Audio Clips of Rough Mixes from Basics Sessions!!!

[bgrotto]

I had what I thought was a pretty good idea the other day. Why not start a thread of postings that include a rough mix (no cheating!) of basics tracks of songs or clips of songs, with detailed descriptions of set ups, techniques, and any sort of amusing "war stories" that may influence the character of the sound.

I feel it'd be a great way to check out other people's approaches, tricks, and equipment you may be unfamiliar with, plus it might just conjur up some funny anecdotes.

In order to keep this fun, we'd all have to avoid any kind of criticism on the quality; this isn't the "Work In Progress/Advice Needed" section, so keep yer damn mouths shut!

Also, remember to (of course!) respect your clients' and artists' privacy, copyrights, etc. Don't get yourself or your studio in trouble!

Remember, this is all in the spirit of fun and learning; I wanna hear your best chops, your biggest/dumbest mistakes, and any interesting esoteric gear you've got. My next post will kick off the thread.

I hope you all enjoy/chime in!

[bgrotto]

The following is an impromptu session I did with my very own band, Motherboar. The song is called "Noose of Fire". Here's the scoop:

I was doing some mixing at my home spot, Mad Oak, one afternoon when the studio tech called me from a very famous band's studio. He told me their long-time producer wanted to swing by the Oak to do some jamming, and possibly record some song ideas he had. We'd be enlisting the help of some of our studio-pals to play on the jam session, including yours truly on the drums.

I set up the studio kit - a DW - in the configuration I'm most comfortable with: 22" kick, 13" rack, 16" floor, and a Yamaha wood-rimmed 14" snare. Got it all mic'd up (details to follow), and set up the cans/bass DI/etc. As I finished plugging in the last mic cable into the last mic, the tech called me. Super-producer forgot he had some music awards show to go to (I imagine the conversation went something like this: "Yeah, sorry to bail, uh, I got this thing...well, yeah, I gotta run, y'know? No...no, I just got this Grammy to go pick up real quick...yeah, we'll get together next time I'm in town...").

So there I was, with a shitload'a mics set up, and no assistant () to tear it down for me. Rather than spend the next next 40 minutes in breakdown-hell, I called my guitar player. We'd been planning on recording a split with a band we just got back from tour with, but the studio is booked thru December, so we figured we'd lay down basics in January. Well, because of this, I had a drum kit, ready to go...I told him to come by, bring my cymbals and a guitar pick, and some beer.

He arrived a few hours later (it was like 9pm at this point), I had him sit at the kit (it was ugly) to help me get some levels/sounds for an hour or so, and off we went! He laid down a scratch track, I laid down my drums, and in about two hours we had four tunes! The next day I edited the drums (including manually strip-silencing the tom tracks, FYI), and later that day (about 7pm) we got back into the studio for bass and rhythm guitars (which, including one trip to the bar at 1.30 am for a coupla last-call drinks, plus one drunken studio tour, lasted till about 5am).

So, here's the set-up (I wish I took pics...I'll do that next time!):

Like I said, the kit's a DW, the snare's a Yamaha (I think it's the Anton Fig model). The heads were all pretty worn, sadly...if I'd of known I was gonna be recording my own shit I'd of gotten new ones on there. Oh well.

Kick In: Audix D-6 - 512 - dbx 160VU (very light compression) - Tube Tech Pultec Clone (a 100Hz cut and a boost at 5 or 8k)
Kick Out: AT 4040 - 1273 - 160VU
Snare Top: MTG umt70 - Wunder PEQ1 (with a little EQ to tape: a bit of 100, a cut at 700 or 1k, and a bit of top)
Snare Bottom: modded 414 - 312
Rack: TLM 170 - 312 - Al Smart C2 (just kissing the thing for some snap)
Floor: TLM 170 - 312 - Al Smart C2 (ditto)
Hats: KM184 - Avalon M5 (with HP filter)
Ride: 451 - Avalon M5 (with HP filter)
OHs: spaced pair Manley Golds - Redd 47s
Close Room: XY MTG M300 - custom pre our tech built
Far Room: spaced pr BLUE Bottles B-0 capsule - Nice Pair - TG2 (driven to distortion)
Center Kit: AEA R84 (between Rack and Floor tom) - 1081 (EQd heavily) - Omnipressor (doing the reverse-gain thing)
Hallway Mic: Audix CSX25 (way down the hall) - 1273

Bass rig went like this:

