Captain Paradox 3-Song Demo

[mpedrummer]

Howdy all -

I've been working on an album (weekend warrior style - taking forever ) with my band, Captain Paradox, and we've decided to "finish" three songs so we can have a demo to get some better gigs around town.

Anyway, we printed the mixes yesterday, and now we're in a bit of a review period - checking translations, just letting it sit for a few days. I'd like to know what the TOMB has to say.

Oh, the EH-12AY7 was used fairly extensively during the tracking...bass, vocals, and many of the guitars used it. We did the drums before I got it, though, so that's all through the Mackie Onyx 1640 pres.

• Television Man
• All I Want To Do
• The Water

Thanks

MPEDrummer

[mpedrummer]

UPDATE:

Well, I made some changes. Here's the updated mixes.

Television Man
All I Want To Do
The Water

EDIT TO THE UPDATE 2006-06-06

Here's the "final" mixes. There's a few changes, most notably, me falling in love with the Neve 1073 UAD-1 plugin.

Television Man
All I Want To Do
The Water

Thanks!

MPEDrummer

[mpedrummer]

Nobody?

[punkjaso]

It's not my style of music that I normally listen to, but I will say that the production sounds really good. Nice and clean sound.

[tonefreak]

Nice separation of the instruments, great punch of the drums, and a fat bass... nothing really to add because I think the production represents the feel of the music well.

[mpedrummer]

Thanks

[Ethan Holdtrue]

I think brightening it up a little was a good move. I think it's a pretty good recording and dose fit the music very well. I would be interested to know what you did for the drums?

[bitsyras]

Good sounds. I found I was straining a little to hear the vocs on the louder parts of All I Want To Do but that was really all that stuck out to me. You've pushed me a little closer to picking up a 12AY7...

[mpedrummer]

OK, just posted some changes (from a few days ago, actually - forgot to post them here). The links are in the second post (didn't want to bury them down here).

bitsyras - The "buried"-ness in All I Want To Do was on purpose, but it's been the biggest complaint, so I changed it. You ought to be able to hear everything clearly now. I really liked the way the guitars swelled up over the voice, and came crashing back down, but I knew the lyrics, so I guess I didn't lose them as much.

Ethan -

Nothing all that special for the drums, really. To be honest (and maybe just a little cocky, sorry) it's a good drumset played well by a good drummer.

The bass drum (20") was miced internally with a Beta 52, about 3" back from the beater point. The beater itself was wood, which I always feel gives that drum a lot more bite.

The snare was an old Shure Unidyne III 57. I absolutely LOVE those things. I tuned the drum quite differently for each song, and I think that for The Water I used a two ply head instead of my usual 1-ply. These are actually the first snare sounds that I've been truly happy with, that's always been a sticking point in my recordings.

The overheads are KSM44s, cardiod. The positioning is somewhat unique, I suppose. Instead of the traditional LR placement, I tend to prefer a front-back placement. Draw and imaginary line between the snare and the ride, and then place the mics perpendicular to that line. It works best when the ride is in the position of the second tom, over the bass drum, but you can tweak it even if it's not. This gives a much narrower stereo field, but really solidifies the center with regard to the snare and ride. I like the narrower field, it leaves room at the edges for guitars, etc.

I did close-mic the toms, Sennheiser e604 on the top, and Oktava MC-012s on the bottom two. I prefer the Oktavas, but I only own two.

That's it with the drums, recording-wise. Nothing terribly exciting about the mix, just a bit of compression for kick, snare, and overheads, and a touch of EQ for the kick and snare. In the third set of mixes, it's the new Neve 1073 from UAD-1. The only thing I dislike about it is that I can only run 8 of the real ones on my two cards - makes me want a third

Thanks for the feedback!

MPEDrummer

[bitsyras]

Yeah. Cool. Now the vocals in those sections are still subtle, but I don't have to "squint" to hear them. (Is there an aural equivalent to squinting??)

-m