What is the REAL glyn johns setup?

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nlmd311
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Post by nlmd311 » Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:46 am

brad347,
The kick does seem slightly more audible, especially in the areas where there is less going on in the mix. I think the sound (of the kick) really fits the song, but could use just a bit more volume in the overall mix. I really think it would make the bass (guitar) sound even better... which brings me to a question. What kind of bass is that? I'm not too familiar, first hand, with many basses, but it makes me think of the mids of a P-Bass, but more "round" and full like I am used to hearing from a Jazz Bass. I love the tone of it. Sounds great.

workshed,
Please. Post a clip or two if you are up to it. I'd really like to hear the Rogers set now that you have had it refinished, and I am just interested in hearing the post-it note bass drum! :P

I'm in the process of treating my room right now and can't wait to have it done and see if it will have made an audible difference in future recordings. I like using the Glynn Johns technique, but my current room is very unflattering for a set up like that.

-Darrill
slowly panning across something kind of crappy...

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workshed
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Post by workshed » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:01 pm

Alright, I have so many disclaimers for these samples and photos, but let's just leave it at, my strong suite is not as a drummer (especially when playing to a click) and this song is very much a work in progress. After trying drums myself, methinks I will be better off getting a friend who is a real drummer to come in and do the drums for me.

That being said, you can see some blurry photos here (had to use our old camera -- bad flash, not enough light without it):

http://www.workshedaudio.com/clients/to ... /index.htm

And audio clips are here:

Drums only - dry
Drums Only - with reverb, compression, gated snare, limiting
All instruments with Drums, effects (acoustic guitar, electric piano so far)

I'm totally open to suggestions on the recording quality. This is my third time recording a live kit, so I am still pretty green. The song, well, I'm not sure if I will keep it until I hear how it sounds once bass, electric guitar and vocals (and a real drummer) have been tracked.

-Bret

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Post by ??????? » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:07 pm

nlmd311 wrote:brad347,
The kick does seem slightly more audible, especially in the areas where there is less going on in the mix. I think the sound (of the kick) really fits the song, but could use just a bit more volume in the overall mix. I really think it would make the bass (guitar) sound even better... which brings me to a question. What kind of bass is that? I'm not too familiar, first hand, with many basses, but it makes me think of the mids of a P-Bass, but more "round" and full like I am used to hearing from a Jazz Bass. I love the tone of it. Sounds great.
You're pretty right. It's a mid 80s Tokai Hard Puncher HP-64 (P-bass replica) that I have La Bella flatwound strings on to get that James Jamerson vibe. Going into an Ampeg B-25 inside a ported cabinet with a single Weber 15F150 15" speaker, Beyer M-88 dead center of the cone. There's also a DI just barely blended in to give some definition.

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Post by trodden » Thu Oct 26, 2006 1:34 pm

workshed wrote:Alright, I have so many disclaimers for these samples and photos, but let's just leave it at, my strong suite is not as a drummer (especially when playing to a click) and this song is very much a work in progress. After trying drums myself, methinks I will be better off getting a friend who is a real drummer to come in and do the drums for me.

That being said, you can see some blurry photos here (had to use our old camera -- bad flash, not enough light without it):

http://www.workshedaudio.com/clients/to ... /index.htm

And audio clips are here:

Drums only - dry
Drums Only - with reverb, compression, gated snare, limiting
All instruments with Drums, effects (acoustic guitar, electric piano so far)

I'm totally open to suggestions on the recording quality. This is my third time recording a live kit, so I am still pretty green. The song, well, I'm not sure if I will keep it until I hear how it sounds once bass, electric guitar and vocals (and a real drummer) have been tracked.

-Bret
sounds really nice there!!

So does the panning change depending on certain things when using this method? I thought it was OH and kick straight up and then the side mic hardpanned all the way left or right depending on perspective? is this what you did?

How do you like that vocal mic baffle thing? I saw one of those at AES and thought it was pretty cool since i don't necessarily have a dead vocal room. Thinking about making a DIY one out of some rockwool and such.

