So did anyone ever hear a dry (without plugins, hardware, editing) mix from a pro?

[Black neon bob]

I always wonder...

How much does mixing with plugins, hardware, editing, processing, etc, etc, etc, add to a dry mix? (a dry mix being just the recorded instruments and vocals panned correctly, volumes put in place, and nothing more).

I would love to hear a "dry mix" from a pro one day.. never did, so i kinda have no clue how good it should sound to begin with.

Done a few myself, where the recordings sounded allright, but while mixing, it really added THAT much more to make sound better... but is that really how it should be?

 

[broken81]

I know i always wanted to hear what a good recording should sound like dry!

See if my recording skills just suck or maybe its my mixing or shit its just probably both

 

[Rob Logic]

Closest I came was hearing the new through the eyes of the dead (one of my best friends plays bass in the band). Drums were all natural except for a DM5 sample they used while tracking. Other than that no plugs on guitar, bass, and drums. Erik Rutan from Hate Eternal did the recording. Everything was pretty clear and even. There actually wasn't a huge groundbreaking difference between the final product other than the fact that it was mastered by Douches at west westside. The guitars eq and sound replacement on the snare and bass drum just made it cut a little harder. Production is not one of my favorites, not enough ambience to the kit to my liking. I guess it's death metal and thats pretty typical, I don't listen to a lot of death metal but my buds in the band so I will always support them as much as possible. I thought Rutan got a killer tone from the DSL they used to track guitars however. The first tone they got was better but they had a problem with the guitars they were using to track with staying in tune. The 81 cut so much better then the 707 they ended up using on the guitar ibanez sent them while they were having problems. But it was definately cool to hear about some details of the recording while it was going on.

 

[aramism]

thast would be awesome to hear a great final product any of the albums we all cream out pants here over but in raw raw form.


it would be a big with to hear like lets say doomsday machine raw and unmixed or anything. i've pondered mysef like maybe its mixing, or how its tracked. fundamentally speaking, the best mixes have the best tracking, and you know you did a great job tracking when you dont have to do too much mixing. even compression, a lot of old school engineers had a philosophy of getting the eq and compression to sound as good as posisble without actually using them. i know that whoever did the engineering for hotel california was so anal about not using any compression or eq on the drums and guitars that i read somehwere it took them super long to cut the tracks on the album because he would have them do a million takes of parts so that it sounded as natural as possible. if anyon ever gets a chance to listen to the 5.1 mix of that album it is so super sounding...

but back to the original thing, yeah, it would be great to hear raw tracks fora good popular album

 

[JeffTD]

IIRC some of the videos posted by Andy for the Nevermore/Kreator tracking were just the mix at the time from PT, which could be fairly raw, if it was in the tracking stage.

 

[BattleTits]

I have heard some of the roughs of recent albums discussed on this board, and they sounded great before they were mixed. Its all about the tracking stage with these records. Engineers don't get credit sometimes for what they do to a band's sound.

 

[Torniojaws]

Check out the Hammerfall thingy that's on the ftp. It's an entire pro-recorded song without any processing - just raw tracks of everything at 2 GB or so.

 

[JeffTD]

Check out the Hammerfall thingy that's on the ftp. It's an entire pro-recorded song without any processing - just raw tracks of everything at 2 GB or so.

Dude... that thing is totally not as raw as we're led to believe. There has to be compression/eq on a bunch of the tracks.

 

[ArtGarceau]

The "pro" tracked songs that I've mixed came to me sounding like a finished mix. My job was balancing everything out and adding/subracting the little things to make a cohesive sound. Write automation here and there to create dynamic and depth. Every part of the recording was done intentionally and it was tracked to sound like a finished product.....no "fix it in the mix" bull crap.

The "amateur" tracked songs require editing and creative changes that should've been made from day one. They also have parts that sound like crap that you need to "fix in the mix" to make them sound half decent.

 

[BattleTits]

The "pro" tracked songs that I've mixed came to me sounding like a finished mix. My job was balancing everything out and adding/subracting the little things to make a cohesive sound. Every part of the recording was done intentionally and it was tracked to sound like a finished product.....no "fix it in the mix" bull crap.

 

[Kenny Lee]

Well, I have a whole (pre-mastered) C.D. mixed by a very famous engineer. I've seen his name mentioned numerous times here. And the mixes sound damn near as close to the final Mastered C.D.
When I bypass the ((very few)) plug-ins he used... it still sounds nice! And he didn't use these Waves or PSP or really any third party plug-ins. The plug-ins he used were standard Digidesign EQ's and Comps!

Of course he had some killer outboard gear and a awesome board while tracking and post work.

GORILLA

 

[Torniojaws]

Dude... that thing is totally not as raw as we're led to believe. There has to be compression/eq on a bunch of the tracks.

Isn't that standard practice? Especially outboard compression on bass guitar when tracking. And many mics have HPF

But raw as in "raw", ie. not heavily tweaked with plugins and all. Something you should get during initial tracking phase. I think that's what everyone wants to know - how it should sound like on tape before mixing.

There's one Finnish mix too at another forum, but it wasn't metal or anything (guitar pop/rock), but that mix sounded full already even without any tweaking. In fact, personally I felt I could only do damage by mixing it

 

[AStudio]

So what about the horrible auto-tune mix down on the vox track? crazy crazy auto-tune! sorry but those tracks were heavily edited, eq'd, compressed and gated etc.
My take on the untreated tracks are that you would be suprised how good they sound before mix, not always the case but but if the tracking AE has done his/her job they will sound better than you would have thought.

 

[ryanojohn]

well I don't know about everyone else but even when engineering, I'm mixing... Compression, EQ, etc to tape... so when someone else brings it up later, it's already half mixed...

 

[jesterroot4]

yah i kinda mix it at the same time of recording, makes me feel abit better about the sounds being produced haha.

but even so, ya see how you can take off the eq and effect sends one by one of each track, i realy think there should be just one button that takes off all effects and eq's and plugins or watever to make the track totaly raw, just so you can che k the differance you have made from time to time.

also, does anyone know of a free plugin that will show me a visual graphic equiliser so i can see the frequencie responce of indevidual tracks as i EQ them??
i know Logic Pro 7 has them, and its extremely handy in my eyes, but cubase doesnt..


anyone?

 

[jesterroot4]

i also forgot the mention it will be difficult trying to find a pro raw mix due to copyright stuff and the fact that that band will most probs not want a raw mix of theres going around the internet.

i think the best way to experiment is if we all start another thread were we can post some of our best mixes with all the sends, plugins, EQ's and stuff turned off. (including drum replacement tools)

this way we'll get a good idea of what were all doing.

 

[nwright]

^ IMO, that wouldn't prove much other than who has better equipment, lol.

Without a gaggle of nice hardware lying around, almost all of the stuff that I would normally desire to do at the tracking stage has to happen after the fact through plugins and whatnot.

It'd level the field if we were all given the same tracks, nothing on them, no chance to put anything on them, and THEN see what happens.

 

[BattleTits]

I may do this actually.

The main lesson (in metal mixing especially), is to see how the little tweaks add up to make one big vision.

 

[greyskull]

i recorded an album that was mixed by kurt balou.
no idea what he did, but christ the difference was incredible

 

[Mat Laperle]

i recorded an album that was mixed by kurt balou.
no idea what he did, but christ the difference was incredible

wow, which band is this, mr balou mixes are usually really good!