‘’‘it aint wot it seems’’’
oi see lotta blokes strugglin wiv recordin tracks n gettin sounds’’‘n jus wanted ta offer likkle ideas’’’‘da major mistake oim seein newbies doin is lissnin ta tracks in isolashin’’‘instead of wiv whole song’’‘n soloin a track n workin on tracks wen soloed’’‘in a way mates yer kiddin yerself’’‘cos yer aint seein
forest fer trees’’’‘so i beg ya ta weally move da mic around loike a gitter amp or wotever loike a sax or vocal n instead of lissnin while movin mic around’’‘instead move mic n record da track n see wot it sounds like in relashun ta da whole song’’‘if dont work’’‘reposition mic n record again’’’‘same wiv mixin’’‘yer mixin in a vacuam by soloin’ n yer gotta mix wiv whole production in mind’’’ mebe some o’ dis obvious ta some blokes but its mighty important mates ta understand da picture yer goin for in advance’’’’ 
I figure this is one of the reasons why the folks at Stax pre-1968 got such great sounds - they experimented, found the set up that worked, and then never really changed it. It’s so much work to have to do it anew for each recording.
Yup, nobody will play around with the equipment.
Everyone wants a straight “what numbers/patch do I select?”-type of answer and they don’t realize that there are SO many variables that many times there is NO absolute answer. Everyone wants instant gratification from a “do A…then B…then C” list.
n mates tim n tom’’‘yer want a real challenge’’‘put a 3 piece rock n roll band plus keys in a room n mic em wiv jus 2 or 3 mics’’‘n yerll get a whole different bed trak vibe goin compared ta usin lotsa mics’’‘gobsa werk o course ta jus get it on da money’’‘but blinkin special if yer get it rite’’’‘den jus add yer vocal n lead overdubs’’’‘also dont consume lotta peecee processor cos yer jus got a stereo track bed track wiv some overdubs on other traks’’’‘oooh yippee momma’’‘then sit back n enjoy da natural sound result wiv a nice cuppa char n add a dab o reverb or echo n mix da song’’‘nice n simple’’’
One thing I was reading was alogn these lines:
Say everything’s in one room together with lots of bleed - position instruments so that the bleed from other instruments works in a positive way, as a room mic for trumpets that happens to be really really close to the double bass…
Hi Limey:
The Story-Has-It…
When Harlin Howard and Owen Bradley used the RCA Rooms in Nashville, way back when… To Record their Classics… They would never “Clean-up” after the Sessions…
They left the Coke-Bottles and Hamburger wrappers and whatever, fall where-they-may… for fear of changing the acoustic reflections of the rooms…
Well, it turned out that someone went in there and “Cleaned-up” between a Project… Owen got upset and tore a strip off the person that did the clean-up… The story has it, that person lost his job… never again to work for Owen Bradley…
Well… 
Bill…
This reminds me of a project I did years ago. It was a three piece blues band playing all at once in a semi-large living room in an old house I was living in at the time. The ceilings were high, around 9 feet, and the walls were about 22 * 18 feet with one end open to a slightly smaller room with what use to be double door (the doors were gone – I love those old houses for recording). The floors were very solid hardwood and the walls were thick real plaster. It was a great room to work in, though a bit live.
The set up like they would live, and dig scratch vocals and everything in one take. We had planned on redoing the vocals but most sounded good enough to be keepers.
There were some planned overdubs for a few songs.
They did 15 songs in 45 minutes - in and out, including setup and tear-down, in 3 hours.
We were working with 8 tracks.
Bass - DI
Kick - mic
Snare - mic
Tom 1 overhead - mic
Tom 2 floortom - mic
Guitar - mic
Vocal - mic
One empty track for overdubs or bouncing of tracks if needed.
There was lots of bleed into the drum mics, mostly from the bass into the drums. They were playing at full stage volume. Since we weren’t planning on keeping the vocals we didn’t give much thought to the bleed into the vocal mic.
The really interesting thing is that while mixing it became very obvious that the tracks that didn’t have replaced vocals had a much nicer open sound than the ones with replaced vocals. The bleed was really adding to the sound in a very positive way. It was acting as a room mic in that lively room. Even though it was a single mono track it really opened up everything. We missed it in a few songs.
A couple of songs had overdubbed piano and lead guitar and those tracks suffered as well. They sounded like overdubs since they weren’t in the same room. They were tracked dry at a different studio. It was a real pain to get them to sit in the mix after the fact, given the equipment we had at the time. A good outboard delay/reverb would have helped. All we had was an old original Alesis Microverb (the very first one Alesis made). It was ok, but it wasn’t a real room.
These were mixed to a stereo Hi-Fi VHS tape since I didn’t have a 1/4" reel yet, or to cassette.
