Awesome thread... looks like ur learning some valuable stuff Mike!

Me too!

Cheers Spencer and the music is sounding great SG !

 

Yeah, I hear it too. There's a disconnect in those vocals. Doesn't feel right. Very interested in reading and hearing about what's done with that.

Love the overall simplicity of the process...listen INTENTLY for problems. Solve those problems. No "blind" mixing decisions. Just this alone could revolutionize the sound and workflows of budding engineers

 

I rolled the lopass on the OHs down to 11k from 12k. Then I nudged the boost I had at 7k down a db from 3 to 2. Next, I gave the OH eq a little boost at 4k. And, then turned them up 1 db.
I turned up the toms 1.5 db.
Then I went to my returns and turned all my vox fx off/down except for the 8th DDelay. Next, I went and turned all the vox up a db or so to compensate for the level drop.

--
Mikey Thai

 

Wow. Just wow.

Eagerly awaiting the guru's response.

 

At this point we are trying to find a sound for the band that makes it its own. We have to experiment. Try completely dry vocals. No delays no reverbs. Just compression and saturation. Maybe a touch of distortion.
The cymbals are a bit loud now. Lopass them at 7k and see if that helps out problem. Leave the other eq on them though.
More like the cymbal sound in hiphop loops.
I am also thinking a second pass with the lead vocal quite distorted and the Background Vox clean and back a bit.
As I said we are trying to find a sound. We don't want it to sound pretty.
Spencer

 

The other thing I must mention is whether you like the song or not is totally irrelevant. This is not your job. Your opinion is not required and when they ask if you like the song you always say yes. But you can go to bat or promote a song you think is better. Tough territory here as you can ruin the relationship very easily. Back away from coming between any members of the band. I always tried to be a bit silly in sessions to try and relieve the tension. It works but will take you a lot of years to work out where the lines are. This is half the job in getting a good result.
Always try and get the timing and tuning right. It may stroke their egos the wrong way but once they are in time and in tune they forget how they got there and believe its all them. You are also training them for the future and they will come to learn that this is the process.
I was always know as arrogant. But you must remember the decisions you make in one second in the studio are with you for the rest of your life.
"Old records never go away" Just check out youtube.
Rant by Spencer.

 

Oh I forgot to say pan your hihat mike to the center. I dont care if that is not the right place in the perspective. It will give energy and feel.
I mixed a track the other day where the engineer told me he does not record hihats because they are not important. Little Prick.


I did this in 1972 on an 8track.

 

Last edited: Apr 1, 2016

Dudley MooreTrio?!? 8 track? No shit! Damn thats some funky piano! Duly Impressed. I hear the hats in the middle.

 

Really? 1972? The sound holds up to this day.

 

I used 7 tracks of the 8 track because we always kept one track clear so we could bounce to it.
There was no overheads so as I said before we got the cymbals through the back of the tom mikes.
I got a lot of flac from other engineers because the hihats were so loud. Little did I know the loud hihat era was approaching.
The hats was the reason I put the video up.

 

Truly the coolest album I ever did. I still love it today. Another track.

 

The lesson with that track is the hihat pedal in the second half against the brushes is what makes it so cool.
I wonder how many people are still following this thread. Please speak up.
Spencer

 

Still here ;)

 

Well, every time I post a new pass it gets a minimum of 30 to 50+ hits from here.... So, we got a classroom full of lurkers.

 

Yes I remember the hihats piercing though in the 80 recordings. You were ahead of your time, Spencer.

 

Thats really good news. There are so many techniques that there is no place for up and coming engineers to learn.
youtube is fabulous but you have to stick to people like Dave Pensado and Warren Huart. There are others but lots of rubbish there.
CLA is a waste of time. Unless you want one sound only and you have to be able to record everything from McDonalds commercials to Symphony Orchestras.
Recording Schools with the exception of Full Sail University are almost all useless. Most of the teachers at these places are ex students.
Mis Information going around in a loop.
German Tonemeister courses are also very thorough if you are on the Classical side.
But where would you learn that you don't mike French Horns directly, you try and get them from a bounce of a back wall etc..
The sound from a Wind instrument does not just come out of the Bell.
I would run around the studio using one ear to hear where the sound was coming from and put the mike in the best place.
Spencer

 

Learning more GOOD information here than I've gotten from anywhere else. You just don't get to follow this type of progression often unless you're interning somewhere or paying somebody for it.

Funny how I didn't notice how loud the hihats were in Look of Love until you pointed it out. It just sounded "balanced" to me.

 

Your website has A LOT of useful information on it. I love the unbiased view on the plugins that you use in your mixes.
And direct links to all the good "meat and potatoes" vids with out having to scrub through thousands of filler videos on youtube.
http://www.spencerlee.audio/indexf1/HOME/-/-/-/105

 

Thank you Spencer for your participation in this thread, I am sure it will be useful for many people. subGENRE, your mix sound a lot better now compared to the first one. One suggestion, place 1-2 seconds of silence before the beginning. It begins so abruptly, and it sounds kinda thin to me at the start of the song. Especially since the song starts with the crash cymbals, and those sound lifeless, it should sound more brutal. Since I remember, crash cymbals are loud, but yours sound unnatural the way they are now. It sounds like the instruments are too separated. Maybe if you insert a little bit of silence at the start of the song and "unfilter" (less Low Pass and High Pass, more natural frequency) the first crash, it will sound better.
I think this is more of an arrangement problem, as I hate cymbals myself and I want them to be quiet, but when you have one in the start of the song and it's quiet, it sounds unnatural to me.

 

Sorry for the delay, I've been practicing my ass off. Got my first gig on Wednesday from 8 to 12 at the local bar and grill. Haven't picked up my real instruments in years. Had to get my chops and calluses back. Left hands been on fire for days! Okay on to the latest pass.

First I low passed the OHs some more, 7khz sounded like a little too much so I ended up at around 8-9k.
Next I dirtied up the lead vox a little with decapitator right on the channel and backed the wetness off in the plugin.
For the BG vox I took a little of the top off of them with a low pass at around 9k and fed them into a plate verb on a return and tweaked them until they sat back a little, and weren't so up front.
The lead vox still seemed like they needed little something so I turned up the 8th delay return on only them just a bit to fill it out some.
Now I put the lead gtr back in, but sent it to another return where i saturated/distorted the hell out of it with decapitator, then compressed it just as much with the black 76. Then I balanced it back with the original.

When were done with this I'll put all the tracks in one post at the end or beginning so its easier to reference them with the post numbers pertaining to each pass.
--
Mikey Thai

 

Last edited: Apr 3, 2016