51m0n

I dont think that it is necessarily a fretless, it does sound like a P pickup though (at the very least its a neck pickup not a bridge pickup). Sounds like a nice big tube amp just beginning to break up a bit. COuld have been a tube pre/DI I guess though - hard to say... Probably running into a nice fat sounding compressor (La2A maybe??) to fatten it up and keep it smooth and luverly. [b]Great[/b] bass sound for the track!

[quote name='BOD2' post='1367456' date='Sep 9 2011, 11:34 AM']The current music was not any louder - the peaks were the same as the sixties music - but it was just always up there and in your face. No variation - just full on constantly.[/quote] But the average level of the current music WAS louder....... Thats the point!

Good mix. Bang on for the genre really. Hypercritically it doesnt really have a big lift for the chorus, but thats the arrangement rather than the mix I think. The guitars/bass could have a tad more definition, but again its right for the genre so thats me applying what I prefer to hear over what fits maybe.

[quote name='flyfisher' post='1367484' date='Sep 9 2011, 11:56 AM']Interesting stuff. Can you expand a bit on why you use a compressor [u]and[/u] a tape saturation emulation if they are both ways of achieving the same thing?[/quote] Meeting done OK so a tape saturation emulation with dynamics control is going to be attempting to mimic what tape does, but in the same way that people used compressors all the time with tape I use compressors all the time with tape emulation too. I use varying amounts of the dynamics control verses the saturation artificats on FerricTDS (they are independant controls) depending on what works best for the source, but I'm also constantly working the envelope of the sound with careful compression to get it to work better in the mix. Often I dont think in terms of simply changing dynamic when compressing so much, I tend to use automation for that, instead I use compressors to change the transient, when a sound gets loudest, how the sound behaves after the initial peak and so forth, to make space in a mix. Its hard to explain, but if I trap the transient of a bass guitar, with a very fast high threshold/ratio compressor, and let the transient of a kick through with a slow attack compressor, then you would hear the kick more than the bass. Not necessarily what I would do, but you get the idea. It may be that the dynamics control of a tape saturation emulator (which tends to soften transients) is exactly what I dont want, but the saturation is working very well anyway, in this case I can use the comrpessor to get what I want working with the envelope of the sound, and the saturation effect helps to bringt he sound forward a bit too. I'd rather use several compressors to do different things in series/parallel than try and achieve the same result in one go - mainly because you cant do what I am talking about with any one compressor. Again on drum groups I quite often have a really hard pumping working compressor in parallel, maybe filtered too, and smashing the hell out of the signal, then just mixed back in enough so you cant hear it, but its doing something really good. A lot of the time small amounts of saturation at many different levels of grouping gives a far nicer result than more saturation just at one place. Its hard to explain, but I just prefer the sound as a result. However using the same generic tape emulation dynamics processing in lots of differnt places will kill your mix dead. Just how it is. You would never have always driven everything super hard into the tape back in the day (well Iggy Pop did, but no one else), not always, but there is always a hint of the way the tape couldnt quite replay what you put into it, and it helps gel a mix wonderfully. I use a lot of automation of levels, and thresholds and ratios too if necessary to get changes in sounds during a song. One of the tracks I recently mixed for Silddx involved automation of about 30 or 40 lanes of parameters on a drum kit through the song to seriously change the way the kit sounds, it starts of dark and muted and very obviously 'controlled' and yet punchy as, with a ton of subtle delay processing, then at another stage in the song it becomes far more natural with very little punch enhancement whilst the delay processing becomes at first more then far less overt, until in the final crescendo in the song the drums morph again to be very very hard hitting and in your face with no delay processing. The places the controls end up are derived from the emotional point in the song, and the way the drums needed to sound to best convey that emotional aspect, to give the most to the song as possible, everything changes, yet If I didnt tell you this happened you would probably not pick out the drum processing as the big wow on the track, that is the vocals, but it really helps make the vocals what they are (the BV processing is quite the head turner too as it goes). I control aux sends, fx level, dry levels, group buss fx, ratios, thresholds, makeup gains and sauration/dynamics level on amost all the drum tracks and groups and subgroups to get the desired effect. Mixing like this, for the song, to get the biggest payback at the important moments, takes a long time, and painstaking attention to detail, but the result is amazing.

