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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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wTuesday, December 07, 2004 |
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the splints - overdubs fri/sat 12/3 & 4
greg got a new tape machine for the studio. after work fri i went down to the house/studio to calibrate the machine and get a quick lesson on what's different from the mci. the thing auto calibrates, and took like 10 minutes to do what took an hr on the mci. it can also record backwards, which i didnt get to try out. it's also supposedly great at spot erasing, but again - i just stuck to the utilitarian punches . i even did a couple fake vocal takes and practice punches with greg singing over the band's takes. greg played the role of primadonna singer crossed with a beligerant english guy. pretty classic stuff, but out of consideration for the band i erased it before leaving. the routing on the console was still somewhat foggy, mostly because my brain was fried from work. around 9 i went home, and i was feeling pretty exhausted from a shithole workweek. i was planning on going out but i ended up falling asleep on the couch instead: lame.
saturday i woke up and rachel and i went to lula for breakfast. i showed up around 11:30 and refreshed myself on the routing, everyhing made a lot more sense on a nights sleep and a good breakfast - i was feeling excited and dare i say "chipper". the band showed up and we set up the gtr amps in the dead room. i wanted to try some new things (for me), so i miced the 4x12 (fender solid state head - grey carpet - mental note, write these things down) with a beyer 160 and gefell um70, both about 6" off the grill. on-axis to the cone, at the edge of where the inner round thingy bends up. i should probably know the techincal name for that but i dont. both mics went into the hardy pres then to tape.
we did all the gtr overdubs for the 4x12 setup, then there was one song with slide guitar into what i think (need better notes) was a peavey version of those fender champ reissues with the yellow cloth. for that i put both mics up front (aborted the initial idea of an ambient um70 and close 160 so it'd be faster mixing since we were trying to work really fast). when i checked it out it kinda sounded like ass. totally hollow. flipped phase on the 160 and it sprang to life. quick lesson in remembering phase coherency. that track was fixed to tape but the others needed to be fixed in mix. i made a mental note to pay special attention to the fundamentals and not forget them in the rush.
finished guitars. started to do the samples (a few records through an old beat up stereo system, miced with the UM70, sounded pretty cool) then a couple off cd which were just line in.
on to vocals. i had up a 4033 and a rca bk5 as close mics. greg had mentioned earlier he liked that on some male vocalists recently. i had only tried ribbons on female singers before and wasnt as into it. i was really interested in doing something other than a large diapragm condenser, and my backup other choice was going to be the shure SM7 if the BK5 didn't work. both close mics go to the hardy pres. spaced pair 4051s into sony pre > tc delay @20 ms to tape. the BK5 went through the dbx 160 at probably 4:1, -10 threshold, probably +5/10 makeup gain. probably fast attack and release. i know i wrote that down somehwere. the 4033 went to a dynamite comressor with similar settings. listening back the 4033 is really present, bright, annunciated, brittle maybe, in other words, cuts through the mix well. the rca is smoother and kinda sounds like it recedes and sits *with* the mix rather than on top of. after a quick chat we decide that's better for the way the songs are going. the 4033 still goes to tape, but i always have it muted. we do 2 songs and there;s a big pause. it turns out the singer left his lyric book at home and brought math notes instead. after much deliberation, we decide to try and regroup tommoow.
i feel kinda bad because it's a short day for the band and i end up staying a few hrs later working on different mix ideas, mostly involving multing out channels and trying different compression/eq on the multed channels and folding them under the tape channels. i work out a relatively dry mix (no ambient mics) that's heavy on the compressed overhead signal in a sort of ...trail of dead way. at the same time i spend a lot of triple checking phase issues on the drums. some pretty simple stuff really makes the toms pop out quite a bit.
also they wanna try and mix so i get the 2 track ready. put on tones/leader. eventually i go home and later on meet up with liam, greg and andrew at the hungry brain. we have too much makers mark and pabst - generally having a good time carousing.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 6:32 PM
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wMonday, October 04, 2004 |
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the splints @ studio greg studios
so far so good on this one. sat afternoon i went to greg's and we (ok, he - i just watched a lot and asked a lot of questions) calibrated the MCI tape machine. ch 24 was acting a fool so he recommended "not using it for anything important - like talkback" so i did. he also went over the routing and logic of the console. everything seemed pretty kosher.
later that night greg, russ, andrew and i went out and got drunk. greg and andrew hit on chicks while russ and i were relegated to the "taken" table talking about php and possible future features of the electrical site. much of the time was devoted to novotny impressions. after being out wayy to late russ and i left the other 2 to thier devices (of course - those being them ending up going home sans-chicas)
anyway, so i wake up real tired and mildly hungover. get some donuts. head to gregs. friendly mexican gentleman yells something at me when i park the van in front of thier yard. he keeps repeating himself but he's speaking in spanish. his 6yr old daughter translates that he wants me to move the van.
the band shows up around 11 and unloads and sets up. the drums look like they're going to sound really crappy, but they actually sounded pretty good. it takes what seems like forever to set up 15 mics and get levels to tape. i get confused by the new routing on the console a number of times and by trying to fix one thing, end up screwing up another. there's no pad on the console, so i'm really thrown having to reposition the overheads and bass drum mics to places i wasnt intending.
guitars are really quick and easy. i initially had an sm7 on the bass but switched it for a d112.
