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linus
re-cappin' neve
Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 667
Location: New York City
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 Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:09 am Post subject: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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Worked on a song tonight and got it to the point to laying down rough mixes. I recorded the same mix 8 times with varying levels of compression across the mix. It was really a good exercise in learning this piece of gear. In this case it was a BBC compressor made by Glennsound. I got it off Ebay after leaving Studio G one night. Joel has the same one and while there I realised I had bid against Joel for his when he had bought it a couple years before.
I haven't really used compression across the whole mix before (usually compressed during tracking or on individual tracks while mixing). I'm sure others would find it really boring but I was surprised by a couple things:
1) How hard it was to really make the mix sound BAD. Yeah, I finally squashed it so hard it was pumping like a SOB and the track had lost depth but it was still listenable. (kind of nice in a weird way)
2) I was able to get quite a bit of thickening of the track before it flattened out and got weird.
I also spent part of the afternoon recording through a pair of Auditronics 110B mic pre/EQs I bought a while ago. The input control is a bit course. It is a step attenuator but the jumps in gain between settings was pretty large. I found that I had to turn down the source (guitar amp) because one setting on the Auditronics input was too loud and the next one down too soft.
The overall sound was great. Very pleasant and the best part was the EQs. They really were very useful. I ended up tracking with the EQ off but I was happy with them when I was experimenting.
I have several other pieces of gear that I really need to get aquainted with. Anytime I start lusting after more gear I need to remind myself that I have lots of gear I barely know. I can almost hear my Mom saying, "But you have LOTS of toys AT HOME! You don't NEED anymore!" |
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soundguy
ghost haunting audio students
Joined: 07 May 2003
Posts: 3182
Location: NYC
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 12:51 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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| linus wrote: | | The input control is a bit course. It is a step attenuator but the jumps in gain between settings was pretty large. I found that I had to turn down the source (guitar amp) because one setting on the Auditronics input was too loud and the next one down too soft. |
if you have a limiter free while tracking, like the glensound for instance, just run the output of the pre at the proper or "too loud" setting into the limiter and use the variable gain on the limiter to do your fine trimming. You can chose to use the limiter function or not but the real point is to use the limiter as a buffer amplifier to fine trim your gain. Yes, you are adding an extra gain stage and yes it will add this color or that, but its an easy way to add the proper gain staging.
what auditronics modules do yo have? do you have a schematic for them? they came out of a console so there should be an easy peasy way to add a pot in place of where the fader was on the console and then you'll have the fine trim you need.
You can also do it passively, if you look on ebay you can often turn up daven attenuators that will have 1 dB steps for 10dB or you can look for a decade attenuator which usually have three attenuators in them with different x10 resolution.
dave
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joel hamilton
zen recordist
Joined: 19 May 2003
Posts: 8863
Location: NYC/Brooklyn
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 1:08 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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Linus:
I have some spare auditronics faders I could sell you.... For real.
PM me if you are interested in having some for those strips.
Once people try the EQ in those things (the ones you have are the little brother to the 501, which is what my custom console is based on) they freak out and realize why I built a whole console around them. The 501 is the Four band version of what yyou are rockin on the 110.
The glensound compressor section is rocking too, yet another weirdo that TOTALLY kicks butt. The EQ section is pretty cool, if a little lacking in the headroom dept...
But you get SIX channels of decent EQ and 2 channels of AMAZING compressor...
Pretty great. The BBC knew what was up....
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joel hamilton
zen recordist
Joined: 19 May 2003
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Location: NYC/Brooklyn
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nacho459
re-cappin' neve
Joined: 01 Jul 2004
Posts: 748
Location: Pasadena USA
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 1:56 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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I love the 110b's!
I put some 10K pots across where the fader would have connected, basically installing a rotary fader. Works like a charm. Did you use output transformers to balance them? |
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drumsound
TOMB Moderator
Joined: 02 Jun 2004
Posts: 5777
Location: Bloomington IL
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 2:40 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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My tech has my 110s and he's supposed to mod one of the aux knobs as an output. They're on the module so why not use them?
I hope I see those things someday...
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Electricide
dead but not forgotten
Joined: 17 Jul 2003
Posts: 2064
Location: phoenix
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| Posted: Tue Nov 08, 2005 6:49 pm Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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whis isn't everyone shouting "HEY THIS BELONGS IN THE GEAR FORUM" esp. since the topic has the word gear in it.
I'm just wondering what the baseline is.
Sorry to get "off topic" =)
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joel hamilton
zen recordist
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Location: NYC/Brooklyn
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linus
re-cappin' neve
Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 667
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 1:36 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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I originally posted it here (instead of the gear forum) because my point was more about spending time experiementing with different compression ratios and their effect across the mix. It didn't matter if I was referring to the glennsound, Elop, compellor, or RNC.
A secondary point was about spending time to learn the stuff I already have instead of constantly feeling like I have to acquire more gear.
Other replies that followed focused more on the particular models I had mentioned.
Some posts change direction, some fall in a middle ground between headings, some are just plain off-topic. Mine is probably a combination of the above. |
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linus
re-cappin' neve
Joined: 28 Nov 2003
Posts: 667
Location: New York City
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| Posted: Wed Nov 09, 2005 1:38 am Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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| nacho459 wrote: | I love the 110b's!
I put some 10K pots across where the fader would have connected, basically installing a rotary fader. Works like a charm. Did you use output transformers to balance them? |
I bought them set up with an external power supply in a homemade lunchbox. Bought them here about a year ago. I should probably have them fixed up a bit more as they only have XLR in's, no phantom, and no output control. |
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b3groover
deaf.
Joined: 22 Dec 2003
Posts: 1972
Location: michigan
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| Posted: Thu Nov 10, 2005 3:36 pm Post subject: Re: Spent the evening getting aquainted with my gear. |
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| linus wrote: | | nacho459 wrote: | I love the 110b's!
I put some 10K pots across where the fader would have connected, basically installing a rotary fader. Works like a charm. Did you use output transformers to balance them? |
I bought them set up with an external power supply in a homemade lunchbox. Bought them here about a year ago. I should probably have them fixed up a bit more as they only have XLR in's, no phantom, and no output control. |
Why isn't this in the DIY forum?
Joking.
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