Instrument - DI - Little Labs Splitter, which fed one signal to a Rat - Swollen Pickle - 1970s SVT - 8x10 (this is Bass Amp 1), the other signal went straight to a Marshall JCM800 combo

Bass DI: Avalon U5 - LA2A (working hard) - Little Labs mini IBP *muted in the rough mix!!*
Bass Amp 1A: D112 - 312
Bass Amp 1B: Bottle B-7 capsule - Redd47
Bass Amp 1C (room): TLM 170 - Nice Pair
Bass Amp 2: 421 - 512 - 1176 (Dr. Pepper setting, doing a coupla or three dB)

Guitar 1 was an Epiphone Les Paul into a JCM 800 head into an Emperor cab

Guitar 1A: AEA R84 - 312
Guitar 2A: AKG 535 - 1081

Both signals were EQ'd and combined to tape.

Guitar 2 was a Gibson Explorer into a Soldano Avenger into an Orange cab.

I used the same mic/pre set up for that rig, with different blends of the two mics.

The function of these two guitars is provided some articulate rhythm tracks. The next round of ODs will include heavily distorted and blown out "big guitar" tracks, as well as some accents using combo amps and a variety of pedals.

Everything was cut into Pro Tools HD at 88.2. There's some monitor EQ and compression happening - both from the board and via plugins - especially on the room mics, and about 6db of expansion on the snare. There's also an ITB plate on the snare (TL Space, to be exact).

The mp3 is encoded at 192kb/s.

Hope this nerd-stuff interests you guys like it does me...I'd love to hear what everyone else is doing!

[butterfly]

sorry my only contributin to this thread is...................ur gearlist is ridiculous!!..........hence I suppose the extremely meaty sound of the clip......even in low res mp3.............rock on. So u are recording Mike stern and Dave Weckl.....would love to hear that

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by butterfly

sorry my only contributin to this thread is...................ur gearlist is ridiculous!!..........hence I suppose the extremely meaty sound of the clip......even in low res mp3.............rock on. So u are recording Mike stern and Dave Weckl.....would love to hear that

Yeah, we got some cool stuff at the Oak. But please, give SOME credit to the brilliant engineering and fabulous playing of the mighty Motherboar!



Yeah, I'm pretty god damned spoiled, huh?

Neither the Stern project nor the Weckyl project are gonna make this thread, sadly...cuz then I might get in twuh-ble.

[vernier]

Noose Of Fire sounds good. I like the tune too.

[allencollins]

great drummer

sounds killer overall

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by allencollins

great drummer

sounds killer overall

Awww, schucks, guys! Thanks...

Seriously, though, enough of the back patting. Post some of yer own shit!! I wanna hear it. Dammit...

[peeder]

I'm impressed!

What did you use to varispeed? What do people find works best these days?

Update: no varispeed? Well I'm even more impressed!

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by peeder

I'm impressed!

What did you use to varispeed? What do people find works best these days?

There's no varispeed on this tune...what do ya mean?

Originally Posted by peeder

Update: no varispeed? Well I'm even more impressed!

Oooh. Heh . Thanks!!

[butterfly]

But please, give SOME credit to the brilliant engineering and fabulous playing of the mighty Motherboar!

absolutely! no, that is some powerhouse drumming,no doubt.

[bgrotto]

C'mon, wafflewaitress, try again!

Ever since your umt70 thread I've been dying to hear one of those things on the kick. The mp3 didn't load the first couple times I tried, either. Give it another shot.

[Croaker]

real nice job bgrotto...dam you have some gear there great thread BTW, much more interesting than the lets compare this pre with that pre thread.

Ok, I got one that is totally different than the style of yours. This is from my home studio built in a large finished garage so not as polished sounding as yours.
This is a rough mix I have posted before with client approval (project isn't finished yet) This is from the first day and things were tweaked as we went along. I think what makes this one interesting and challenging was working with the limitations we had and using what sound we got to our best advantage.

This basic track was recorded live with everybody in one room (no gobos). The amps were attenuated and the drummer was hitting it pretty hard to cut down on bleed into drums from vocals and guitars. They band wanted to do all the basics live like this to capture the chemistry between the players and were willing to sacrifice a bit sound wise. They ended up recording about 22 basics in 5 three hour sessions. Some days they got 6 some days they only got 2 (they didnt care about that). The rule was no more than three takes on a song or they would just move on. They got all the songs done in 1-3 takes max. Sometimes they messed around for over an hour changing an arrangement of the song.
The main bleed came from the drums into the vocal mic so they figured they could overdub the vocal. Turns out they liked what the room sound brought to the drum sound in this song and a few others so we set up a room mic after the first day in a far part of the room which didn't capture any of the guitars in case we needed to fix a small part or re-do a solo in the future. Also we wanted to do some of the main vocal tracks over because one day the singer(guitar player on left) was sick.

