracked everything, I'll move my computer to the "control room" at the station and use the monitors there (KLH brand...I don't know the model). They're not amazing, but they're better than the JBL Control 1's I'm using now.

Actually I might be able to mix at a studio near where I live.

Good stuff, Owen. I have to agree and like MixA better. The drums just seem a little clamped down on MixA is all I hear. If you could open those up, I think that'd be a killer mix.

Steve

thanks. I think I'll start comparing to other music again. I gave up on that a few years ago because the home recordings just couldn't cut it. We've made a lot of progress since then, so I think it's worth trying again.

Singer reminds me of Palo Alto. Like A better than B, which sounds muffled.

If you're comparing CD's check out Going, Going, Gone by Palo Alto I've attached here.

GoingGoingGone.mp3 (4,180 Kb, 2 downloads)

Thanks, Dot. I can hear the Palo Alto, and I think I've seen their cd in someone's collection before.

We have a couple of big shows coming up, so we've been rehearsing more intensely and recording less. On the next session, I think I'll minimize all fx and try a more straight-forward approach. btw, I just read john scrip's "Mastering: Getting the Most Out of Your Mix." It's going to be really helpful.