The Randy Staub love thread

[Ermz]

I'm thinking CLA did this on Paramore's 'The Only Exception'. Really low, ballad drums.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Randy pitch shifted his snares, and blended tom samples into them too. Listen to this Five Finger Death Punch track:



Snare sounds like a goddamn tom, doesn't it?

 

[Soundlurker]

^ Tremolo-sounding cymbals during double kicks = uke:uke: uke: That's some ugly compression.


I like the snare...wouldn't say it sounds like a tom, it's just quite thick.

 

[MetalJonesy]

that album is deffo not some of randys best work, the giutars sound very grainy throughout the record, drums are fat as usual, but yeah far too much comp goin on with the dbl kicks and cymbals!

 

[HeadCrusher]

Thanks guys. So smy1, how do you find out which key (or note for that matter a snare is in so you can pitch it to the key (note) that fits the song key?

 

[smy1]

Headcrusher: You simply listen

The trick is to pitch the original sample up an octave (12 semitones). Then the pitch of the sample is a lot more apparent. You then raise and lower it until the pitch of the sample fits with the song. Then you pitch it down an octave again.

Let's say you end up with a sample that's pitched up 10 semitones (because you had to go down 2 semitones from the original octave up pitch), then you know that you need to pitch the original sample 2 semitones down. I do this in Battery with the pitch wheel and it really only takes a few seconds.

 

[HeadCrusher]

Thanks smy1, I have to try that some day.

 

[The Unavoidable]

I'm thinking CLA did this on Paramore's 'The Only Exception'. Really low, ballad drums.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised if Randy pitch shifted his snares, and blended tom samples into them too. Listen to this Five Finger Death Punch track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ir6nn9t7Fpc

Snare sounds like a goddamn tom, doesn't it?

God damn, that's one of the lamest singers I have seen in a while. Anyway drums sound ridiculously sweet, loving that snare. That cymbal pumping (most audible in the first part) is damn lame though. But I guess you could consider it an 'effect'.

 

[Ermz]

Okay so I tried vainly to approximate his master bus settings using the Waves SSL compressor. Mixing into this much GR is insane! Everything pumps like crazy, and the levels just fly all over the place!

Check out this rough mix with no level automation: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Porcelain-Rough5.mp3

The clean parts are quieter than the damn heavy ones! My thinking is that I really need to try this with the GSSL, and then just automate volumes to hell and back. I really think this approach relies on just riding everything all the way.

 

[smy1]

Ermz: sounds very "radio" to me on my MacBook speakers. There's no audible pumping on these small speakers. The intro being too loud is the only thing that bothers me, but that jump is also very "radio"-esque where quiet parts are much louder than the heavy parts.

I generally don't like this sound too much, though. So much compression makes stuff hard to listen to and the drums sound lifeless (not your fault, I complained about that with the new AIC too).

From what I can tell you are on the right path. But you need to tune the singer a bit more to make him "commercial"

 

[Ermz]

Hehe yes, don't worry about the music, I had no part in its recording, hence the horrid Marshall rhythm guitars. I'm working with the singer to get us both into radio rock territory with new material though.

Thanks for the comments. It was a fairly rough thing, mostly to see how such crazy amounts of GR would 'feel' when mixing. Can't say I dig it one way or the other yet, but I'll experiment with real outboard soon.

I understand that you don't like the overcompressed sound in general. I can't blame you. I guess I just dig the 'hugeness' of it. It's more curiosity to know how these guys all do it different ways, and be able to take those approaches myself in the grand adventure of forging my own sound. Randy's approach doesn't seem entirely logical to me, but I can't argue with the results, so hell why not experiment.

PS. It seems that compressing this much on the master bus as well as using the NebulaSSL programs gets you fairly close to the workflow of the CLA/Staub types, because I noticed I need to completely crank the high-shelves on most of my tracks in order for it not to sound dull and drowned out. It's the clarity of ITB that allows us to get away with much lesser boosts. That and our plug-ins tend to make high-end a little harsh. This might explain why the CLA Waves presets are so extreme and never quite seem to work properly on ITB mixes.

