ironside1966

Sounds great, well done all.

Was it the Sound engineers fault that you were told to arrive at too early? I was a pro live sound engineer for a number of years but like Huge Hands I feel I have been out of the game too long to comment too much but what I do know is I would not turn up two hours too early without good reason. I worked quickly and hate long sound checks and the majority of the people I worked for where the same. I hate rudeness and bad manners, there is never any need for it but sometimes I have had to give it the school teacher act when bands were messing about or musicians just won't shut up or acting unprofessional. Unfortunately some bands Idea of a sound check is to stand out front and shout orders on how they want their instruments sound. A sound check is for the musicians to get their stage sound and the engineer to get levels and to make sure there is no problems. Problems only starts when musicians concentrate on my job rather than getting a good stage sound. the way I do things is I make the sound louder and the instruments and vocals more cohesive.

There are good sound men and there are bad ones, the higher up the food chain you are the less likely you will get the bad ones but you still get them. There are also great sounding venues and really bad sounding venues that even the skills of a great sound man will only go so far. It's not always the sound engineers fault, there are bands and bass players out there who are difficult to work with and make it imposable to get a great sound. You can't do anything about the first two but you make sure you are not the latter. So the question should be, How do I make sure I get the best bass sound out front that works well in the context of the music and is sympathetic with the venues acoustics.

I have had a quick listen. Things I like: Balance is quite good but maybe less kick. Things I would change: The overall sound seems quite thin and far away, I feel a track like that wants to be more in your face but that could be because your monitors are far too colored or it might have just been recorded that way but well done

Did it work ok?

Gone

I have a copy of Novation Bass Station VSTi to give away so Just let me know if you want it, I would rather give it to someone who will get the good use out of it and not just sit in someone plug-in collection. It came free with a Focusrite product, it's a full working version but because I found the Authorization after a studio clean up I can't guarantee it still works but I am sure it is still valid.

In my experience the biggest obstacle to getting a good recording is lack of preparation and good practice. What sounded good at a gig or in practise room at full volume suddenly sounds weak and sloppy through studio monitors, Musicians who think they can nail every thing the first take have nothing usable down after take twenty. All this eats up time which could be spent on more overdubs or mixing. Make sure your instruments sounds the best it can. No matter how good the studio or engineer is, dead strings and drum heads will always sound like dead strings/drum heads, unless that the sound you are going for. Change strings and fix tuning problems before you go into the studio. Trust the engineer if you don't, then find another studio, there are a load of experts in forums but you need to put your faith in the engineer you are working with.

I have a Wizard Thumper I might sell.

I have used Cubase for years and never had this, one thing I would suggest is removing all Vst and vsti -DLL. to a new folder then bring them back a couple at a time, that sometimes works when things go wrong. You could away try a uninstall and reinstall the program again. Even when you sort it is always good practice to render most VST instruments to Audio. not only does it take the load of the CPU and ram it also makes life a lot easier if you need to revisit a project.

This is a old problem because many people seem to judge an engineer's skill on the drum sound especially the kick. if you get a good kick sound you can see the faces of the band members light up. The only problem I hate that drum heavy sound I can get it and don't get me wrong I like a good punchy drums but it must be in the context of the music. I have seen far too many gig were the drums are drowning everything ells out. The main priority in when I mix is that the song come through. I mix live like you would expect to hear a record but puncher, the drums might be slightly louder but you can hear everything. Bands need to play their part too, the arrangements need to be good and you need to leave space both musically and sonically for the parts to cut through. A rule of thumb is trouser flapping kick or bass you can't have both.

I worked both has a pro musician and a live sound engineer for a number of years but had to retire due to medical grounds over 10 years ago. Now music is just my hobby I mainly concentrate on recording and mixing nowadays. I have also studied sound recording at both collage and university so I have been lucky enough to experience musicians on most levels, students pro, semi pro and amateurs. The thing with working with pros is you know you will get the job done, no fuss or bulls**t. it's just the same with engineers has it is with musicians. Working with students, armature and a number of semi pro players things are a bit more hit and miss, they might be able to give you what they want if you keep within their comfortable zone, but genially things take longer, run less smoothly and I have less confidence in them even though on the face of the may seem to have the same ability. I will finish by saying there are plenty of exceptions to this but they are my general findings.

A musician would play nothing because it sounds better like that. A bass player would play something because playing bass is more important than the song.

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MY 2p worth. I have said this before Unless you really understand what you want from the compressor stay away. Over the last couple of years I have remixed lot of tracks for bands because they unhappy with the original mix. One problem that cropped up time and time again on most with the original mixers was over use of compression, these mixers were done by people who are supposed to understands compression, So be careful, compression isn't hard to understand but you need to learn to listen for the negative effects. If you want to change your sound then, yes use a compressor If you just want to keep the bass in the right place of the mix then it is best done FOH

If you have been doing it a long time and find yourself stuck in a rut then yes it might be a good idea. If you are fairly new to the game then spend your time leaning your craft, one good, EQ, compressor reverb, ect, learnt well is worth a thousand plug-ins.

I would put a lot of thought into the set and the numbers I would pick would be the ones the band could do well epically in the vocal department . In my experience once you get past a certain level you take for granted that all the bands can play well and sound good. I wouldn't try to please everyone, there are more bands then work for acts like that. The right set can make or break you so have one that makes you special and stands out from the crowd.

The only reason mentioned Chic was in response 51m0n post. Unless you are there just to provide the music presentation is important, I don’t mean jumping around and throwing every rock cliché going and it needs to be appropriate and it can be subtle. Playing for the audience is important whether I a pub or stadium.

[quote name='ubit' timestamp='1418973110' post='2635285'] I'm the bass player in our band, but also the singer and I find that when I'm singing, seven times out of ten, my eyes are closed, which means , stand or not, I'm not engaging the audience with eye contact. I wonder, do all the " professionals " amongst you who sing and play, do the same or are you continuously bonding with the masses? I am a firm believer that as long as you are making a decent noise in a pub, no one gives a jot, what's beside you onstage [/quote] True, but pubs are struggling audiences are dwindling and they pay the bands peanuts. Chic are a good example to what I am trying to say because It doesn't matter that some members of Chic use stands/IPods because they have enough charismatic performers up front, they create great a atmosphere, in other words they put on a good show. The problem is when there are 3 or four people on a small stage whose only idea of performance and presentation is to put some tinsel round their music stand at Christmas. Play for the audience not in spite of them, I think the days are gone when it is enough to say look at me I am playing an instrument, most people find that boring unless you are exceptional or unique.

I suppose it’s about what you think your role is has a musician in the band. The audience may not music stands but they do care if the bands are boring. In my expreance bands that entertain bring in crowds and make the money. If you think the role of the band is to entertain, and your role of a band is to be part of that, I don’t mean jumping around like an idiot, its about engaging with the audience, having a personality on stage, been a band looking like a unit. The singer may be the front person but the rest of the band should support that role. Stands are not only clutter on stage but musicians staring at a music stand all night gives little or no value to the visual performance and atmosphere. Rightly or wrongly many bands won’t allow stands on stage and it give the impression that you have not learnt your parts. So it might put bands of using you in the future.

To all those using music stands with the same band on a regular basis, what is stopping you learning the songs? That is what I don't get. I was talking to an agent about this a few years ago and he said he was very reluctant to book bands with music stands because the felt they could just be a band made up of jobbing musicians so if he booked them they might be a completely different band. I know a couple of agents who have fallen foul to this.

Horses for courses, if it is a reading band, or a band that has to play a wide verity of music such has a hotel band, or even a band that is backing an artiest I don’t mind stands. In other words its ok if you are just there to play music but not if the purpose of the band is to entertain or perform. Most bands covers bands I have played with would not allow music stands on stage. If any member of the band needs to bring prompts on stage then they need to do their homework. I could forgive a dep for using a music stand or even band members having a discrete prompt on a new song for the first couple of plays but that’s it. When I see a stand on stage I think that member is not part of the band because they are just following instructions. I simply don’t understand the need for music stands if you have done your homework, unless you don’t play the songs very often.

I master most of my own mixers I do but I reluctantly call it mastering. If I mix a track that needs to compete with professionally recorded and mastered music I recommend they send it to the professionals or at least someone with the listening environment to do it. Most people think that mastering is just trying to make the final stereo mix sound better but it’s a lot more then that. [b]It is the final quality control check [/b]- most bedroom studios are far from perfect listening environments but you can learn to compensate when mixing by knowing how other well mixed/mastered music sounds on you system. You can get too involved in a mix and fail to be objective. Mastering is not about getting the mix to sound better on your speakers its about getting the music to sound has good on has many speaker systems has possible. [b]Improving dynamics and tonality. [/b] [b]Getting multiple tracks to sound cohesive[/b] – making sure the entire track on an album or EP work well together so you don’t have to mess with the volume or tone controls when listening to a collection of music [b]Add ISRC codes and text information.[/b] Some good advice from Scol303 because I find I do a lot of similar things when mastering tracks but only if the track needs it; I make judgments based on the track. It is easy to hear the good when boosting an EQ, compressing or using things like stereo wideners but when you listen carefully it might be doing damage to elements in the mix. I mix into an SSl type bus comp so I only need make around 2- 3Db reduction when mastering. I also use a soft clipper to take out any excessive peaks but I don’t like excessive limiting of a lot of modern music. When mastering at home, unless you have a really good listening environment don’t do any thing excusive or you could make things worse, I use a quality track for reference

A cheap on board sound card will have cheap digital converters but more than that a very low quality headphone amp, there might even be an impedance miss match. I would trust the interface.

[quote name='MiltyG565' timestamp='1416216516' post='2607903'] Damn! I thought I had more time! I had only listened to half the entries, so hadn't cast my vote. No big deal, though. Well done, Ironside I've heard your tracks in previous challenges, so I'm not surprised you're the winner [/quote] Thank you, I felt this was far more than just mixing it was about Ideas and then putting the ideas in to practice I found this quite hard.