latest pop-rock record almost done - natural drums, tele tones, boutique amps

[solphilcox]

EDIT: SAMPLES POSTED HERE:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/NEW SAMPLES.zip

almost finished the new record for my friends farewell fighter (www.farewellfighter.com), wanted to share a mix with you guys.

we recorded and mixed this in my house on a macbook pro with a digi 002 interface and pro tools LE with it's stock plugins, all mixing and mastering was done on a pair of cheap headphones and a walmart ipod dock - would love some opinions from anyone with a legit speaker system regarding lows/highs/mastering comp etc.

drums are all natural with samples of our natural drums blended in to the real ones. here's the first track off the record:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/01 GROWING PAINS.mp3

here's another, we had over 50 individual tracks of guitar on this one: you guys can help me out here, do i push the overall guitar level up on it?? im worried it will take away from the drum sound when played through crap speakers, i just feel the guitars are missing overall balls:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/01 NEVER HAVE I EVER.mp3

guitars were nearly all telecasters. thinlines, mexican reissues, deluxes, you name it. rhythm tracks thickened with a PRS dgt, the solo on this track were done with a vanquish legacy custom with p-90s. we split the guitar signal for every recorded track (using stereo outs on a boss dd-20) to a 1966 fender bandmaster and a reinhardt plexi clone. the lead on this was done with a reinhardt trainwreck (ac30 type) clone. give me your thoughts!

EDIT: this is in NO WAY an attempt at 'the paramore sound', we got our tones ran with it without listening to any other records other than to compare loudness of masters, so please don't judge it based on the paramore sound, i know it's really popular around here. we wanted to make a record with a nashville studio mentality; vintage un-saturated tones (our theme was 70's guitars with 60's amps) all tone switching done live on the tracks with very punch-ins for different tones; with no attempt to preserve tones from track to track; we wanted every single song to stand out and have it's own character. /disclaimer

 

[JeffTD]

Liking everything except for the snare and overheads - the snare is almost all tub and zero attack, and the overheads sound really mono.

I really really fucking love the guitars, though - can't stress that enough. How much of the tone was Bandmaster and how much was Plexi? Can Bandmasters even get that gainy? Teles make my dick hard. <3


After listening to the 2nd track as well, my comments about the snare and hats hold true - the snare is the biggest killer, it just has no definite attack to it and gets lost in the mix. The overall mix is awesome though, feels like a record, feels super organic.

 

[Seth Munson]

yea the snare sounds a little more like a tom than a snare, more crack and more snare in the snare
pretty sweet stuff tho!

 

[black.death]

Ridiculously nice guitar tones and legit feel throughout. My only suggestion like the aforementioned, find a different snare or snares.

Here's a particular question, you mentioned that the second song was tracked with 50 individual tracks of guitar. Would you please explain to me if/how this differs from say quad tracking? Are there seriously 50 tracks of the identical guitar parts layered on top of each other throughout the entire track? Or is more like you doubled each guitar part and did about 20 different takes or so? Also did you even use a DI here? I'm guessing not (not saying this is bad just wondering).

Also what mic and placement did you use for recording the guitars please?

Thanks. This is truly a testament to what level of quality can be created with a modest recording setup.

 

[departed]

take a look at some of Lasse's samples. maybe there's one that you can blend.

but I agree with Jeff, other than the snare which needs more definition the two tracks sound awesome and the band are really good too!

 

[solphilcox]

ah thanks so much everyone for the words, apparently everyone is in agreement on the snare; so what can i do to change it without switching in a different sample? i would really prefer not to, unnatural snare/kick samples blended with real sounds from overheads/room mics just sound so horrific to me, i'd like to keep with the actual sound we used for the record. should i mess with compression? it seemed like it would make the transient too hard to have a slow attack on the snare comps (there's like 5 different patches of the same plugin, four different snare buses), maybe i'll try simplifying it.

