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Old 10-17-2019, 08:31 AM   #201
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Funny how you mention all those brand names as if recording with an off-brand mic in to a DAW and doing the same EQing and compression will sound more like the "screech" and "scrape".
I probably wasn't clear, but I think you missed my point... A violin needs distance to properly form the "whole sound" of the instrument. When you listen to a violin in a concert setting you're probably at least 50' away from the thing, and the components of the sound (string vibration, bow scrape, body resonance) have coalesced into a pleasing whole. So ask yourself, why do so many people "close-mic" a violin, 2' or so over the player's shoulder? Why not mic from a distance? Micing it from a distance adds so much "room" sound to the recording that it's difficult to manipulate the sound of the violin later on when mixing it with other instruments. I'm speaking in a rock or jazz context, not a pure classical recording, where "layering" of parts is virtually unheard of. So, instead of distance micing the violin, we close mic it with a million-dollar signal chain that introduces non-linearity after non-linearity after non-linearity to get something that is both "pleasant" and "present," without the enforced distance. Is a Schoeps mic better than an off-brand one? That is probably an arguable yes. Substituting the A/D and D/A stages plus a DAW for the amp stages and tape will give you a different signal, where the difference is both audible and measurable. At that point, YES, the violin "sound" will be a bit more like "screech" and "scrape." The difference (mic aside) will be minuscule, but it will be there. Don't get butt-hurt over it; my entire point is that worrying about how compression "destroys" a sound to the point of refusing to use it is laughable in the face of everything else that is going on.

Coachz: I completely get your point, but that SM57 is still in there. First it was just an SM57, and that was the start of the paradigm. Then it became a blend: R1221/57, U87/57, 421/57, and now the metal guys are doing Audix D6/57. Notice the common denominator? ;-)
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Old 10-17-2019, 08:44 AM   #202
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So ask yourself, why do so many people "close-mic" a violin, 2' or so over the player's shoulder? Why not mic from a distance?
In this world of DIY recording, one huge reason/difference is recording creatively vs defensively. The majority of home recording advice concerns playing "defense" most of the time... micing close due to an untreated room is one of the big ones which effectively kills a lot of creative choices. One spends all their time trying to keep that nasty "can't unmix paint" room sound out of the tracks instead of placing mics where they will allow the sound to develop and so on.

In my treated room I can track vocals a foot or few away from the mic, I can mic my guitar amp with a mic 7 feet way and it will still sound fantastic... all things that are not going to work in poor conditions. It all adds up.

The same goes for everything else, if the playing skills are sub-par then it's defense in post to make up for that. This is in direct opposition to a good room, good playing etc. where the majority of choices now become creative instead of defensive, I can't stress enough how much of a handicap getting it wrong at the source is come mix time.

So how much time do we spend mixing creatively vs fixing stuff? Do we even know which is which when we are mixing?
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Old 10-17-2019, 09:07 AM   #203
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Yeah I'm definitely a compression noob and I see them usually used for tools to tamp down dynamics or to add saturation and vibe.
I'm a noob too, but I'm getting there, but I do think it is just as valuable to understand automation and tame dynamics without compression as it is to do it with them. I definitely think people overuse compression over automation, which honestly can't be overused unless you make plain bad choices
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Old 10-17-2019, 09:20 AM   #204
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Using the same gear as someone, or absence of it in the case of Bruce Swedien does not make you sound like them. Using the same mics as Angus won't make you sound like Angus either.

At a gig a fantastic guitarist I worked with had someone come up and ask him what pedals he was using, and as they left he said to me "they will probably go buy all the same pedals and then find out they still don't sound like me because they aren't thinking about the playing".
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Old 10-17-2019, 09:30 AM   #205
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Using the same gear as someone, or absence of it in the case of Bruce Swedien does not make you sound like them. Using the same mics as Angus won't make you sound like Angus either.