[quote name='lowdown' post='1367408' date='Sep 9 2011, 10:53 AM']Have you checked this out? Raving about it over at gearsluz. So little CPU, use it on every track & Buss. Its a neat little tool and does sound good. [url="http://dsp.sonimus.com/products/satson/"]Satson[/url] Garry[/quote] Nice, hadnt seen it on GS, I am a complete cheapskate though, AFAIAC you can do as well with ReaEq (for filtering), ReaComp (for squishing), K-meter (or SPAN) - for metering, FerricTDS for tape saturation and TesslaPro for transformer style dynamics aware saturation (I only ever use this occasionally on groups), I also use several 'character' comps (DensityII, Molot, Blockfish, Attack and a few others very very occasionally) No doubt this adds up on CPU, but the metering is not really required once you are happy, and if its really heavy I just render the track.

[quote name='BottomEndian' post='1367433' date='Sep 9 2011, 11:11 AM']Before mixing, though? By all means, throw a 20Hz HPF on each track while mixing, but why bother re-rendering every track before the mix (and risk degrading the audio if your render settings aren't correct)? One simple filter per track isn't exactly going to kill the CPU.[/quote] Exactly, plusd you are almost certainly going to want/need a higher frequency high pass filter on the majority of tracks anyway, sub 20Hz? I've never ever set one that low, sub 35Hz is about as low as I've ever got, so why use two high pass filters on the signal when one will do it? You cannot tell until you are in the mix how high you can set the highpass filter, and you want to set it as high as possible, simlarly with low pass filters (which I set on as many tracks as I possibly can too).

[quote name='Skol303' post='1367213' date='Sep 9 2011, 01:05 AM']Must say I've been guilty of squishing dynamics to death in order to up the 'loudness'... but it's a bad habit I'm starting to break! I think it [i]can[/i] apply to certain genres of music in a positive way, but I totally agree that it can ruin most music. If anyone's interested, I've recently been listening to an interview with the German mastering guru Rob Babicz who has some wise words on this subject (and plenty else for that matter). It's in German with subtitles, but it's only 15 mins long and includes gratuitous footage of his very unique and custom-made studio gear... in case that sort of thing makes you drool, as it does me Here's the link: [url="http://vimeo.com/808485?pg=embed&sec=808485"]http://vimeo.com/808485?pg=embed&sec=808485[/url][/quote] Lucky guy, nice studio, and nice way to make a living! Informative stuff, and absolutely bang on, although I did chuckle when he talked about his 1176 clone and setting a long attack, as all you compressor nerds out there will know the longest you can set the attack on an 1176 is about 3ms, which is uber short in fact!

[quote name='noelk27' post='1367011' date='Sep 8 2011, 09:30 PM']The author of the article "To The Limit: 'Dynamic Range' & The Loundness War" (Sound On Sound, September 2011) would suggest we're arguing about nothing: music is getting louder but it is not getting less dynamic. Makes an interesting read.[/quote] Interesting spin on it. He states the difference between loudest and quietest parts of music now and over the last 40 years hasnt changed much, he states that this is due to a large degree to the original material having more perceived range now than at any time previous. Clearly modern recording techniques are what make this possible. For older material I'd squarely point to the issues with recording to tape as a huge part of this, it is one of the nicest sounding forms of compression/limiting there is, and it was applied liberally to every single track when recording almost anything back in the day - driving the tape hard to make it squeeze signal a bit was the norm, in fact if you had a truly awful kick or snare it wasnt unusual to overdrive the tape to get it good and crunchy to help the sound - which compressed the nuts out of it. However the result sounds far more pleasant than a digital brickwall limiter that is pushed even a tiny bit too far IMO & IME. In fact in order to achieve a beautiful mix these days as a standard I have a compressor on every track & every group and a tape saturation emulation on nearly every track & every group too (and an eq and often as not a gate too). Back in the day the tape would have done a lot of that work for me. However what he misses out is that whatever else you do, if you brickwall limit something you are heavily and abruptly distorting the transients of the signal - thats what it does - and that this distortion is less pleasant to human hearing over time than not bothering to limit in the first place and instead turning up the playback system so you hear those transients in all their glory. Digital (even 16bit CD) made available a vastly superior dynamic range than analogue of any period. Rather than make the best use of that we are now in a position where we make less use of available dynamic range than at any time in the history of recording, even Edison's cylinder had a better dynamic range than current output does. Oh and the final point - over limited masters really do sound like s*&t.

