Making it pro
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DanLights
Santa Hat Forever
Matthias King
The Machine
HandsOfDespair
Member
The best ''trick'' I progressivily learned during the past few months is basically ''know what you're doing''. Don't just put a compressor on the drums with various settings you took from internet without knowing what you're doing just for the sake of putting a compressor. Think why you're doing this before putting the plug in or making a change or etc.
Well said, but I do have to point out something that's been irking me - it's apologise
(or apologize if you're on this side of the pond)
GarethSE
New Metal Member
- Jul 5, 2008
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I LOVE YU GUIIZZZEE
if id have had enough energy and a bit more booze last night, there so would have been one of those topics from me, i swear
but i was like nah i'ma crash out
Come on man, at least own up - and the no offense in there doesn't automatically negate everything, that's the oldest trick in the book.
"You're a smelly hairy talentless hack - no offense!"
hahaha, indeed I have been busted!
to Dodo, i really do apologize and admit to being a cunt. i was in a shit mood and just so happened to take it out on someone who did nothing wrong.
carry on! i'll refrain from making asshole-ish posts in the future
this forum is one of the only places where negativity, on the whole, doesn't seem to exist. i certainly dont want to be the one to bring it!
Fox Mulder
The Truth Is Out There
Well said, but I do have to point out something that's been irking me - it's apologise
As long as it's understood, a fuck no one should give. hahaha, indeed I have been busted!
to Dodo, i really do apologize and admit to being a cunt. i was in a shit mood and just so happened to take it out on someone who did nothing wrong.
carry on! i'll refrain from making asshole-ish posts in the future
this forum is one of the only places where negativity, on the whole, doesn't seem to exist. i certainly dont want to be the one to bring it!
Now this, folks, is about the classiest post I ever did see on these here forumses
*tips hat*
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
I will share some of my experiences, some which vary from dodo, but what he said is extremely valuable
Guitars: I like to keep them as natural as possible, no compression, just trim here and there. Is obvious to roll of the bass at about 40-60, depending on how much bass you were kicking out of the amp and a low pass at 12k (the andy area, its tried and tru for me to, always keep coming back to it). PLaces for eq you should cut or boost. for extreme agressive metal, taking scoop of the 400 area (effective from 250-700, don't know what the q to that would be). Depending on the cabinet and mic and amps settings, guitars are naturally prone to have over the top 2.5k area. I take that out pretty heavy with my guitar amp to begin with and then take a peak out post recording as well. I like to boost the 6-8k area (effective from 5k-10k) followed by an immediate high rolloff at about 13. To recap, 400 scoop, 2.5k scoop 6k-8k boost with a 40 high pass and 12k low pass. Its not an exact science but that its what works well for me to get rid of those annoying peak resonances. If the tone sounds fucnky, redo it, don't record something with the hopes of fixing it with eq, get it as best as you can before you record.
Bass: Just like Dodo, make two tracks one for the lows (lowpass and compress) and highs (highpass and distort), make sure your corssover points are the same, for example if you want the slpit to happen at 200Hz poth the high pass and low pass should be set to 200, distort and compress as you wish and then buss both tracks to one bass track so you can add some powerer amp and/or cabinet modeling with some eq.
Drums: What I just found out recently, which i think is totaly awesome...first for my snare i like to roll off everything below 350 and compress until i hear a very distinct pop, 4:1 ratio, 20-30ms attack and 100-150ms release and add some reverb. I actaully like to do the same thing with the kick as the bass, separate them but instead of compressing the low end I only separate them so i can distort the highs to compensate for using raw samples and i can't mix in a trigger "click". Contrary to what was said before, I read something from andy (or maybe someone else) that was mentioning compressing the room mics and then bringing them up until you have the room sound that is desired. I usually do a highpass ont he overheads at 600 and do nothing else to the overheads other than bring the 5k+ shelf up maybe 3db for more sizzle. To the rooms, I don't pass anything, I see the rooms as the overall image of the entire kit and the reverb from the room. When i read the little bit about compressing the room mics to hell I gave it a try, what I found out was that the cymbals won't pump like expected (in the entire drum bus solo'd) what the compression does is pumps the reveb, allowing it to come through at the inital peak of the transient but cutting it off to let the decay of the closed mics and overheads to shine through. So in escence, you are compressing the room mics to controll the reverb. I came to something between 8:1 and infinity:1 and same settings I posted for the snare (20-30 attack, 100-150 release), I will bring the threashold down to the point where you can clearly hear the pumping if you solo the room mics. Wne you start bringing them up in volume to the rest of the kit, you get the huge room sound but with controlled reverb that isn't boomy or out of hand. Some will say to prevent that to high pass and remove the lows from the mics and don't compress but the way I do it, you still maintain all the punchy low end that is extremly tight and well controlled and IMO sounds way better. Like all the other insrtuments, bus all the drum tracks out to one track to you can do overall eq and add light reverb to the whole kit. DO NOT use the drum bus to do more processing.