At a gig a fantastic guitarist I worked with had someone come up and ask him what pedals he was using, and as they left he said to me "they will probably go buy all the same pedals and then find out they still don't sound like me because they aren't thinking about the playing".
Tell that to solo dallas, ha ha

https://solodallas.com/author/jaiminhopagina
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Old 10-17-2019, 09:40 AM   #206
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Using the same gear as someone, or absence of it in the case of Bruce Swedien does not make you sound like them. Using the same mics as Angus won't make you sound like Angus either.
The following has happened to me on two eye-opening occasions...

1. I'm mixing a band and the live mix is sounding great, guitar player invites another guitar player up to sit in for two songs. He hands him his guitar, the song starts, I dive for the mixing board because the guitar tone has completely changed from great to tinny crap - nothing had changed except the player.

2. I'm at a show where a band (of friends) is playing and hanging out by the sound board because I'm also friends with the guy mixing. This time, I'm invited up as the guy to sit in for a couple of songs - The gtr player hands me the guitar, I just play, I don't change anything - I walk back to the mixer after I'm done and the mix guy says "what the hell did you change when you were up there? The guitar tone went from kind of shitty to brown, round and nice" - I said, I didn't change anything, I just played.

If a performance is part of the picture it is 95% of everything that matters, it affects tone and our brains have a real hard time separating the two because performance affects sonics to such a degree, so it really is in the hands, embrace it, accept it, don't run from it - don't get caught in that tone trap with gear, it ain't the gear or rather gear is at the bottom of the list in this regard The problem is we can download a better player, even if that is ourselves.
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Old 10-17-2019, 10:00 AM   #207
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Could you have intuitively/involuntarily twiddled a volume or tone on the gtr? I'm not meaning to suggest it couldn't be style alone. But those controls give a LOT of range.
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Old 10-17-2019, 10:05 AM   #208
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Following on the close mic'ing of instruments that need space and ambience components...

Sometimes capturing the raw elements and putting them back together yourself gives more mix possibilities than a perfectly accurate field recording that includes the room.
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Old 10-17-2019, 10:10 AM   #209
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The following has happened to me on two eye-opening occasions...

1. I'm mixing a band and the live mix is sounding great, guitar player invites another guitar player up to sit in for two songs. He hands him his guitar, the song starts, I dive for the mixing board because the guitar tone has completely changed from great to tinny crap - nothing had changed except the player.
I have witnessed this as well at jam nights.

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2. I'm at a show where a band (of friends) is playing and hanging out by the sound board because I'm also friends with the guy mixing. This time, I'm invited up as the guy to sit in for a couple of songs - The gtr player hands me the guitar, I just play, I don't change anything - I walk back to the mixer after I'm done and the mix guy says "what the hell did you change when you were up there? The guitar tone went from kind of shitty to brown, round and nice" - I said, I didn't change anything, I just played.
The guitarist I worked with in my studio for so many years always used my guitars and amps when we'd record, even though he had a very impressive array of very high end instruments. The only times we used his guitars were for specialty sounds like a fat body Gretsch jazz guitar he played on a couple of my songs, but in those instances, I told him to bring that guitar because I knew none of my solid body electrics would get the mellow dull jazz sound. Since then I bought a cheaper but similar axe just so I'd have one on my palette.

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If a performance is part of the picture it is 95% of everything that matters, it affects tone and our brains have a real hard time separating the two because performance affects sonics to such a degree, so it really is in the hands, embrace it, accept it, don't run from it - don't get caught in that tone trap with gear, it ain't the gear or rather gear is at the bottom of the list in this regard The problem is we can download a better player, even if that is ourselves.
In another forum I used to frequent, I jokingly would say that I could play cardboard boxes for drums with trash can lids for cymbals and make them sound good in a recording when I'd see threads about the gear is what makes the sound.
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Old 10-17-2019, 10:11 AM   #210
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Could you have intuitively/involuntarily twiddled a volume or tone on the gtr? I'm not meaning to suggest it couldn't be style alone. But those controls give a LOT of range.
I always use the volume knob, that's what it is there for but it doesn't really change anything because someone had to decide to turn it (aka manipulate the instrument) and their hands are what moved the knob. That isn't all of it though, it's easy to get a myriad of tones out of a guitar with just the hands.

