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Dorkfest. Recording junk. May include lengthy details of electronic circuitry or the innane. (Just like every other blog) Mostly the whatsit and whosit of whatever audio and recording related things I'm working on but I want you to participate. |
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wThursday, December 11, 2003 |
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new black - holiday songs - dec 11
in stark contrast to the record at electrical and the may or may not stuff, we banged out 2 holiday songs to give to friends as christmas/hanukkah presents.
we got tones and tracked everything in 3.5 hrs. the whole operation was done with everything as quick as possible and just fuck it and go. here's the setup:
k - senn 421 > sytek
s - beyer 201 > sytek
rt - ok mc012 (i really like this on rack tom)
ft - ok mc012 (i keep using this and it never seems to work right. next time a new mic goes on floor tom)
snare and toms the mics are pulled back way more a la greg at electrical. works real well on snare and rack.
ohLR - at 4041 > sytek - also mimiced gregs setup and tried to use them more as cymbal mics than kit mics. soloed i dont like it too much, but it works well in context
amLR - rodeNT5 taped to floor spaced pair. i was going to try and put these to tape, but the gain structure was totally fucked and i couldnt get a usable output from the delay. i printed them as is and insert the delay on playback. right now it's 20ms i think.
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bass - jensen DI. worked great on the MOMN stuff, it's different for this. if i were spending tons of time, i might fix it. it's interesting sounding.
gtr close - beyer m500 > sytek
gtr am - beyer 201 > sytek
i like how this sounds a lot. 201 as about 10ft back at waist height
key - beyer 201 > sytek > rnc
there we are. the hanukkah song i put a mono oktava ml52 up. it needs to be trashier. i should have crapped out the tape on it. next time.
vocals and mix sat.
if you want a copy, email us.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 12:27 PM
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wSunday, December 07, 2003 |
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may or may not - dec 5, 6
friday night we got started around 7. i was a little tired and out of it from the week. before going to the space and meeting the band, i stopped at music go round to get some las minute supplies. i was anticipating a mic cable shortage, since jack never returned a cable he borrowed, and the addition of the sytek didn't account for the jumpering i'd need to go from the back of the console to the pre. also, there were rumors (which turned out to be false) that the drummer would play my drums, so i grabbed a new snare head. i also got a new mini boom extension for the fucked up floor stand that i have. i got that stand at ward brodt in madison when i was 19 or 20, at the same time i got my first "real mic" - an sm57. (which incedentally got lost or stolen or something). i remember being astounded that i'd spend 60$ on a microphone. i only got it cuz it was used. ahhhh, how times have changed.
i didnt do much in the way of prep work because of the hectic last couple of weeks, so there was a lot of time fucking around putting tones on the tape, getting the tape machine ready, etc. times like that really makes me wish i had a partner or intern or something - who you can trust to do shit right. get the mics/stands out, plug shit in, find headphones (where the fuck are 2 mysteriously missing pair?!), set up that shit. blah blah.
getting tones for basics
their drummer is a total "schooled" drummer - and had a real nicely tuned kit. they kept talking about how many overdubs they'd need - so i decided to wing it and go old school and mic it like an old jazz session. initially i had senn 421 on kick, off the sound hole, on the front head. (i was looking for the low end, and not much attack). (soundtracs pre > tape) then i had the nevaton > sytek > tape over the drummers head as mono OH. mono front of kit was mxl/royer > sytek > tape. then spaced stereo pair at4041 > sytek > tape. no compression or eq. the mxl/royer was acting all funny and distorting wierdly. that thing cant take high spl - it was also sounding really harsh and full of high end - so i put a beyer m500 as the mono mic. on playback, it was almost all cymbals and not much drum sound - and the mono mic was really bassy and trashy - in a cool way, but it wasnt sitting well - so i moved the ribbon to OH and put the nevaton by the floor tom peeking at the bottom of the toms and snare. i tried to put it hiding from the hihat as much as i could.
decision: quite happy. it's a little scary to have to trust the drummer to do a good job mixing himself, but he did a pretty good job. it was a totally new technique and experience for me. i'm really suprised how good it can sound with only 5 tracks/mics. good mics/pres don't hurt either. as a caveat, the sytek is very fast and clean. really good for drums i gotta say.
so far:
1. k - 421
2. mono f.o.k - nevaton
3. oh - beyer m500
4. amL - 4041
5. amR - 4041
6. bass DI
steves p-bass sounded great though the jensen DI. i have to finish mine now! definitely the best DI sound i've gotten. normally i hate DI, but it worked. i left 7 open because i intened on reampling the part and putting the miced track on 7, but it sounds great as is and we need the trackspace. bass > jensen DI > rnc maybe 4:1 or something > tape
i did notice though the bass DI had a super low output and it was giving me some hassles, i ended up having to give a fair anount of makeup gain on the RNC.
