Unusual studio techniques

[schism]

hello, I'm curious about some unusual studio techniques. Here are a few of mine (they might not all be so unusual but a few of my friends called them abnormal before they tried em).

1. After getting a pretty good mix, continuing it with only the subwoofer on. This allows me to hear the sub all by itself and not get distracted by the mids/highs. Just another variant...I will mix with the sub off a lot too. Final mix with everything on of course.

2. Mixing in some pitched noise. Usually can't hear it when its just droning in the background and it adds a sense of "depth" or full-ness.

3. Completely smashing drums (over-compression) and then mixing them in with the dry signal.

4. When writing a song, singing the vocals before actually composing the tune! I find it easier to match up song structure changes this way. Of course I'll go and redo the vocals at the end to help them line up.

This is just a start. Yours? Thanks...

[Clueless]

My unusual technique (which I learned was not all that unusual) is a way to spice up vocals without double-tracking. It's more like one-and-a-half tracking. It works like this: track a single vocal take through two different microphones. EQ and compress each track to individual taste. Is neither one going to cut it in the mix? Bring one up in the mix, then bring the other up out of phase. This adds shimmer and often cuts out resonances of my not-perfect room in the "mud" or "boom" section of the spectrum.

[schism]

figured more people would be willing to share but maybe you're all just so normal?? naaah



anyone home?

e as you can see i found the smileys

so another one of mine to get things "re-started"

i don't use eq too much...sometimes but...i use a lot of high pass filters. ok its similar but still. i usually use resonant hpfs to alter the tone.

[natpub]

Here is a nice thread on this subject:


http://recpit.prosoundweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=4330

[Fletcher]

In the course of damn near every session I've ever done I'm pretty sure I've come up with a least a couple of things I've never done before.

It's all about knowing your gear, it's limitations, where you can apply it for good or evil... determining what the song needs then often making it up as you go along.

Yeah, there is an arsenal of stupid human tricks that have been built up over the years, and yeah especially on kinda 'high pressure' gigs I'll pull some tried and true stupid human tricks out of my ass and wow the client [instead of taking the time and risk of trying a stupid human trick I ain't tried before]... but it's all part of experience.

From the brick on the sustain pedal of a piano with a speaker underneath and a couple of mics above it as a "tuned reverb" kind of event... to having a Leslie on an aux send [though being fat and lazy I've taken to just always having a "rotors" program up on my KSP-8], and yeah... parallel compression is a big part of my shtick... but there are a whole bunch of others that usually come to me when I need them but are damn near impossible to think on when I'm not "in the chair" [as I'm sure is the case with most of the brothers here... we all have a similar library of shit they do that just comes as second nature though it wasn't taught at "rekordin skool"].

You mentioned a monitoring thing that works well for you... I have two of those. I'l spend a damn good portion of my day working in one speaker mono [and believe it or not... I'll actually do pan assignments whilst in one speaker mono]... I also like to crank up the monitors a bit and walk out of the CR... down the hall... maybe like to an office if possible, leave the mix on "cycle" and perhaps start a conversation with someone. That way it turns into a more casual background event rather than something I've been studying under the microscope for however many hours I've been fukking with it.

Very often that little technique allows me to see more of the forest for the trees...

[Jam]

Hi Fletcher

We call your last technique " in the toilets at a night club " and boy does it tell all kinds of things about the balance ( relative loudness )

Jam

[PRS1JAZZ]

Put an SM57 in a condom. Then place it in a bucket of water and put it in the kick. FUN FUN FUN!!!!

[scotty-o]

The owner of the studio where I work collects gongs. I've used one of his 5 foot concert gongs as a plate reverb.
I just put a speaker on one side and a mic on the other and fed it with an aux. It worked nicely.
I can't wait to get some contact mics for those gongs.....he's got shit loads of them!

-Scotty

[Knastratt]

I saw Gong live two years ago. Daevid Allen looks funny. Great show though.

