"Make it dirtier"
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- gimme a little kick & snare
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"Make it dirtier"
Hey I am mixing a record right now, the majority of tracks were really really well recorded by Adam Myatt at Sharkbite Studios. However, now at the mixing stage my band is asking me to make some songs less clean and more dirty (...which I agree with, but in a sense it's almost a shame since it was so well recorded!).
Any advice on how to achieve this? There's a multitude of possibilities, obviously I should just use my ears to see what works best, but I was wondering if anyone had any cool ideas to try out!
Any advice on how to achieve this? There's a multitude of possibilities, obviously I should just use my ears to see what works best, but I was wondering if anyone had any cool ideas to try out!
- iamthecosmos
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I agree, tube drive or sometimes driving any well built out board compressor on the hard side can bring out some grit on individual tracks. Might be harder to achieve itb unless your just using a plug-in that models saturation.MoreSpaceEcho wrote:lots and lots of tube saturation works really well...
You can bring this out a bit more in mastering as well by using transformers and tubes. (not for loudness - just grit) loudness is a separate issue.
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- zen recordist
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even cheap crap can work well. years ago i was mixing a song that we'd tracked absolutely pummelling the tape, i mean the meters didn't move the entire time, but the band kept saying "can you make it NASTIER?" so i just ran the whole mix through an art 'toob' mic pre with the gain all the way up. i thought it was too much but they LOVED it, so that's what went on the record.
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my go-to ITB thing for this every time it comes up is "Antares Tube" very cool.
if you don't have that, check out the massey demo's that are all totally free. in particular "tape head" will do some of this that we're talking about.
http://www.masseyplugins.com/index_v2.h ... e=download
if you don't have that, check out the massey demo's that are all totally free. in particular "tape head" will do some of this that we're talking about.
http://www.masseyplugins.com/index_v2.h ... e=download
-Justin Newton
railroadavenuerecording.com what i like to do
railroadavenuerecording.com what i like to do
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- gimme a little kick & snare
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I actually have the tape head plug in. I like it a lot, but I find it can make the lows muddy if I'm not careful. I'm 90% sure I'll use it on the majority of this record.
For the track I'm working on right now (maybe I should post clips?) I already had the drums bussed to a parallel limiter track. What I have setup now is that same track but going through the AIR Distortion plug in first. They wanted more heaviness out of the drums, so I also turned that track up a bit. It sounds cool and very dirty but I'm always weary of having heavy limiting so up front in the mix, however I couldn't get the rest of the band to think the drums sounded "big" enough without it. It's definitely not something I want to repeat for the rest of the album, but this one is a very drum-oriented track (two people playing drums - so many toms all at once!).
Thanks for all the tips! Let's keep em coming! I like this thread!
For the track I'm working on right now (maybe I should post clips?) I already had the drums bussed to a parallel limiter track. What I have setup now is that same track but going through the AIR Distortion plug in first. They wanted more heaviness out of the drums, so I also turned that track up a bit. It sounds cool and very dirty but I'm always weary of having heavy limiting so up front in the mix, however I couldn't get the rest of the band to think the drums sounded "big" enough without it. It's definitely not something I want to repeat for the rest of the album, but this one is a very drum-oriented track (two people playing drums - so many toms all at once!).
Thanks for all the tips! Let's keep em coming! I like this thread!
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- gimme a little kick & snare
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Oh - also, in researching some "dirty" tricks I stumbled upon a Geoff Barrow interview discussing the production on Portishead's "Third" (a very oddly dirty record, with some very interesting tones, which I never realized was a digital and not tape recording). He said they did a couple interesting things for extra lo-fi dirtiness. One of which was taking a tape echo and putting it 100% wet on it's shortest delay, and then running each individual track through it one by one. Another was mastering to cassette tape.
If only I had a tape delay!
If only I had a tape delay!
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I think slamming tape is a very little part of Dave Fridman's sound.permanent hearing damage wrote:i've always liked the dirtiness of weezer's "pinkerton" and that last sleater-kinney record ('the woods') and always wondered how they got them so fuzzy. definitely more than just slamming tape. same engineer, i think. his name is escaping me right now.
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