No. I wouldnt do anything to a file that wasn't in the context of the mix...

ANd you may find that you look like Madonna....

The [url="http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr07/articles/avantonemixcubes.htm"]Avantopne Mixcube[/url] is the studio monitor of choice for checking your mi against a less great reproduciton device. Yamaha NS10s are awful sounding things, fair stereo image, horridly stunted frequncy response (personal opinion, don't try and change my mind!), and yet are popular as nearfield monitors (less now than they were maybe, but still more popularthan their performance really justifies). Personally I like to monitor on the best available kit I can use, as long as I have a good couple of reference recordings for comparison then the better the monitors and room, the better the mix and the better it will translate to other systems.

You are going to love this thing on a gig, it sounds superb!

[quote name='fatboyslimfast' post='1366337' date='Sep 8 2011, 01:10 PM']Did you use K-14 on the track you mastered for Silddx? If so, completely in agreement with you![/quote] I used K14 metering for the mixing, you havent heard the final masters yet, that was just the mix, raw as it were with a very simple 'level up' to a reasonable level - in fact there has been a lot more work on those tracks since (upto 30 tracks of bvs on each!!!) I should have finished the nmastering within a couple of weeks, usual issues though, need to get something close to a commercial level but without trashing the sound at all. We are getting there, they sound lovely now. Release party is on the 9th I think, after which you are all encouraged to buy a copy

[quote name='fatboyslimfast' post='1366324' date='Sep 8 2011, 01:00 PM']Which is why I love buying 60s and 70s vinyl. Yes, there is mastering compression (there has to be or the music would either be swamped by vinyl roar or the needle would jump with loud transients), but generally it's only used where and when necessary, and only as minimally as required. I'm all for the "turn it up" movement, where the recording engineer leaves it up to you if you want it louder or not. There is so much dynamic range available on CDs compared with analogue media that it seems criminal to waste most of it.[/quote] Mastering compression is not the same as brickwall limiting. A bit of compression on the 2 buss wont knacker the transients, instead it will help 'glue' the mix together into a cohesive sound. Brickwall limiting (and even deliberate clipping of the ADCs in a mastering chain - god forbid) are post digital techniques to get the RMS level higher compared to the peak level, so closer to 0dbfs, which is the absolute maximum level achievable in a digital system. The entire warm/tape brittle/harsh/digital argument is a nonsense thoguh. If you accept that art the turn of the tech a huge number of people were recording to digital using the same techniques/mics/signal chains as they did with tape. Now tape doesnt handle transients anywhere near as well as digital, it limits transients and compresses and warms up the sound all of which is as a result of it being less perfect at capturing audio than digital, not to mention the hiss! Nowadays engineers are far better at choosing the right tools to work with digital and get results at least as good as those on old recordings. The issue is that the execs with the chequebooks are forcing the hand of mastering engineers to the point where people have come to accept over limited final masters as how things should sound. Its a nightmare!

[quote name='bartelby' post='1366321' date='Sep 8 2011, 12:58 PM'] My copy of "Mastering Audio: The art and the science" by Bob Katz arrived yesterday. A quick flick through shows there's a bit in there about loudness.[/quote] Top book that

LIstening environment, record company execs (and their fear of not being loud enough on radio), artists falling fo rthe same trap, the advent of digital allowing for true brickwall limiting of peaks, move away from the natural compression of tape (although this has lagely been mitigated now) all contributed over time to this. I honestly hope that one day we really do take a stand and adopt the K-metering system for mastering and mixing as a standard (K-14 works great for me). Strangely the advent of mp3s actually gives light at the end of this tunnel in a way. Unlike wavs mp3s (and oggs, although flacs dont - but theer is an ogg flac wrapper that handles this) can contain metadata, and that means it can store level variations (replaygain) against tracks in your playlist to make the output volumes equal. Meaning that the final mastered volume is irrelevant, only the sound quality should count. I have a copy of Californication pre-mastering, and it sounds absolutely lovely - especially the kit - often been tempted to do my own far more sympathetic mastering on it.....