 

[John_C]

I think that it works, very radio-rock. In particular very nickelback. Not the mix ofc, but just the effect of slamming everything to fuck with a bus comp

 

[The Unavoidable]

Okay so I tried vainly to approximate his master bus settings using the Waves SSL compressor. Mixing into this much GR is insane! Everything pumps like crazy, and the levels just fly all over the place!

Check out this rough mix with no level automation: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/285689/Porcelain-Rough5.mp3

The clean parts are quieter than the damn heavy ones! My thinking is that I really need to try this with the GSSL, and then just automate volumes to hell and back. I really think this approach relies on just riding everything all the way.

I seriously thought the first line in the song was "I watched you shit"

Great mix bro, guitars have quite a 'hybrid theory' feel to them.

 

[Ermz]

nice. Thanks for the comments. Listening back, it's a bit too dull and flubbery, not to mention totally annihilated with poor ITB master bus compression. I don't think the Waves SSL has the juice to handle these levels of GR gracefully. I'll try it again tomorrow with the GSSL.

As an aside: C F H, do you by chance know what Staub likes to saturate his guitars with? I tried to approximate the effect with a mixture of the new Trident A Range saturation and PSP MixSaturator on 'Tape 3'. I think it got somewhat close vibe-wise, but it would be cool to know what he uses to get all that chunk and smoothness from the guitars. Probably real tape saturation, knowing my luck, haha.

 

[MetalJonesy]

Ermin, youve got that nice sub to the kick there like Randy achieves! nice work, blend of samples?

 

[Metaltastic]

Whoa, personally I think that sounds awesome dude, I don't find the pumping fatiguing or unnatural, it just sounds huge and massively aggressive to me, nicely done! Not a fan of the attack on the kick though (sorry, I had to )

 

[Ermz]

Thanks guys. Fair call on the kick, Marcus, can't please everyone! (including myself, in this case).

I'll keep working at this 'sound' and see how close I can get. The singer and I are fairly close in terms of how we're producing his band's future work together, and he's hugely keen on Staub's work. The main challenge I think will be dealing with these levels that are all over the place. Also have to work out how much of that SSL saturation I can use before clarity goes to hell. Here's to hoping the outboard coming tomorrow will help \m/

@Jonesy: Yes definite blend of samples. Several in both the kick and snare. I tried to get a ton of ring and decay in the snare, but it kind of gets washed away in the mix. I think the snare might need more mids, or more compression to bring out the decay, or maybe just some more clarity in the guitars... who knows! Mixing does my head in.

 

[Metaltastic]

Out of curiosity, approximately how much GR were you running on the SSL comp? And did you have an especially large amount of serial compression before it?

 

[Ermz]

It was all staged compression, Marcus. I think compression may have been printed directly to the samples I used when I created them, then I subsequently used maybe 3dB with slow attack, fast release on the elysia mpressor on both kick and snare groups. The kick is currently split up over 3 tracks. One being raw, one being my frankenkick and the other being a certain kick from Vancouver that does awesome things to low end. Each was compressed individually and then together. Snare is split up over two tracks, one frankensample snare (with big attack and big decay) and the raw snare which is a fairly weak, high tuned thing, providing the warmth and mids that the sample misses. Both are compressed individually and then together again in small amounts. All staged, as I mentioned.

The Waves SSL was varying from 6 to 8dB GR. Any more and it just took a crap. 30ms Attack, 100ms Release (why did I ever move to auto-release, I dunno) and 4:1 ratio. So not very tame settings. The sweet spot was actually around 3dB GR, as I heard it, but that didn't give the 'Staub effect' so to speak.

 

[Mikaël-ange]

Seriously Erm, don't stop searching!!! Awesome couple of post
Btw, your last clip tell me now you go to top of the line mixer

 

[No More Beers]

is this vancouver sample the one that was talked about earlier in this thread?