felix
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« Reply #40 on: September 12, 2006, 05:36 AM » |
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Do you have a video camera that you could give us a virtual tour of your studio? I love all the pics. Such a cozy looking space. I'm still blown away by the arch ceiling.
It's really not a big deal- just a small garage, barn combo really. No I don't have a video camera. And Byron I have a love hate relationship with all drums. Overtones and nasty ringing are what I have problems with and getting the optimum sound out of each drum while finding balance within the kit as a whole. I go for a clean, singing sound with even decay (minimum beats in the ocillation) and a pleasing interval between the two heads and the shell. I like a nice slap for the attack if I can get it without too many high or gassy sounding overtones there and I don't like the decay be too flubby or to ringy sounding. I mean it's not Capitol Records and I'm not Bob Clearmountain. My stuff is what it is. |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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DFresh
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I'm From West Michigan!
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« Reply #41 on: September 12, 2006, 08:18 AM » |
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Why is it that with all the nice photos that you've not made it in any of them? I want to know what the Felix looks like. I've got this picture of a guy wearing a giant furry cat costume sitting behind a set of Sonors in the cool private studio in my head and I've got to know man.
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Hey, I'm from West Michigan. Let me know if you are too!
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felix
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« Reply #42 on: September 12, 2006, 10:13 AM » |
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He he he. I need to maintain my privacy- no pics. It's tough to be famous in your own mind  |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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DFresh
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I'm From West Michigan!
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« Reply #43 on: September 12, 2006, 10:36 AM » |
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I see how it goes...expose all the friends and relatives while your remain behind the curtain.
It's tough being famous.
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Hey, I'm from West Michigan. Let me know if you are too!
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Damion R.W.M.
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Let's play!
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« Reply #44 on: September 12, 2006, 11:26 AM » |
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felix, have you been experimenting with any mic'ing techniques? Will you share what you've come up with?
I.e. bass direct as well as a room mic for the cabinet, etc.
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robyn
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« Reply #45 on: September 12, 2006, 11:47 AM » |
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One thing I've always liked is how well you describe drum sounds. I can always "hear" what those sounds are, even online. A+ for nice use of adjectives, felix!  robyn |
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Life is as dear to the mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants
happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do
other creatures. ~ The Dalai Lama
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byronand
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« Reply #46 on: September 12, 2006, 12:00 PM » |
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"...I have a love hate relationship with all drums. Overtones and nasty ringing are what I have problems with and getting the optimum sound out of each drum while finding balance within the kit as a whole...."
Hey Felix, I also have a love/hate with recording. I haven't recorded much, and the $$$ budgets didn't allow time for nit-picking the drum sound, so I just lived with it and focused on my playing. I imagine that since you have time to really work on the drum sound, it must be frustrating trying to capture the ideal you have in mind, especially since you were just getting the N&Cs dialled-in when your pal pulled them out. Bummer!  Since you mentioned him, I visited Bob Clearmountain's web site: www.mixthis.com I knew his name in passing from all the albums he's worked on. It was interesting to see his place and his set-ups. (His backyard patio/pool area is my favorite part!  Along with the nuts and bolts engineering/producing stuff at his site, he has a "Fun Quotes" page with a bunch of great quotes he's collected from clients and others; here are just a few I thought you might appreciate: "It sounds a lot more like it does now than it did ten minutes ago." – unknown A&R guy "Could you put that up an octave just a little?" – unknown producer "I just want the vibe of the strings to be on the tape." – unknown producer after telling the engineer to erase the string tracks he just spent the entire day recording "It's a band, not a f!@#ing' metronome." —Mick Jagger Gotta love Jagger and Watts! |
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felix
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« Reply #47 on: September 12, 2006, 01:05 PM » |
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Thanks Robyn- you really say the nicest things. I hope to meet you some day. felix, have you been experimenting with any mic'ing techniques? Will you share what you've come up with?
I.e. bass direct as well as a room mic for the cabinet, etc.
