51m0n

Chorus is a delay based modulation effect, in order to make it thicker set its delay longer, too long and it will sound like your octave up strings are actually out of time though. Set the modulation either slow and deeper, or fast and shallow - I'd expect the fast and shallow to be able to addd some real 'shimmer' to the sound. Dont overdo the overdrive on the guitar amp, but a little bit of it should help hide the pitch shift artifacts and bring out the harmonics beautifully. Dont biamp, after all a 12 string bass has full range bottom strings.

Well if you leave the compressor on all the time it will be effectively boosting the average gain overall and thats what you need in this case. Whether it has a circuit that automatically attempts to make up the difference between the amount of gain reduction it has added on average and the average input signal level or whether there is a manual knob to do it is irrelevant. I like to have all the controls, a lot of people dont - its too fiddly, I may have to learn how to use it properly, not enough time, are the usual objections at the level of pedal compressors (ie often pretty average sounding circuits). I still maintina that i fyou learn how to use one a cheaper fully feature compressor will serve you better than a more expensive less fully featured compressor. So recommendations from me would be:- Markbass Compressore (vari-mu tube compressor - [url="http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/markbass.shtml"]review here[/url]) Joe Meek FloorQ (opto compressor) Of interest if you cant face learning how to do this 'properly' as it were:- Effectrode PC-2A is about as good as you could hope for, fairly heavily based on an LA2A, should do the trick ([url="http://www.ovnilab.com/reviews/effectrode.shtml"]review here[/url]).

A compressor can definitely do this assuming it has a make-up gain stage that allows you to bring the level up after the compression. I use a compressor for exactly this reason, set well they are almost inaudible, but make all the difference when it comes to getting that legato tapping bit to keep up with the band. Better yet, you dont have to remember to kick it on, like you would a boost pedal, at the relevant moment, as well as moving your hands for the tapping part etc etc etc all in a millisecond whilst 'rocking out' with the band for the punters visual benefit.

[quote name='gt4ever' timestamp='1321521327' post='1440022'] was the day before when they played 6 BSSM numbers. M.E.N. Arena, Manchester, UK 2011-11-14 Set list Disc 1 01 Monarchy of Roses 02 Dani California 03 Charlie 04 Look Around 05 Otherside 06 If You Have To Ask 07 Can't Stop 08 The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie 09 Blood Sugar Sex Magik 10 Me & My Friends 11 Factory of Faith 12 Under the Bridge 13 Higher Ground 14 Californication 15 By the Way 16 Chad & Mauro Jam 17 Sir Psycho Sexy 18 They're Red Hot 19 Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere 20 Give It Away 21 Final Jam the 15th was more cali stuff monarchy dani tell me baby scar tissue look around she's only 18 can't stop rain dance maggie hard to concentrate right on time did i let you know under the bridge higher ground californication by the way Drum Jam Around the World Soul to Squeeze Give it away End Jam [/quote] They did Soul To Squeeze live that is my favourite song and bass line of all time. B****r....

Plux may be able to make it - not sure....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1321462408' post='1439471'] Ha I was wrong all along there is a mic on the very top left 10" speaker I can see it on one of the Youtube clips!! [/quote] How about that! Well there you go, tiny mics are harder to spot exclusive Top bit of sleuthery getting that cleared up though, hats (deerstalkers in this case) off to you for your persistence! Had another look at your original piccie, and the only cone in the set that wasnt completely showing was the one with the tiny mic on it - how unfair is that!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1321461879' post='1439457'] This is a lecturer who told a judge (during the lecture over his mobile on loudspeaker) "No I won't be coming to court today, I've still got the taste of toothpaste in my mouth and I'm teaching at the moment" then hung up... [/quote] Class!

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1321461556' post='1439452'] Multiple mics was covered but never mic and DI. Although my lecturer was a little bit.. different [/quote] Maybe he never tried it - cant believe that, how odd...

