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Post by ??????? » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:14 am

i like 'sister'

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Sep 03, 2007 8:32 am

dokushoka wrote:
Offending others by invalidating them and their efforts (intentionally or not) does.
I think you are "reading into" or making far too many assumptions about what I am saying. I'd take my posts at face value.
you do have a tendency to come across like you think you're the only person on here who's ever mixed a record.

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:07 am

dokushoka wrote:Here are several examples of some drum tracks for a production demo I am working on.

ExFull.aif are the fully processed tracks.
ExNoDig.aif are all digital effects removed.
ExNoRoom.aif is the same with the room mic removed.
ExNoMult.aif is the same sans the kick/snare mult.
ExNoSamp.aif is the same with the snare samples removed.

http://monauralmusic.com/examples/

Discuss.
i liked 'nosamp' the best by far. at first, compared to the others, the snare sounded thin, but once i got used to it it sounded fine, and the ones with the snare sample sounded overly mechanical for my taste. i just like it better when the snare sounds a little different every time...that's what snares do. on 'exfull' the digital reverb was really obvious and fake sounding on the stick clicks, but i'm sure it'd be fine in the context of a whole mix.

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Post by dokushoka » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:53 am

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:
dokushoka wrote:
Offending others by invalidating them and their efforts (intentionally or not) does.
I think you are "reading into" or making far too many assumptions about what I am saying. I'd take my posts at face value.
you do have a tendency to come across like you think you're the only person on here who's ever mixed a record.
I share my experiences and just state my opinions very clearly. Its easy to have your statements muddled on the internet so I try to make them as painfully clear as possible. I think you are just bothered because I do things very differently then you and typically work with a different aesthetic.
Let me mix your music!
http://www.sfrecording.com

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Post by dokushoka » Mon Sep 03, 2007 11:57 am

i liked 'nosamp' the best by far. at first, compared to the others, the snare sounded thin, but once i got used to it it sounded fine, and the ones with the snare sample sounded overly mechanical for my taste. i just like it better when the snare sounds a little different every time...that's what snares do. on 'exfull' the digital reverb was really obvious and fake sounding on the stick clicks, but i'm sure it'd be fine in the context of a whole mix.
I included the count in merely to reveal the effects for the purpose of this discussion.

I mix for a first impression as I'm not working with huge bands who everyone already loves. I have to do things that are going to make people take notice right away. If that means making the snare really exaggerated like what you hear on the radio, then so be it. The "mechanical" sound is just a side effect of that. 99% of people would be completely unaware of it especially in the context of the rest of the arrangement.
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Post by ??????? » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:02 pm

dokushoka wrote:I think you are just bothered because I do things very differently then you and typically work with a different aesthetic.
Hmm... this should be a poll! :D

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Post by dokushoka » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:07 pm

brad347 wrote:
dokushoka wrote:I think you are just bothered because I do things very differently then you and typically work with a different aesthetic.
Hmm... this should be a poll! :D
I'm not trying to win a popularity contest here but merely trying to share things that I've learned that I wish that others had shared with me. I guess I am just not going to sugar coat things and say that I think they sound good when I don't think that, because what does that achieve? I actually own a production company with my girlfriend who is a producer and budding mastering engineer, and you should hear what she says about my work....she busts my ass so hard. If something doesn't sound up to par to her, she lets me know it. And you know what, its made me a better engineer and producer because of that. That kind of input is what allows us to grow. Having a whole thread of "yeah I love room mics" without any critical discussion doesn't really achieve anything besides an intermaweb feel good moment.
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Post by ??????? » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:28 pm

depending on how you come across, poopooing an all-positive thread doesn't necessarily accomplish much, either.

Sugar-coating is not always productive, but the manner in which you have presented your opinions in this thread is not always more productive. It hasn't been too friendly or inviting. I'm sure it's unintentional, as communicating over the internet is hard, but you come across like you think you're Moses coming down from the mountaintop to share your vast pearls of wisdom with us underlings. Like I said, I'm sure you don't feel that way nor do you intend it that way, but it just reads like that.

I'm grateful when people (anyone!) shares their experiences of what works and what doesn't. But how helpful it turns out to be often comes out colored by the taste I have left in my mouth from the conversation. If someone is coming across as an asshole, I find myself with the instinct of almost hoping that what they say is bullshit so I can just dismiss them altogether. And I understand that's not always a very constructive attitude to have in the face of difficult/"straightforward" people, but I also understand that it's a fairly common attitude to take in such scenarios.

Please continue contributing as I enjoy learning from everyone's experiences even (check that... especially) if their artistic goals and professional goals may be different from mine. And of course I'm not telling you how to post, that would be silly to do anything other than what you feel like saying/doing. Not trying to offer "advice" either because I'm sure you don't need it.

