Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

general questions, comments and ideas about recording, audio, music, etc.
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Mr PC
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by Mr PC » Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:30 am

Soundguy-

Your post makes me feel unworthy, my self esteem is battered. I'm going to Guitar Center to spend some money and feel good. Screw you!!


PC :wink:

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T-rex
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by T-rex » Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:31 am

One more thing, I was recording a band with two guitar players recently. We did bass, drums and guitar 1 live and were overdubbing guitar 2. We could not get a good tone on the second guitar player no matter what we tried (Les Paul, Marshal Stack, all tube). The other guitar player picked up the same guitar to try to figure out what was going on and BAM, that was it. He just rang a few chords and it went from mushy to crisp. He was reaching for knobs on the amp when he just stopped and looked up and that was it. We realized the other guitarist was not as "accomplished", but that was a real eye opener.
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Meriphew
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by Meriphew » Sun Feb 06, 2005 8:40 am

Damn... I knew it was true. I DO need that $200k API Legacy Plus to make a decent record.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by stinkpot » Sun Feb 06, 2005 9:50 am

man, i totally agree. i don't have a 200k console, or any UA, Urie, etc. compressors, and there have been a few recordings i've made - in my basement - that have blown me away. i've also done plenty of crap. most of the crap is when i'm rushing, feeling over confident, and not overly creative. the gear we have is like instruments. regardless of whatever level it's at we need to learn to "play" it like virtuosos. i feel like i can play my berri autocomp pretty darn well now, and coax about as good a sound out of it as possible. that's just because i've spent time with it, learned it's ideosyncracies, strengths, and weaknesses. it's just easier to get a decent sound out of the drawmer, without trying quite as hard. it's also pretty easy to f stuff up with it.
i agree with dave, it's all about your skills, the time and thought you put into your project. it's about recognizing your limitations. i recently did a hard thing and stepped back from a mix that was actually going pretty well. i let a friend take a serious stab at it. damn, did i learn a lot. just little things, but a lot. it's good to step back and have your shortcommings shoved in your face once in a while. i think part of growing up (especially for artists) is learning to take constructive critisizm well. even if it's not delivered well. fuck defensiveness, realize that you can learn a great deal from it. i think that's what dave's just given us - some damn good constructive critisizm.
i'll say it again, dave, yer the best.
p.s. sorry i can't spell for shit.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by StivBatorsWreckedMyCar » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:25 am

Wow, I dig your post and its spirit with the one exception... The RHCP's are fucking unlistenable.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by honkyjonk » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:33 am

Yeah, Good Post. I'd agree with most of that,

Really though, I'd rather listen to some untalented engineer recording an untalented band on super expensive gear than listen to Blood Sugar Sex Magic.

THat snare makes me want to eat my armpit. I wish I could put a poop log on it.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by trianglelines » Sun Feb 06, 2005 10:37 am

I only come to this board because I believe that if you buy a signature Eric Clapton guitar that you will instantly get "slow hands" especially if you buy a pedal that models all the classic vintage Clapton tones. After that, my Peavey Backstage 15 will rip!

And I will only make good recordings if I have an all Summit signal path.

So there!

-TimT

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bobbydj
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by bobbydj » Sun Feb 06, 2005 11:13 am

Image
Bobby D. Jones
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(Wives with Knives, Tyrone P. Spink, Potemkin Villagers et al)

slimjw
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by slimjw » Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:05 pm

thunderboy wrote:
slimjw wrote:no one here is confused about the role of gear vs. talent. What the hell?
You obviously don't hang out here very often. Or on any other Audio-related board, for that matter.

jt
I do hang out here a lot, even if I don't post that much. Even if people are confused about gear vs. talent, I think the Tape Op board isn't one of the worst offenders and people here at least have an inkling that great gear isn't the be all/end all. The magazine seems to have been founded on those very principals, which is one reason it became so popular.

My point was that the post was over the top. Of all the audio boards I read, the ratio of quality information on this one far outweighs the static about gear.

- Jason

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by dwelle » Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:32 pm

great post dave.

it's nice to see you back stirrin' things up the last few weeks...

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by pedrohead » Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:32 pm

slimjw wrote: My point was that the post was over the top. Of all the audio boards I read, the ratio of quality information on this one far outweighs the static about gear.

- Jason
plus i'm going to take a stab and say that BSSM wasn't MIXED AND MASTERED in the same parallel walled house....those tend to be somewhat sonically important in the end.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by senorsmoke » Sun Feb 06, 2005 12:42 pm

dumb post...I agree with Robert Johnson, it's the song and the emotion. I thought it was obvious to everyone here that you can make great records at home..guess I was misguided.

Seems like this post belongs on one of the more knucklehead forums like recording.org...those guys seem like they invite these kinds of arguments.

I do agree in general with this but know that neve,neumann,ssl etc are used to make these sounds...along with all the time in the world...this "house" to is in the Hollywood Hills right...like some damn Clark Gable mansion. It is NOT a 12x16 garage...

nuff said

George

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by drumsound » Sun Feb 06, 2005 1:55 pm

Great records are made by great players playing great tunes. We as producers and engineers enhance that. It's very simple, in a Zen sort of way...

Nice post Dave.

Touched1 and T-Rex, perfect additions.

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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by jebjerome » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:14 pm

While I absolutely agree with the "work on your skills and stop looking for the magical pre, compressor, blahblahblah for your recordings to improve" portion of this post, I also know I could certainly do better recordings in a Hollywood mansion, albeit one with untreated, parallel walls, but a little more flexible than in the li'l house I'm working with.

Nice one, but it is a bit like when I used to think, "the Beatles recorded f'n Sgt. Pepper's on a 4-track, I can do the same on my 4-track." Turns out their 4-track was a little nicer and with nicer rooms and with better engineers and their material was also a lot better. Of course, then you've got Ween who did do some sweet shit on 4-track cassette.

Still, it is inspiring and I can think that maybe one of my rooms is similar to the room they put the bass cab in. I am done with blaming the gear though, so thanks for reminding me(it gets easy to forget). I'm also trying to work on quality material more before recording it. Good times.

Go Raiders!
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And to my rescue, it was the S1Ws - PE</i>
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Greenlander
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Re: Blood Sugar Sex Magic and your F you indie spirit

Post by Greenlander » Sun Feb 06, 2005 3:20 pm

Well, definitely a thread writen from the tough love standpoint. That's all good, and of course ability through talent and experience is crucial, but I'd suggest that a little encouragement wouldn't hurt either, y'know?

Everyone has to start somewhere
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