re-amping entire mix

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green dc
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re-amping entire mix

Post by green dc » Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:47 am

i'm mixing a project right now that i feel like could use some wetness to the space around everything, and i kind of hate the way processed reverb sounds in general on anything ever, so this morning i woke up thinking about sending the entire mix to a speaker and pointing it down a long hallway outside the live room, then stereo micing down that hallway and blending it gently.
i've done this with just the drum group before but never an entire mix. anyone have any cool tips or ideas about this?

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Dakota
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Post by Dakota » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:38 am

That's totally fair game.

Fine tuning: if you can, don't use your mixdown monitors to broadcast the signal down the hall. Use any other speakers you have on hand (because it gets hard to judge audio that's been through the imperfections and frequency response of the same speakers twice).

And for full stereo separation, run the left and right of your mix as two separate passes. Move the mic a few inches on the right pass. That way the panning in the mix will stay intact, and signals panned in the center will still get a little stereo reverb detail.

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Post by vvv » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:40 am

I've done this with just the drums, just the drums and bass, and with the entire music bed.

I tend to like to smash it afterwards.

It can work well, altho' I have never liked including the vocals.
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Crocoduck5000
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Post by Crocoduck5000 » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:45 am

KDVS, our local radio station in Davis, CA, does that when they record bands. Instead of using a reverb unit they stick a PA speaker in the hallway outside of the station and mic it from whatever distance they can. It's pretty sweet.

green dc
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Post by green dc » Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:57 am

good point about the l and r being passed separately! i was thinking of just doing a mid-side of the whole thing but doing each separately makes more sense in terms of detail. cool! thanks
i can see how vocals might interfere a bit with the rest of the mix actually, too, so perhaps i'll play around with their level being sent through the speaker.

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Post by Theo_Karon » Thu Nov 12, 2009 10:12 am

There are a lot of fun things you can get into with this.

Do you have any contact mics?

Wedge a contact mic between a large ride cymbal (thin cymbals work really well for this) and the stand and blast the drum mix at the cymbal through a PA, recording the output from the contact mic to another track. You need a preamp that will supply a good deal of gain. Compress or distort for extra credit.

Or how about a piano? Put a contact mic on the soundboard, or use an electric piano with strings- tines have more mass and are a lot harder to get moving. Put a PA on top of the piano, facing down. Figure out every note in the vocal part, and tape those keys down so that the string is free to resonate, then send the vocal to the PA for reverb that grabs onto and resonates with each individual pitch.

Tactile transducers, like for a bass shake or plate reverb, can work better than a PA depending on what you are doing, generally if the mass of the object you're causing to resonate (like the piano) is large enough that the transducer won't significantly dampen it.

Drums are great also! Again with the contact mic. Send parts through a drum for a weird reverb that resonates a whole bunch on certain pitches and not very much on others. Use the varispeed to move the resonances around, or retune the drum until it does something good. Send a recording of a drum back through that same drum tuned lower. Play your snare with brushes, recording with a contact mic on the skin. Don't move the mic or drum, play that recording back at the drum, and record that for some amazing resonances you probably weren't aware your drum could produce. Repeat.

There's another good trick for small rooms: speed the tape up while reamping into the room, and then slow it back down on playback. Instant bigger room!

The world is your oyster! Go forth! Reamp!

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Post by dsw » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:12 pm

The world is your oyster! Go forth! Reamp!
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Post by oldguitars » Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:41 pm

I also like turning the mic away from the speaker in order to get more of the reverb...
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Post by Theo_Karon » Thu Nov 12, 2009 3:17 pm

You can put anything you want on a t-shirt!

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Post by Mane1234 » Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:47 pm

I think this is a great idea. How do you think your live room would sound in comparison to the hallway? You might get a little bouncier sound depending on the dimentions. Sounds like a great old school way of putting some verb on a mix. I wish I had more access to spaces like that for just those purposes. There's still one studio here in town that has the old reverb chamber but I don't imagine they're very affordable for me and my broke ass.
Of course I've had it in the ear before.....

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Jitters
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Post by Jitters » Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:39 am

Stuff like this is why I love this forum! :P

How about a figure 8 with the speaker in the null?

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Post by Kyle » Fri Nov 13, 2009 12:48 pm

mid-side is fun too.
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Snarl 12/8
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Post by Snarl 12/8 » Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:20 pm

Theo_Karon wrote:You can put anything you want on a t-shirt!
Another great T-shirt idea! You're just full of 'em.
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Post by tonewoods » Fri Nov 13, 2009 2:28 pm

Dakota wrote:That's totally fair game.

Fine tuning: if you can, don't use your mixdown monitors to broadcast the signal down the hall. Use any other speakers you have on hand (because it gets hard to judge audio that's been through the imperfections and frequency response of the same speakers twice).

And for full stereo separation, run the left and right of your mix as two separate passes. Move the mic a few inches on the right pass. That way the panning in the mix will stay intact, and signals panned in the center will still get a little stereo reverb detail.

Wow...
Thanks for those tips...

I do this sort of thing all the time, and those are just great pointers...

Yeah, for me, re-amping a mix tends to glue everything together...
Especially shit that's been recorded one-track-at-a-(gasp!)-time...

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Post by KennyLusk » Fri Nov 13, 2009 8:09 pm

Jitters wrote:Stuff like this is why I love this forum! :P
+1

FWIW, thanks to everyone who's posted their personal tips on this.
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