I couldn't tell you about vocals becuase I fail at it.
Master: The best quck and easy way to do it. Use parallel compression and send both tracks out to the master bus, with this the idea is to get the compression to bring down the RMS and glue the instuments together without being obvious, bring the compressed track up until you hear some punmping and then back off until it disapears. On the master bus: Eq a shelf for the highs and lows, bring the lows from about 120 and the highs from about 8k up about 2 or 3db and follow it up with some extremely light reverb to help make the instuments sound like they are being all played in the same space. The last few touches I could recommend are to maybe use a tube or tape saturator (use it lightly, its just for adding some warmth) followed by some light limiting, just graze off the edges and nothing more. In metal the most obvious sign that you overlimited is that the kick drum will sound funny, which will be remedied by turning off the limiter.
Remember do no overprocess, that is what will prevent the pro sound. Use everything lightly, including eq and reverb, try to do as minimal as possiblebeucase the most natural sound is what results as the best, most "pro" sound.
Guitars: I like to keep them as natural as possible, no compression, just trim here and there. Is obvious to roll of the bass at about 40-60, depending on how much bass you were kicking out of the amp and a low pass at 12k (the andy area, its tried and tru for me to, always keep coming back to it). PLaces for eq you should cut or boost. for extreme agressive metal, taking scoop of the 400 area (effective from 250-700, don't know what the q to that would be). Depending on the cabinet and mic and amps settings, guitars are naturally prone to have over the top 2.5k area. I take that out pretty heavy with my guitar amp to begin with and then take a peak out post recording as well. I like to boost the 6-8k area (effective from 5k-10k) followed by an immediate high rolloff at about 13. To recap, 400 scoop, 2.5k scoop 6k-8k boost with a 40 high pass and 12k low pass. Its not an exact science but that its what works well for me to get rid of those annoying peak resonances. If the tone sounds fucnky, redo it, don't record something with the hopes of fixing it with eq, get it as best as you can before you record.
Bass: Just like Dodo, make two tracks one for the lows (lowpass and compress) and highs (highpass and distort), make sure your corssover points are the same, for example if you want the slpit to happen at 200Hz poth the high pass and low pass should be set to 200, distort and compress as you wish and then buss both tracks to one bass track so you can add some powerer amp and/or cabinet modeling with some eq.
Drums: What I just found out recently, which i think is totaly awesome...first for my snare i like to roll off everything below 350 and compress until i hear a very distinct pop, 4:1 ratio, 20-30ms attack and 100-150ms release and add some reverb. I actaully like to do the same thing with the kick as the bass, separate them but instead of compressing the low end I only separate them so i can distort the highs to compensate for using raw samples and i can't mix in a trigger "click". Contrary to what was said before, I read something from andy (or maybe someone else) that was mentioning compressing the room mics and then bringing them up until you have the room sound that is desired. I usually do a highpass ont he overheads at 600 and do nothing else to the overheads other than bring the 5k+ shelf up maybe 3db for more sizzle. To the rooms, I don't pass anything, I see the rooms as the overall image of the entire kit and the reverb from the room. When i read the little bit about compressing the room mics to hell I gave it a try, what I found out was that the cymbals won't pump like expected (in the entire drum bus solo'd) what the compression does is pumps the reveb, allowing it to come through at the inital peak of the transient but cutting it off to let the decay of the closed mics and overheads to shine through. So in escence, you are compressing the room mics to controll the reverb. I came to something between 8:1 and infinity:1 and same settings I posted for the snare (20-30 attack, 100-150 release), I will bring the threashold down to the point where you can clearly hear the pumping if you solo the room mics. Wne you start bringing them up in volume to the rest of the kit, you get the huge room sound but with controlled reverb that isn't boomy or out of hand. Some will say to prevent that to high pass and remove the lows from the mics and don't compress but the way I do it, you still maintain all the punchy low end that is extremly tight and well controlled and IMO sounds way better. Like all the other insrtuments, bus all the drum tracks out to one track to you can do overall eq and add light reverb to the whole kit. DO NOT use the drum bus to do more processing.
