cheddatom

Listening to anything by Dream Threatre will give most people a headache!

I have blended compression before, as a send rather than an insert, in the studio. It does work well, if that's the sound you're after. Sometimes people just have the attack time on their comp too short, which would get rid of most of the "OOPMH".

I like to have a compressor at the end of the chain, even if I have some blended compression before that, just to make sure there are no mental peaks, which can sound bad, whether you have the headroom or not. It would be better if I didn't play them, obviously, but, work with what you've got!

In reply to the top post - I would put it in the loop, 100% wet, play with the compression settings until you like them, and then blend in some dry until you've found a sweet spot.

I'm waiting for them to grow back, and then i'm going to try this nail strengthening stuff they put on ladies long nails, so, i'll report back when I get some results from my experiment!

Arrrggh! That happens so often and is so annoying!

I tend to use the voice recorder on my phone if it won't interrupt the flow.

Heh, thanks for all the comments. I think there are some mastering issues on most of our stuff, 'cos we don't spend enough time on it really. It seems everyone thinks we're not far off though, which is good, but, the new cd will sound a bit different I think!

Kev - Start a band, book a gig, get us to support you!

I agree whole heartedly with The Funk. When playing live, all you need from the kick drum is attack, a nice thumb for the audience to feel the beat.

If you buy a CD lable applicator, which really is useful, then you'll get some lable designing software. Or you can just buy lables, and use trial and error and publisher or something similar, until you get the lables bang on.

I do have the privalage of using colour laser printer at work though, so maybe it's not great value for money for everyone!

You could just send the high frequencies to the monitors, giving the kick more presence could fool him into thinking he can hear it!

You are talking about a notch EQ at 250, rather than a high pass, yeh? I would have thought a slightly higher notch, 300 or 350 would have been more appropriate, but perhaps the kick drum is tuned very low? What part of the kick drum sound is he missing? What about it is making him unhappy?

I find that when you're playing live, it's nice to have a great sound on stage, but not essential. If he can hear enough to stay in time, and so can everyone else, and it sounds good coming out of the PA to the audience then, leave it be.

Is it that he can't hear the kick drum because your bass is overpowering it? Try rolling off some low end on the bass? Pointing your cabs away from him etc...

If it's changing from venue to venue, and sometimes it sounds good, try observing what the differences are between the venues and the positioning on stage.

I don't know really, it's an interesting problem though!

[quote name='Paul_C' post='66531' date='Sep 27 2007, 06:04 PM']so you're saying you become regarded as an artist once SOMEONE ELSE recognises your work as art..[/quote]

Yes, but given the fact that it takes some artists a long time to be regarded as such, we have to assume that there are many artists never regarded as such, and so you don't have to be regarded as an artist at all, to be one.

[quote name='fleamail' post='66520' date='Sep 27 2007, 05:43 PM']I was misunderstood! What I tryed to say is that the volume of the right channel is louder that the left and that breaks the stereo image.

The panning is great![/quote]

Hmmmmm, what song is this? I would have thought I would have noticed that! Erroneous :-(

[quote name='Paul_C' post='66509' date='Sep 27 2007, 05:17 PM']I'm sure most don't care, but how do you define them as musicians ?

Because you've seen/heard them play ?[/quote]

Just because I would have to hear someone play to believe that they are a musician, doesn't mean that if I don't hear them they're not. The operative word being beleive. So I think my definition of a musician is someone who makes music, which is rather broad, but, y'know.... I am a driver, but I don't have to prove that to you. You would need proof to beleive me, but I don't care if you or anyone else believes me. Even if the only time I ever drive is the only time when there are absolutely no cars or pedestrians on the road, i'm still a driver.

It's like, how do you define an artist. You don't have think think of yourself as an artist to be an artist. No-one else has to either. You could be dead 100 years when someone finds the doodles you made on your notebook at school, calls it art, makes you famous etc.