I’ll see if I can find any samples sitting around. I have lots of stuff on tape by this band. It good listening. My only problem is I don’t know how to get in touch with any of them any more and haven’t see them in 10 to 15 years. I’d love to post all it. (if the tapes are still playable, or if I can find copy of the VHS mixes)
Hi phoo:
What a great post… It takes me back to the early-to-mid '60’s. We were just teenagers then… Is it that long ago? We did a Radio Show in the Livingroom/Dinning of my parents house every weekend… I don’t know how my parents put up with all our creativity…
Anyway, they did…
We used the same show format each week… Rehursed the intros and outros/voice-overs and did the show in one take… Remember… it was a 15 minute Show…
Our set-up, in front of the mics were…
Drums snare/H-H’s/Crash
Bass Fender Jazz Bassman '50 amp
Steel Guitar Electric Guitar
These were all done by working one mic… Banjo Mandolin Fiddle
Acoustic Guitar, Vocals, with Harmony…
These shows went on weekly for almost two years… and done either saturday or sunday afternoons , depending on wheather we played saturday nights…
The house and setup was almost as you described in your post… Was it the same house? lol… hehehe… We did the show with four mics and mixer to a MagnaCord full-track 15 ips. 1/4" deck… It was one of the standard Studio decks of it’s time, in the '50’s… I still have that deck… Works like a charm… lol… The tapes were sent off by bus to the other end of the province for showtime every wednesday at 1pm. The thing was, the radio station was out of range for us to hear… We never did get to hear the show as it was broadcasted…
Oh… What carefree days they were… as I remember…
Bill…
I’ve been actually working/struggling with a similar theme concept regarding VST drums and how best to record them.
Now Groove Agent has four outputs so it’s really tempting to seperate the kick and the snare and the hihats leaving toms and other extras on the fourth channel. I did this on a session and really quickly after just a few fader adjustments the integrity of the kit broke down. This is even though the “ambience” of each track/drum remains even if you send to different outputs.
I did some comparisons and decided that the kit sounds best
way before I’ve split it all up, it may not be as tweakable but,
it just sounds better, more balanced. I dunno it doesn’t make much sense, but, now I have decided that, unless there is some really pressing reason to seperate the various drums
I’m going to lean towards just keeping the drums in stereo
with a “no seperate outs” philosophy.
One thing is for sure, you save a lot of creative time by not messing with seperate outs, at least initially.
Keeping things simple seems to be in contrast to the potential to tweak but, it has attractions which are wiped out when you start drilling further into the recording process.
Of course as Limey would know, soloing of tracks is often done so the engineer can fine tune EQ and so forth…but,
to EQ or not to EQ is a different if entirely intertwined topic/subject matter!
Plaster walls, really nice hardwood floors, and nice curves where the wall and ceiling meet - that’s what we had in our old house. It was absolutely fabulous for live recording. I didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. 
The new house is, well, newer, which is good when it comes to repairs but not so good for recording. Hmm. House that is old and needs constant upkeep that is good for recording, or house that needs less in the way of upkeep but doesn’t have any good recording spaces…hmm… 
I find that the subtle hum of my refrigerator running adds a certain analog warmth to my overall sound. 
I never realized just how noisy an apartment could be until I got my C-1 and l heard all that noise through the headphones! But hey… We make-do with what we’ve got, yes?
jus wanna add one mor fing’’‘bleed n leakage can be yer mates if yer know ow ta use em n where ta use em’’’‘all da likkle sound waves donkin around somtimes lead ta intrestin sounds n stuff’’’‘n sumtimes muckin wiv solo n eqin in isolashun can muck up da bleed/leakage fing appnin’’‘yer gotta be real careful like’’’‘dis became apparent ta me one day wen some mates wanted a blinkin quck song recorded at their ouse’’‘
oi didnt av me normal mixer ta lug on over so we used a piece of grok n some mic preamps i bilt n cobbled n made’’‘but by a appy circumstance cos we spent ages wiv da bleed n leakage technique’’‘blinkin songs came out super duper’’‘den band says to moi’’‘blimey mate we tried dat song in a blinkin good studio’’‘n yer version sounds miles better n stuff’’‘ow come wiv such grok gear ?’’‘well i says it was all da leakage n mic psishuns n stuff ya all see’’’‘provin once again’’‘jus cos yer got da best o best gear dont mean squat somtoimes cos grok gear as got its own snd fing appnin like a signature sound’’’
| Quote (John @ Mar. 15 2005,10:43) |
| I find that the subtle hum of my refrigerator running adds a certain analog warmth to my overall sound.
|
Hey John:
Are you saying we gotta go and buy all the refridgerator brands so we can get that "Signature Sound", now?
Never thought a'that.. Till now.. Whatta think about me throwing all my mics out in the snowbank and hitt'in the "Record Button" and see what I can come up with..
On one project I had this "Magic" acoustic guitar track till I heard this girl calling her Pooch, by name, out on the sidewalk.. My livingroom sounds just great for tracking, except for that.. hehehe..
Bill..
| Quote (John @ Mar. 15 2005,08:43) |
| I find that the subtle hum of my refrigerator running adds a certain analog warmth to my overall sound. I never realized just how noisy an apartment could be until I got my C-1 and l heard all that noise through the headphones! But hey... We make-do with what we've got, yes? |
Yes, the ghostly voices that I keep hearing in the recordings are sometimes just the thing the song needs, too...
| Quote (TomS @ Mar. 15 2005,10:59) | ||
Yes, the ghostly voices that I keep hearing in the recordings are sometimes just the thing the song needs, too...
|
Keep the various extraneous voices and random noises on all of your tracks and call it a concept album. People will think you are a genius while they try to decipher all of the "hidden messages” that you have so artfully crafted into your recordings.
And if your concept collection is played backwards, some nutcase will be able to ascertain messages from Satan contained therein. It’s a known fact!
TG
If you record a gaseous bodily function and play it backwards, it’ll still stink!
| Quote (YazMiester @ Mar. 15 2005,15:17) |
| If you record a gaseous bodily function and play it backwards, it'll still stink!
|
That particular piece of symbolism refers to a martyr taking the burden of man's evils in this world upon himself so that man can be free of the stench of his own wrongdoing.
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