"happy" accidents

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"happy" accidents

Post by permanent hearing damage » Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:04 am

i know we all do this stuff all the time. like when you forgot to bypass the compressor or reset an eq from your last session. mine aren't too exciting but i'm sure others have some more interesting ones.

some things i've done fairly recently that worked out in my favor:

- left the high pass engaged on a bass drum track for a hardcore band. worked surprisingly well.

- forgot to put the overheads into the mix. the room mics were doing such a good job i didn't notice until about 4 songs into the mix. i left them out the whole record.

- forgot to put the top snare mic to the kick/snare subgroup/compressor

- sent a 57 on the floor to tape instead of the 414 on the stand for gang vocals

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Post by mjau » Thu Feb 14, 2008 11:45 am

About a year ago, at a band practice, I accidentally knocked the gain knob on my zvex sho all the way up, and it was feeding an orange squeezer compressor clone pedal. When I dug into the first chord, it was amazing - not terribly loud, just so nicely fuzzy.

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Post by Drew's Analog Planet » Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:28 pm

Recorded a loud thunderstorm that was happening outside the studio on track 16 of a blank 2" 24 reel. Got great rain and thunder. Didn't have any plans for it but thought it maight be cool to have. It was a big storm! (stuck a fet 47 ALMOST outside a doorway!).

Later we needed that reel to record songs, so we put track 16 in safe and recorded around it. Pretty much forgot about it. Then, when we were mixing this song, vocals guitars and all, I remembered track 16. I pushed it up a couple minutes after the song started. At one point right before the very raging song breaks down in to a quiet part, the singer sings, "there's a hole in my brain where the rain gets in," and, BOOOOOOMMM! A huge rolling thunderclap follows his phrase right on beat, and rolls and rumbles for about 20 seconds right through the breakdown!

Yes, for real.

Of course anybody listening would assume we very carefully placed a thunder sound-effect right there in the song. But no! It was there before the song was even tracked.

Then there's this manic sax solo, so we left it in behind there...with the rain and thunder and sax wailing, it sounds like total madness. :shock:

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Post by Recycled_Brains » Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:37 pm

Drewcifer wrote:Recorded a loud thunderstorm that was happening outside the studio on track 16 of a blank 2" 24 reel. Got great rain and thunder. Didn't have any plans for it but thought it maight be cool to have. It was a big storm! (stuck a fet 47 ALMOST outside a doorway!).

Later we needed that reel to record songs, so we put track 16 in safe and recorded around it. Pretty much forgot about it. Then, when we were mixing this song, vocals guitars and all, I remembered track 16. I pushed it up a couple minutes after the song started. At one point right before the very raging song breaks down in to a quiet part, the singer sings, "there's a hole in my brain where the rain gets in," and, BOOOOOOMMM! A huge rolling thunderclap follows his phrase right on beat, and rolls and rumbles for about 20 seconds right through the breakdown!

Yes, for real.

Of course anybody listening would assume we very carefully placed a thunder sound-effect right there in the song. But no! It was there before the song was even tracked.

Then there's this manic sax solo, so we left it in behind there...with the rain and thunder and sax wailing, it sounds like total madness. :shock:
that's fucking rad.


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Post by thieves » Thu Feb 14, 2008 1:59 pm

re: thunder on track 16

that's the sort of thing i live for.
Image

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Post by Drew's Analog Planet » Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:33 pm

thieves wrote:re: thunder on track 16

that's the sort of thing i live for.
I actually have a better "track 16" story from that same project, but it's so bizarre I honestly don't think anyone will believe me. :shock:

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Post by scott macdonald » Thu Feb 14, 2008 3:38 pm

Please share, and tell us where we can hear this song!

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Post by Drew's Analog Planet » Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:42 pm

scott macdonald wrote:Please share, and tell us where we can hear this song!
tomorrow...

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Post by apropos of nothing » Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:11 pm

It would be hard for me to quantify any particular incident of serendipity in my trax. I seek out the audio bliss which is usually only delivered in the fortuitous circumstance. When that happens, you just stand back and watch it coalesce around you. Sounds stupid to say it, fershure, but there it is.

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The Mysterious Track 16, part 2

Post by Drew's Analog Planet » Fri Feb 15, 2008 6:44 am

scott macdonald wrote:Please share, and tell us where we can hear this song!
Ok, so we were taking a break from sessioning and this little party started in the lounge next to the control room -- band, girlfriends, drinks. It was early eve. There was even a TV on; this little old set with the manual click click click channel dial. The party sounds were interesting to me, so I threw a blank up, put 16 in record and pulled a mic out in to the lounge.