Edit: Just a point about band names before I go home - I think edgy/bordering on offensive is the way to go. I am playing drums for the "Premature Ejaculators" and most people seem to love the name.

That's a fair point, though I'm sure there are musicians out there who don't care if anyone knows it, or beleives it.

I don't know if this is helpful, so, sorry if not, but

When we make our CDs to sell at gigs, or send out as demos, we print the lables for the discs ourselves. Most of these disc lables have extra lable spaces on them, so we print sticker designs onto these bits, giving us the disc lable, and stickers!

I think you can be a musician and not a performer. There are loads of people who just play at home alone, but are really good with their instruments, and I don't think it's fair to say that they're not musicians.

Heh, maybe i'll do two different mixes, one for the bassists and one for the guitarists!

It depends. My band are really committed and have gigged loads, but, after a while it gets to you, turning up to empty venues, never getting paid, burning diesel and energy every time, and for no real long term benifit. We have decided to stop doing so many gigs for a few months, to concentrate on trying to get some high profile gigs, or gigs in london, and also trying to market ourselves to lables and managers and etc. So, while I do get kicks from gigging, I can totally understand people who are tired of it.

Cool, we're not gigging that much at the moment though :-/

You can download decent quality mp3s from the links in the frame on the left. I like the panning, but I thought it helped seperation, so..... And anyway, I think the guitar on one side, distorted bass on the other was a bit too unconventional for the rest of the band. This new one will be more guitars, more conventional, which is even harder to not get muddy!

Does he want more of the kick in his monitor mix? 'Cos you can probably do a nice cut at 250-350hz and leave him with some low end, and the high end for presence. You can roll of the bass below 100hz or so, and that should let his low end cut through.

Are you talking about monitor mixes though, or, what? How do you listen to yourselves on stage?

I play bass in the band (no logo), and I also mostly mix the CDs we do, with the help of the drummer who edits most of the audio, and the drummer's and singer's opinions.

I was wondering if anyone who is interested in recording/mixing would have a listen to our existing demos on www.no-logo.co.uk and point out the positives, and negatives of the mixes, so that I can use this to improve the new CD we're working on.

We recorded everything for 3 songs at my old uni last week on a Pro Tools/HD24 system. Now i'm mixing at home with Cubase and Hi-Fi speakers! It's already sounding good, but, I would like opinions on previous stuff, as I always like to keep moving forward.

[quote name='anti-barbie' post='65847' date='Sep 26 2007, 12:44 PM']Here was me thinking this was a thread about needing to pee in the middle of a gig[/quote]

I once met a jazz bassist who swore he was incontinent and got a custom Ampeg chemical crapper for on stage. I think he was endorsed so he got it for free.

Bald E - You should check out some acoustic/open mic nights around your area. Take your bass with you and have a couple of pints and ask some nice looking blokes if you could play along to their easy three chord folk song or whatever. That's got to be a good start!

You won't get confidence without gigs, so you're going to have to gig without confidence for a bit. It's an annoying fact of life, but, (probably) like most other people here, now i'm gigging a lot, I don't get nervous.

Also, if you play original music, no-one will laugh at you. If you're playing covers, you obviously need to be able to play them.

I'm not great at the bass, but I have the confidence get on stage and play as well as I can, and I play in an unusual way, so people think i'm a good bassist, which is cool.

Yeh, sometimes I can carry on without a string, other times I can't. If the any of my top 5 strings breaks before a chorus where i'm playing bar (barre?) chords, I lose one fifth of that chord!

It's a bit like trying to play our songs on a four string, it's fun, and develops your knowledge of shapes on the neck etc, but you can't really do it properly.

Fair point, I should have looked up the pedal before I commented!

I managed to change a string during a breakdown bit in one of our songs, the guitarist and drummer just doubled the length of it to about 40-50 seconds. I wasn't in the audience, but i'm pretty sure I would have been impressed.

Obviously it won't turn out that lucky every time, and I would advocate taking a backup.