7. open (used later for overdubs)
gtr.
they used my marshall combo, yet it was almost all clean sounding stuff. it sounded pretty decent. i imagine i twin reverb for thier stuff, but the marshall did fine. i stole greg's technique and used a beyer 201 as a close mic and the oktava ml52 ribbon for a "room" mic, which was about 3 ft back in the enclosure i made with the office partitions.
8. gtr 1 close beyer 201 > tape
9. (damn send cable to ch 9 on the tape machine is STILL fucked up, after i resoldered all the loose connections and tested it a couple weeks ago) futzing with this also added time before we could get going. i ended up skipping over 9 for now, and it'd later be used for gtr 2's close mic after i swapped cables behind the tape machine.
10. gtr 2 distant oktava 52 > tape
rhodes.
zaid played rhodes on all the songs as the basic keyboard track. first i tried the DI which had some major clipping going on. the output was super hot of the rhodes. it was clipping every compressor i put it though. eventually, i plugged the rhodes directly into the patchbay into the dynamite, and from there to tape. i should also note here that the dynamite is the only thing that can take heavy levels, although it has really scratchy pots.
11. rhodes > dynamite > tape
that was basics. by the time i was happy with sounds and ready to go it had been 4 hrs. a little slow i admit. it was frustrating cuz i knew it was taking a long time, but i had to do it because i knew it'd come back to me if it sounded like shit.
they then did the 4 songs and it was 2am. liam came by during the last song and we drank whiskey and beer along the way. we tried to find a 4am bar - nicks was packed with a line, so was riptide loungge, so we came home and drank too much in liam's apt before steve crashed upstairs and i went to bed.
sat, day 2
hungover. im trying to fix rachels digital camera before i go and end up fucking it up more. i got real close to having it fixed, but that's another story. have a cup of coffee with some korrpuus - but it's not enoiugh. im late meeting them and grab a slice at bacci.
overdubs. gtr 2 overdubs. i move the amp to where the drums were and close mic with the oktava 52 and room mic (10 ft back) w/senn 421. the 421 was giving some wierd distortion artifacts that i wasnt hearing at all in the room, and it was real strange. both were through the sytek. i later switched to a 4041 as room mic and saw the same thing. it wasnt big enough to stop progresss, as we were already kinda behind. the 52 doenst work as well for the les paul (sounded great for the tele) and i throw a d112 as close mic for the les paul tracks - and move it in closer to the speaker. the detail was getting lost in the different song. it had a totally different tone and clarity (midrange spike) - thanks greg for the tip.
2 tracks used this setup - then we moved to acoustic gtr. i used nevaton on omni > sytek and it sounded great. that was a winning combination. those two are real clean and honest. great if it sounds good for realism. a little below the soundhole and fretboard, about 8" away.
then a glockenspiel overdub, using the same mic config. this time a little over head height slighly in front facing down.
vocals.
nevaton > sytek > dynamite. i figured out in all of this that the sytek output is pretty high. the dynamite is the only compressor that works well with the sytek. all the others distort before usable levels.
i do most of the songs like this, and it's sounding a little too real for the songs. i switch to the aphex 107 pre and it softens the vocals a lot. if i were to redo it - i'd use that for the songs again. the sytek sounds like what the vocals on our record did with the hardy pre. totally crisp and clear and accurate, but for the MOMN songs, a little sinatra warmth suited it well. maybe i should look into one of those ampex's...
on the lead vocal track i have a room mic 4041 again. totally stolen from greg/electrical - it sounds awesome, when the singer really hits a note it just pops out above the compressor and is a great natural sounding effect.
backups
we try and do the group harmonies around the nevaton in omni > aphex. many takes ensue. band below starts playing, it renders tracks useless. i'm tired and losing focus and am exhausted, so we call it a night after a 10 hr day.
i need a) coffee in the studio b) a clock so i can force myself to take a quick break every couple hrs, just to walk around and grab a drink or something c) someone to help get sounds d) someone else to do my job!
as it shapes up, im already starting to get a little concerned, there's starting to be a big amassing in the midrange - theres so much going on that definiton and clarity is starting to get lost - it's something to keep in mind as we keep going. i'm real pleased with the top and bottom though, crisp high end, but also, theres a lot in the low end too - i'll have to selectively pull some shit out of there. better to have too much and take away rather than try and falsely create as i've had to before.
still to do background vocals and mix.
next up: new black holiday record.
oh yeah, it's going to 1" at 15ips. definite tape hiss going on. their songs are open and it's loud. if money and tape cost werent an issue i'd do 30 ips. i also broke in the new back-asswards british right to left flow and tape monitoring. decision - metering: awesome. using rotary pots: gay. moving right to left: gay.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 10:02 PM
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