There are backup vocals overdubbed on it, other than that there was nothing really done to this track yet(in mixing) other then some rolloff on lows. Mixed in about 5 -10 minutes.

Mixed through toft ATB24.


Right guitar: gibson les paul through 65 fender vibrolux-->sm57-->germanium-->distressor (no pedals)

Left Guitar: Fender telecaster straight into attenuated kendricks wild cat amp(25watt tube 6v6). sm57-->ADL600

Bass DI through Voxbox
Scratch Vocal: SM7b --> ADL600-->Buzz SOC1.1

Premier Signia maple kit with Aquarian studio X heads on toms, Superkick 1 on bass, Evans G1 and Hazy 300 on snare.

KICK Beta 52-->api3124-->manley pultec
HIGH TOMS Studio projects B1-->API 3124
FLOOR TOM B1-->toft on board pre
SNARE Senn 421 --API 3124-->distressor
OH 2 Neumman KM184-->pacifica--Manley mu(very light)
HI HAT at4041-->toft onboard pre

Other notes:
I wanted to use soundelux ifet7 on outside kick but had problems with it the day before we started, tried Peluso 251 but it was a little to high SPL so settled for B1 since it had a PAD. Added 57 bottom snare after first day.

Thats about it. It was a pleasure recording these guys, they were tight. They were relaxed, had fun and just played the music without getting all caught up in the technical aspect of things. As the sessions went on they brought in a few different players and the sound evolved with each session. We are overdubbing some keys and backup vocals now and I am looking forward to mixing. Enjoy

aloha

[centurymantra]

I like this thread idea. I've worked in such an insular studio vacuum, that I often wonder about the sound coming from other engineer's raw tracks.

I actually think it would be cool to hear individual raw tracks of tunes as well, though this would take a lot of time and bandwidth I suppose. Sometimes I wonder what other engineers feel constitutes a 'good' kick drum, snare, bass guitar, acoustic guitar, etc. sound. Obviously it's all about what sounds good in the context in the mix. Nonetheless, it would still be interesting to hear the raw tracks and a rough mix to show how said raw track fits in the context of said mix.

With any luck, some more folks will contribute mixes to this thread.

[bgrotto]

Originally Posted by Croaker

dam you have some gear there great thread BTW, much more interesting than the lets compare this pre with that pre thread.

You got some pretty decent toys there, yourself!

I had a demo of the ADL600 for a few weeks a couple years ago; I loved it. I'm really digging your Germanium guitar track's tone. Good stuff.

Since no one else seems to be playing along, I've got some more fun stuff to post in the near future, but it'll hafta wait till after my gig (with the Sword!!!) tonight...

[Croaker]

Originally Posted by bgrotto

You got some pretty decent toys there, yourself!

I had a demo of the ADL600 for a few weeks a couple years ago; I loved it. I'm really digging your Germanium guitar track's tone. Good stuff.

Since no one else seems to be playing along, I've got some more fun stuff to post in the near future, but it'll hafta wait till after my gig (with the Sword!!!) tonight...

thx man..hard to beat a vibrolux with a 57 in front of it e. I would like to hear some more roughs also...anybody else??

[mixman499]

nice tracks. kind of cool to hear what everyone gets before all the crazy mixing BS that we all seem to spend too much time on sometimes !!!

ok..i will play. still have 1 hour to wait for backups before i get out of here...

this is a project i did a few months ago. i had an assistant that was hanging out who took notes...so here they are.....also had a few of the tracking ruffs on my laptop....so i am uploading one song here. we tracked 8 this particular session. this mix is a protools bounce of the days tracking. band is a seriously kick ass new rock band. 3pc. we had 14 hours in a studio to get 8 songs tracked. we setup pretty much like their live setup. 5pc drum kit, ampeg bass rig, marshall jcm800 guitar rig. guitarist sings. band dudes are all 22-23 years old...kick ass players...live, raw, solid band. was a good time. these guys wanted to capture their LIVE sound...which, is pretty awesome....one of the best young bands i have seen in years !! tracked straight to protools MIX with stock 888/24 converters...but some NICE preamps and outboard.

