progress??

[raggedman]

hey all...first post to the upload section...been working as an engineer professionally since mid 97 but have never been remotely satisfied with my own work until last yer... I mean I always send the client home happy but never heard the sheen of elegance (a'la Pink Floyd) that i want to hear in my own work...granted, Ive never done a project with more than a $3000 budget ...anyway....heres a project that I did early last year for some friends of mine...they live several hours away and could only come in for one day of tracking...this entire 12 song project was tracked and overdubbed in one 10 hr session and turned over as finished and duplicated over about 40 hrs in the 2 weeks following....I should state that I'm an old-school analog dinosaur who only recently switched to a RADAR 2 system to reduce media costs and eliminate the headache of calibrating the studer a-827... but I still use the RADAR as if it were an analog machine...in other words this never touched a daw...all tracks were recorded using the on board pre's in my Amek Rembrandt...due to time constraints I had to track the basses thru a di on the tracking pass....the only outboard gear on the whole project is some 1176 on the kick and bass tracks during tracking and some 1176 on the snare during mixdown...o ya... theres some roland delay/ reverb in there too....all other dynamics were from the Rembrandt's virtual dynamics bank...mixed thru the board straight into Sound Forge using a Tascam DA-30 Mk II as the converters (I kno, I kno, but its what I have... this studio was gathering dust since the mid 90's ( which has led to some interesting finds so I'm not fussin)) and the sfx were added using Vegas Video...I post this mainly because it's the first thing Ive done that didn't make me want to slink out the back of the room while someone listened to it (only took 10 yrs )...but also to give an example of where I was a year ago vs. where I am today...I just started a new project after aquiring some new (old-ass) gear (more on that later) and the difference is huge even in the ruff cuts...will post some of the new stuff as it progresses if there is any interest, but for now enjoy some FAYETTENAM...tell me what you think


www.myspace.com/fayettenambombz

it appears this doesnt want to let me upload so I'll have to wait till I get back to the studio to convert these into files GS can use....why the hell cant we use .wma or .ra files here?

[Bdiggy]

If you want an honest appraisal... it's not so good. The band is really weak and it does sound like a board tape. Sorry.

[raggedman]

its all good... I never said it was a masterpeice...at the time of this recording no member of the band save the guitarist had been a musician for more than 6 months and the band had been together for like 2 months... so say what you will about the band...they do well in their neck of the woods......as far as sounding like a board tape... you are exactly right...could never put my finger on it but Ive never been thrilled with the sound of this board...it's wonderful for routing...but the pre's seem a lil brittle to me....now I realise I'm hearing IC chips... yuck....I've also since determined that I don't like shure sm81's or most CAD mic's in general... it's like stacking brittle on brittle on brittle with that combination...I've since switched to outboard pre's (2x 1073's and 2x altec 9470a's ...more to come) and older microphones (I'm just in luv with the altec/WE 633a saltshakers for guitars and some vox )and the difference is huge...I'll post something more recent as soon as I get something closer to final tracks...my purpose here is to establish a baseline for those who wonder how big a difference good pre's can make....also as reference for those I've seen in other threads asking about the sound of the Rembrandt console


I welcome more comments, positive or negative, however please be specific if you have a negative comment. I probably hear the same thing but couldnt fix it due to time/gear/brain constraints