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Post by workshed » Thu Oct 26, 2006 2:09 pm

trodden wrote: sounds really nice there!!

So does the panning change depending on certain things when using this method? I thought it was OH and kick straight up and then the side mic hardpanned all the way left or right depending on perspective? is this what you did?

How do you like that vocal mic baffle thing? I saw one of those at AES and thought it was pretty cool since i don't necessarily have a dead vocal room. Thinking about making a DIY one out of some rockwool and such.
Thanks, Trod!

Yeah, I did one mic panned hard left and the other hard right. Actually, I started with hard left and right, then brought them both back to like 40% to tighten things up a little. OH and kick are straight up. Then, I believe I had to flip the phase of the room mic, which is also straight up.

The vocal mic baffle thing is nice, although I have found that if you have nothing behind the person to dampen high frequencies, you still get some HF room reflections. I need to make a couple gobos to put behind people. I recorded a little kid actor voiceover audition last week and his voice was so high that it was reflecting around the room like crazy. I'm recording him again this weekend and will probably give the old RE20 a shot to see if I can tame that some more. I used the SE2200 A before, but that was picking up everything in the room.

I really want an iso booth / dead room, but I am limited for space, so I use my son's room. Unfortunately, I can't put any traps on his walls, lest I want to piss him off for removing his Incredibles and Shark Tale posters.

-Bret

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Post by trask » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:18 pm

Had some fun trying this out during my brother's band rehearsal last night. Had 2 414's as the tom, and snare mic, and a B52 on the kick. Sounded pretty damn good for only 3 mics, without much work. We didn't get much time to shift them around much, but it really opened me up to the possibilites. The sound from the tom mic pretty much covered everything, even with that channel solo'ed it was still pretty usable...
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nlmd311
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Post by nlmd311 » Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:35 pm

Thanks for posting the clips and pictures workshed.
Sounds good.
How high up is the Overhead mic? I don't think I could see it in any of the pictures. I saw the stand and cable, but don't think I saw the mic. Were the OH and side mic the same distance from the snare? Just curious.

The song sounds cool. I'm interested in hearing it once you get some of the other instruments and vocals tracked. Keep us posted.
I know you said it was a work in progress, but the only thing I noticed that seemed odd was the build up of mids once the keys and guitar all get going. Do you have any EQ going on in there? Is the keyboard part doubled? I'm just curious and only pointing it out as I'm wondering how that area would interact with something like, say, the electric guitar, or possibly vocals depending on how the sit in the mix. A lot of their information would come in the form of mids and I would be worried about it getting lost.

Thanks again for posting
Oh, and did you ever get to record the bass drum without the post-it? Was that the problem you were hearing afterall?

-Darrill
slowly panning across something kind of crappy...

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workshed
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Post by workshed » Mon Oct 30, 2006 11:59 am

nlmd311 wrote:Thanks for posting the clips and pictures workshed.
Sounds good.
How high up is the Overhead mic? I don't think I could see it in any of the pictures. I saw the stand and cable, but don't think I saw the mic. Were the OH and side mic the same distance from the snare? Just curious.
Thanks! It's about 5-6' high. It's in one of the photos, but is super blurry. And yeah, I tried to keep them approximately the same distance from the snare.
nlmd311 wrote:The song sounds cool. I'm interested in hearing it once you get some of the other instruments and vocals tracked. Keep us posted.
I know you said it was a work in progress, but the only thing I noticed that seemed odd was the build up of mids once the keys and guitar all get going. Do you have any EQ going on in there? Is the keyboard part doubled? I'm just curious and only pointing it out as I'm wondering how that area would interact with something like, say, the electric guitar, or possibly vocals depending on how the sit in the mix. A lot of their information would come in the form of mids and I would be worried about it getting lost.