[quote name='BassHertz' timestamp='1321450569' post='1439263'] Wow thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback @ Charic - very good points i will definitely add them and you are right about the pbass..especially as I recorded the samples with a P-Bass lol @ 51mon - I think i will have to do some reading on phase alignment and regarding compression, I agree with you that its a bit thin. I was aiming this site at beginners but I think think I will add an "advanced compression" page - cheers mate. (any more info could you PM me - sorry a bit cheeky ) I will add your info on recording levels. [/quote] The search function on this site is your friend here, I've spouted off about setting up a compressor and how one works so many times its beyond daft

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1321449841' post='1439252'] You know, the whole time I was at uni not once did someone mention that. It makes perfect sense as soon as I read it but I'm just shocked it never came up. [/quote] Dear god, really? Thats tragic, hold on, were you studying Chemistry? That might explain it.... Phase issues with multiple mics or multiple any sources in any recording situation is just a huge thing to take into account. Its made way simpler with the use of plugins like Phasebug at mix time now, but nothing beats getting it right there and then. There are hardware solutions to phase alignment too, other than moving the mic, which are super useful if you dont hit a DAW.

[quote name='charic' timestamp='1321449719' post='1439246'] You should know unfortunately I missed the famous speech though. I was too busy A/B'ing in the other room [/quote] Shame on you

More accurate level setting guide would be to say that if they are recording at 24bit they really want to be hitting no higher than -12dB (and possibly -18dB) on the way in. If they are recording at 16bit then they have less headroom to play with - so avoid 16bit....

To be honest the compression explaination is a tad, well, limited..... And a cookie cutter 'use these sounds to get a decent sound' approach isnt going to work (you dont know at what level they recorded the bass at for one thing, or what technique they used) Its a website's worth of info on its own unfortunately!

You could really do with explaining phase alignment between the mic and the DI, otherwise its pot luck as to whether your two signals are in phase or not. Not in phase == no bass....

Its perfectly possible that the 7 on stage are not actually doing anything other than looking great to secure a nice endorsement deal of course, what with the inner ear monitoring that is quite probably being used. If they mic the drums then not running any stage volume makes that aspect somewhat easier.... Which leadss to the question of why mic one on stage where there may be an issue. Until someone running the show pipes up and tells us its all supposition, which is all perfectly good fun though

The point of mixing a mic and a DI live is not to capture the entire sound of the cab, but to use the interesting things that happen to the sound having been filtereds by the power amp and a nice sounding flappy transducer (the speaker) in the sound that you pump out of FOH. As soon as you are close micing you cant get much more thats useful than that, but it is nevertheless useful. The ear does its best work in the mid range, the speaker close mic'ed (very close and you get proximity effect with a dynamic that will enhance low end) will give you masses of info in the mid range that is different from the DI sound there, and presumably preferential (or else why do it) for the bass sound in question. He may well have changed his rig/tech guy/sound guy/requirements, but he's the star he gets what he wants. There are many ways to skin a cat after all. For all we know theres another cab off stage dedicated to being mic'ed up (it happens), or he doesnt use a mic any more but a software emulator of an amp cab. Or he doesnt use a mic'ed cab sound as a part of his FOH at all now. Any of which are possible.... Interesting stuff though, well spotted!

Yeah kind of, but check out the frequency plot on them, a gentle rise between 40 and 1000Hz of about 3dB, then a further rise upto 10000Hz of about 4dB, no huge mid scoop eq built into those babies I'd love some f those for micing toms....

[quote name='stingrayPete1977' timestamp='1321404376' post='1438861'] Just come home from rhcp at the Manchester men arena, flea had no cabs mic'd up [/quote] [url="http://www.elevation-music.com/redhotchpeba.html"]Well thats certainly changed[/url], he used to use a DI before his effects, one after his effects and a mic on one of the 10" cones.... He used to use[url="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=shure%20sm98&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CGwQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.shure.com%2Fidc%2Fgroups%2Fpublic%2Fdocuments%2Fwebcontent%2Fus_pro_sm98_ug.pdf&ei=NRDDTp6EPIuT8gPaveCGCw&usg=AFQjCNGaFeiPpWmLVZDxF5INu6orDcM-Uw&cad=rja"] Shure SM98 mics [/url]on the cones, which are ickly tiny capsules, so its certainly possible that you could miss one.

