movement

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:50 am

Okay, here's a favorite of mine:

Set up an aux send or a buss with a mix of the entire band, leaning heavily on the big, mostly low-frequency sounds and not so much of the bright stuff (leave the drum overheads out of it, for example). Don't put the vocals in it, just instruments. Then, send that buss to a thick-sounding distortion device. Not something too fuzzy, and not something too out-of-control, but something like a Tube Screamer. Listen to the return of the distortion and adjust the level of distortion and tone until you get this kind of rumbly, grainy version of the woofy side of the band. Now, kick back to the full mix and slowly start bringing the distortion return fader up. Once you just start to hear the distortion, turn it up a little more. Now flip the polarity. Does it get bigger-sounding? If not, flip it back. Play with high and low-pass filters and EQ until you don't really hear the distortion as distortion, but just as some extra mass in the mix. Push instruments up or pull stuff out of the aux send to the distortion as necessary. Now pull the fader back down all the way and start to sneak it back up again. Once you start to hear the distortion in context, pull it back just a hair. Now mute it. Did the band just get smaller, but still good-sounding? Terrific! You've got the distortion at the right place. Now mute and unmute as is helpful to the arrangement.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

lefthanddoes · Post by **lefthanddoes** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:53 am

cgarges wrote:stuff

whooaaaa..... that's awesome

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 6:59 am

Thanks. Been doing that for years. I'm sure I've mentioned it on here before, but it's been a while. That "trick" can be a real life-saver on material where there weren't a lot of arrangement parts played to make the choruses bigger, etc. This is also a cool trick for the whole "coming out of the guitar solo, the last chorus gets smaller-sounding" problem.

You can also apply this to just certain instruments, like the drumkit or just the strings (guitar and bass) to great effect as well.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 7:01 am

Also, if you don't parallel compress everything all the time, then when you do it, it can make a noticaeble difference. I think part of the issue involves "saving the good stuff" and making things smaller so that there's room for things to get bigger. And by that, I don't mean starting off with filtered drums and a filtered vocal. Can we get away from that already, please?

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:25 am

ah, shit.

*deletes entire solo album*

vxboogie · Post by **vxboogie** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 9:37 am

lefthanddoes wrote:
cgarges wrote:stuff
whooaaaa..... that's awesome

That does sound AWESOME!!! Gotta try that.

Chris- do you use a stereo or mono aux for that?

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 10:56 am

Mono, definitely. I can't imagine the phase issues you'd have with trying to pull that off in stereo.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:07 am

That's outstandingly cool, Chris (all of the above).

I've done much simpler parallel processing like that on things like sax solos, but not a whole mix. Have to try that.

I think in general, for me, I like to have pretty full/produced arrangements, but I also like the song to build to a climax from start to finish. If the arrangement doesn't have some space to it to begin with, then you're talking muting.

If the band doesn't want you to mute anything......

GJ

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:12 am

I think the whole key to that is not having it too loud- where it doesn't sound like distortion, but just feels like extra excitement.

CG

Ryan Silva · Post by **Ryan Silva** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 10:31 am

cgarges wrote: This is also a cool trick for the whole "coming out of the guitar solo, the last chorus gets smaller-sounding" problem.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

Hate when that happens, that's when I reach for the tambo most of the time. Going to try that in about 5 min.

Thanks

ott0bot · Post by **ott0bot** » Sun Jun 12, 2011 4:47 pm

as always great stuff on here.

kinda in the same vein as chris' idea, I've done something similar but using an old 4-track and printing an overdriven mix on that beast and even doing some subtle drifts in the tape speed. Then I dumped it back into the session and added it in during a instrumental bridge part and dropped the standard mix level subtly enough to make it sorta sneak in. Then blamo push the lo-fi mix up and make it correspond with a bunch of mutes and you'll create a little break down. Then right when the vox kick in drop the lo-fi mix and push the full mix in at a slightly higher level than before. You can even throw in a tempo aligned tape delay on the lo-fi mix and fade it out.

then, at the end just throw it back in for a bit just to add some cohesion to the break down part.

also....reamping a mix with 100% wet verb and addind it to a chorus.

also...hard panned effect tracks

fuzz · Post by **fuzz** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 1:54 pm

The above idea reminds me of the Tchad Blake trick of multing the kick to a sansamp classic and flipping the phase.

Adding distortion is always a possibility for thickening tracks. JJP's drum sound on Weezer's "Pinkerton" comes to mind.

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 2:56 pm

Modulation effects that come in and out of the mix, even at almost imperceivable levels, can add a lot to a mic.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 3:53 pm

fuzz wrote:The above idea reminds me of the Tchad Blake trick of multing the kick to a sansamp classic and flipping the phase.

Flipping the phase is essential in listeing, but not always essential to that particular thing working. Flipping the phase on any return to see what it sounds like is usually a good idea. In the case of Tchad's thing, he's usually high-passing the return, then flipping phase. That can give you clarity AND woof if the phase aligns a certain way. But listening both ways every time will tell you that it doesn't always work that way.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

goose42 · Post by **goose42** » Mon Jun 13, 2011 4:41 pm

A movement trick I've had luck with recently: was reading Sean Costello's Valhalla DSP blog, and I tried out his FreqEcho plugin (free, to boot!). It lets you shift the input signal's pitch up or down, and adjust the delay between the shifted signal and the input.

Ordinarily, I'd just put on one instance of the plugin and play with different rhythmically significant delay settings, tuning the pitch shift amount to taste. It got really nutty when I popped on a second instance with the same settings, and then set the amount of pitch shift to be the same in the opposite direction.

When I tuned the pitch to something rhythmically significant (a quarter note is 2.4 beats per second, or 2.4 Hz, at 144 bpm; finally found a use for this feature of my handy tap tempo app!), I got this cool phasey pumping effect that was in time with the track. To make it more subtle, I tried putting it after a reverb and turning down the mix amount.

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