how cool a crappy nylonstring can sound ;)

[LSD-Studio]

just working on some recordings of my band, this time it's a ballad.
drums and cello already tracked (that great rocketshells kit, oh how i love it..), bass is just a guidetrack i recorded so far,so it's my turn to record the guitars now.
the song needs clean guitars and the big wall of distortion guitars.
i planned to do everything with the electric, but because i haven'T had the time to bring my amp into the studio (from the rehearsal room) i just thought i might try it with my old nylon-string acoustic, just for fun...

so i detuned it (4 steps down) und set up an M/S pair directly in my livingroom (with windows open,never thought i'd go nylon, so there was no need to enter the real recordingrooms...), plugged the mics into mediocre but ok pre's (rme quadmic) and tracked the clean guitars that way.

(had a hard time, try to play on a 4steps downtuned nylonstring, with strings like rubberbands that are constantly out of tune )

voila, actually i think the acoustic guitar fits really good and i'm considering keeping those like they are instead of re-recording with an electric....
what do you think?


here's a snippet (both clean parts together, dist part in the middle deleted, c'ause dist guits are still missing....). i know, kick too loud, snare to distant... it's just a roughmix.


http://lsd-tonstudio.de/sounds/testbounce p.hero no vox, no dist.mp3

 

[cobhc]

The drums seem out of time with the guitars as well dude, and that double bass doesn't fit the interlude at all imo. Check your ID3 tag as well, it's not Metallica All in all the acoustic sounds nice man, well done.

 

[smy1]

The drums seem out of time with the guitars as well dude, and that double bass doesn't fit the interlude at all imo. Check your ID3 tag as well, it's not Metallica All in all the acoustic sounds nice man, well done.

cobhc is right on the drum timing. Also I think the drummer is playing too much for a ballad. Sometimes less is more. I like the snare and the acoustic guitar, too.

 

[cobhc]

cobhc is right on the drum timing. Also I think the drummer is playing too much for a ballad. Sometimes less is more. I like the snare and the acoustic guitar, too.

I wasn't keen on the snare sound myself, it was too compressed for a ballad, it needs to be more open I feel.

 

[smy1]

I wasn't keen on the snare sound myself, it was too compressed for a ballad, it needs to be more open I feel.

Generally I'd agree with you but here it's a rough mix of what is probably going to be a very busy mix so a big snare would probably be too overpowering. Gotta wait for the end result.

 

[LSD-Studio]

The drums seem out of time with the guitars as well dude, and that double bass doesn't fit the interlude at all imo. Check your ID3 tag as well, it's not Metallica All in all the acoustic sounds nice man, well done.

lol, jepp, i'm glad it's not metallica

if you mean that timing-issue in the middle..it's just because i glued 2 parts together without taking to much care 'bout the timing, 'cause one verse (clean part) would have been too short to judge.

other than that i can't really hear any major timing issues (it's a real drumkit, so of course it's not 100%, will fix some minor problems later i think).
i think all in all you're right, but there's still alot of things coming, so i have to be carefull with the decision of making things bigger in this stage.

thanks

 

[cobhc]

The whole clip sounds out of time to me, not so much that the drum playing is sloppy, more that the drums aren't in sync with everything else, not saying you can't play in time (or anything near that) it just all seems a bit out to me.

 

[cobhc]

Generally I'd agree with you but here it's a rough mix of what is probably going to be a very busy mix so a big snare would probably be too overpowering. Gotta wait for the end result.

Yeah, I guess, but the big snare to me is a big point tonewise in a ballad. There is plenty of ballads with very busy mixes, but they still retain that big lushly reverbed snare.

 

[LSD-Studio]

The whole clip sounds out of time to me, not so much that the drum playing is sloppy, more that the drums aren't in sync with everything else, not saying you can't play in time (or anything near that) it just all seems a bit out to me.

could it be the slow attack of the strings, that create that impression?
just checked drums in cubase and they're totally aligned with the guitars and the beat there....

 

[cobhc]

could it be the slow attack of the strings, that create that impression?
just checked drums in cubase and there totally aligned with the guitars and the beat there....

It could be, can you post a clip without the strings so I can check?

 

[LSD-Studio]

It could be, can you post a clip without the strings so I can check?

here you go, just drums and guitar:

http://lsd-tonstudio.de/sounds/p.hero drums+git.mp3


thanks for checking, perhaps it's too late für my ears


....checked it again... think you might be right that drums are slightly off in the double-bass parts

 

[LSD-Studio]

by the way, here's a pre-production version (drums programmed etc), so you know where i'm heading

http://lsd-tonstudio.de/sounds/Personal Hero - free version.mp3

 

[cobhc]

here you go, just drums and guitar:

http://lsd-tonstudio.de/sounds/p.hero%20drums+git.mp3


thanks for checking, perhaps it's too late für my ears


....checked it again... think you might be right that drums are slightly off in the double-bass parts

still sounds off in places imo.

 

[LSD-Studio]

still sounds off in places imo.

k, so it's gotta be my fault, the drumhits are dead on the beats (visual check in cubase).

k, when i gotta re-record the guitars anyway, what do you think, go electric or stick with the acoustic?

 

[cobhc]

k, so it's gotta be my fault, the drumhits are dead on the beats (visual check in cubase).

k, when i gotta re-record the guitars anyway, what do you think, go electric or stick with the acoustic?

The acoustic fits the song well, maybe brighten them up a little, so they are more prominent, but I think acoustic is the way to go. As far as the drums, it might be my ears lol, can anyone else hear the timing issues?

 

[LSD-Studio]

As far as the drums, it might be my ears lol, can anyone else hear the timing issues?

you're right, just listened to it after a short break, when the strings (violins) set in there's a funky snare hit, nothing that can't be fixed, though.....gotta beat the crap out of the drummer anyway, now i've got a reason

 

[deathtotaliban]

drums are outa whack compared to everything else, the kick is way to clicky, the snare sounds amazing but for a ballad its almost too much compression, otherwise the other stuff sounds great

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

Tune out the drums and the guitars sound really good.