The mic was close to the TV and I was picking up "Star Trek The Next Generation". There's that ascending horn motif that plays when the show like, comes back from a commercial or goes to a commercial: "Daa da da da Daa, da da da Daaa..." Right? Know what I mean. So that lick plays and somebody turned the channel which gave a burst of white noise, "KSSHHHH". So theres the horn riff and then, "Kssshhhh".

So, again, later we track songs and at mix time I push 16 up to see what's going to happen. The verse riff goes back and forth between D and C and then hits the chorus on an E? I think? Maybe G? So the verse is winding up and going in to the chorus, and from track 16 comes this horn riff in perfect key and timing, leading the song to the chous and on the "4" beat right before the downbeat of the chorus there's the blast of white noise which ends precisely at the "one" beat of the big chorus.

Everybody in the room hit the floor.

We rewound like ten times to hear it over and over. We HAD to keep it! Added some verb to give it stereo space and did a little EQ. Then, I had to painstakingly fly it in to the second chorus. This was an all analog project, no samplers or DAW. This meant I had to record the part off track 16 on to a 2-track and then back on to 16 at the right time. It took quite a while, and was much harder than the one that happened totally by chance.

The song is called "Dead in The Grass". The Artist is Anastasia Screamed and the LP is called "Moontime"

Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Moontime-Anastasi ... B00000AOWK

There may be a site where you can hear it, but I don't have time at the moment to go searching. Good luck.

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Fri Feb 15, 2008 7:08 am

one trick i like for `manufacturing` happy accidents is taking one track, usually like an acoustic guitar or a more ambient guitar or rhodes track, copy it, reverse it, and drop it randomly into the song. don`t try and line it up with anything, just hit play. 8 out of 10 times something great happens.

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Post by Dan Phelps » Fri Feb 15, 2008 8:31 am

Sometimes if I am starting a song/track by myself I will create a bed of sound to play over so that when I play the first instrument it doesn't sound so along. I think it helps to keep me from overplaying the first few tracks that I lay down, and makes it more fun because there is something else to listen to/interact with. Often there are cool coincidental correlations between the ambient stuff and the song.

Another thing to do is to record a series of tracks (sometimes with a click or drum track) one after the other without listening to the previous ones. I did this once with a sax player and it came out sounding like some really deep, composed harmony stuff, but in reality it was just a "happy accident."

Also, plug a green bullet type mic into a pedal (I like the Tech 21 CompTortion for this kind of thing) and leave it lying on the ground, or draped over something, or hanging from the ceiling. Try it with other mics on whatever you are tracking. Sometimes cool! Sometimes not!

Also also, any older, barely working condition gear can be cool. I have an echoplex that is seriously hurting, but it sounds pretty cool. The analog tape randomizer.

I think the key is to keep it interesting. If every part or sound is the result of an intentional, willful process, then there is no room for surprise and danger...which is what is good about a lot of good music!

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Re: The Mysterious Track 16, part 2

Post by Recycled_Brains » Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:22 am

Drewcifer wrote: The song is called "Dead in The Grass". The Artist is Anastasia Screamed and the LP is called "Moontime"

Here it is on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Moontime-Anastasi ... B00000AOWK

There may be a site where you can hear it, but I don't have time at the moment to go searching. Good luck.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fu ... D=51275348

pretty neat.
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Post by lyman » Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:59 am

a friend and i were playing acoustic guitars in an apartment i used to have. he must have had a new song we were working on b/c we were recording on a minidisc. anyway there was a thunderstorm and the power went out briefly in the middle of a song. i guess the stereo and dvd player were left on, because as we get to the end and hit the last chord, this ethereal string sound comes out of nowhere in the right key! it faded in as our guitars were fading out. my friend and i looked at each other like what the hell is going on? when the power came on it started playing the dvd and it must have been the film studio logo sound cue or whatever you call it. i wonder if he still has the minidisc recording....

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Post by Boogdish » Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:35 am

I had something happen today. I usually mic all my electric guitar parts with the mic right up on the grill. Today I think I accidentally stepped on a mic cable or hit the mic stand, because after recording a couple of rhythm parts I went back to the amp to change tones for the lead and the mic was 3 inches from the grill. It sounded great and explained why i needed more gain than usual.

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