I experiment more with the overheads and kick drum. When I recorded at Suma (big studio with a wall of gold and platinum records) the engineer set up 441's on toms how I have mine and I just copied him. For toms I work with the tuning and dampening first. Then I just get the levels even (then back to more tuning  ) I've been working this set up now since last winter and I'm pretty happy for the most part. The new heads threw me for a loop, but I get them dialed in alright this weekend. Kick drum I learned from just playing in bands and watching different engineers work. I don't have a big subwoofer in my monitor rig so I really don't get the kick's full range of tone until after the fact. But I'm trying to get my ears used to lower volume mixing - usually it's ok. I have a tendency to put too much in and I'm working on that. I like using a low impedance setting on my preamps... to me it slows down the transients and mellows them out- for tracking this good I think and gives a mellower/rounder/more 3D type of tone. There is also a lower noise floor- it's just what I like. I prefer micing the bass cab as opposed to D/I. Just sounds smoother to me that's all. I mic the guitar cabs but let the guitar players usually get happy with their tone... so they make the adjustments to their amps and guitars. I have a guitar session coming up in a few weeks- that will be cool. He cranks this killer wizard amp/cab combo up and I swear you can hear it half a block away- sounds awesome! But really, it's just a product studio where I like to work on my demos. B.C. link byron, thanks. Good tip from Bob C. did any of you catch that? Get the vocals happening first then mix under that. He's totally da man. |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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robyn
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« Reply #48 on: September 12, 2006, 11:21 PM » |
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Ooooo those quotes are funny!! I liked these: Joe Pine (60's talk show host who sported a wooden leg) –"So, with your long hair, I guess that makes you a woman." Frank Zappa's response - "So with your wooden leg, I guess that makes you a table." "What do I care about lyrics... I'm a bass player!" —John Pierce "Why the hell would I make up a name like 'Froom'?" —Mitchell Froom, upon being asked if 'Froom' was his real name Q Magazine to Brian Wilson: "Did you ever meet Charles Manson?" Brian Wilson: "Yes I did. He seemed like an OK guy, but he went and murdered some people, which was pretty bad." Good stuff! Felix, you really need to put in a pool/waterslide too. And one of them big outdoor kitchens! robyn ps--I'm really enjoying this thread, even tho I don't understand most of it. (there's my clearmountain "quote" for the evening ) |
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Life is as dear to the mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants
happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not to die, so do
other creatures. ~ The Dalai Lama
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Dave Heim
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« Reply #49 on: September 12, 2006, 11:25 PM » |
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. . .
Joe Pine (60's talk show host who sported a wooden leg) –"So, with your long hair, I guess that makes you a woman."
Frank Zappa's response - "So with your wooden leg, I guess that makes you a table."
. . .
Thanks, Robyn. The laugh felt good! I miss Frank Zappa. |
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felix
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first class all the way :-)
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« Reply #50 on: September 16, 2006, 06:14 PM » |
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Aw, that's easy: drum solo.Seriously - stuff the transitions. Subtlety (much like romance) is dead - just scare the hell out of everyone by following the mellow tune with some quads, or maybe some Swiss army triplets around the toms.  Ok Jamez, ask and ye shall receive (I don't always play this many notes). This is the birch snare with a 5 mic set up (one overhead). It's an older clip but I'm in the mastering stage (such a presumptuous term- it's pretty much mixed ok?) with it. My computer is sorta working now. I was going to take some pics of the plugs ins (these are programs that run within a program such as reverb, dynamics (compression and limiting), etc.) There are like millions of plug ins one can buy for their computer audio. I just used a tiny bit of compression, a few db of low and high end shelf eq. I had used reverb and delay already on the mixing portion of the song. And compression on some tracks too. For those of you who don't know about compression it lowers the dynamic peaks (db's) of a certain track and makes the tunes sound smoother. That's a whole other topic though. You can really hear the maple in these toms: http://www.woolyinc.com/sounds/onebetclip.mp3I'll be glad when I'm done with all this. My stuff seems to have a 70's vibe in the sound and I just gotta live with that for awhile. Subsequently, I'm going to take some time off of recording and just practice my piano and drumming. |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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byronand
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« Reply #51 on: September 16, 2006, 07:25 PM » |
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Clip sounds cool Felix... really lush sound! Drums mixed-in nicely also, with good definition and tone. Are you doing double bass in those triplety-fills?