Another point is "where/when" the player places the notes also affects sonics, because it changes where the waveform aligns with other instruments. That's a big deal and isn't just about timing but timing that affects tonal context with what else those notes live with. So in that regard even a keyboard player can play the same sound as someone else and it tonally fit better due to where they place the notes.
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Old 10-17-2019, 10:26 AM   #211
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it's easy to get a myriad of tones out of a guitar with just the hands.
Although drums is my main axe, 44 years of playing guitars has made me very aware of what you just said.

Somewhere in the last ten years I think I started getting better control over those nuances, because I remember recording myself playing solos on songs and always hating the sound, so I'd get someone else to play it. It was never about what notes got played, but instead the way they were played. At some point I recorded myself doing a guitar spot on a song because no one else was available and remember thinking "hey this doesn't suck like I expected".

The main guy I used to use for guitar solos in recording (same guy I played live with) had an authority about his playing that I lacked. He could play the most simple line and make it sound legitimate. Almost like the difference between a quiet stage fright vocal vs a confident boasting one.
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Old 10-17-2019, 11:03 AM   #212
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I always use the volume knob, that's what it is there for but it doesn't really change anything because someone had to decide to turn it (aka manipulate the instrument) and their hands are what moved the knob. That isn't all of it though, it's easy to get a myriad of tones out of a guitar with just the hands.

Another point is "where/when" the player places the notes also affects sonics, because it changes where the waveform aligns with other instruments. That's a big deal and isn't just about timing but timing that affects tonal context with what else those notes live with. So in that regard even a keyboard player can play the same sound as someone else and it tonally fit better due to where they place the notes.
Sure. Just throwing that out there. I've had the same experiences and disagree with nothing you said there.
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Old 10-17-2019, 11:33 AM   #213
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I don't understand why anyone takes advice from an "expert" on what to like.

They think music is too compressed? Great. Don't listen to it.

Take everything an "expert" says with a grain of salt. We're supposed to be learning techniques from these fellas. Not what we should or shouldn't like.

For example, the loudness wars are over but I still like a bit of brickwall limiting on my mixes. I learned to use it musically and I like how it sounds. Period.
Completely agree. No technique should ever dictate content. It'd be like an actor taking notes from a lighting designer. The designer sometimes has to move the actor so he can be seen onstage, but his lights only help the audience see what the actor is already doing.
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Old 10-17-2019, 12:05 PM   #214
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The reason I pay very very close attention to experts like Bruce swedien and mutt Lange is because I think their albums are the best sounding albums I've ever heard. I learn a lot from listening to the album's and any interviews I can find.
Are they your favourite albums in terms of content or technique? You might want to qualify that statement.

My favourite records are considered poor quality technically. There's a particular Duke Ellington recording of "Sophisticated Lady" that I love. It completely transports me to the 1930s NYC swing club scene. It's horribly tinny, muddy, and poorly placed in the stereo field. The piano is very narrow and peaky. I love it. If it wasn't this way, I guarantee it wouldn't move me in the way it does. Tone is essential to any blues-based music.

https://youtu.be/_8LLfFY9pQg
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Old 10-17-2019, 12:32 PM   #215
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Are they your favourite albums in terms of content or technique? You might want to qualify that statement.

My favourite records are considered poor quality technically.
As a Hawkwind fan, that resonates! However, in this case I don't think it makes for an aesthetic. I would absolutely change that if I could and the albums would be better for it! But that's not going to happen (save for that one wholly unexpected Steve Wilson 5.1 remix) and I'm not going to stop listening to them.