I couldn't tell you about vocals becuase I fail at it.
Master: The best quck and easy way to do it. Use parallel compression and send both tracks out to the master bus, with this the idea is to get the compression to bring down the RMS and glue the instuments together without being obvious, bring the compressed track up until you hear some punmping and then back off until it disapears. On the master bus: Eq a shelf for the highs and lows, bring the lows from about 120 and the highs from about 8k up about 2 or 3db and follow it up with some extremely light reverb to help make the instuments sound like they are being all played in the same space. The last few touches I could recommend are to maybe use a tube or tape saturator (use it lightly, its just for adding some warmth) followed by some light limiting, just graze off the edges and nothing more. In metal the most obvious sign that you overlimited is that the kick drum will sound funny, which will be remedied by turning off the limiter.
Remember do no overprocess, that is what will prevent the pro sound. Use everything lightly, including eq and reverb, try to do as minimal as possiblebeucase the most natural sound is what results as the best, most "pro" sound.
GarethSE
New Metal Member
- Jul 5, 2008
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as far as the snare goes im gonna be heavily inclined to disagree with rolling off below 350
because IMO, the key to a good snare sound is lots of 200hz
joey posted ages back that he puts like a 8-9db boost at 200hz on pretty much every mix he does, and ever since i tried it, ive put a fuck load of 200hz on my snares
because IMO, the key to a good snare sound is lots of 200hz
joey posted ages back that he puts like a 8-9db boost at 200hz on pretty much every mix he does, and ever since i tried it, ive put a fuck load of 200hz on my snares
TheXRatedDodo said:
I saw this tip too, and ever since I have been using it have been happy with my snares. I see no reason for a rolloff on the snare, except maybe some of the real low area (60-ish) if it's a real deep sounding snare and it's just too much low-end for what you need. Even that is pretty rare IMO.
gabriel g.
Member
200-250hz is the SHIT for snares
I was struggeling with snare sounds around 1 year. So I started extremly excessive listen to my favorite records and watching the analyser...after that I saw that every snare has a boost in this area, my choice was easy made
for me it was a realy step up, when I started using tools for a reason and not just to use them.
And to cleaning my mixes up. So every instrument has its place.
I was struggeling with snare sounds around 1 year. So I started extremly excessive listen to my favorite records and watching the analyser...after that I saw that every snare has a boost in this area, my choice was easy made
for me it was a realy step up, when I started using tools for a reason and not just to use them.
And to cleaning my mixes up. So every instrument has its place.
Making It Pro happens when bands want to work with you so much that you rely on that income soley for living........I think practice and constantly comparing your work to others work is important. Also the level of musicianship and song writing is key to making your work viable. I still think the best way for a person who is not in a major band to get to the "pro level" in production is to work at a major studio that has really "pro" bands recording......The easiest way to get an internship is to be really polite and make friends with the receptionist.
.
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
Its definately a different sound, mostly something I picked up from bands that are more influential to me. To get an idea of what I do sounds like, take a listen to Evergrey's A Touch of Blessing and really concentrate on that snare tone. The other band I can think of is the new album of Trivium's, although, the snare has more bass overall, it still has that tight compressed high sound to it.
Its a totaly different sound, I used to boost the 200 area it imporved to some degree but with the samples I have used either I won't hear a differece or the snare gets real wooly, resulting in the snare getting completely buried and when you bring up the volume to wherer you can hear it cut decently, its completely raping the rest of the mix. Considering that I use tons of reverb on the snare I kind of need to have a bright sound for the snare to really stick out. Since I Started rolling off to near 300 and compressing hard I have not had an issue with my snare being drowned out, the snare has its own space in the kit and in the mix, and the snare can be loud as fuck without it sounding overpowering, same goes for the rest of the kit.
Its just worked for me, its a total different sound, different strokes.
gabriel g.
Member
But when I´m listening to the new Trivium right now through laptop speakers I can just feel the 200-250hz....
TheWinterSnow
Den Mørke Natt
as i was saying, the trivium tone is more bass area, the snare is bright, almost nothing but highs with enough 200-250 area that adds punch, doesn't sound like there is too much going on under 200 though. Its also sounds (unlike evergrey) like ther is a trigger in there too so the compression doens't have to be as high to really pop. I will aslo add that it sounds like the 400-600 area is scooped with a good peak boost 200-250 and the a sharp highpass at maybe 150-180, not much bass in the tone at all. Its a great fucking snare tone, If i could get that:hotjump::Smokedev:
