Rimskidog

It's true to say that copyright arises automatically. It's also true that registering with ppl is the next stage of that protection. Unfortunately that also only gets you so far. Truth is if anyone from Lady Gaga to Dave Grohl nicks your work there is little chance you'll be able to do a thing about it. Why? Because the only party that can grant you the type of protection that matters is the court. And unless you are a millionaire you won't stand a snowballs chance litigating against someone with deep pockets. That's the very sad truth. So by all means protect your work to the best of your ability but also be realistic about where that protection gets you. As has been said before: The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.

Sometimes I think 51mon and I are brothers or somethin'. At skol303, it may feel like as a newbie you need something like this but, honestly, it's a false crutch. It will take you in the wrong direction as sure as eggs are eggs. What 51mon is saying is instead of following a guide like you've posted the way which will give you better results and will more quickly get improve your mixing is to 1. listen to the sound of each channel you have [b]in the context of the mix[/b], think about what you don't like about 2. in respect of each channel grab the knob that changes the frequency on your eq and sweep it up and down the frequency range until it hits the offending frequency 3. boost or cut that frequency to suit your sense of aesthetic (twiddling the q knob as required) Following this process just 2 or 3 times will help you 'get it' more than reading anything about it. Really. Just try it. Good luck!

Sadly not all studios are created equally. There's a vast difference between a demo studio and a high end studio (but there's of course a price difference that goes with that too)

[quote name='51m0n' post='1327221' date='Aug 4 2011, 03:49 PM']Vicious complimetary eq. So listen to the kick, cut all the gash out of it (ALL of it, -20dB not a problem) Repeat through the bass stuff, the kick can usually take the heaviest eq though.. When you put them all together what combinations combine to bring back the mud (it is often the way the two tracks do and the other combinations dont so much). Now comes the 'art', with the tracks that are overlapping badly, you have to decide which one can lose that information at that frequency. Remember you dont need the fundamental (or even the second harmonic as often as not) for your brain to perceive bass, especially if something else is generating that bass. So go at the overlap with even more vigour, cut from only one out of any pair of signals that causes you pain. You decide which is the must have instrument at that frequency. Gate anything that rings too long (kick is a prime example) - be vindictive, forget sounding organic, you can always relax your iron fist later, but for now get everything totally tight sounding. Pre-emptive gate opening is really good for the fast transient sounds. Now think about what area of the waveforms need to be loudest. So the kick needs massive attack, and much less sustain, the bass can lose its attack for the kick, sidechain that out of the way with a compressor, too much may be just enough. Compress things to not just stop anything getting too out of shape dynamically, but also to cut wholes in the waveform where other instruments need to be strong. A well set up compressor can do wonders for this! Last point mud is more often around the low mid area (200-500Hz) rather than deep bass. Too much deep bass will cause your woofers to leap around and try and escape their enclosures, too much mud just sounds terrible.[/quote] Great advice. Cut, cut, cut! Use your ears to tell you how much. cut with everything in the mix so you can hear how its affecting the mix rather than the single instrument. Cutting solo'd tracks will tell you nothing.

[quote name='Skol303' post='1327061' date='Aug 4 2011, 02:46 PM']^ Good suggestion, thanks! I'd honestly not thought about doing this... I tend to mix more with my ears than with my 'eyes' (if that makes any sense?), but in this case I think a spec analyser will be very useful indeed. Thanks again for the tip.[/quote] This makes perfect sense. Don't even start heading down this path.

Not in Surrey, you can't have it without an engineer, and it's not cheap but, if you want big roomy drums and a gear list to die for, my place is one of the best in the country.

tricky...

All good advice from 51mon here!

heheh. thanks man!

In truth, do what you can afford. Good quality studio monitors make it easier to get a well balanced mix. The further you move away from a flat monitoring chain/environment (and I include the room acoustics in that), the more difficult you will find it to mix. That doesn't mean you wont ultimately arrive at the same place, it will just take you much longer to do so. So, all that said, if you can only afford an rca lead to get the sound through your hifi speakers, do that (and assume the mix will go through a bunch of iterations before it's 'finished', if you can afford a little more get some room treatment first (as mentioned above this is important but can be DIY'd for little cash) and then by all means get some b***inger Truths (which tell anything but IMO), if you are serious about this game you'll need some decent monitors at some point such as the Adam A7x. When you get really serious about it you might get a pair of Barefoots, once you are obsessive about it you'll need a pair of ATC SCM300ASLs ;-) FWIW I'd say don't rely solely on any pair of headphones, no matter how good. They will not (and indeed cannot) tell you whether you have any phase cancellation issues) As ever ymmv

So I was bored: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0P4QFhYer8"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0P4QFhYer8[/url]

I love this. I'm stealing it!

No. We have an even cooler design for bass control in the stone room. Keep watching and all will be revealed

So this week I got in a bunch of EQ's for trial: 2 x VOGs, 2 X Chandler Little Devils, @ x Harrison EQ 32s and a tonelux: And in the penthouse: And in other news... call me crazy but... I decided to turn one of the production rooms into a stone room. wooooooooohahahahahaha. boing

harhar, API all the way guys!!!

Yeah you gotta watch out for fake Shure Sm57/58. They are pretty horrible. The Red 5's are great bang for buck. I find the PG series to be pretty horrid I'm afraid. If you can find a used ADK a51 they are not a bad little mic for the price, can be a bit dark on some sources but take eq ok. I worked with Roger Nichols (RIP) in NYC a few years ago and the ADK won a shootout against a range of high end mics on one session (I'd only put it up for a laugh!)

[quote name='Beedster' post='1183146' date='Mar 31 2011, 11:31 AM']+1 as I found out! [url="http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=97039&hl="]http://basschat.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=97039&hl=[/url] I will say that it's all now running fine, and we A/B'd some of our work with some of the guys whose sound we were trying to emulate last week (through a decent sound system), and it turns out that we hadn't done too badly (and this is certainly in part thanks to the help guys on here like 51m0n provided on the thread above). I'll add one thing to this thread; don't believe the hype. The more you get into the recording culture, the more you start to believe that analogue is superior to digital, tape is superior to disk, valves superior to transistors, and expensive mics superior to cheap ones. In each domain, it's how you use the equipment that will determine 90% of the quality of the recordings, not what equipment you use. C[/quote] I agree with that, but at the same time it's that last 10% that can takeyour work from a good amatuer job into a release ready pro job.

Things are starting to take shape now though I still can't wait until the new control room kicks off. Still waiting from British gas to come and remove the gas meters so we can lay the floating floors! In the meantime, here's a pic of the console in it's temporary home: Let me know what you think!

[quote name='Phil-osopher10' post='1182683' date='Mar 30 2011, 08:17 PM']I'm just curious what is needed to make a decent studio. We have a recording console that can direwire into a computer, a midi controller keyboard, speakers etc. I'm just wondering what else? compressors? outboards.. whatever they are?[/quote] It really depends what part of the Market you are aiming at. If you don't try to pretend you are something you are not you can do a lot itb with a decent interface and a range of mics. You'll have to price accordingly though. Main thing you need wherever you are aiming is chops.

I won't bore you with the trip back (the debris in the road, the shredded tyre, the underslung spare that the debris damaged, the closed M25 etc) suffice is to say that after about 2900 miles I finally arrived back in Birmingham. Now all i've gotta do is get the console wired in and useable. After considering long and hard the most efficient way to do this I decided only to wire in a portion of my patchbays to get the console up and running (when my new control room comes on line everything will have to move and be re-wired again). It'll mean that mic tie lines will be hardwired so I wont have quite as much flexibility as I'll ulitimately require but it save a LOT of work for the time being. So here's a snapshot of that (128 patchpoints into the process...):

[quote name='EdwardHimself' post='1168020' date='Mar 19 2011, 11:27 AM']ALL THOSE WIRES very nice. Wish i had a desk like that...[/quote] You aint seen nothing yet! They had hardly any outboard. I have loads to wire in. In fact I feel slightly nauseous at the thought... Anyway, it would have been rude to come this far and not take a quick look around the ruins at Pompei... right? Here's one of the entrance gates: And here's another with Vesuvius in the background: After that, it was time to head back north: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EPDoHgr124"]YouTube - Roadtrip to Naples to collect 1608: the return journey[/url]

I guess my attempt to build some tension failed miserably! Well, in the clip below you can see me finally arriving at the very awesome Starlight Studios in Naples, Italy! Can I say right off the bat how great Renato and his crew were and how welcome they made me. If you are in Italy and need a studio, this one should be high on your agenda! Anyways, for now, enjoy [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vovFz5e6EM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vovFz5e6EM[/url]

Day 5. So I found the country, the city and even the street but wait... no studio?!? [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnF4MYOIa48"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnF4MYOIa48[/url]

[quote name='51m0n' post='1163916' date='Mar 16 2011, 01:29 AM']It better be the be all and end of of 2nd hand consoles for that much of a road trip! BTW cheers for the heads up (on GS) about the Red5 kick mic being only £35 at the moment, just got mine delivered, superb for the cash, incredible really![/quote] You are telling me man! No worries. Here's day 4 (I think): [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhO81wgPPHQ"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhO81wgPPHQ[/url]

Day 3: [url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dow9u6nqDY"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Dow9u6nqDY[/url]