If it's not a lot of trouble, yes, I'd like to see pix of the computer rig.
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felix
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« Reply #52 on: September 17, 2006, 07:05 AM » |
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I'm glad someone thinks so byron, thanks.
Yeah the fills are just quads, 3+3 sextuplets then 1/8ths
I'll be back up there today and post a few shots, but really it's just an upgraded computer with a 10 year old spdif in and out card.
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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byronand
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« Reply #53 on: September 17, 2006, 09:08 PM » |
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Yeah the fills are just quads, 3+3 sextuplets then 1/8ths
So your drumming is live -- no overdubs? Nice goin' cat-man! |
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felix
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« Reply #54 on: September 18, 2006, 06:02 AM » |
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I have the luxury of getting a good take and punching in drums usually sounds pretty bad. It's no big deal- I let a few mistakes go, gives the tune some soul. The editing I do do is chopping out bleed or mic stand noise, people moving around, lip smacking- just noise.
Now I made a BIG mistake with last clip in the processing. I listened to it a few times and I'm like "what the heck is going on with the dynamics?" Well, the release on the limiter was set way too long... it was set for over 1 second and I only wanted a fraction of a second. My ears were pretty shot by the end of the day saturday. I got some more pics though. I will have to post them when I can.
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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felix
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« Reply #55 on: September 18, 2006, 04:56 PM » |
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Well I should be practicing right now but here is the clip with a faster release on the limiter. It doesn't sound so weird now: Sorry had to fix the url:http://www.woolyinc.com/sounds/onebetclip2.mp3I will post some pics later of my computer and board and other stuff (yes I know you are all thrilled to death) so bear with me. This will give people a better idea of how my project studio works. Peace. |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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felix
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« Reply #56 on: September 18, 2006, 09:14 PM » |
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Are you guys with dial up hating me yet? Here are some more pics. I'm not sure if they are going to be in any particular order so you will have to use your imagination at times: I think byron wanted to see my computer. Alright. I just had it upgraded to 2.5 Ghz with a gig of ram. It's running good for the most part. I wanted 3.5 but my computer guy said for the money I should be happy with this.  The yammy burner is nice. Here's my monitor and yammy powered monitor speakers. I've had both a long time but they still do the trick:  Here's a spdif (sony phillips digital interface format) cable... this is how I manage the digital transfers. It looks like an RCA end:  I mix on this little midas venus series. I take digital photos of it in case I want to go back to a mix and tweak it:  Ummm. Ok here is my dynamic section (compressor/limiters) which I insert into channels which need to be squished:  I mix onto this, the alesis masterlink- handy little box, everyone whom likes to record should have one :  And then it goes from there to my computer if need be where I add addtional processing. I run wavelab 3.0... it really does the trick. My finger is pointing to the compressor and the point or "knee" where the threshold begins. You can barely see it since I'm hardly using any! But if you really crank on the compression and threshold (db level where you want compression to start working) you will see a very large bend in the graphic display- and of course you will hear it.  Ok thanks for letting me post some pics. There are some other gadgets I use, but not a whole lot more. That's pretty much it except for a couple of old digital reverbs and delays. One is from the 80's he he he. |
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Sonor, The Drummers Drum
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felix
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« Reply #57 on: September 18, 2006, 09:16 PM » |
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Oh yeah, and the front end as it's called (pre amps and recorder)... I'll show you guys those later if you want- not too big of a deal. |
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Drumlooney
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« Reply #58 on: September 19, 2006, 10:20 AM » |
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Front end pics, front end pics!!! LOL,
Hey man good work I'm enjoying this thread as well.
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You don't practice one day no one notices, you don't practice two days you notice, you don't practice three days everyone notices.
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byronand
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« Reply #59 on: September 20, 2006, 01:52 AM » |
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I let a few mistakes go, gives the tune some soul.
Yep! I'm not a big fan of studio perfectionists, like doing 40 takes, then slicing-together bar 63 from take 19 and bars 18-20 from take 33.... Imo it ends-up sounding just too perfect. I like music to sound like music played by musicians and singers, rather than computer-processed. |
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