this is all live. vocals and all...the guitarist/vocalist ran through the tune 1 more time and doubled his main guitar part...changing it up a bit...and playing the rythm part over the solo section....the solo was from the live take...we had one bass note that was sour.... we punched that in.

while i was tracking, i was setting up a mix in protools to take home that night. a bit of eq on the snare track, hi pass on overheads, guitars and vocals, and a tiny bit of lexicon plate on snare and a bit more on the vox...a bit of echo farm delay on vox. bass probably had a bit of plugin compression or limiting. no fader moves...just the tracks. while tearing down the gear...i printed rough mixes for all the songs with the same protools mix setup.

here was the tracking setup.

drums: 5pc custom maple kit. 22" kick with 28" old ludwig parade drum out front of the main bass drum, pork pie 6x14 "black beauty" copy. paiste and zildjian k cymbals.

kick audix d6 into daking 52270, daking comp
fok (3' high) at4047 into shadow hills gamma, daking comp
snare shure beta56a into daking 52270 and 1176
overheads audio technica at4031's into shadow hills gamma
room mono coles 4038 into shadow hills gamma into 1176
kit front (low) shiny box ribbons in MS into shadow hills gamma
far room oktava ml52 ribbbon shadow hills gamma

bass: peavey HEAVY 4 string bass into sans amp and ampeg b15

bass di (custom neve transformer di) into api 3124 into distressor
bass distortion di from sans amp classic pedal into api 3124
bass amp b15 with 414 into api 3124 into distressor

guitar: fender custom strat into marshall jcm800 into 4x12 marshall.
57 into shadow hills gamma 8
ev re-15 into neve 1272

vocals shure sm-7 into neve 1272 into dbx 160 into manley elop

all of this was setup in the same room. we baffled off the amps pretty heavily....but were LOUD and we got lots of bleed. vocals were setup opposite of the drums...a big part off the roominess of the drums is from the vocal mic. i had some mic stands with blankets around and behind the vocal mic. overheads were about 5 above the kit. most of the drum sound is from the low riibons in front of the kit on either side..mixed with the close kik and snare...and a fair amount of the room mics...oh, and pretty much because the drummer was a GREAT drummer...and hit HARD !!

i speant a day a few weeks later actually mixing all of the songs...i could NOT beat the sound i had on the rough protools tracking mix for this particular song......THIS ruff mix went on the record....it was printed out 2 ch of the protools rig through 2 channels of the ssl 4056 desk...with a bit of ssl quad bus compression...right back to 2 ch of protools and then bounced to disk with some L1 on the print.

all the best,

jchristopherhughes

[Pastyzk2]

Originally Posted by bgrotto

So there I was, with a shitload'a mics set up, and no assistant () to tear it down for me.

First of all, god damn that is an ill tune!

Second of all... do you want an assistant?

[Croaker]

Nice job Mixman,
How do you like the gamma? Did tou try attenuating the guitar amp? where did you record this at?

Ok I will thow one more in from the same project. Same basic setup except the drummer was different, Jimi Bott, man that guy can play a shuffle. Old school all the way.

I had trouble when I first listened to the rough mix, the main difference was the drum setup. Jimi has an old school minimalistic setup with the cymbals down real close to the drums where the other drummer had his toms on angles and cymbals up high. I wasnt getting the same seperation on the cymbals, but I ended getting a cool sound.

Some changes: The les paul went through a dr Z amp instead of the vibrolux and the rack tom had a 421 on it. Added sm57 on bottom snare

Vocals are live in room with no processing in the mix. I added a room mic in case we wanted to redo the vocal. Most of the room sound is through the vocal mic on the rough mix.

One sour guitar note needs fixing but other than that it is pretty finished.

setup below live in one room:

Originally Posted by Croaker

Mixed through toft ATB24.


Right guitar: gibson les paul through 65 fender vibrolux-->sm57-->germanium-->distressor (no pedals)

Left Guitar: Fender telecaster straight into attenuated kendricks wild cat amp(25watt tube 6v6). sm57-->ADL600

Bass DI through Voxbox
Scratch Vocal: SM7b --> ADL600-->Buzz SOC1.1

Premier Signia maple kit with Aquarian studio X heads on toms, Superkick 1 on bass, Evans G1 and Hazy 300 on snare.