I'll quip that if someone remixes something and it doesn't "hit" or "vibe" right even though some fidelity has been improved, that means not only was the remix failed but failed to the point that any fidelity improvements were a moot point. A pretty big screw up in other words! Sadly I've heard far more after the period remixes fall into this camp than the other.
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Old 10-17-2019, 12:36 PM   #216
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He could play the most simple line and make it sound legitimate.
Exactly, some of the players I work with, whom I respect and admire the most... Has nothing to do with how technical what they play is.
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Old 10-17-2019, 12:55 PM   #217
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Exactly, some of the players I work with, whom I respect and admire the most... Has nothing to do with how technical what they play is.
Character is a term that gets close to the idea. The inflection and handling of the instrument have a dramatic effect on what ends up coming out of the guitar amp.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:01 PM   #218
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Are they your favourite albums in terms of content or technique? You might want to qualify that statement.

My favourite records are considered poor quality technically. There's a particular Duke Ellington recording of "Sophisticated Lady" that I love. It completely transports me to the 1930s NYC swing club scene. It's horribly tinny, muddy, and poorly placed in the stereo field. The piano is very narrow and peaky. I love it. If it wasn't this way, I guarantee it wouldn't move me in the way it does. Tone is essential to any blues-based music.

https://youtu.be/_8LLfFY9pQg
I completely agree that recordings can place a piece of music in time.

But I personally think that recording is too recent to do that. It's edging toward a more modern sound that could be done better.

This version sounds much better to me, and I don't think could be improved with modern techniques:



And, the ultimate for me:



^^^ I honestly don't know how you could make that sound better with modern equipment and techniques. A nicer sounding room, maybe, but not the way it was recorded.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:09 PM   #219
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Character is a term that gets close to the idea. The inflection and handling of the instrument have a dramatic effect on what ends up coming out of the guitar amp.
You have to find your voice in the instrument.

I remember Tim Gilles (Slipperman) telling tale of meeting his drum hero (can't remember who), and always admiring his ride sound. He got to play that ride cymbal, and it sounded like crap when he played it.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:15 PM   #220
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As a Hawkwind fan, that resonates! However, in this case I don't think it makes for an aesthetic. I would absolutely change that if I could and the albums would be better for it! But that's not going to happen (save for that one wholly unexpected Steve Wilson 5.1 remix) and I'm not going to stop listening to them.

I'll quip that if someone remixes something and it doesn't "hit" or "vibe" right even though some fidelity has been improved, that means not only was the remix failed but failed to the point that any fidelity improvements were a moot point. A pretty big screw up in other words! Sadly I've heard far more after the period remixes fall into this camp than the other.
I dunno...

I had an old vinyl of In Search of Space and I remember that sounding pretty good. I can only find the remastered version on YouTube though.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:27 PM   #221
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You have to find your voice in the instrument.
That flashed me back to the 70s hearing about some of the best local guitarists. "He can make that thing talk" was a frequent phrase to hear about guys who are as fluidly connected to their instrument, as they are with their physical being.

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I remember Tim Gilles (Slipperman) telling tale of meeting his drum hero (can't remember who), and always admiring his ride sound. He got to play that ride cymbal, and it sounded like crap when he played it.
Totally relate. I had a sooper cheep Wuhan China cymbal that if hit in isolation sounded like the twenty five bucks or whatever I paid for it was, but in a live on stage with other musicians playing scenario sounded like a million bucks and made other drummers ask what it was.

The cheep Wuhan. That guitarist was previously in Jimmie Spheeris' touring band if you remember who he was.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:37 PM   #222
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I dunno...

I had an old vinyl of In Search of Space and I remember that sounding pretty good. I can only find the remastered version on YouTube though.
I'm thinking of the more independent-ish label label releases and some of the live albums I suppose. Those '70s UA releases are pretty on point. At least in their own way. I think the mastering is more open on the original vinyl too. The remastered CD edition with the more elaborate book and artwork is close.

