The two extremes. kinda.

[Aeroplane Audio]

So me and my friend Ryan have a pretty good musical relationship. We collaboarte together on a number of projects, but 3 of them have been major recording thingies of mine over the past few months.

THe first, and longest runnign collaboration of ours (in fact...this is how i met him) is our band, DiSH. Now, unfortunately, our first album just kind of sucks sound-wise (badly mixed, way too flat sounding, and way too sparse. obviously we were in a hurry and not focusing an making quality sounding stuff)

Then we did a second record that we would record ourselves. Which meant, basically, i was gonan record it. However, we had maybe 3 mics between us, and one really really old yamaha mixer, and a computer iwth ACIDmusic, and a mic input on said computer.
We also had a large space that was more like a reverb chanber than an actual studio. I think you can imagine the rest.

IN any case, our true colors, ironically enough, never actually came out on recording until i recorded our last show ever (maybe). I really like how it turned out, but i'm always looking for outside opinions. seriously, any and all comments would be appreciated.

The micing went something like this...nothing fancy, nothing incredible.
Drums:
Overhead: AKG D770 (pretty much in the center overhead everything)
Snare: SM57 aimed straight across so i would hopefully get some of the hi hat.
Kick - Nady DM80 taht was actually resting on a pillow inside of the drum, pointed just to the outside of the batter head. (this was more due to lack of stands than anything)

Those were all put into the old Yamaha i mentioned previously (no phantom power on that babay, thus no condensers) ,and submixed to 2 tracks on a behringer ub2442 that goes directly out to the 8 track.

Guitar Right
Sovtek MIG-50 amp with the occasional Full-tone full drive distortion pedal.

Miced with another AKG D770, straight into the UB2442

Now, that guitar sounds like crap thanks to me. When we were setting up, i set up the guitars, and i accidentally connected the speaker cabinet to the 4ohm output (i will never forgive myself for that. that;s the one thing i absolutely hate about those recordings) IN any case, when ryan figured it out, he fixed it, which messedu p the levels, which i couldnt change cause i was playing drums, and i don't actually own a compressor, and yeah.

Guitar Left:

Peavy classic...i dont know what year. prolly mid 80s. miced with a nady DM70

Bass:

Miced with another D770 (damn those things are useful), once agian straight into the mixer.

I lied. this isn't actually bass. throughout the whole performance it was, but for this song, our bassist swritches to keyboard. We forgot the bass amp, so we just swithced the input from the bass to the keyboard and voila. It sounds allright.

The vocals were being put out over a farily simple PEavy PA system, so all i did was run one of the aux outputs into a line in of one of the channels on the mixer. The lead vocals are done with a 58, and the backing vocals (mine) are with a DM70 (i knew they didn't matter much cause i dont do that much back up, and when i do it's not exactly something that requires a buttload of clarity.

I had one room mic set up (a behringer b-1) right across from where we were playing, taped to the top of a short wall.

LAter on though, i discovered that through the show, the mic has been bouncing up and down on that wall, amking a horrible rattling sound through the whole show.So, i had to cut it out , except at parts where there wasnt very much noise and the crowd needed to be heard (there is no such place in this song.)

So...yeah. long explanation for a recording that really doesnt have that much technicallity to it. No compression. No EQ. But I like it anyways.

www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mikekuehn/ ... sional.mp3


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CHapter 2 of what is quickley becoming a novel. I'll try and keep it more simple this time.

This was recorded after the last show, after i had to movce all my recording stuff out of that space and into my basement. which is where this stuff happened.

My friend also has a bunch of songs he performs by himself with accoustic, and a bit of accompanyment here and here. I arrange and play most of that accmpanyment. (on this one i was harmonica and one of the percussion intruments taht we did on one track)

All of the stuff we roecrded for this project (7 songs) took place over what was basically a 72 hour straight period (we took a 5 hour sleep break between the hours of 7 AM and noon on the first day). This was done becasue i was Due to leave london and we had to get everyhting done in time cause we wouldnt be able to do anymore more on it for at least 2 1/2 months (college).

As it turns out, 10 minutes after I mixed these songs into my computer, i left for the airport, and damn near missed my flight.

good thing i packed early.

Once again, Nothing fancy, no compression, no preamps, no EQ. These maynot be the final versions either.

Guitars - all with an SM58, right at the soundhole.
Vocals - Behringer b-1.
Cello - Behringer b-1.
Percussion - reverb was built in on the mixer. i dont remeber the mic. does it matter really?
I dont rmember harmonica either.

The long beep at the end actually leads into another song. and it sounds good, i think. IT;s not jsut there to be obnoxious. though it may actually be. i dunno.

Here it is:
www.puremagic.ca/other_users/mikekuehn/ ... ephant.mp3

Phew. I;d love to hear what y'all think. criticsism rules.

...i need to start typing better

[Dr. Sausage]

I dig it. The acoustic track is pretty cool especially when the harmonica comes in

One the first track the vocals seem kinda forced, especially on those screaming notes, thats the only criticism, I have thinking back at it.

[Aeroplane Audio]

I dig it. The acoustic track is pretty cool especially when the harmonica comes in

One the first track the vocals seem kinda forced, especially on those screaming notes, thats the only criticism, I have thinking back at it.

Haha..well. i think alot of that is cause the actual monitors taht were projecting the sound to the audience were turned down too low.

And every time i tried to turn it up, i was getting terrible TERRBLE feedback. I didnt have time to figure out how to remedy that, so i think he was jsut trying to sing kinda loud.

whatev.

[Aeroplane Audio]

SOrry to be a bump goblin here, but i really would like some criticism. Especially on the accoustic track...cause that's not even the final version...and i know it needs some fixing that i plan to over the winter break.


gracias.

[dynomike]

Acoustic track sounds a little muddy. Big time build up in the low mids on the guitar itself (proximity effect?) That was my main problem with it.

Otherwise, it sounds pretty good.. but the other track ("professional") sounds a lot clearer. Cool drum mix on that one.

Mike

[dynomike]

I've listened to it again.. it does need a LOT less bass on the guitar. eek. Other than that, I'd pump up the lead vocal a bit.. right now, it sounds like it needs a lot more, but after you cut out some of that bass you might not need to turn 'em up that much more. I might cut some of the highs on the lead instruments near the end.. they sound a little biting. Maybe compress 'em a little more too. I wouldn't mind a little more even volume on the vocals, again - a little compression or maybe even just "fader riding" on the vocal track.

Nice song though, just a buildup of things makes the mix a little cluttered.

Mike