Techniques

[Ermz]

I have this feeling that if the forum continues to get under-used as it is, Neil may decide to close it and we'll be left without the potential wealth of knowledge to be gained!

I thought it may be a good idea to ask you, Neil, in fairly broad terms. Are there any techniques developing in your engineering arsenal lately? Are there any approaches, software, hardware, plug-ins, techniques etc. working for you these days moreso than others did in the past? How are they varying with all the broad genre material you tend to work on?

Basically if any little bit of knowledge and experience could be put down, I'd be ecstatic

 

[NK]

Hi Moonlapse,

Thanks for the message. I'm always busy thank goodness, but I do check here every now and then.

Regarding new techniques, there's not really any particular thing I've started doing. I've not been doing a lot of recording lately - mainly mixing, mixing mixing. I love it. It keeps me on my toes, plus I mix many different types of music, so that allows one to experiment with new tricks and techniques.

I find I try new things all the time - some work, some don't. That's the fun part of recording - finding new and more interesting ways to mic things, get better stereo recordings etc. I've got a lot of recording coming up in the coming months, so that'll be a nice change - it will be good to get back in the thick of tracking again.

I'm doing a great deal of work in the box now - not complete mixes yet, but a lot of processing, and grouping of things. I recently did a mix of an EP that had over 120 tracks of 96k audio on some songs. It was a bit of a challenge for the PT rig, but we got through it and it came out sounding excellent. Lots of interesting sounds on that one. I'll try to make an Auslander update announcement in the coming weeks - there's rather a lot to talk about.

 

[Ermz]

Hi Neil,

Thanks a lot for responding. It's good to hear that you're still keeping busy. I've definitely had my share of mixing work these last few months, and it's still continuing. Seems being busy is as much of a curse as it is a blessing, hehe.

Speaking of mixing in the box.. are you favoring any plug-ins these days? I'm still experimenting a little with different EQs and Verbs, but I can't really find a single non-drum verb that I'm really happy with. I recall you getting that monster, huge, clear sound on Annihilation of the Wicked (comes out really well on the start of 'User-Maat-Re', but that was with the Lexicon outboard unit.

Wow @ the EP with over 120 tracks. I take it wasn't a rock band?

Thanks again!

 

[NK]

I'm using Waves Diamond, along with their SSL plugs. I also have a lot of different EQ plugins - Focusrite, URS, Mc DSP, Massey etc. and a load of effects stuff of course.

 

[Ermz]

Cheers Neil. The Waves stuff gets a pretty bad rap from a lot of people, but they're my main plug-ins too. I like the versatility of the Q-series EQs.