[quote name='razze06' post='1363807' date='Sep 6 2011, 09:58 AM']Peavey Mark III (or IV) 400. Not only will it run 2 ohm loads, but it will crack windows 300 yards away at half volume, and cook your breakfast on the heat sink. All this for less than £100 [/quote] Shame they sound like tramp vomit when pushed hard though

[quote name='funkypenguin' post='1365992' date='Sep 8 2011, 02:49 AM'][url="http://www.musikmachen.de/Workshops/Bass-Videoworkshop-It-s-all-about-SOUND"]http://www.musikmachen.de/Workshops/Bass-V...all-about-SOUND[/url] Jonas Hellborg talking about sound. worth watching[/quote] Thanks for that - he's absolutely bang on about the recording and listening back, slowing things down etc etc I would add that you all should be recording rehearsals and making changes to your sounds as a band to fit songs without relying on a soundengineer. In other words the closer the band can get the individual elements to being exactly right when they are together the less they rely on a soundengineer to do it for them on the gig.

Heeeeyyyyy, what can I say, I feel like Fonzy all of a sudden

Tricky this, but my advice, start saving. To go loud with a smaller rig you need very speicialised kit, extremely high quality and high excursion drivers, in a superbly engineered cab and a really good amp with the ability to drive such a small cab to its maximum. Really you need a Barefaced Super Twelve and an amp with the whallop to drive it (cheapest known option is probably a hartke lh500, the S12t will cope with more though). You're right, this isnt cheap, sorry, a cheap solution doesnt exist. You could spend a couple of years buying a load of nearly there cheaper solutions and trading them on, they wont be portable and loud enough though. IN the end you will spend more money doing so. Do yourself a favour and deal with the schlep of the gear you have for now and save up for the quality kit you need to achieve your goal.

Getting whatever your rig is up high is the best solution to the volume issue. I use a 410 simply because I just love the tone from the cab. Its big, but reasonably portable compared to other 410s (not so much a couple of 112s though). I find that even with a 410 I need to get it up high to make the most of it. But thats because I want tohear the bass really loud in my 'onstage mix'. If I had a bigger cab or just put it on the deck and cranked it (it would go loud enough like that) I then overpower the band in the rest of the venue. Not so good! There is a place for 810s and 410s etc, and thats in the back of a big rig that gets loaded and unloaded by a bunch of hired muscle - they are called roadies I believe - I've never had a team of roadies schlepoping my kit so I wouldnt get such a huge cab. If I were to get one I'd be looking for a Bergantino NV610 though, cos they sound uttely monstrous and are surprisingly small...

Any that I actually manage to make sound 'right' all the way from start to finish, no unwanted clunks, clicks, squeaks and wotnot... But I do love the low Db on the B string of the Roscoe....

[quote name='Pete Academy' post='1364452' date='Sep 6 2011, 07:14 PM']Oh my God... stop this now![/quote] Difficult to keep it under control with all this pervy material isnt it!

Me gving it the beans on my Roscoe Century Standard 5 at my 40th birthday bash

If any of the parts were recorded starting from somewhere other different from the rest of the tracks ("we'll just need to record the choruses on this track, one at a time, I'll give you a four bar count in, ok?") then you need to render the tracks to stems. Turn off all the fx, set the volume to unity gain (ie 0) check there are no overdubs and then try and find something that can do a render of all the indivisuil tracks, Reaper (I know, but bare with me I use it a lot!) lets you render all the selectted tracks in a project to whatever bit depth output and sample rate you like. Best bet is retain the samplerate and bit depth and render as wavs. This way your mayte doesnt need to line anything up as all the tracks start at 0:00:00 in the project. If everything starts there already then just send him the original wavs.