JeffTD: thanks so much! glad you like the tones. let me tell you - a good blackface bandmaster is the best amp on the planet; i picked one out from a store in oregon last year for 600 bucks and never looked back. let me tell you that 80% of the rhythm tones are just a modern singlecoil tele through an analogman king of tone pedal, into the bandmaster. for rhythms we ran the BM through an old 80's egnater 2x12 with warehouse (WGS) greenback clones (really similar to the original 60's ones, warm as balls), and the plexi went into a matchless 2x12 with eminence red fangs. the bandmaster sounded warmer and fatter than the plexi EVERY SINGLE TIME, the plexi signal/track was just useful for when the BM tones didn't quite fit the mix and we needed something smoother and more midrangey. the reinhardt titan (www.reinhardtamps.com) can be had for a little under 2 grand, probably less used. i traded for mine last year with a friend of mine here in nashville, i got a pretty good deal on it.

black.death, mics were just 57s thrown at random in front of the cones at anything between 1 and 3 inches; we didn't get too caught up on placement; just picked a spot and built the tones around it; the egnater cab with the bandmaster did however sound definately better with a little distance; it was mic'd in a clothes closet.

 

[solphilcox]

oh, and the 40 tracks of guitar thing was as follows:

every single track recorded was split between the two amp rigs, so that's already twice the normal amount.

rhythms were double tracked, then thickened at various points in the song with tele tricks such as just recording the low octave notes on the E string with a cleaner bandmaster tone, that's the key to the tone of the second song, SO MUCH TELE.....


all chorus rhythms were doubled with the PRS, kept low in the mix with more of the plexi mixed in than the bandmaster.

there are 6 different tracks of lead (so 12) on each of those songs, just for the various spots in the song and different volume levels. I HATE automating guitars, sounds cheesy and unnatural as fuck; i prefer getting one tone and recording all parts needed with that particular sound, then if another parts needs less volume/presence i just find a different tone.

we didn't get dickish and go out of our way to record that much guitar, but the dudes in this band are two of the tightest players i have ever heard/recorded, which made the process an absolute breeze for everyone. here's a studio guitar update video with some usual shenanegans etc:

 

[Backe]

i don't get one thing. how come ALL singers of this genre sound EXACTLY THE SAME?

 

[JeffTD]

i don't get one thing. how come ALL singers of this genre sound EXACTLY THE SAME?

Because you don't listen to enough of it to be able to differentiate - same thing most people say about metal vocalists.

 

[black.death]

solphilcox,

thanks for your thorough answers! so basically from the video and your descriptions that you pretty much cranked two amps and micd two cabs at once and recorded. then doubled these and added additional layers for more emphasis and also more for leads.

the results are really awesome man. looking forward to hearing more of your work!

 

[solphilcox]

i don't get one thing. how come ALL singers of this genre sound EXACTLY THE SAME?

this falls somewhere between 'gay cookie monster vocals' and 'metal is random talentless noise' on the educated opinion scale.


black.death, thanks a lot man! you pretty much got it right; our starting point was always one rhythm track with my 1972 thinline tele, then we added regular singlecoil tele tracks to taste, then PRS hi-gain chunky rhythms, then leads with whatever we felt like, it was a total nerdfest haha.

 

[DeclanWhite]

shit... everything sounds good to me except the drums. turn it up!

 

[JeffTD]

As far as the snare... I think you could lessen the 200hz-esque boost that I'm pretty positive you've got going on, eq the tubbiness out of the top mic and shelve 8k+ for 'air,' boost around 4-6khz for stick crack, and maybe 2khz for it to be a bit more nasally and 'in your face.' Not sure exactly what you're doing right now and not sure how the actual snare itself sounds, though!

 

[solphilcox]

ah yeah man i think you got it, gonna try that shit now and will call back later. as for how it sounds, here's the samples taken from the sessions:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4165896/NEW SAMPLES.zip

snare is a brass ludwig black beauty knockoff (worldmax), toms and kick are an acrylic SJC (24x20, 12x8, 16x16), cant remember what else is in that zip but there's like 5 or 6 different hits on each drum.

 

[Ataraxia2320]

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[Virgil.]

Everything except the drums sounds amazing. I love the guitars, bass, vocals, and the overall mix. But I agree with everything everyone has said about that snare.