"Live" album project, all natural tones...

[nwright]

This is a full album project I'm working on for a local band...Not metal, more like alt./hard rock.

We tracked this live with the drums, 2 guitar players and bass all in one big room, and the vocalist tracked at the same time in a vocal booth.

For this album they wanted a live and more natural sound, basically not multitracked, tempo mapped, quantized, etc.

So, everything in this is natural, no sample blending or replacement, no reamping (unfortunately), just raw, with a LOT of room, lots of bleed (eck, cymbals!), etc.

If anyone thinks the mix is worth anything, I can provide details.

Anyway, this is a ROUGH mix, primarily done through headphones, with a quick reference on my monitors before uploading.


http://geetarguy.tripod.com/godsunknowntest.mp3

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

I think it's really cool to see that there are still bands around who want to record this way.
To me it sounds like it was recorded: honest
I'm not really liking the individual sounds of the guitars and bass too much, but as a whole it really seems to work.
The vocals could be a bit more in the face IMO, snaredrum could back off on the bottom mic and up on the top IMO, but I guess your having enough trouble as it is with highhat bleed...
Good job!

 

[nwright]

Yeah, I finally listened to this at a sufficient volume this morning, and I was let down. I don't have the bass tone there, and I really don't like the guitars at all, Peavey supreme SS head through a Peavey cab and a Marshall JCM900 through a 1960. I've got a little too much room and verb going on, that I'll back off a bit, and hopefully that will bringout the vocals without "riding" them over the top of the music.

I didn't technically track this, as it wasn't my studio. I was there about 3 hours into it and offered my suggestions, but it was more of a watch and wait thing to where I didn't really get my hands on it until we transferred to Nuendo.

 

[KeithTidd]

I think it's really cool to see that there are still bands around who want to record this way.

Good job!

Almost every band i work with wants to track live, all together.


I like the vocal sound, i would make it alittle louder. The hihats are a smidge too loud, but they don't sound harsh. the bass could come up too. Good work.

 

[-Noodles-]

Just listening through headphones now..

I like it .. Sounds like a proper record. Vocals could come up a lot... in this style you really need to hear them properly.

They sound perfect for those guys who have vocals which "sit" in the mix,.. but I don't think that works for this?

I really like it though. Some really good points on this... Cymbals and kit are well balanced, maybe kick could come up a little..
Bass and guitars are working well.. have a Down feel to them [and I love Down].

Nice work dude..

 

[nwright]

Thanks guys. Your sentiments are mine as well, higher volcals, up the bass a bit and the kick a smidge.

The cymbals are a little loud due to bleed in the tom mics...A lot of bleed. I've tried EQ tricks to minimize the cymbals effect, but they are so loud in the tom mics it kills the vibe of the toms if I try to reduce the high to reduce the cymbal volume...Just to illustrate, in many of the harder snare and high hat hits, the transient spike in the waveform is actually greater than many of his tom hits. He uses only a 2 tom kit, and his HH's and china have to be almost sitting on the shells.

 

[punkrockacademyfightsong]

you could consider cleaning (editing out everything but the hits), gating or at least expanding the tom mic signals to control the bleed,

 

[nwright]

you could consider cleaning (editing out everything but the hits), gating or at least expanding the tom mic signals to control the bleed,

I tried the editing thing to where it's only the toms, but on cymbal crashes that bleed into the tom tracks, the fade in is REALLY apparent. Gating kinda does the same thing...And, with the gate it opens randomly because the HH's or crashes are so loud (at times louder than a tom hit), so I'd be editing quite a bit.

I worked with some samples I have last night and through EQ'ing and pitch shifting them in Drumagog, I got the samples to sound almost identical to the tom tones in the track (same pitch, cleaner sound).

The cymbal bleed provides a cool layer to the sound, so I'll probably render/bounce the tom tracks 100% replaced and just run that track alongside the untouched tom track at a lower volume so I still get the vibe of the bleed, just not the volume. From an editing standpoint, I can just cut out sections quickly without having to be as surgical with this approach. That's my workaround at the moment.

 

[JonWormwood]

Damn, mix sounds nice on my end.

Vox could come up yeah, otherwise i'm going to nail some hookers and do some blow after listening to this.