Latest Work Mix

[Sonic Valley]

Getting closer to done... Click here to check out the work mix (http://www.sonicvalley.com/Tim_MacNeill-Courage.mp3)



[This message has been edited by Sonic Valley (edited 06-22-2002).]

[nutsadamus]

Very, very nice.
I especially like the excellent kit sound.
The guitars aren't too shabby either. Very smooth. I'm guessing Fender amp for the clean sound and Boogie for the dirty stuff?

[EssDee]

Very nice, open mix Vance. I also agree that is a really nice drum sound. You may want to post it in a couple of the drum-oriented threads in order to help out ReggieD. I'd really love to hear that one after mastering.

Yeah, tell us about the guitars while you're at it. (acoustics and electrics)

Great work!!!

[Sonic Valley]

Thanx guys. Drums on this track are AT4050's for overheads, PVM520 on top snare, 57 underneath and a Beta 52 in the kick. The guitars are all Marshall JCM 2000 (yuck) on a 1960 cab. The acoustic is a beat up ol Washburn with a Rode NTK in front of er.

[EssDee]

Originally posted by Sonic Valley:
Thanx guys. Drums on this track are AT4050's for overheads, PVM520 on top snare, 57 underneath and a Beta 52 in the kick. The guitars are all Marshall JCM 2000 (yuck) on a 1960 cab. The acoustic is a beat up ol Washburn with a Rode NTK in front of er.


Wow!!, you must have really some tricks up your sleeve. I never could get those kind of results with my pair of 4050's as overheads and I still have yet to get a decent guitar sound from any amp in the JCM 2000 line. http://www.audioforums.com/forums/redface.gif

Again, great work Vance. (as usual)

[Sonic Valley]

Ya...I'm not a huge fan of the 2000. On other tunes we used the acoustic thru the 2000 into a 25th Anny Marshall 4x10 cab and some thru my Mark 1 Boogie. close mic'd with a 57 in various spots in the room.

[cydrum]

i love the snare drum during the verse part!

[This message has been edited by cydrum (edited 06-22-2002).]

[9MileSkid]

Very nice. I like the bass especially. My only complaint is the way the singer pronounces 'courage'. It sounds like he's singing about Calvin Coolidge with a speech impediment =).

-m

[Sonic Valley]

lol..ya I thought it was weird at first but have grown to like it.

[ReggieD]

I think I could actually understand every word the guy said even though he tries his hardest not to let you by trying to be Matchbox 21. I want to meet Mike Believe! LOL The snare on the verse part is also nice, but it seems to change sound on the chorus. I honestly can't follow much anything else, however. The bass is hinted at and what ARE the distorted guitars doing? It may be the excessive reverb - that is definitely popular regardless of what people may say. Don't take it wrong, this over blended sound is popular a lot, I just like to hear every note I play - maybe that is a problem for me. The kick is the low point. I guess I hear it better in phones, though. It has a kind of hollow sound when you do hear it, though.

Your overall eq and levels seem pretty nice. Why send it to Bud at all? What kind of compression did you do to the overall mix?

I take it from the name that this a solo act? Is that the reason for the emphasis on the vocal then?

This would be a good song had I not heard it before. It was in my head all day, actually.
"You better get your coo - ridge..." I think that singing is what sells it.

My sister really liked your production overall. She probably would have thought I popped in a new CD if I hadn't told her ahead of time what it was.

[Sonic Valley]

Hi Reg, Also remember this is a work mix. This is what's it's sounding like as we lay it down, rough mixed so it sounds half decent for the over dubs, Vox and all that are all over the place volume wise cause it's a rough mix. As far as what the guitars are doing? I guess they're in there being guitars...lol. There's no reverb on the guitars...I'm not into washing out mixes by doing that. The snare does change in the chorus. (He's hitting it harder...lol)

Any-hoo thanx for all the comments. I am sending this off to Bud ar Coastal Mastering because I've sent him albums over the last 7 years to master and when he gets his 24bit mixes they'll be no compression on the main bussess at all. Cheers

[Sonic Valley]

Originally posted by EssDee:
Very nice, open mix Vance. I also agree that is a really nice drum sound. You may want to post it in a couple of the drum-oriented threads in order to help out ReggieD.

LOL, I don't think Reggie likes these tones. Sorry EssDee...I'm no help to him for his drum tones.

[EssDee]

Originally posted by Sonic Valley:
LOL, I don't think Reggie likes these tones. Sorry EssDee...I'm no help to him for his drum tones.



Well, I figured since you offered a fairly detailed description of your gear and how you arrived at your sound, it would provide some sort of an baseline for us to compare against. Post us a clip after Bud does his magic.

[Matthew Skinner]

Sounds great all round. Only one thing hits me about it. The hi hats seem too bright to sit in with everything else. It doesn't sound natural so you may have done a lot of boosting with an eq on just that track or on the whole mix up near the 16khz area.

Everything else sounds great.

[This message has been edited by Matthew Skinner (edited 06-24-2002).]

