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Oh man. This one really hit home for me in a number of ways. What a conundrum! Reverb... I'll try to offer what little perspective I can, as I've sort of grappled with this from the other end - maybe we can sail in opposite directions here, meet in the middle, we'll both drown and they'll write a so...

Sorry to hear about your MS16! Great machine. What went wrong? Shouldn't be much that can't be fixed, especially if you can sort out an 'as is' backup deck for parts... they do show up sometimes! Did it catch on fire?? I know Pierre de Reeder & Curt Anderson at 64 sound were planning on starting up ...

digitaldrummer wrote: ↑

Mon Dec 14, 2020 6:22 am

drumsound wrote: ↑

Sun Dec 13, 2020 1:46 pm

On the 421, I remember an ad in Modern Drummer that has 421 set up as side address overheads once.

aka "the indirect room mic" method.

I only wear side-address overalls

Around 2006 / 2007. Borrowed a 421 from a friend to use on vocals, recording a touring band live to 8-track 1/2" in my Chicago basement "studio." This was a Good, Expensive Microphone. Also not an SM57. Also a Real Touring Band. VERY exciting. I think I was 19 - I ask the singer to sing a little so ...

Of course it depends. But I think a good rule of thumb is - always act decisively. A considered EQ move that produces the result you were hoping for is decisive. A drastic EQ move that produces the result you were hoping for is decisive. No EQ is also decisive (and often the subjective most 'right' ...

I'm sure I'll get raked over the coals for this one, but... I've tried most of them at various studios in LA at some point - and for one thing, often working on an 8068 loaded with a bunch of 31102s and some 1073s - I prefer the 31102s - but, I digress, and at 5k+ a pop neither of those preamps real...

Things got very busy for a minute there - sorry to have checked out on the thread I started! But, thanks so much for contributing these perspectives - you all are the best

Huh. Seems like y'all just like the way they sound. I mean, I'm being a little dramatic - I'm almost always using overheads to glue things together and get a picture of the cymbals / natural top end from the skins - but I can count on one hand the number of times I've pulled up the overheads by them...

I mean, really. This is sort of embarrassing, even! Maybe it's funny. But - I've been making records professionally for a good long while now - I can usually get the drums sounding pretty good - and so many techniques I've read about or seen other engineers use have clicked into place over time. But...

The Piñon coffee from Trader Joe's. Empty about 2/3 of it out into another container, then gaff the lid back on. Best mellow shaker sound in the world. And it's delicious!

Since nobody's touched it yet - a bit of parallel distortion can be just the thing for shakers in a dense mix. I find that a compressor/limiter fast enough to blunt the attack transient(s) of a bright shaker can often end up flattening the sound in a really not nice way, especially as the recovery t...

Fostex MN-50
Pioneer CT-5 AGC
Standard Level-Or
Shure SE-30

Taking care to ensure that the monitoring situation is dialed, pleasant & compelling for the musicians (especially when tracking live with isos!) is a huuuuuge part of the process that is all too often neglected - it's an extra 10-15 minutes during setup to go around and listen to each headphone mix...

How does it sound in the other room? How does it sound in the other room while I'm eating a sandwich (in the other room)? That's important.

A very cool buzzsaw-y distortion for shouty vox (or any number of other things) can be had by opening up the output and then cranking down the peak limiter on a 166 or similar so that it's constantly engaged... never found much use for that limiter in its intended role, but I love this trick. Awesom...