Just trying to offer a little explanation of why you might've gotten a bit of a hard time (all in fun though it may be) the last couple of pages here, in case you were interested.

Whoop. :D :D :D :D
Last edited by ??????? on Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:29 pm

i think the ring on the real snare sounds nice, and the ring on the sample is not so nice, but whatevs.

i could argue 'what if the drummer would rather hear the sound of the drum like he played it, rather than the same gunshot every half a second' but we'd just go on and on forever, and put everyone to sleep.

by the way...and i'm totally not trying to be a jerk or trying to say something negative just because we always argue...honest...but i was just listening to 'nosamp' looped and there's a weird high frequency pop on the snare hits on beats 3&4. and the transient on the downbeat of measure 3 is cut off. most noticeable on 'nosamp' but you can hear it on the other ones as well. really doubt you'd be able to hear it in a whole mix, i'm just sayin'.

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Post by ??????? » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:37 pm

Oh... :D

By the way, the whole reason I spend time on the "intermaweb" is for "intermaweb feel-good moments."

If/when I wanted to learn to record and reproduce sounds, I would spend time behind a console, preferably next to someone who knew what's what. In any case, I would not go to a messageboard.

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Post by dokushoka » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:44 pm

Bruce Sweiden over on the Gearslutz forum has people hanging on his every word, because he presents things in a relaxed, cool way and has the rep to back every syllable up. Just sayin'
Not to knock Mr Swedien, but he has made some pretty opinionated statements on Gearslutz, most notably against compression and "how its for kids." He has whole diatribes against using compression and is very outspoken about it. I think that "poops" on a whole lot more people then the stuff that I am saying here.

I think fewer people are bothered by my posts then you think. I get messages several times a week from people thanking me for things I've posted (just got one via myspace right before posting this). I think what's happening is that your own ego is threatened in some way and you feel the need to exert it (see any of your posts on indie rock, you talk about it like you are the only guy who listened to "indie" music in the 90s :wink: ). I have ALWAYS backed up everything I've posted with audio examples and have nothing to hide behind. I don't have any sort of big name but a lot of where I am today is because I made choices to do things a certain way (ie not "sell out").

I think its ridiculous that you've wasted so many pages criticizing the way I post which does nothing but add tons of crap to this thread. You make several (long) posts telling me how to post and then tell me you're NOT trying to tell me how to post. The fact is that I don't really care and will continue to post in a such a way that I feel most clearly gets information across. If that makes me sound like "Moses" then that is just a necessary side effect.
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Post by dokushoka » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:49 pm

i could argue 'what if the drummer would rather hear the sound of the drum like he played it, rather than the same gunshot every half a second' but we'd just go on and on forever, and put everyone to sleep.
I hear you. In this instance, it is a production demo and the drummer really has zero to do with this. He played his part poorly and did not use an adequate snare or tune it correctly so samples became necessary.

I mix with the perspective of the listener in mind, not the drummer, which leads to the line of thinking of "what will the listener notice more, a thin sounding snare or a slightly mechanical sounding snare?" Through years of feedback, the answer is really clear to me.

The ring in the sampled snare blended in fits well with the rest of the track if you hear it while the original snare sounds thuddy and dull in context.

Also, these drums had to be quantized to make up for the drummer's uneven tempo.

Again, this is merely a production demo in progress and not any sort of final recording so I typically would be working with a much better recording and performance which would negate the use of the samples and what not.
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Post by RefD » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:52 pm

*yawn*
?What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.? -- Seneca

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Post by ??????? » Mon Sep 03, 2007 12:53 pm

well I'm sorry I seem to have offended you. I didn't realize I'd added "pages and pages of crap" to this thread, but I guess I'm adding one more here, so my bad!

If my ego were threatened about recording it would be a losing game. If it were threatened by someone else's knowledge of 'indie rock' it would also be a losing game. I'm an expert on neither and sort of a beginner at both. So if that's truly my hidden motive (hidden even to me, though that's not outside the realm of possibility!) then I guess that would be a pretty sad state of affairs for me. But not impossible I guess (nothing is).

Thanks again for your opinions!

To try and restore some usefulness to this thread, a joke:

Q: what's the opposite of a vest?





wait for it....





A: A coat of arms! :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Post by MoreSpaceEcho » Mon Sep 03, 2007 1:14 pm

i have enjoyed your posts on this thread.

you've gotta love a situation where you have a number of people telling another person "hey man you're coming across like kind of a jerk" and going out of their way to be polite about it, and the person refuses to just say 'oh, sorry' and everyone moves along.

anyway...
dokushoka wrote:He played his part poorly and did not use an adequate snare or tune it correctly
is that his snare on 'nosamp'? it sounds fine.
Also, these drums had to be quantized to make up for the drummer's uneven tempo.
and in doing so, you added weird sounding digital clips that are arguably more distracting than a wobbly performance would be.

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