[ReggieD]

Actually, Vance, that's not entirely true. If you could post a mix of just the drums, I would be interested in hearing them as they were recorded, without anything done to them. But as I said in that other thread, I especially would like to hear an isolated snare or hi-hat. I could probably pick out the hi-hat in between other hits, but the snare probably never play alone in that particular mix, does it? Thanks.

What all did you do to the drums after recording - eq, rev, etc.

Also, I would definitely like to hear it after it comes back from Bud. I don't want to start up the mastering thing again, but I can't see it being worth it. How much does Bud charge?

[jecahn]

Vance, mix sounds good. Some levels are to be worked out with a light hand, I'm sure. Also, everything sounds a little too "crisp" with too much of a pronunciation of the highs and not enough of the "right mids". However, you have a style that you like and I have a style that I like. So, no foul there. Production wise, this is good work. So your status quo is maintained. Good job.

On a different issue, I know that I'm not permitted to have an opinion about the song but I'm goin' to give it to ya straight, I don't like it.

I despise this new proliferation of "feelings music." All of this stuff sounds like it's written specifically with some yet unwritten movie wherein: Meg Ryan is sad until she meets a new wacky guy who she doesn't like at first but then suitable feminine hilarity ensues as she (through a series of cheesy slow-mo cool spring days in insert-major-city-here shots that will no doubt include her wearing some carefully chosen and carelessly worn knitted hat and picking up a baguette or something..)realizes that this guy is her dream man. Primarily because neither one of them have "jobs" that they seem to have to be at for more than 15 minutes a day.

Then they play this song continuously from the flavor of the month guy who almost needs a haircut (no time, he's too busy feeling his feelings.) A video is made with this guy flitting about in some warehouse looking loft space interspersed with shots from the movie. No doubt (like little Ricky from "I Love Lucy" and porn actresses) staring right into the camera from time to time so you can tell he's serious.

For some bizarre reason, none of these guys can sing properly and all have some strange, made-up speech problem. (What's a "squat gun?" Who is "Mike Believe?" I would get my "Coo-Ridge" if I knew where to find it. Maybe I'm talking too much, better shut my "maayyy-ouththhshh!!")It's funny, if you drink enough Scotch and they play these songs when you're down at the pub, you can almost convince yourself that they're singing in Chinese.

Apparently, this speech problem lends to the earnestness. I don't want a "Heroooo tooo shhaveee usshhh" I want god-damn Spiderman to come from the sky swingin' from a damn spider web. Jeez, even the girls are getting into the act now, "Chill out, wat ya yellin FUHR? Slow down, its all been done beFUHR!" Is that supposed to be clever? I wish they'd go back to overusing Autotune, at least that was interesting to listen to..

Maybe that's just me (of course it is.) It's funny, I just turned 28 and I was listening to the popular radio station the otherday and they were playing all of these teary-eyed, "feelings rock" songs. I commented that "I must be getting old because I'm turning into that guy who 'doesn't understand what kids are listening to these days." Then I realized that I wouldn't have thought that this stuff was cool when I was 16. I would've thought it was music for lame 28 year olds who were out of touch with what was cool. Funny, when my parents were yelling to, "Turn down that noise, your music is crap!" who would've thought that my version of the same lament would be, "Where's all the noise? That music is crap!!"

BTW, did I mention that I thought the production sounded good? It does. Good work Vance. Sorry for my rant.



[This message has been edited by jecahn (edited 06-25-2002).]

[Tim Z]

Nice work Vance. I particularly like the kick. How the heck do you get that rich of a kick sound with a beta 58? Surely you must have done a bunch of EQing on it? I use an AKG D112 or an MD421, and neither sound that good without a bunch of EQ.

FWIW, I'm with you Jecahn, I don't like the song either. Sounds like the thousands of other songs out there. Very boring for me. I also don't like the way all the mixes/masters of these styles sound the same these days. I miss the days when artists and engineers strived for originality. Now they all sound the same in this genre.

Vance, I like the earlier stuff of yours that I heard much better. This one sounds flat to me, but as you say it is a working mix. Why not post the final mix later so we can hear the differences.

Cheers

Tim

[jecahn]

Right, I will give points to Vance for staying true to the style, however.

Especially since we all know that the projects that he works on are usually of better quality (material wise, that is. I think we've all come to expect superlative production from Vance.)

There is definitely a talent to making a "genre song" sound like it belongs in that "genre." (eg. You wouldn't mix Barry Manilow the same way you'd mix some punk album..)

[Robert D]

Well, I liked it, and not just cause my posts might start disappearing otherwise.
Can you tell me what format that was in. I assume it's MP3...what resolution, or bit rate, or whatever? I know nothing about Mp3, except it's evil. But that sounded really good. Please educate me on this.
Thanks, RD

[Sonic Valley]

Wow...some great responces. I appreciate everyone of them.

Jecahn, not sure what to say bout your post. All I can say is this is what I do for a liv'n and this "feelings music album" is paying my rent for a long long time...lol

Tim, I used a Beta 52 on the kick, not the 58.