1. k/in - sen 421 > tk 1
2. k/out - beyer tgx 55 > valley dynamite > tk 2 (had high output, about 1 ft back)
3. s - beyer 201 > tk 3
4. rt - oktava 012 > bussed to tk 4/5
5. mt > oktava 012 > bussed to tk 4/5
6. ft > oktava 319 > bussed to tk 4/5
7. ohl > 4051 > tk 6 - originally spaced pairs but i couldnt get them high enough to not crap out. eventually were in front of the kit coincident.
8. ohr > 4051 > tk 7
9. mono > rca bk-5a > rnc > tk 8 - i expected to like this a lot more than i did. kinda thin sounding. not used in monitor mixes. first few songs compressed to tape, but then left uncompressed for more options in mix.
10. aml > 4051 > tc delay/15ms > tk 9
11. amr > 4051 > tc delay/15ms > tk 10
12. bass > d112 (orig sm7) > dbx 160 > tk 11
13. gtr > m88 > tk 12
14. gtr > 4033 > tk 13 - 4033 sounded way better than it had in the past for me
15. gtr am > 58 > tk 14 - pretty crappy sounding. left out of mixes.
just barely went into 2 reels of gp9. 14 songs. started doing takes at 1, they left at about 5:30. super fast through the songs. they seem pretty happy so far. made a rough mix on greg's computer on digital performer. it's been the season of multiuple recording formats. in the last month i've recorded on nuendo, digital performer, HD24 and 2".
greg was super awesome professional about it all - did everything he could to make me look good. was there immediately whenever i needed any help and was pretty much transparent to the band. waytogo greg.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 1:24 PM
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wFriday, October 01, 2004 |
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mandroid at their loft
i forgot to write about this marathon session... tues night i got there around 7:30. everything was still set up and we tracked a shit ton of songs. by about 11:30 they had 14 songs i think and it totalled 69 minutes. it's going to be crazy to try and go through this and sort it out and mix and overdub. i didn't get home til 2 or so and was predicatbly tired and pissy at work the next day. just starting to get used to the setup there and it's off to greg's for a completely different thing...
i brought a bunch of compressors and stuff which really helped out the issues we were having. that pro-vla is real nice on bass drum. i forget now what was on bass but it also helped. i think valley dynamite. yes, 1 mic had the dynamite and the other had the rnc.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 1:57 PM
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wFriday, September 24, 2004 |
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oh shit am i lazy at updating this.
last tuesday i went to drew balyntine's loft where they have a pretty decent studio with the intent of getting tones for recording them (mandroid). when i got there the tape machine (MS16) still had a reel on it in mid reel, the console appeared to be in mid-mix, there were insert/patch cables everywhere - i was pretty much thrown in a shitstorm. it took like 15 minutes just to get the cd player to come over the speakers. anyway, it's a mackie 8 buss mixer. 24 ch. mackie monitors. the monitors are actually pretty good. the mic selection there wasn't so spectacular so i brought a bunch of my stuff.
anyway. eventually find some isopropyl alcohol to clean the heads. no qtips to be found. bother roommate (who i believe is the drummer for the phenoms) who pulls them from the bathroom. i take a shitload of stuff off the heads and tape path. it was really, really dirty. no method for generating tones, so we'll have to skip tones. i hope the machine is relatively calibrated since the reel on there is 499, and i have emtec 900 with me. (both +9 tapes)
i put on my reel. spool it off to the takeup reel. this machine spools much slower than my mx70. test getting audio from mic to tape. talk into mic "test test test blah blah blah" sounds fine. rewind tape. listen to playback. totally muffled and loss of high end from about 8k up. WTF.
patch in cd. record cd audio to tape. play back. full spectrum isnt there also. furthermore, i can hear the tape creeping vvRROOM vvRROOM as the speed slows down and speeds up in a "boat at sea" kind of manner. not good. not good at all.
go on internet. download tone generator software. install it. jerry rig hooking computer to console. send tone to tape machine. put in 1k tone @ 0vu across all channels. on repro 1-10 are at +3 with a huge waving instability. 11 is about -3 with waving. 12 is -10 with waving. 13 is about -15 waving. 14 and 15 are about -20 waving. if you're reading this and you don't know what that means, basically it's just really, really fucked.
i start to try and go calibrate the machine but the audio cards are housed behind the console and the meters are separated on the other side of the room. (not how the machine ships) further the audio cards have been screwed in place. with almost no room to move i manage to free the audio card cage. i take the meter bridge out of the rack and move it near the audio cards. at this point it's midnight and i've already been there 5 hrs troubleshooting thier studio and there looks to be no hope. even if i get the levels - there's still the tape path issues with speed. also, on punch in the bias takes like .5 sec to ramp in - so there's not a clean punch but a short fade in whenever you start recording. all in all - MS16=fucked.