There were a round of remaster CDs from them (after those UA ones that were actually pretty good) that are some of the worst volume war treble hype examples I've ever heard too. I like to quip that someone cranked the treble up to 11 on that kind of stuff but these were more like on 14! It was a good chunk of the catalog released that way too.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:40 PM   #223
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^^^ I honestly don't know how you could make that sound better with modern equipment and techniques. A nicer sounding room, maybe, but not the way it was recorded.
Not a disagreement but it's hard to make such a call unless you'd never heard and been previously affected by the original. Not much different than demoitis.
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Old 10-17-2019, 01:47 PM   #224
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Not a disagreement but it's hard to make such a call unless you'd never heard and been previously affected by the original. Not much different than demoitis.
If it was recorded now it wouldn't have that sense of history baked in.

Finding old songs now still gives me that. The technology and all its flaws, as well as old recording techniques, places a piece of music in time. It's one of the reasons I don't like remasters, even when they are tastefully done.

It's not just the notes I'm interested in and want to hear - it's the moment in culture and technology. That goes a much for 90's industrial music as it does 80's hip-hop, 60's psychedelia or 30's jazz for me... even edited-to-death autotuned pop music of today holds some appeal as a time capsule and cultural artefact for me.
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Old 10-17-2019, 02:03 PM   #225
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If it was recorded now it wouldn't have that sense of history baked in.
I think we are on the same page, just noting that we can't be unbiased once we have already emotionally connected to the original - once that happens we can't easily disconnect and anything that veers sounds wrong.

That's what I meant by demoitis where a musician will make a demo, listen to it 1000s of times and when it comes to recording the real version, it can never live up to the demo even though it is better in every way outside of what they emotionally attached themselves to listening to the demo. When that truly happens, the original is only better because we cemented it in our brains and it's only that delta that bugs us, not better or worse.
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Old 10-17-2019, 02:54 PM   #226
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I probably wasn't clear, but I think you missed my point... A violin needs distance to properly form the "whole sound" of the instrument. When you listen to a violin in a concert setting you're probably at least 50' away from the thing, and the components of the sound (string vibration, bow scrape, body resonance) have coalesced into a pleasing whole. So ask yourself, why do so many people "close-mic" a violin, 2' or so over the player's shoulder? Why not mic from a distance? Micing it from a distance adds so much "room" sound to the recording that it's difficult to manipulate the sound of the violin later on when mixing it with other instruments. I'm speaking in a rock or jazz context, not a pure classical recording, where "layering" of parts is virtually unheard of. So, instead of distance micing the violin, we close mic it with a million-dollar signal chain that introduces non-linearity after non-linearity after non-linearity to get something that is both "pleasant" and "present," without the enforced distance. Is a Schoeps mic better than an off-brand one? That is probably an arguable yes. Substituting the A/D and D/A stages plus a DAW for the amp stages and tape will give you a different signal, where the difference is both audible and measurable. At that point, YES, the violin "sound" will be a bit more like "screech" and "scrape." The difference (mic aside) will be minuscule, but it will be there. Don't get butt-hurt over it; my entire point is that worrying about how compression "destroys" a sound to the point of refusing to use it is laughable in the face of everything else that is going on.
I didn't miss your point, it would just be the same point by saying "record, EQ and compress" without mentioning the brand names so I find it funny that you mentioned them.

Then again maybe you actually are deluded in to thinking you need to use those specific products or it won't sound good. Salesmen love people like that.
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Old 10-17-2019, 03:21 PM   #227
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I didn't miss your point, it would just be the same point by saying "record, EQ and compress" without mentioning the brand names so I find it funny that you mentioned them.