Right now everything is pretty straight up as far as EQ. I appreciate the suggestions and totally agree. I'm actually not too happy with the acoustic guitar sound on that. I have a high pass filter on it now, come to think of it, which may be part of the problem. It was kinda of boomy, but maybe the high pass frequency needs to be tuned more. I will definitely take a closer look at the mid frequencies as I get the other stuff in there. Thanks!
nlmd311 wrote:Thanks again for posting
Oh, and did you ever get to record the bass drum without the post-it? Was that the problem you were hearing afterall?

-Darrill

I did not get a chance to re-track the kick, so what you hear is what I got. I was able to add some compression and get a nice punch to it, but I'm still not happy with the raw sound. I'll have to spend more time with it next time.

Thanks for the comments!

-Bret

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Post by jc » Fri Nov 03, 2006 12:18 pm

brad347! i just listened to the traxx and i must say:

yr sound grates!

you guys played like you've never played before!

i've never heard anyone LIKE you!

you should call me when you guys get some TIME!

the guitars sound so PLUGGED IN!

:D
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Post by jetboatguy » Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:38 pm

Once upon a time, because of the lack of tracks available on a friend`s Roland VS-880 recorder, I attempted the Glyn Johns mic set-up once on a decent drummer and band, the recorder can only record 6 tracks at a time from the line input channels, all done with a Tascam MA-8 (8 channel mic pres) into the line ins and we used Edirol monitors for listening/tracking... this track was recorded in a small house in the country and we made the best of it with our mobile set-up, cause it had to fit in the trunk of my old VW Golf back in the day.

so here's the scenario/patch.

bedtracks

track 1 - Kick drum with AKG D112 (aprox' 16" away from front beater)
track 2 - Neumann KM184 above the floor tom 6", pointed directly at snare
track 3 - Neumann KM184 above left shoulder of drummer, at top of head level, pointed directly at snare.
track 4 - Neumann U87 for room ambience, placed in another room 25' away.
track 5 - Tokai BASS straight to DI
track 6 - 70's Squier electric guitar, directly miced from Hiwatt cab'

overdubs

track 7 - Vocal - take 1
track 8 - Vocal - take 2

tracks later bounced and mixed onto Sonar

track 9 - extra guitar part recorded and FTP'ed from a guest player in another town.. so I don't know the tecnical details ?

here's myspace link... click on the tune called Stark Pretty from Hospital Grade.

enjoy,

http://www.myspace.com/weatherstationaudio
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Is that the thing where they take a good old sine wave and they chop it up into little bits?" --- Rupert Neve

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Post by ??????? » Sun Nov 05, 2006 1:50 pm

jc wrote:brad347! i just listened to the traxx and i must say:

yr sound grates!

you guys played like you've never played before!

i've never heard anyone LIKE you!

you should call me when you guys get some TIME!

the guitars sound so PLUGGED IN!

:D
:D

You so crazy! :shock:

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Post by joeysimms » Sun Nov 05, 2006 1:57 pm

I don't know the real Glyn Johns setup, but here's a typical 3 mics (oh, snare, kick) clip of mine:

http://www.shirleyrolls.com/Glitter_Baby.mp3

OH: shure bg4.1, 5-6 ft up, behind right-handed drummer's right shoulder, pointing down to where snare shell meets kick shell.

snare: 57

kick: 421

all mics -->sytek -->tascam 48 (tape). no compression, no effects.

EDIT: NO CLICK :lol:

Of course, this drummer is great. YMMV!
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joeysimms
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Post by joeysimms » Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:17 pm

beware bee wear

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Post by joeysimms » Sun Nov 05, 2006 2:19 pm

brad347 wrote:OK, i've got something listen-able, mix isn't totally finished but it's mostly there I think. I used the glyn johns setup with a mic under the snare. Same mics as I used for my experiments above.

This is a more rock oriented thing. I am TOTALLY open to suggestions about this mix by the way.

http://www.soundsdifferent.com/mroozik/ ... v3%201.mp3
More kick?

A *little* less guitars, and a little more vocal?
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Post by jc » Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:21 am

more jokes?

a *little* less bullshit whogivesafuck advice?
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