Rob, that MP3 is a variable bitrate between 70 and 333, I don't think the MP3 format is evil, perhaps it's what sum folx do with them.

I will post a few clips of the drums there Reg if I can tonight and maybe I'll post another song that's a bit different as well tonight. Again I appreciate alot of the comments. In fact I showed the client some of these comments while we were tracking some vox today and he seemed to get what's being said here. Cool to see that happen. I'll be sure to thank you guys on the liner notes http://www.audioforums.com/forums/smile.gif

I'll pop up a different tune up tonight and see what happens (please remember these are all work mixes).Cheers!

[Tim Z]

Originally posted by Sonic Valley:
[B]

Tim, I used a Beta 52 on the kick, not the 58.

/B]


Oops my mistake. Can't read properly at my age anymore http://www.audioforums.com/forums/redface.gif

T

[Sonic Valley]

No prob Tim. Here's another tune from the same project called Nairobi Girl (http://www.sonicvalley.com/Tim_MacNeill-Nairobi_Girl.mp3)

[jecahn]

Vance, please don't take my rant as a dig. I know that as long as the client is signing the checks, the engineer / producer's opinion of the material is meaningless. Indeed, if we were only willing to work on what we liked, we'd be awfully hungry on some nights!!

Again, as I said, production sounds great. Song, I don't care for but it's not my song and more importantly, it's not my client. So, I can have that opinion (or any, for that matter).

[Sonic Valley]

Hey Dude...I would gladly hear you rant. I wasn't offended by it...well maybe for a second...but I got over it...lol. I appreciate you being honest with me. That goes a long way my freind. Cheers!

[jecahn]

I think that I like the production on this one a bit better. I love that bass sound. Nice and tight and full-assed! I prefer the EQ range on this track better, it seems less "high-concentrated" or it could be that the bass is more accentuated. Compression is either very transparent or barely there. This is nice, it gives the track some definite depth (although the "loud part" at around 3:30 is a bit too loud relative to the rest of the song.) Vocals have a nice, wide open, live sound to them. Rather "clubby and warm."

The acoustic and the electric guitars dance well together, too. The give and take is easy and casual. I especially like how (unlike too many recordings) the acoustic is not "magically" the same volume as the electric. So, nice work here, the acoustic is noticably a "quiet" instrument without getting lost in the mix and the electric is a "loud" instrument without being overpowering.

The drums sound good, but I always like your drum tracks. I would make them sound a little more saturated or maybe less "crisp". But then, I have this weird assumption that every drummer and drum track should sound like John Bonham. (Dis-illusionment, that, huh??)

The whole track sound very "live" and that's never a bad thing. So, I hope I made up for my pissing and moaning in the other post. Good stuff. BTW: How's the weather up there? I was up in Pictou area around this time last year and I remember the "hot" days were when it got up near 75 or 80!! This year, I'm stuck in the NYC area where is is currently 96 with about %5,000,000 humidity. It's frickin' delightful!

[Sonic Valley]

Dude...you were in Pictou!? That's like an hour away from me.

[Sip]

Do you mean Pictou N.S.?

[Sip]

Dude you do mean Halifax! Man the internet just got a whole lot smaller.

[jecahn]

Not Halifax, Pictou. Near the stinky papermill!! Halifax is down south. My girlfriend and I have property in New Glasgow. Her family came over on the Hector and they've had area property ever since. We were in town for Canada day, last year. Seen more than a few good shows down there at the DeCoste in Pictou and I still have my treasured Horton's mugs that I stole from Stellarton to remind me of N.S. until I return. (Toujours Frais!!)

When we go up there, we drive from the NYC area. It's only about an 18 hour drive. (That's nothin'. LOL) Next time I'm up your way, expect a phone call!!

We love Canada. Last Valentines Day, when everyone was jetting off to Barbados or Jamaica, we went to Montreal. We walked all the way to the top of some hill just beyond the old section of town to look for some sushi joint that someone suggested. It was only about -3ºC with a wind that cut through our clothing like razors. And when we got to the top of the hill, we discovered that this joint had had a fire the week before and was closed up. (A fire in a restaurant that serves raw fish?!? Ironic, huh?)

In a lot of ways, I really think of Canada as my second home.

[Sonic Valley]

Sip...are you in Halifax? I'm in Dartmouth...accross the water.

[Sip]

Sonic Valley,
No, but I'm not too far away, I e-mailed you this morning.

Jecahn,
I lived in Pictou for 5 years, this is so wierd... do any of you guys live nextdoor? LOL



[This message has been edited by Sip (edited 06-28-2002).]

[ethereal1]

I can't comment too much on the production on either number, because i'm listening on "multimedia" speakers at work http://www.audioforums.com/forums/wink.gif, but jecahn's rant did remind of an article that Jack Endino wrote a while back on <ahem> certain singing styles, which seem to apply to this singer. You can read it at: http://www.endino.com/archive/arch5-2.html It's at the bottom of the page ("Verb of the month: to yarl").

Eric