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1321373859' post='1438390'] This mastering malarky.... I have heard it said many times that good mastering can make or break etc and ha ve see the difference but what I am not clear on is what do you need to provide to the mastering studio? Is is a cd of a digital copy of the final stereo mix, an MP3, a CUbase/Pro Tools file or the full 120 tracks with all of the plug ins and what not? I have done an audio course and know what the principles of mastering are but just don't get what it is that you actually present to the people who are going to master your stuff. [/quote] Its a collection of wavs of the final mixes that make up the release. Preferrably 24bit, and the same sample rate as the individual tracks that made up the mix were recorded at, rendered without any sort of dithering or noise shaping. The mix level should be peaking with at least 12dBfs of headroom for the mastering engineer to work his magic with. By all means a little bit of stereo 2 buss compression for glue is fine, but no limiting or anything about attaining level should be on the master buss of that mix, that is absolutely the domain of the mastering engineer (amongst other things. [quote name='Twigman' timestamp='1321381756' post='1438537'] Outrageous? Don't they all have a 64bit mix engine these days? I have run Sonar 5 / 6 / 7 / 8.5 and X1 and they've had 64bit mix engine since v6 I think all a 64bit mix engine does is not truncate tha data when summing until the final sum is achieved ( thus getting fewer rounding errors when adding all those 16bit or 24bit numbers together ( being the original bit depth of the recorded audio)) There's nothing outrageous about 64bit mix engines. [/quote] They certainly do not all have a 64 bit internal mix engine, I think Pro Tools 9 has a 32 bit floating point mix engine (which ought to be enough for any sane level situation to be fair) { EDIT according to Wikipedia - [i]The Pro Tools mix engine has traditionally employed 48-bit fixed point arithmetic, but floating point is also used in some cases, such as with Pro Tools HD Native.[/i]} and yes all that does is allow the DAW to cope without any truncation or rounding errors with levels way beyond what is sensible. Thats still a significant advantage over older DAWs that dont even get to 32bit fp - I think Cubase sx3 was 32 bit fp. Alledgedly 32bit fp has a tendency to have a noticeably changing noise floor as the floating point gets moved around, but I've never heard that.

[quote name='Skol303' timestamp='1321361954' post='1438176'] ^ Cheers 51m0n, that's useful to know. I use mainly Reason as my DAW (and increasingly Reaper too for collaborative projects), which as you know is a self-contained package that doesn't allow use of 3rd party VSTs - a limitation, for sure, but also I think a benefit in some ways... but that's another discussion Hence, from what you're saying, it seems fairly safe for me to push the levels a wee bit, providing the master isn't peaking, given that Reason is a closed environment. As a side-note, I've read on other forums that people suggest it doesn't matter if individual channels of a mix are peaking, providing the master isn't - but that doesn't make sense to me and I always make sure each channel/instrument is at a safe level (usually -4db or less for me) throughout the mix. [/quote] That entirely depends upon the internal audio system within Reason - I dont know enough about that particular piece of software to be able to offer specific advice I'm afraid....

I admit to loving the best of the BoneyM stuff, the basslines were superb, but then again so was all the rest of it. Its definitely a guilty pleasure though!

Haha, good question! If you are using a DAW that is known to have something outrageous like a 64bit internal audio system (Reaper for instance) and stick to its built in fx then whatever you do is irrelevant assuming the master is set low enough that the final output never peaks (and gives room for your cack handed mastering). But who wants to do that? So many lovely vsts exist that have a good sound to them, you would be mad to not use them. In which case there is a strong argument to really take care that your levels stay well in the safe area at all times, since those vsts are unlikely to have such a ridiculously wonderfully over engineered internal audio system, and you could therefore end up with some nasty stuff happening. For my own part I really try and keep the levels at very sensible place all the way through the DAW. Peaks at -12dB are perfectly sane for me. Whether or not the above is 100% accurate (and I think it probably has at least some basis in truth) I dont see any reason to risk it. I use a lot of groups and groups within groups when mixing, it helps me organise things and achieve the results I want to achieve, and I use a lot of fx, and only a few of them are internal to the DAW. Be that as it may, I dont want to get to the master buss and have to pull that fader way down to get a sensible output level, that seems daft. Turn the monitor amp up higher and mix at the same volume.....

Massive fan on Flea's early stuff up to BSSM. Saw them at Hyde Park, Plux was with us (he was only ickle) and our youngest was in mums tum, brilliant gig, seeing JB before he left us was a huge highlight for me. Cant really imagine RHCP live without John though, he was just the most incredible guitarist when he was on form, and the last album left me so cold I actually never bought it, which is unheard of in our house.....

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