KICK Beta 52-->api3124-->manley pultec
HIGH TOMS Studio projects B1-->API 3124
FLOOR TOM B1-->toft on board pre
SNARE Senn 421 --API 3124-->distressor
OH 2 Neumman KM184-->pacifica--Manley mu(very light)
HI HAT at4041-->toft onboard pre

I am digging hearing the different rough mixes and especially like hearing what the approach to the music was (playing and recording).

aloha


EDIT; same track with some tweaks and fixes (new vocal, re-amp DI bass and a few very small guitar edits)

[chymer]

Originally Posted by Pastyzk2

First of all, god damn that is an ill tune!

Second of all... do you want an assistant?

My guess, he is the assistant
the beds sound great BTW.
Chymer

[bgrotto]

First off, cool-sounding stuff, guys! I'm liking this stuff.

Diggin' the bleed of the drums...I gotta similarly recorded project, only we overdubbed vocals and lead guitars. But the band cut the tracks with no headphones and no isolation; I'll see if I can't dig up the roughs from that one...

Originally Posted by Pastyzk2

Second of all... do you want an assistant?

Actually, yes. PM me, or email me at bgrotto@gmail.com.

Lemme know if you're in NY or MA, and what town you live in. Thanks!

OK. So I found those rough mixes...I don't have the set up sheets anymore (unprofessional...doh!), but I remember most of what I did.

This band has been in touch with me for a couple years about making a record, but they always somehow end up going elsewhere. I always felt I could get their attitude across better than any other guys in town, because I really love the band and see them play live regularly (MONSTER live band!!). Since their first few records sounded a bit too "studio", I figured I'd try recording them live, no punch-ins, overdubs (except solos and vox), no doubling parts, nuthin'. This turned out to be probably the funnest record I've ever made; they did the whole basics session in one take (ONE ****ING TAKE!!). Super cool stuff. Anyway, onto the good stuff:

The band consists of one drummer, one bass player, two guitarists, and a singer. They like AC/DC. A LOT. They actually have a really great side-project where they cover Bon Scott-era AC/DC tunes and they NAIL em. Anyway, the left-ear guitar player plays a Gibson Firebird through an 800 half stack, the right-ear guitarist was using a Strat and some kinda Gibson...either a Paul or an SG; I forget. On this tune he plays into a fuzz pedal, fed through a gorgeous hotrodded Plexi head (JTM 45, I think...) set into a 2x12 combo by a local boutique amp place. The bassist plays through an Ampeg 8x10, with what I think was a re-issue SVT. I don't remember the drummer's kit, but I've played gigs on it when my band has played with these dudes and it plays/sounds amazing. Especially the kick drum.

We set the band up in a circle, all facing each other like they do at rehearsal, and set up an X-Y mic to capture the stereo image exactly as I wanted to mix it. We didn't use any baffles between the amps (dig the snare rattle!!), because no one had any cans on. I basically had them balance themselves in the room, and off we went.

They played through a song and I got some EQ going on the board, then as soon as they were done we left everything set up the same way, and ran through the guitar solo (he got it on the first take). No punch-ins allowed (which didn't matter, cuz he got it on the first friggin' take!!). Then we did vocals. The mp3 here is not technically basics cuz it's got the vocals and solos on it, but it is unmixed.

Here's what I remember of the set up:

Kick In: that AT mic that has the dynamic and condenser diaphragms in it - ?pre? - Distressor
Snare Top A: 57 - 312
Snare Top B: 451 - 312
Snare Bottom: 414
...all through a Distressor
Rack: TLM 170 - 1272
Floor: TLM 170 - 1272
Hats: KM184 - M5
Overheads: 451s - 1084s with LOTSA low filtering and lotsa top added - Manley VariMu

XY Room: Manley Gold - custom pre our tech built

Bass Amp A: ???
Bass Amp B: ???

Compressed via dbx 160VU and EQed via Wunder Audio PEQ1

Guitar Left A: 57 - 2110
Guitar Left B: 421 - Shadow Hills GAMA

Guitar Right A: 57 - 2110
Guitar Right B: R122 - Shadow Hills GAMA

Vocals Close: BLUE Bottle B-7 - ??pre?? - LA2A - 1176
Vocal Room A and B: the 451s used on the OHs, in the same positioning with the same signal path

There's some Space Echo tape slap on the vox, and some gating on the toms and snare drum. The amount of bleed was surprisingly minimal; I can't wait to find another band that I think can pull of recording this way. Oh yeah, this rough mix has an L2 on it for dither but I don't think it's actually doing any limiting.

Last but not least: the left-ear guita