i go home pissed off and frustrated. i didnt even set up 1 mic the entire night.
toy with idea of bringing my machine in and using that instead. then yesterday think about interfaceing. the MS16 snakes use rca i/o. i need xlr. my snakes are xlr to 1/4" (thier mackie needs unbalanced 1/4") but my console is wired 1/4" tip -10, sleeve +4 - so basically that means my snakes wont work with thier console. motherfucker. i could bring in my console and outboard and tape machine, and well - my entire studio to his place, but that really seems like a huge pain in the ass. especially since electrical is renting my machine in a couple weeks for a transfer session. it seems to be turning into a huge nightmare. i'm crabby having gotten no sleep since we were up with call me lightning the night before, they stayed with us after thier show at the bottom lounge* and i only got 3 hrs of sleep. and the electrician just told me how fucked the entire electrical is in my house. this is also after me stepping through the ceiling of the attic putting a 6 ft by 2 ft hole in our kitchen ceiling. not looking good.
(* the show was AWESOME. i had SO much fun playing percussion with them on stage. i have huge bruises on my hand from the tamborine and a big ugly blister. the other thing that totaly made my day is as we were unloading off stage the music that comes over the PA i recognize - but im not sure what it is exactly, then it hits me - it's may or may not, something i recorded a handful of months ago - it makes my day - the low end sounds huge through the club PA. i laugh to myself, holy shit, that was all done in our practice space. we pulled the wool over someones eyes...)
i have an idea. his name is jef lear and his alesis hd24 - 24 track hard disk recorder. if everyones game, we can be back on schedule and be working. jef's game and i go pick up the machine and get a 10 minute tutorial on how the thing works. basically like a tape machine. it's great. only 3u high. all i need to do is go buy a hard drive for it. i go from jefs house to micro center and buy a hard drive. conveniently - hard drives cost about as much as a reel of 1" - except you get about 4 hrs of record time instead of 32 min.
head over to drew's. patch everything up with renewed spirit, hope and attitude. i have a few mishaps trying to get the machine to recognize the new drive, but on the 3rd try i get it right. test recording audio (haymarket riot - sleep). it works exactly as it should. really easy to use too.
only disadvantage is we're limited by the number of 1/4" cables we have to patch the recorder to console. i have enough to record 13track of basics. then i can start moving shit aroiund for overdubs for more. i go into the live room FINALLY and start putting up mics. the entire band is set up just like at practice in a triangle, amps facing the drums and everything. i decide i want to just try it as is w/o any baffling or isolation since they just want this to be quick and to get down a few songs, then come back later and do it more detailed.
here's what i set up:
1. bd - atm25
2. sn - ksm141
3. rt - senn421
4. ft - senn421
5. ohl - at4041
6. ohr - at4041
7. room - nevaton mk52
8. bass - at4047
9. bass - d112
10. gtr - m500
11. gtr - 201
it sounds pretty ok. bass drum is kinda crappy. no low end. i move the mic in the drum a bit more and add a cad 150 (i foget the model) for an outside mic and it sucks. i move it around. it still sucks. i swap it out for an oktava mc012 w/hypercardiod head on it, it's nice an bassy. i'm much more happy. so, now...
1. bd/in - atm25
12. bd/out - mc012
they only have an alesis 3630 and a 4 ch behringer compressor there. so at this point everything is mackie pre to tape. no eq or compression anywhere yet. tyrying to do it all w/mic selection/placement. i want to bring in some compressors and insert them on the bd and bass. both of them would benefit from some evening of levels. i'm still sorting out mix ideas as things are smearing a bit, i think i'll need to do some subtractive eq as it sorts out.
the band seems to love it so far which is great. they seem really enthusiatic about it and happy with where it is and where it's going. always a good sign. next session rescheduled for tues.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 8:07 AM
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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.
___________________________________
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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wTuesday, December 02, 2003 |
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sorry, long time with no posts over here. hmm, where was i? oh yeah, that's right - i was gonna record may or may not, but my grandpa died and everything has been crazy. well, i'm back now, and we're rescheduled for this weekend to record MOMN. i'm excited to put everything through the works and see how it goes.
new black is working up the holiday record now. we wrote a christmas song and a hannukah song and are recording them and giving them out to our friends for chistmas. we should start recording at our space next week. if you want a copy for your holidays, send your address to nuevoblack@yahoo.com with "I want a lump of coal for christmas/hannukah" in the subject.
ummm. what else, oh yeah. major headway on moving recstudios off to the new location, camp krasklemanball aka newblack manor. liam and i are ripping out old floorboards and reenforcing the floor joists and adding soundproofing. the first step is the drum room, but i think i'll be able to be recording at the new space sometime in february.
posted by
two tickets to paradise at 3:20 PM
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