Then again maybe you actually are deluded in to thinking you need to use those specific products or it won't sound good. Salesmen love people like that.
Really, dude? You're going there? Sorry, no, I'm not deluded in thinking you "need" those things to record a violin. The only reason that I mentioned those SPECIFIC pieces was to create the "million dollar signal chain" in an attempt to point out the futility of refusing to use a compressor because of what it does to a signal, that's all. I don't own any of that, I don't use them regularly, and, sorry to disappoint, but I also own NO Monster Cable products, either.

Honestly, I think this whole discussion has come off the rails.

GOOD: Studying the techniques and approaches of engineers and producers you respect and admire.
BAD: Applying their techniques by rote without understanding WHY they used that technique in a specific instance, and insisting on applying that technique AT ALL TIMES, appropriate or not.
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Old 10-17-2019, 03:29 PM   #228
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I didn't miss your point, it would just be the same point by saying "record, EQ and compress" without mentioning the brand names so I find it funny that you mentioned them.

Then again maybe you actually are deluded in to thinking you need to use those specific products or it won't sound good. Salesmen love people like that.
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Old 10-17-2019, 03:42 PM   #229
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Really, dude? You're going there? Sorry, no, I'm not deluded in thinking you "need" those things to record a violin. The only reason that I mentioned those SPECIFIC pieces was to create the "million dollar signal chain" in an attempt to point out the futility of refusing to use a compressor because of what it does to a signal, that's all. I don't own any of that, I don't use them regularly, and, sorry to disappoint, but I also own NO Monster Cable products, either.

Honestly, I think this whole discussion has come off the rails.

GOOD: Studying the techniques and approaches of engineers and producers you respect and admire.
BAD: Applying their techniques by rote without understanding WHY they used that technique in a specific instance, and insisting on applying that technique AT ALL TIMES, appropriate or not.
It's not that I think you are deluded, it was more saying that surely you must accept what I'm saying because one would have to be deluded if they didn't. You do say that the difference between "million dollar" and budget is minuscule so I assume you do.

I.e. it's not the expensive equipment that makes it sound so much better than putting your ear 2 inches away, it's the process of recording and effecting it.

To be honest, I assumed you'd accept what I was saying right away, I just thought it was funny that you mentioned them. I didn't want to start an argument.
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Old 10-17-2019, 03:42 PM   #230
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Originally Posted by Coachz View Post
Rudeness is a weak person's imitation of strength.
It's ironic to say that to someone.
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Old 10-17-2019, 04:08 PM   #231
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It's ironic to say that to someone.
Stop while you're behind.
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Old 10-17-2019, 04:48 PM   #232
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Stop while you're behind.
Behind what?

I really don't know why you've randomly decided to be hostile towards me, you do realise SoundguyDave said your compression decision is laughable?

I didn't say that, I only thought.
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Old 10-17-2019, 04:55 PM   #233
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Behind what?

I really don't know why you've randomly decided to be hostile towards me, you do realise SoundguyDave said your compression decision is laughable?

I didn't say that, I only thought.
Chill
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Old 10-17-2019, 05:09 PM   #234
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Chill
Isn't it childish for someone who's past middle age to say that to someone because they responded to you antagonising them for no reason?
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Old 10-17-2019, 06:55 PM   #235
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This tread has some excellent points raised .

Then again sanity and talent create a fine line .

It razes the point that performance in its own context always has something hard to do in tracking /mixing .

I try to work clean then add effects ,then re-perform...over and over untill I reach my own limit .

Its funny how on some days some stuff just sounds best with no effect bar a little bit of bass compression.

other days i cant get a thing right.

Play nice gentlemen, your input and your points of difference have been valuable to me .
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Old 10-17-2019, 07:11 PM   #236
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Isn't it childish for someone who's past middle age to say that to someone because they responded to you antagonising them for no reason?
It's not gaining any ground when someone uses age as part of the argument. Not trying to be argumentative and make things worse, but it's the wrong path to take. We all get what you care about concerning good music and expense, but getting that across should not come at the expense of this thread.
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Old 10-17-2019, 07:18 PM   #237
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Using the same gear as someone, or absence of it in the case of Bruce Swedien does not make you sound like them. Using the same mics as Angus won't make you sound like Angus either.