I'd like to contribute with the sing-along bassdrum. Put a big kick drum close to the one being played. Put a MD421 in it. Wrap it up in blankets. Hear it resonate along. Or put a bass cabinet as kick mic.

[zimv20]

in the late 80s, i was the tech-half of a two man synth-pop band. i used a MidiMerge to handle all the midi between my synths and sequencer.

on a whim, i hit a button that changed all the midi channels by one, effectively changing which instrument was being played for each part.

we used it for the chorus.

[ttauri]

Originally posted by zimv20
in the late 80s, i was the tech-half of a two man synth-pop band. i used a MidiMerge to handle all the midi between my synths and sequencer.

on a whim, i hit a button that changed all the midi channels by one, effectively changing which instrument was being played for each part.

we used it for the chorus.

Wasn't the beat for Audio Two's Top Billin' the result of an accident like that? Like: it was supposed to be an uptempo beat, but the tempo got changed, and thus was born the greatest hip-hop song of all time (well, to me, anyway).

Peece,
T. Tauri

[Drumsound]

Some of the fun recent trick's I've done include:

Using Mylar ductwork to feed the "sides" in a mid-side drum room set-up. The "Jay Kahrs put a mic right over the bass drum shell and smash the crap out of it" (408 with and RNC if anyone cares). Thanks Moosley!

I always listen from different places in the studio. It's what I call the party check. If this were on at a party, would I want to go into the room where the stereo was to see what was playing?

Mixing with the mono button in has also been useful as of late.

I recorded a song on the sidewalk last summer. I used to track with the windows open at the old studio.
There are others, but I forget them right now.

[entropy]

1)At a residental studio in country-side Wales, piped the whole mix thru a leslie cabinet and stuck the cabinet outside amongst the wildlife. We ended up using it as a middle eight/drop... sounded really good, fukked up stereo with birds, cows and sheep all joining the mix.

2) prolly one that has dissapeared for most of us but I also used to get good results over-biasing the tape or just messing with the alignment, particularly on the bass gtr.

3) fun with tandy pzm mics. stick em anywhere... great for studio out-takes

4) laying shit to tape. well how much fun can that be? quite a lot when it's a porta studio. take dialog or whatever off you DAW and track it into a porta studio. take out cassette and pull out all the tape, rub it on the floor, scrunch it up and wind it back into the cassette. instant lo-fi (and loads more fun than using a plug-in.

5) record piano parts on a grand with objects on the strings. I've done a few variations on this but had good results with using nails and nylon washers

I've got a suitcase full of other tricks but it's time I went and did some work

[djui5]

Originally posted by entropy

5) record piano parts on a grand with objects on the strings. I've done a few variations on this but had good results with using nails and nylon washers

That's the coolest one I've heard yet...

[joeq]

Originally posted by entropy

5) record piano parts on a grand with objects on the strings. I've done a few variations on this but had good results with using nails and nylon washers
[/b]

similarly- place a baking pan with screws, coins and nuts and bolts next to a really loud guitar amp or bass amp with a separate mic on it- really lends a feeling of power to the track

I've recorded a guitar amp with a fan in front of it. Not pretty but certainly different.

I heard about some band that tuned a guitar to an open chord, lashed it a stand and then went at it with a weed whacker.

[djui5]

That reminds me....

I read somewhere that on the second Korn album the engineer took a guitar cab and layed it on it's back...then put a bunch of bb's in it and stuck a mic on top.

[entropy]

ok, here's my one of my favourites... and clients think you a nutcase, which is always a good thing. I call it Washing Machine Tremelo.

Place an aurotone in a washing machine or tumble dryer and send it whatever you want to modulate. Mic up lid of said washing machine, and then get a tape op to stand there, opening and closing the lid (being careful not to close it completely). Depending on the volume you send it, you can get the drum inside rattling/singing like a mofo AND the added bonus of a slow trem like effect.
The best thing about this is you can stick a tape op in the laundry for hours.... make him do it live in the mix if nessercary, or just pretend you're doing takes.