At a gig a fantastic guitarist I worked with had someone come up and ask him what pedals he was using, and as they left he said to me "they will probably go buy all the same pedals and then find out they still don't sound like me because they aren't thinking about the playing".
This post has triggered so many personal stories for me.

1. I love the guitar sound Angus Young gets, but for the life of me, I can't get that sound with a U87. It sounds terrible to me. I use many different mics and still achieve the sound I want. And sometimes I'm trying to mimic the AC/DC sound. I just can't do it the way they did.

2. Years ago I had a B team in the second studio. Two other guys that were writing and producing pop tracks like me and my partner were doing. I gave them all of my production and mixing templates yet nothing they created sounded like me. They wound up scrapping all of my templates and just doing what sounded good to them.

3. I was once working in a recording studio as the house engineer. I was still fairly new to engineering and my boss was my mentor. We were recording this band that was pretty famous locally as a cover band. They sounded amazing. But they were coming to our studio to record their original songs. So we spent hours getting sounds and it just didn't sound very good. The snare was thin, the bass had no low end. So while we took a break, the band got bored and started playing a cover song. I believe it was "Bad Company" by the band Bad Company.

My boss and I looked at each other in amazement. Suddenly the Bass went down two octaves and the snare sounded like god. WTH just happened? You guessed it. They were playing a great song with a great arrangement and great parts. Their original songs sucked. And that absolutely affects the sonics of a recording.
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Old 10-17-2019, 07:28 PM   #238
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Originally Posted by Judders View Post

I remember Tim Gilles (Slipperman) telling tale of meeting his drum hero (can't remember who), and always admiring his ride sound. He got to play that ride cymbal, and it sounded like crap when he played it.
One other story. I was working at a studio many many moons ago and some young band came in and used our studio kit. It sounded terrible. Especially the hi-hats.

I turned to the studio owner and said that we really need to replace those hi-hats. They sound like trash cans.

Fast forward two weeks. Bernard Purdie comes to the studio. We're getting sounds and I turn to the studio owner and tell him that I've never heard a better set of hi hats in my life.

He was also using the studio kit.
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Old 10-17-2019, 08:06 PM   #239
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You guessed it. They were playing a great song with a great arrangement and great parts. Their original songs sucked. And that absolutely affects the sonics of a recording.
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Old 10-17-2019, 08:44 PM   #240
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Originally Posted by Kenny Gioia View Post
This post has triggered so many personal stories for me.

1. I love the guitar sound Angus Young gets, but for the life of me, I can't get that sound with a U87. It sounds terrible to me. I use many different mics and still achieve the sound I want. And sometimes I'm trying to mimic the AC/DC sound. I just can't do it the way they did.
I don't really try to duplicate anyone else's sound, and just go for what sounds good to me with my gear. After many years of trying things, I've settled into using a Sennheiser MD421 on a twin twelve Gretsch speaker cabinet that is in the closet of the studio, and powered by a small Orange amp that is in the control room so I monitor and adjust it while listening through my studio monitors.

Quote:
[ ... ]

the band got bored and started playing a cover song. I believe it was "Bad Company" by the band Bad Company.

My boss and I looked at each other in amazement. Suddenly the Bass went down two octaves and the snare sounded like god. WTH just happened? You guessed it. They were playing a great song with a great arrangement and great parts. Their original songs sucked. And that absolutely affects the sonics of a recording.
Something I've noticed over the years is with lots of people's original music they'll have parts playing all the time, never letting up or taking a breath, and it crowds the soundstage so no part can be heard with much detail.

Drums being my first instrument, I try to write parts that will play off of each other and fill each other's holes. The newest thing I recorded has mandolin hard right, 12-string hard left, and they trade off through most of the song so they aren't stepping on each other's toes.
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